Welcome back to The Athletic’s FM Challenge where everything is going a little too well. Iain Macintosh’s Schalke are top of the table — yes, you read that right — while Alex Stewart’s Stuttgart are only four points behind them. This is most irregular…
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Iain Macintosh: Well, this is odd. I’m not really used to being at the top of the table. I feel like a dog that, having chased next door’s cat for years, has finally cornered it and doesn’t know what to do next. I think, on balance, the smart thing to do is absolutely nothing.
We’ve got a nice shape, a mentality that is positive without being reckless and a squad of largely interchangeable players who are mostly “quite good” at football. Yes, I am concerned at the deterioration in Salif “The Watchtower” Sane’s performances and, no, I still haven’t found a midfielder capable of driving forward to support Mark Uth, but did I mention that we’re top of the table? For now. We’re about to play RB Leipzig, so it can’t last.
OK, this is getting weird. It takes just 10 minutes to break the deadlock against a team that really should be challenging for the title. Jesse Lingard capitalises on a complacent pass, surges up the field and delicately lobs the goalkeeper in a manner so impetuous that Alex and I both squeal with delight. Five minutes later, he does it again. Another slack ball is punished, Omar Mascarell releases Lingard and this time he lashes it into the bottom corner. And that’s it. Suitably chastised, Leipzig go ultra-cautious and barely create another chance all afternoon. We’ve won again. I don’t know why this is happening.
Alex Stewart: Although we may not be scaling the heights of the table, eighth is very respectable. Eighth with a squad whose average age is about 23 is even better. Ricardo Rodriguez aside, my starters are all under 26 years old. I’m building a vibrant, exciting young team and there will be setbacks, but with Iain setting the pace, I’m not going to let my lads get left behind. I’m up to a B+ for board confidence, and the squad are happy and cohesive. And then I look at the fixtures for this month, and my whole being sags. It’s wall-to-wall tricky to impossible, with a DFB-Pokal fixture thrown in for added exhaustion. First up, we face ball-loving Bayer Leverkusen at home. Readers, you know the drill by now. With this formation, I keep rotations to a minimum and now I have decided that Fabian Nurnberger is my preference to partner Clinton Mola in midfield, we are unchanged.
If you told me before this game that we would edge possession and take an emphatic 2-0 win, I would have mocked your hubris. If you had said it would be done with a double from my rangy centre-back Maxime Awoudja, I would just assume you were drunk. But here we are. The first is a thundering header from a near-post corner, and I feel like a young padawan mastering the Force while Iain, looks on with a wholesome pride. Not three minutes later, Rodriguez smacks a free kick onto the post and who is there to hammer in the rebound? Maxime again. And while we don’t score a third, the expected goals trajectory is emphatic, they are restricted to two shots on target, and we are good. Really good.
Iain Macintosh: With the exception of swapping out the ineffectual Amine Harit for Benito Raman, I’m not going to touch anything. Borussia Monchengladbach are an excellent side, so we’ll just try to cruise on a combination of familiarity, good morale and whatever dark magic is at work here.
For the first quarter of the game, it’s all Gladbach. We look like a collection of hungover 30-somethings on Regents Park, radiating Stella Artois fumes, our movement limited to half-hearted shuffles punctuated by the occasional sigh. But as I’m convincing myself that it all had to end at some point and a tenth place finish would actually be totally fine, Uth rumbles across the halfway line, taking four defenders with him. His shot smashes into someone’s shin and ricochets into the path of Lingard, who looks just as surprised as the rest of us, but has the presence of mind to give the keeper the eyes and prod it past him at his near post. We’re winning again.
This time, it doesn’t last. A rare goalkeeper error from Ralf Fahrmann gives our hosts a way back into the game and it’s only a rapid retreat into our Alamo formation, allied with shameless timewasting, that forces the injustice of a draw. We’re still unbeaten.
