Football Manager 23

[Mike]

Had a 'Golden Generation' come through




My fav has to be this chap with Finishing 17!

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Hitchin Town 2031/32 Season Update:

League:






We should be doing better than this but we keep hitting massive slumps which completely total our season. I really thought we had an outside shot at the playoffs this season.

Cups:



Completely fucked it.

Squad:



Our defence isn't good enough, Ryan O'Connor is our best player and he plays well a lot of the time but whoever I put next to him isn't good enough. Babatunde and Barnett are absolute stars but we're not going to be able to give them new contracts and Championship Luton are after Babatunde so he might be leaving in the Summer.

Intake:











Our worst intake in a while, these are the only ones that look semi-decent.

[Baz]

Got the Cape Verde job while managing Belgian boys Lommel. Now have 3 cape verdians joining when they turn 18.

[Mike]

Come on money bags owners!

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I had a takeover.

He instantly cancelled our affiliate link with Stevenage (friendly game every year where we keep all the cash) and he took out a £100k loan...

[Mike]

[Mike]

I had a takeover.

He instantly cancelled our affiliate link with Stevenage (friendly game every year where we keep all the cash) and he took out a £100k loan...

They better not cancel my new stadium! It’s 12 months away!

[Gray Fox]

I remember the Brendan Rodgers Liverpool team coming up just short of City and one of the pundits said you can't win a title shipping 50 goals in a season. Was it tactical issues or are your defenders just a bit crap?

[Mike]

The young defence, while filled with potential, is currently crap. The problem is we’re tiny, so have no money, the wage budget for the season started at £0, meaning we had to sell last seasons keeper and our best defender went to City for big money.

[Adramelch]

Finances in Serie A are perpetually an issue really. Even if you become one of the big teams domestically, it takes so long to be a proper big team.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

We have our first big sale at Hitchin:





I'm going to miss him but what an offer.

Edit: Got a bidding war going with Reading. QPR ended up going up to £400k with the loan, 50% next sale and friendly which he has accepted.

[Mike]

The League Fixtures



The Champions League fixtures

[Dan]

Portsmouth 2029/30 Midseason Update

We slowly fell away from the CL spots, but we did still have a chance at sneaking in if results went our way on the final day, however our loss combined with wins for both Newcastle & Bournemouth meant that we fell to 6th. Whilst it's disappointing to miss out on the final day it's probably a better outcome for us long term as the Europa League is more our level right now & it gives us a chance to keep building the squad before we start really trying to compete against the big boys.

Having broken into Europe for the first time we approached this season needing to add some depth to our squad, and also hope we'd managed to replace our star striker Arnaud Kalimuendo. As it happens he wasn't the only French superstar we'd end up having to replace...


Transfers:

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We made some moves to revamp the back four, with long time starters Loic Mbe Soh & Malachi Fagan-Walcott leaving, alongside club captain Regan Poole, but the huge news was that Eli Junior Kroupi left us for yet another club record fee, as Aston Villa offered us £97m for him, which was extremely fortunate as he had an £80m release clause for CL teams, so it was lucky that none of them bothered to make a bid despite lots of interest. It's sad to see him go, particularly to a team we're competing with, but we already have two other AMCs who can take over so he's actually very easy to replace despite his excellence.

There weren't any huge moves in terms of incomings, although we did break our transfer record for a Ukrainian winger, and then broke it again to pair him with an Ivorian lad that came through at ASEC Mimosas, who have also become our latest feeder club (after nagging the board for a year & cancelling two other links). We mostly signed veterans to help us get to the squad registration limits & provide some good mentors for our youngsters, but there was one other guy who came in that's worth mentioning...

Even before I'd sold Kalimuendo I'd been on the look out for a young striker to be his eventual replacement, and after being priced out of a couple of options I settled on a Spanish kid called Diego Otin from Cadiz, who stayed with them last season before joining up with us in the summer. Whilst we'd got some decent returns from Leo Scaltriti down the back half of last year, Otin is the guy who will be leading the line this year & we'll need him to hit the ground running.

Results:

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It's been a pretty good start to the season, and you might have noticed that Diego Otin has been on fire out of the blocks, with basically a goal a game at the turn of the year, although it does seem like Europe may have had some impact as we do seem a bit more inconsistent than last season, which has translated slightly into the table:



We're sitting seventh as it stands, however it's all very tight at the top & we do have a couple of games in hand on most of the teams in front of us, so a Champions League push is definitely not out of the question. I did get an offer for an interview with Chelsea, but that was lolled off pretty quickly.

