Andria Challenge: End of Season 3 Update

The third season with Andria has ended and, unlike what media and board were expecting, Andria Bat managed to stay in the Serie C1/B. I could say that we even managed to grab a great position, ending the season in the Top 10 :) Also, I am happy we only lost 11 matches, which means that my Andria Challenge is going on great and I hope we'll be able to build on this for the next season!
As you can see from the charts, our defense was not a great one, scoring one goal less than those received, but compared to other mid-table teams, we did well. It's worth noting that Gela, the team that won the Serie C2/B last season and who promoted together with me continued its series of incredible results and won the division. From Serie C1 to Serie B in two seasons, that's something I would've loved for my Andria team, too!

My recent signing Vincent Beduer topped the performers chart - actually, in my Top 5 best performers, it's just winger Ciobanu who's an offensive player, which means that our defense was really great and indeed it was, helping Andria a lot. The strikers were good too but you all know that Football Manager 2009 tends to offer very low scores to strikers... I was pleased with Marco Di Matteo, though, who scored 10 goals and even though he's still trying hard to blend in, I hope he'll do OK. My own wonderkid (for the C1 level) Bostjan Rozman didn't score as much, but I am pleased with the players' performance.
Exceptions are Otman Djelliahine, an AMC in which I invested lots of hope, but who was simply unable to cope with the Andria squad, and Eugen Nita, the striker which scored just 3 goals in 26 matches...

TRANSFERS IN

Next season will see a stronger Andria squad (I hope), with a couple of transfers making me really happy. I do hope they perform well and manage to blend in and won't prove to be poor signings like Djelliahine. First of all, I'm most excited by the prospect of Jacinto Navarro, a young defensive midfielder with incredible stats, who can also play as central defender. If everything works fine, I think I'll be seeing a lot of Navarro in the future :)
I have also signed a very skilled Striker, 22 years-old Guinea-Bissau born Sami. His technical attributes are simply impressive and hopefully the very poor physical ones (especially a very low speed) will not hurt his performances too much. I consider him a good prospect, and hopefully a pleasant surprise for next year.
I have also signed in Ivan Vellucci, basically back-up for Sorin Ciobanu (but with potential to become the first choice is he plays well) and Daniel Popescu, a decent left back who will replace the old Luigi Di Simone as Beduer's backup. The two players are below.
PLANS FOR SEASON 4

Hopefully I will manage to sell a few of the dead weight players and hopefully the club will start making a profit. Ever since I started we've been struggling financially, and I don't have anything to do to help - I have a lower wage total than permitted and I rarely spend money. Still, we've recorded losses every season - less than 10k overall, but it's not a progress and it doesn't help. And since I need quality players to obtain promotion, this should be fixed. I'll do my best.

Therefore, the plans for the fourth season of my Andria Challenge in Football Manager 2009 are to keep a steady growth of the team (maybe finish close to the promotion battle) and prepare the team for a hopefully promotion in two seasons. Serie B, here I come!