In the Perishing Partizan series, I am chronicling the demise of a Champions League winning club after the AI has taken over. Erratic spending, no clear vision as to which new players are needed and only average results compared to the quality of the squad, so far we’ve seen it all. Today’s post focusses on the half-way point of the second season the AI is in charge.

The financial status

As I mentioned last time, I need FMRTE to view the financial status, due to not actively being in charge of Partizan. This is what their financial status looks like as we wrap up the January transfer window.

Compared to the previous updates, there have been some changes.

Whilst their total funds are still plummeting, the club appears to have raised some transfer funds, which means they have probably sold players or received a financial injection from the board to keep the club afloat or sign reinforcements. The hemorrhaging of money over the course of 18 months is worrying though, as the club seems to has lost 125 million of its initial assets

The transfers

Which brings us to the actual transfers. These are the transfers Partizan did, 18 months into the tenure of a new manager. We’ll look at the deals in more detail soon.

As you can see, I added two screenshots above. The first one are the actual Partizan transfers. As you can see, they did sell a few players, but not nearly enough to warrant the profit made. This made me think and realise I forgot to include the transfers from satelite-club Teleoptik Zemun. These transfers are displayed in the second screenshot. The total amounts now make up and warrant the rise in transfer funds.

With the team signing no players at all and only signing players, we’ll delve straight into these sold assets and evaluate the deals the AI has struck.

Samson Nwafor. A talented young Nigerian. They didn’t need him, so they sold him. They made a fair profit on the lad as well and I probably overpaid for him. Let’s see how he develops back under my tutelage at Galatasaray, but Partizan may come to regret this move. So far though, it’s been a shrewd piece of business.

Guido’s rating of this transfer: 8/10

Lars Oertig. The amount of fail this name bears is almost too much to handle. He was signed as a seventh-choice(!!!) goalkeeper for 1.4 million. The club overspent tremendously to sign him initially and almost instantly dropped him to the Teleoptik reserve squad. They sold him for 275k, whereas his actual value is closer to 850k. Again, really poor business. Yes, he was not good enough, but after the staggering decision to sign him in the first place, they sold him far too cheap to a divisional rival. Just poor business.

Guido’s rating of this transfer: 2/10

Telmo Ferreira. The Portuguese goalkeeper failed to develop into the player I hoped he would, so the AI opted to release him. Probably justified and not an entirely bad deal, considering he came in on a free transfer.

Guido’s rating of this transfer: 5/10

Dragan Jelicic. Canada’s first choice goalkeeper. He’s hardly a world beater, but dammit, the guy is an above average goalkeeper I signed for free. The idea was to sell him on for profit after helping him establish a name for himself in Europe. He played alright for Teleoptik, so considering his actual ability the club should’ve been able to get some money for him.

Guido’s rating of this transfer: 1/10

From the Teleoptik deals, I want to focus on a mere three of them. The other were own-intake youth players they sold off.

Aboubacar Sanogo. I signed him myself from Lyon and he was a regular starter when I was in charge. He played well too. The new manager didn’t like him and stuck him in the Teleoptik squad, so I signed him for my new club. I paid around his market value for him, which probably makes this a good deal for Partizan. They didn’t use him and they made a hefty profit on Sanogo, as he came in on a free transfer.

Guido’s rating of this transfer: 7/10

Brian Antonijevic. One of the Americans I signed for free. The club realised he was never going to reach first team and pawned him off back to the MLS for a nice fee. See, now why couldn’t they have done the same with Jelicic and Ferreira? The AI is capable of these savvy deals.

Guido’s rating of this transfer: 7/10

Maninho. I initially rated him as a potential first teamer, should Partizan go back to playing with strikers. The kid had pedigree, being a Brazilian U21 international and all that. The AI loaned him away some more and then sold him rather cheaply. His market value exploded, showcasing another bit of poor management on behalf of the AI.

Guido’s rating of this transfer: 4/10

No incoming deals, which makes sense since the AI had fuck all to spend. They can also thank me for most of the profit made, since their two highest-yield transfers were to Galatasaray, as in my good self paying to re-sign players I had worked with before. Still, it’s not an entirely bad situation and the AI is trying to fix the money problem by trimming down the squad. We’ll not mention the fact that the AI created the money problem itsself by upgrading a fair few contracts and offering ludicrous bonusses to new players. Oh wait…

The results

So far, I have never showcased the results the AI has gotten halfway into the season, but I think I should now.

This expensive, star-studded squad is falling behind in the title race domestically, competing against sides who should be no match at all in terms of both finances and squad strength. In Europe, the squad has performed admirably so far.

Guido

Guido is the founding father of Strikerless and main nutjob running the show.