12|03 MERCATO D’HIVER: Another Quiet January Transfer Window

SeasonTwelve.EpisodeThree | Mercato d’hiver

Welcome back to my Football Manager 2020 blog with Stade Rennais. If you missed the previous post, you can catch up with everything that happened, here:

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January 2031

When we last left off, we were five points behind PSG with them showing no signs of slowing down. We needed to be at our best to catch them.

In other news, the board are right about one thing. They are about to lose me. I touched on it last post, but I have decided that I will step down at the end of this season as Director of Football and move Wolf into the manager position full time.

I will probably sim a couple of seasons to see how he does, but for me, this will be my last season actively playing as we come to the end of the FM20 cycle.

The Recruitment Team

A relatively quiet transfer window. A couple of player movements but nothing too significant.

The Transfer Market

We wanted to keep most of the squad together if we could. I think we’ve managed to do that, while also adding to the youth team for the future.

Stade Rennais Transfers Out

Just a couple of players out this window. One of which might come back to bite us.

Alex Calero, Goalkeeper | 6 month loan | to RB Leipzig

I didn’t really want to let Alex go, but he wanted to play more football and we do have a couple of other players who can come in should Plizzari get injured. Hopefully, I’ve not tempted that.

Alex Calero

Pedro Moreno, Midfielder | 6 month loan | to Tottenham Hotspurs

I didn’t want to see Moreno leave this window, but Spurs were willing to pay his whole wage for the duration of the loan, and with Wolf only using him in only four games this season, I was willing to let him go and save around €4.5m in wages.

Pedro Moreno

Stade Rennais Transfers In

You’ll remember from the team report that we didn’t really have any players on the left side coming through the youth ranks, so when Alex was recommended to us, we made the deal happen.

Alexandru Bosînceanu, Left back | €7m up front | from Fotbal Club FCSB

I don’t really know too much about him, but the scouts rate him and the fee was quite small considering his potential. One for the future for sure. He goes straight back out on loan to Córdoba.

Youth player promotions

No one from the youth team has come through into the first team since the start of the season.

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The Coaching Team

January, otherwise known as Coupe de France month.

What a month it has been for Thiago Almada. At 29 years old, he is still valued at €74m and it’s easy to see why. He now has 17 goals in 24 games form the left. An outstanding return from him. An absolute bargain at €41.5m when we brought him in from Monaco.

The Coupe de France has gone well. We’re comfortably through to the quarter final, where we face Strasbourg.

In the league, we’re in the same position, albeit having played a game more than PSG. However, at the rate they’re scoring and winning it’s going to be very difficult to overtake them. We face off against them next month, though. So that should tell us if we’re going to be able to get back on top or not.

The league table has looked better in the past, but there’s still a lot of football to be played.

Here’s to the rest of the season.

As always, you can get in touch with me in the comments below, or via twitter @fmfutbolmanager.

Until next time, à tout à l’heure.

Oliver Jensen