In terms of the cups, we had a fairly unimpressive run in the EFL Cup which was ended by Brighton, who are apparently our bogey side at the minute, however Europe has been going great as we've capitalised on a pretty soft schedule to put ourselves in position to skip the playoffs.

It's definitely one of those seasons where context is important, as it looks like we've regressed with the extra pressure of Europe but I do feel like we're actually holding our level compared to last season & with a few extra games on out schedule there's a good chance we'll start to climb down the closing stretch.

England

Quick update on how 2029 has gone for the national team:

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Pretty solid year, which was to be expected as most of our games came in our relatively easy WC2030 qualifying group. It ended up coming down to us & Sweden, but a decisive home win late in the year was enough to ensure we topped the group. We've ended up with what feels like an unnecessarily tough group, though, as we've been drawn alongside Chile & Ghana. I'd still expect us to win it, but it would've been nice to have got at least one jobber in the group.

Even though the results look pretty good on paper there's definitely still a lot to be concerned about. We limped through a lot of the qualifying games without putting anyone to the sword despite Eddie Nketiah scoring 14 goals this year, and when we did play a couple of good teams in the Nations League final four we ended up losing to Portugal & Spain, which doesn't fill me with confidence. I think I'd be happy with making the quarter finals at WC2030, but then I might just sack it off as I can't really be arsed with the extra faff.

[Baz]

Despite Darwin Nunez scoring 52 goals last season, I've just signed Haaland for £440m.

[Baz]

Is FFP a genuine threat on this if I’m a big team who will likely win prize money?

I’ve basically used instalments to sign Haaland, Musiala, Gvardiol, Arsen Zakharyan and hopefully Gavi using money I don’t have. I presume I won’t actually get on any kind of financial trouble, right?

[Gray Fox]

The game does tend to be hardwired to stop you liquidating. You'll get random sponsorship payments or the owner will shove money in from time to time, but you can still rack up the points deductions.

[Dan]

Portsmouth 2029/30 Season Review

It's definitely one of those seasons where context is important, as it looks like we've regressed with the extra pressure of Europe but I do feel like we're actually holding our level compared to last season & with a few extra games on out schedule there's a good chance we'll start to climb down the closing stretch.

Despite entering 2030 on the edge of the European spots I felt pretty good about the squad & had confidence we'd begin to climb over the second half of the season. That confidence was knocked slightly when Everton poached one of my amazing newgens on deadline day, but aside from bringing in a couple of young Asian lads we went with what we had. Was I vindicated, or was my confidence misplaced?

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We immediately started climbing with a hot run of form over the first 6wks of 2030, but we soon regressed towards the mean & the rest of the season was solid without being spectacular. Even so, the Prem seems to have become a highly competitive league where half the league has a legit shot at the Champions League on a given year, and that parity lead to a very close title race, with six teams still in it down the home stretch. Thanks to multiple fixture rearrangements we actually ended up playing our final game of the season against Man City after the final day, and it turned out that there was quite a lot on the line...

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Yeah, that loss to Man City on the final day scuppered our dreams of an unexpected title

Third is still a great result though, and it'll be nice to play Champions League football next year, although given that this was the lowest points total to win the league in the entire save so far this might've been our best shot to steal one for a few years.

The Cups:

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Not much to report in the domestic cups, as we continue to be very sluggish in both competitions. The Europa League, on the other hand...



We got pretty lucky with draws throughout the whole competition, but once we saw of Villa I did think we had a chance, and that proved to be the case when we blew Lazio away in the second leg of the semi to set up a final against Sporting...

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We picked up our first proper silverware in dramatic fashion as we controlled the majority of the game but had to rely on a bundled in late equaliser to avoid defeat, and when it went to penalties Stefano Turati stepped up to save two & ensure he got to lift the trophy.

The Squad:

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With the departure of several veterans in the summer Stefano Turati took over as club captain, and he's justified that decision with another strong season & some big performances when it mattered. He'll be the guy for a while longer, which is bad news for recently acquired Japanese stopper Sho Kitano, who will compete with a handful of other decent youngsters to be the eventual successor between the sticks.

