Dumbledore's Tactics, Team and Pre-Season

One of the first duties upon entering the world of football, is to decide on which tactics to give the team. He had already stated that he wanted to play defensive football, with a view to never losing a game - so here is what he has come up with;

Albus Dumbledore's Tactics

Formation - Narrow 4-1-2-1-2
Fluidity - Very Rigid
Mentality - Defensive

Having already stated that he did not want to purchase any players, Dumbledore is left with a young squad with many wingers and so will have to retrain a few in order to incorporate them into his team... Not quite what he was after, and so some decisions have to be made.

Contracts & Transfers
Dumbledore offers a contract to striker, Max Clayton. Max refuses to even enter negotiations, and thus Dumbledore decides to cash in on him rather than wait for his contract to expire at the end of the season. He accepts an offer of £950,000 from Norwich, who take him in before loaning him straight out to Dundee.

A little hurt from this setback, Dumbledore goes on to offer some of his more promising youngsters new contracts;
Perry Ng
Callum Saunders
James Jones
James Baillie

He also extends the contracts of some of the first team squad who have been brought through the ranks;
George Ray
Liam Nolan
Jon Guthrie
Billy Waters

At this stage, no new contracts are offered to Kelvin Mellor or Byron Moore, both of whom only have 1 year left to run. It is likely that Mellor will be set to release in order to make space for James Baillie. Byron Moore doesn't fit with the new system, and so he may be moved on before too long.

With central midfield looking quite well staffed, the gaffer decides to send George Evans back to Manchester City where he had come from on loan. This makes space for the likes of James Jones and Billy Waters, who are looking to get their first tastes of first team football. The other loan signings, Chuks Aneke and Uche Ikpeazu remain - Uche only remaining, however, as main striker Mathias Pogba is out injured for 6 months.

Lee Molyneux, Thierry Audel, Abdul Osman and AJ Leitch-Smith are all placed on the transfer list as they are blocking the paths of younger players coming through.

He then starts the process of retraining some wide men so that they can play through the middle, and blending some of the youngsters into the first team.

Captain
He selects Adam Dugdale as his captain - a Liverpudlian central defender who was taught the game in the youth teams of Crewe. His vice-captain is fullback, Matt Tootle.

Pre-Season
Pre-season for Crewe only consisted of four games, and generally went pretty well - the only blip being a pretty hefty defeat against high league opposition. Click here to have a look at how they did with Dumbledore at the helm.

By the time pre-season is over, the squad looks something like this;