Having setup the game and taken over at Dynamo I went about my usual ritual of in game assessments, looking at finances, staff, playing staff and looked at potential tactics. Potential signing targets and dead wood were identified.

Staff is where I usually start. Only one member of the coaching staff managed to keep his job once I’d looked at everyone. I’m not one for keeping staff unless I think they have something to offer, although I do have a soft spot for signing staff who have some sort of affiliation with the club. I could sign nine coaching staff, including a physio, for the first team. I usually try to get staff for each category of training. 3.5 stars is usually a minimum target for staff. Mykhaylov was the only member from Rebrov’s team to keep his job. I tried to sign staff from in and around Ukraine where I could. I brought in this team to help me out.

Before I could be 100% sure of who I could sell, I had to decide on a tactic that would fit my best players. Looking at the squad, it was clear that Yarmolenko, Garmash and Dragovic were my best players. I have some really good players in the squad such as Khacheridi and Kravets as well as some really exciting young first teamers, Kalitvintsev being the pick of the bunch.

I would’ve loved to have created a Lobanovskyi inspired tactic, but I’m not sure that the match engine can recreate that type of fluidity/change of positions. So, I obviously came up with my own idea. I decided to implement a deep 4231, that looked a bit like this.

This is subject to change during the course of pre season. I’ve setup Attacking/Structured with the aim of playing fast transitions. I’m not sure how my players will deal with that.

I have nine friendlies pencilled in before the Superkubok game against Shakhtar. This’ll give me time to work out if the tactic is going to work as planned and areas that need addressed soonest.