We overhauled the defence this year, with Joao Fonseca & Alan Ramirez taking over as our primary CB pairing. There were some ups & downs, and both Paul Scholl & veteran Jerome Onguene ended up playing more than I'd planned. I'm still being aggressive in bringing in players here, with Zeng Lisheng joining in January & another big move already lined up for the summer. We have some good young players out on loan too, so we should be able to find the right pairing eventually.

At fullback we have good options on both sides, with Mario Tabuaco & Esteban Arguello rotating on the left & talented academy kid Zbigniew Urbanski backing up Simon Walde on the right. We have another promising RB on the way, but there's not really much else coming through to give us insurance on either side, so I might look to find a veteran who can also do some mentoring.

Our midfield took a hit with the loss of Vladimir Petkov, however we do still have some good players here. Mahir Hadzic is almost as talented as Petkov, and Leopold Uhlig is a very good allrounder, but both had a few injuries this year, which forced us to rely on Alex Robertson & Morten Thorsby almost exclusively at times, as the only other option was the ghost of Jordan Henderson. I've got someone coming in & we have some reasonable academy players who could provide some extra depth, so hopefully we don't have as many issues here next season.

Moving forward slightly we managed to replace Eli Junior Kroupi pretty easily, as both Hamza Bensabouh & Fabio Esteves playing well in the AMC role, and out wide we got yet another solid season from Paddy Lane, who continues to churn out 10+ assist seasons with his eyes shut. Adriano Onyegbule has been a decent option on the left for the last few seasons, but I think the long term future out wide lies with Jimmy Zady Sery & Mikhail Popov, who both showed promise in their first seasons. We also gave some game time to Dan Davis, who was the first decent player to come through our academy & he played pretty well despite some fairly underwhelming attributes, so hopefully he'll stick as a long term squad player.

Up front Diego Otin immediately made us forget about Arnaud Kalimuendo, although he did fall on his face in the last month of the season so there's still room for him to level up even more over the next few seasons. Leo Scaltriti has established himself as the primary backup, which might spell the end for Arne Royse, although his versatility & raw talent might keep him around as a depth player with upside, particularly as we don't really have any other options in the club who could fill in.

We have a big stack of cash at our disposal, and I'm starting to look at making some bigger moves as we have most of the squad sorted already, so there's always a chance we take a big swing, but I'd imagine it'll be a quiet summer as we look to make a final push towards title contention.

Oh, and there's also the World Cup. We'll be beginning our campaign to bring it home in the next couple of weeks, so I'll do a separate update on that fairly soon, but it's definitely going to be the one & only competition I take them to as I'll be resigning once our tournament is over.

[Mike]

Found a player who is a 4 star RW and a 4 star CB.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

With that jumping reach he can stay on the wing.

[Dan]

If they’re a winger & a centre back then they’re clearly actually a wing back.

[Baz]

Despite Darwin Nunez scoring 52 goals last season, I've just signed Haaland for £440m.

[Danny]

View Tweet

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Good hustle.

[Dan]

Oh, and there's also the World Cup. We'll be beginning our campaign to bring it home in the next couple of weeks, so I'll do a separate update on that fairly soon, but it's definitely going to be the one & only competition I take them to as I'll be resigning once our tournament is over.

Here we go then. After qualifying in second gear we've been given a group that should force us to start turning things up a few notches, however given we've lost both our previous games against the top tier nations I was definitely not coming in expecting to get my hands on the trophy.

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Yeah, pretty much the standard England tournament performance - look good in the groups, struggle past an okay team, give a flash of what you could be then fall right on your face.

I was happy with our first two games, aside from losing captain Declan Rice for the rest of the campaign, but we played like shit against Australia, to the point where I blanked the team at half time. I'm not sure that was the reason we came back, but we did manage to scrape level & eventually won against ten men in extra time. The Belgium game was closer than the scoreline suggests, we just blew them away with three goals in three minutes, but it was an encouraging result given they're pretty comfortably the best team we've beaten during my reign. We gave a reasonable account of ourselves against Italy, despite conceding inside a minute, but set pieces proved to be our demise as they retook the lead midway through the second half from a corner & then finished us off after some pathetic defending at a free-kick.

I've already resigned, and Niko Kovac has quickly taken over after some good work with Palace the last few seasons, so it'll be interesting to see if he commits to a massive overhaul of the squad or if the old lads manage to hang about a bit longer. France saw off Italy in the semi finals, before edging out Argentina to win it all.