Alex Stewart: It is never wise to approach a game against Borussia Dortmund with anything other than dread and I’ll be honest, even that last performance hasn’t altered my unshakeable belief in their ability to absolutely monster us. In Erling Haaland and Jadon Sancho, they have players who can rip anyone apart, and I have to keep reminding myself that we are exceeding expectations, that we are a young team, that this game never lets you rest. It’s hard with Iain’s successes, though, and my own (to a lesser degree, obviously) not to feel like we’re both making real strides this season. I pick the same line-up and even though my players are worried that the formation will expose us at the back, they’ve had that worry most games and it’s not come to pass. I’m not confident, but I’m whatever clings to Confidence’s underside, picking up the scraps it doesn’t feel like using.
It’s 0-0 with 70 minutes on the clock and then my world implodes. Emre Can is granted the freedom of my penalty area to latch onto a through ball and slam it in. And then the floodgates open. As we tire, they pour forwards, first through Thorgan Hazard and then with two from Sancho. The first Sancho goal is majestic, in truth, an incredible run of poise, acceleration, and brutal finishing that almost makes this game worth watching. If there’s a positive, it’s that we actually keep the ball well for much of the game, and the expected goals of 1.76 to 0.53 would indicate that it wasn’t as bad as the score-line suggests. As Sancho’s fourth goes in, I actually laugh. Being a Stuttgart fan must be stressful. Being the manager… well at least I’m not wired up like “Big Sam” was or I’d probably want to start doing a different job.
Iain Macintosh: Now, I’ve been pretty blase so far. Easy come, easy go, a win would be nice and all that. But that ends today. Eintracht Frankfurt and one Weston McKennie are in town. McKennie was my bright hope. Inexplicably sent on loan last season, I was ready to build my entire team around him. But the first thing he did when he got back was to request a transfer to a bigger club. As a result, he was sold to Frankfurt. I bought Ibrahim Sangare to fill the void in my team, but nothing could fill the void in my heart. McKennie must pay the iron price for this.
And I looked, and beheld a young forward. And the name that sat upon his shirt was Tahith Chong… and Hell followed with him.
You could have been a part of this, McKennie. You could have been at the top of the Bundesliga tonight. It could have been you feeding passes to Chong (pictured top), helping him to a first-ever hat-trick. But you left us. In pursuit of short-term success, you walked out of what could have been an incredible long-term relationship. And look what you left behind, you fool.
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Did you see your replacement? Did you see Sangare? He’s the one who scored twice.
You could do nothing to stop us. Nothing. You flailed hopelessly like a landed fish, gasping and panting as we moved in with the blade. How did it feel when your new friends hauled you off on the hour? What thoughts went through your head as you hung it in shame and trudged off the pitch?
How was it for you later when the sleep wouldn’t come, but the regret… oh, that came in waves. Were you haunted by the ghosts of the past? Were you? Did you cry? Tell me you cried. TELL ME YOU CRIED.
Six two. Enjoy life at your bigger club.
Alex Stewart: After the Dortmund defeat I’m actually asked about over-performance, which feels like a snide approach having just lost 4-0. I “calm the hype”, but in truth, I think that where we are is a slight, but not massive, bump on where we should be. The new signings have integrated well and Rodriguez is already a team leader, which is good since the others — Pascal Stenzel, Daniel Didavi and Gonzalo Castro — aren’t getting near the team. In more “calming the hype” news, after travelling to Dortmund, our next fixture is against Bayern Munich at home. I’ve effectively written it off. They’re being their usual, brutally efficient selves in the league and we are anything but. We are unchanged and lacking optimism.
I’d like to thank the academy, my family, everyone who ever stood with me and supported me. I’d like to thank Iain, for bringing me into this once more. And I’d like to thank Sasa Kalajdzic.
After nine minutes, Matias Arezo wins a penalty but Manuel Neuer plunges to his right to save it. Typical, I think. You get one shot at this lot and we’ve screwed it up. From the resulting corner, Neuer again saves brilliantly to his right. And from the one after that? Borna Sosa heads across him to score to Neuer’s left. OK, this is good. Seventeen minutes later, he scores again, the funniest goal I have seen on here since Gregor Kobel kicked it into someone last season. Neuer holds, holds, then goes to roll the ball across his goal to Jerome Boateng, but Sasa anticipates, hares in, and slides across the path of the ball to score from two yards. One for the expected goals nerds, that.