In terms of notable players, there weren't many who stood out. Saka was decent, Foden & Alex Scott had their moments, and Jadons Ancho played himself back into the squad, then into the starting lineup, but Eddie Nketiah was the one true star, scoring 21 times over my two years in charge & 24 times in 23 caps overall.

Pre-season had already started for Portsmouth by the time I returned, but now I can focus in on preparing us for our first ever season in the Champions League, a Super Cup game against PSG & (hopefully) another title challenge.

EDIT: Clearly didn't send word of my international retirement out.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Hitchin Town 2032/33 Season Update:

League:






We played really well at times and then absolute shit at others. Harshly done again by the ME as we finished 9th in the xG table and I really thought we could push for a playoff run.

Will be really hard to do as well with no Babatunde next season.

Cups:



That FA Cup run was absolutely massive, just a shame it ended so poorly and I was really hoping for a big Premiership team away to maximise financial gains but we still earned a huge amount. We also had our first ever sell out against Bristol City which was great to see.

Squad:



Our four strikers in Sammon, Hatcher, Lentell and Johnson are really big for us as is our midfield especially Babatunde and Barnett. Sadly our defence (bar Nyadombo who loves getting assists) just doesn't seem to gel.

Here's Babatunde as well:



Sold to QPR for £400k, 50% of next sale, loan for this season and a friendly. The SI forums official rules say I've failed because I got him back on loan but fuck those dweebs, I think it's fine. Going to miss him as he's so fucking good but that price is mental. Money instantly left the bank though as we used all £400k on an upgrade to the training facilities.

Barnett wants to leave as well so I'm hoping I can get a similar deal in the Summer for him.

Youth Intake:

















None of them good enough to get senior football this season but I'm excited for Pavett and Everett. Also, we have our first ever Cypriot but I don't know where to fit him in. He can't tackle, mark or pass well enough for CM and he has no finishing ability with no composure.

[Baz]

Seems like a slog, Mahow. Not sure I could be arsed.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

It is and I love it.

The low leagues are my favourite and I love a hard challenge.

[Baz]

Finished the season in Belgium:



Won the league, as expected, mainly due to rinsing a certain bug before it was patched:





Young-Coombes scored 26 in 29. Shame he looks like an absolute rat.

However, it has led to this:



So I'm not sure what will happen. I've a few leagues loaded so might be able to jump ship before it starts to cause problems.

[John Arne]

Hala Madrid, my arse.

[Dan]

Portsmouth 2030/31 Midseason Update

We have a big stack of cash at our disposal, and I'm starting to look at making some bigger moves as we have most of the squad sorted already, so there's always a chance we take a big swing, but I'd imagine it'll be a quiet summer as we look to make a final push towards title contention.

After failing to win the title on the final day last season, we're looking forward to our first ever season in the Champions League & hoping that we can provide a proper challenge for the title this year. We had a lot of money at our disposal, but I'm pretty happy with the squad so it was just a case of making a few additions in the right places.

Transfers:

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We had three deals already agreed, bringing in a Romanian RB to eventually replace Simon Walde, a Uruguayan CM to fill the gap left by the sudden loss of Vladimir Petkov last season & smashing our transfer record to bring in a talented French CB who looks like he could be a future superstar.

Beyond that, however, it was very quiet as we just brought in a new stable of veteran mentors, including 38 year old ex-Liverpool man Mo Salah to replace 39 year old ex-Liverpool man Jordan Henderson - I've also seen that Alisson could be available now but sadly he's retiring, so he can't make it a hat-trick. We also brought back former academy kid Chad Burke, who I always liked but to Ipswich sold a few seasons ago. Things didn't worked out for him there, so he's back to pad out the squad depth & help with our homegrown quotas.

No major departures, other than the sale of talented youngster Arne Royse to Wolves. He looks like a potential star but things just never fell right for him & he ended up finding himself as our third choice striker, so I figured everyone would be better off this way. We sold another striker for good money when Forest offered us a chunk of cash for a kid who's never played, but it was mostly just moving on youngsters that aren't going to make it.

The League:

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Not too bad so far - we still have problems against the traditional elites at times, and it was disappointing to lose our first derby of the season against Southampton, but overall we've done okay.

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We're in a fairly similar spot to last season, albeit with less games in hand to be able to reel in the teams above us. I think a title challenge is out of the question this year, but we definitely still have a good shot at getting back into the Champions League for next season, which would be a good result for us.

The Cups:

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We've made it through to the ELF Cup semi finals, and we'll be facing West Brom in the FA Cup third round, but let's be honest, this is mostly about the Champions League.

We were handed a pretty tough set of fixtures for our first ever CL adventure, which immediately sent me from feeling confident about making the playoffs to hoping we could luck our way into 24th. Then I went to do our registration & realised I'd ballsed it right up, meaning I had to leave our several players I'd planned to include to stay within the rules. Not exactly the ideal way to kick things off, but would that carry over to the pitch?

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No it would not

I have no idea what is going on here, but we've walked in & absolutely dominated everyone we've faced so far, and sit top of the table as the only team with a perfect record. We do have Barcelona & Leipzig left to play though, so I'm sure we'll swiftly be brought back to earth, but we've already ensured we'll progress & we should be in with a good chance of skipping the playoffs altogether, even if we do lose both of our remaining games.

I'd say we're on course for another good season, and while I think it might end up being a slight step back from last year on paper, it should still be a season of overachievement compared to our expectations. And who knows, maybe we'll pick up another trophy from somewhere.

[John Arne]

Literally 2 games into the new season and my star midfielder (who also spent most of the summer at World Cup) is upset that he isn't starting more games :/

[Bam]

First season with Notts Co and we stormed League 2, broke pretty much every league record on route. The following season, Fa cup winners and newly promoted from the Championship Leeds coming offering me a job, which I turned down.

Not really sure if I should of took it, but we are now sitting top of League 1 so hopefully will be in the Championship next season

[Baz]

I’ve had interviews with Sporting and Hearts, after my successful first season in Belgium with Lommel. Torn!

[Gray Fox]

You could win in Europe with Sporting. With Hearts it'd likely take a lot longer.

Portugal is around the perfect sweet spot for being able to buy in all the wonderkids, but actually play them in all of the games. Then you can sell to the big teams and also Man City.

[Bam]

Then you can sell to the big teams and also Man City.

Aww you!

[Baz]

You could win in Europe with Sporting. With Hearts it'd likely take a lot longer.

Portugal is around the perfect sweet spot for being able to buy in all the wonderkids, but actually play them in all of the games. Then you can sell to the big teams and also Man City.

They've let me bring Oyvind Leonhardsen with me as a coach, which sealed the deal.

[Gray Fox]

That name is a serious blast from the past. I remember a lad in school asking me what I thought of him. I told him I thought he was a bit shit and the lad got visibly upset. Turned out that was his Uncle.

[Adramelch]

I just had a player throw a hissy fit because I didn't register him for the last two Champions League group stage games. Only, he's at the AFCON so he wouldn't be available anyway. That's the quality design I'm paying for.

Edit: In another one of the FM classics, I've had a player in my shortlist for about 8 months, he's been out of contract for all that time (which by itself is ridiculous as he's a really good player asking for very little money) and I finally made room in the squad to go for him. The very day I offer him a contract, another two teams do the same. It feels like this game was design in the early 2000s sometimes, which is probably quite a bit true.

[Bernanke]

Finally caved and got this. Two questions:

1. What skin is best?

2. This original/real world shit is confusing. Previously I could set the game start to "start of Swedish season 23/24" which is in February 2024, and all other leagues would be simulated up until that point, and you could jump in mid season in other leagues. If I do that now the leagues except for Sweden are completely null and you have to wait until summer 2024 for things to start. Is the "simulating leagues in parallel" just gone with the addition of original/real world/your world? Edit: Scratch that, it was because I set it to start Feb 2023.

[Mike]

I like FM Rensie for skin
https://coffeehousefm.com/rensieskin

The other bit I dunno without loading it, sorry.

[Adramelch]

Regarding the second point, can't say I've been in that situation before, but it sounds like some sort of bug. One kind of work around I could think of would be to add an additional league that starts in the summer and holiday all the way to February 2024, but that's still a bit shitty I guess.

Continuing on with my complaints:



6 games in 1.5 weeks. How is that still a thing after all these years?

[Baz]

+1 for FM Rensie skin but edit the XML files to get rid of the coffee cup logo and annoying link to his website. (I can share my edit if you want, it replaces his logo with the club badge if whoever you’re on, and no clickable link)

[Bernanke]

Sounds ace, please share it. I got the full skin already.

[Clunge]

I’d love that IF they left-aligned the names in the title bars. Hate the centre alignment.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

WTCS Gold skin for me.