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I’m still getting over the hilarity, and the incredibly accurate portrayal of Neuer’s career, when Silas does Silas things, accelerating past Alphonso Davies to score a goal almost as good as Sancho’s in the last game. Half-time, and we are 3-0 up. And that’s how it ends. We even have a couple more chances through Arezo to put whatever comes after the gloss on something. We boss Bayern Munich. I want to stop playing now. It probably won’t get any better than this.
Iain Macintosh: In a crowded fixture schedule, I give some thought to essentially throwing this Pokal cup tie. We’re away to Bayern Munich, you can make a perfectly reasonable argument to play the rezzies and focus on Hannover at the weekend. But where’s the fun in that? We’re flying right now and Alex just showed that they are extremely beatable. Let’s just go for it and we’ll leave Hannover as a problem for Future Iain.
Yep. Definitely should have played the Rezzies.
Alex Stewart: Hansi Flick, who was lovely about me pre-game, now says we were “ordinary” and “lucky”. Am I, humble head of humble Stuttgart, getting into the heads of the big boys? Meanwhile, Iain is having to fight expectations of continental qualification (for which I have tipped Schalke, just to be naughty). There’s something deeply unsettling about this season. The Bundesliga team of the week has four Schalke players and four of my boys. Bet you never thought you’d see that, dear reader. Next up, a DFB-Pokal tie against Kaiserslautern. They play a defensive 4-1-4-1 anchored by yellow card legend Klaus Gjasula (look him up). For the sake of my players’ legs, I rest our full-backs and strikers.
That was the worst match of all time. It was 120 minutes of abject tedium, in which we outplayed, out-shot, and out-created a solid wall of red negativity, only to lose on a penalty shootout after Pascal Stenzel lamely shoots at the keeper (which Iain, oddly, called happening before it did from the player’s body language; the man is an FM warlock). I won’t bother you with any more detail than that. It was bad; we are out.
Iain Macintosh: Predictably, I now have a tired team and, while judicious use of Second XI friendlies has brought the fitness level of the fringe players up a bit, they’re still off the pace. This was always going to be a problem for Future Iain and now Present Iain is less than impressed with the decisions of Past Iain. I pull out Uth and Sangare and give a full debut to peripatetic powerhouse striker Michael Krmencik with Suat Serdar taking the box-to-box role.
And there goes the unbeaten run. We ship an early goal when The Watchtower stands and stares forlornly at a looping Hannover cross, like an old man who’s momentarily forgotten why he’s in Waitrose and, more critically, why he hasn’t got any trousers on. Yuya Osako takes full advantage. Words are exchanged at half-time and Serdar pounces to head home an equaliser. For a while, we look as if we’re back to our best, but then it all slips away and we are beaten, fairly and squarely.
Ah well, it was nice while it lasted.
Alex Stewart: The last game of what feels like an elastically long month is away at Leipzig. My good old friend Krasimir Balakov chimes in with his excitement at Stuttgart’s recent performances. He obviously didn’t watch the last game. It makes a nice change from his persistent whinging last term, but I can’t help and feel it’s not especially constructive to build us up before a trip to the pressing machine. Having said that, they have been rubbish this season, so maybe he’s right to be optimistic. We revert to my favoured line-up.
He was not. A 2-0 loss, lethargic and dispiriting, ends the month. We fail to muster a single shot on target, but it’s the lack of energy that is most disappointing. But, with a thin squad and after 120 minutes of being kicked by Kaiserslautern, I can’t say I’m surprised that we fail to deal with Leipzig’s energy. I can see, too, that Iain has lost his unbeaten run. The month ends on something of a joint-damp-squib, but we’ll always have Bayern, lads, and no one can take that away from us.
All of which leaves the table looking like this…
(Photo: Jeroen Meuwsen/BSR Agency/Getty Images)