[Mike]

+1 for FM Rensie skin but edit the XML files to get rid of the coffee cup logo and annoying link to his website. (I can share my edit if you want, it replaces his logo with the club badge if whoever you’re on, and no clickable link)

I also use the edit he (Rensie, not Baz)includes to use background pictures, as it looks better I think.

[Baz]

Sounds ace, please share it. I got the full skin already.

https://akr.st/rensie24

[Dan]

We're in a fairly similar spot to last season, albeit with less games in hand to be able to reel in the teams above us. I think a title challenge is out of the question this year, but we definitely still have a good shot at getting back into the Champions League for next season, which would be a good result for us.

Portsmouth 2030/31 End of Season Review

After finding ourselves in the middle of the pack midway through last season we managed to climb the table & narrowly missed out on an upset title win. This year we've found ourselves in the middle of the pack midway through, but could we go one better that last season?

The League

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That's pretty good. I didn't even realise we'd been quite that strong until I went to get the screenshot of the results, but we were really solid at the back & had some excellent moments going forward as we rocketed up the table, but was it enough to stop Erik ten Haag's Manchester United from claiming a fourth consecutive title (lol)?

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Nah

United are just a bit too good at the minute, and we'd given ourselves too much to do to reel them in, and while we weren't really in with a shot of winning the league this time round we did beat last season on both total points & league finish, so we're starting to establish ourselves as one of the top teams in the country, which will hopefully mean that we stop getting teams trying to nick all of our players soon

Domestic Cups

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Fairly unremarkable here, as we were once again knocked out of the league cup by a Manchester team, before falling to Liverpool in the FA Cup.

Champions League

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After dominating everyone we faced in the first half of the season we came back down to earth in the second half of the year, possibly as a trade off for our good form in the league. It was a bit disappointing to immediately draw another English team in the round of 16, and despite the best efforts of Hamza Bensabouh we exited at the hands of Arsenal. Still, a very encouraging first season in the competition, and hopefully one we'll be able to build on moving forwards.

The Squad

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Once again Stefano Turati has proven to be a reliable presence between the sticks. He took on even more of the load this season as we ended up loaning out all of our promising young GKs over the course of the season, so there wasn't much behind him.

We took a step forward at the back this season, with Joao Fonseca mostly playing alongside Alan Ramirez, although the arrival of Kevin Rivierez in the summer is probably going to spell the end for Ramirez this summer, especially as we have a stable of talented young CBs out on loan who can all come straight into the squad, as well as Zeng Lisheng, who's already been featuring in the rotation this year.

Our fullbacks are looking pretty good, with Mario Tabuaco & Esteban Arguello on the left, and Simon Walde & Hristu Serbanica on the right, although Walde migh be sold this summer to make room for some of the returning youngsters.

Our midfield is in a good spot too, with Mahir Hadzic taking a huge leap forwards in his play on the way to winning PFA Young Player of the Year, and new signing Sebastian Barrios had a promising first season too. They're ably backed up by the likes of Alex Robertson & Leopold Uhlig, as well as veteran Morten Thorsby & returning academy product Chad Burke.

On the wings we had some excellent production across the board, as Adriano Onyegbule got into double figures for both goals & assists, Paddy Lane shrugged off a slow start to keep his streak of double digit assist seasons going, and both Jimmy Zady Sery & Mikhail Petrov continued their upwards trajectory with strong sophomore seasons.

Our two most outstanding players this season might well both play in the same position, as Hamza Bensabouh & Fabio Esteves have both been fantastic playing in behind the striker, with Esteves racking up the numbers in both goals & assists whilst Bensabouh lived up to his billing as a big game player with several great performances in important games.

Diego Otin had some issues trying to follow up from his outstanding first season, with his inconsistency showing up more this season, however he did still manage 29 goals & showed flashes of his clinical best. We're lucky to have an outstanding backup option in Leo Scaltriti, who stepped in & produced whenever he was called upon, so it's not entirely out of the question that he could push his way to the front of the line if Otin continues to struggle next season.

The results on the pitch weren't the biggest story of the season, however, as it's finally been confirmed that we will be starting work on a new stadium, which will see us sell Fratton Park We have a couple of years left before we move, though, so hopefully we can find a way to say goodbye with a trophy or two.

[John Arne]

Just accidently started my 3rd choice goalkeeper as right back. Fulham beat us 3-2. 6.4 rating.

[Adramelch]

And then when you've gone through all your subs and your keeper gets injured with 5 mins to go, you have the answer. Perfect plan.