Football Manager 2021

[Smjffy]

Toggle Spoiler

Toggle Spoiler

Wrexham 2022/2023

League

A third successive promotion and into the Championship we go although it was a little gutting to miss out on the title itself but given we never returned to the top after being knocked off it on 2nd February, we can't complain too much. Our last game of the season saw ourselves face Fleetwood and if we avoided defeat we'd go up automatically so the 3-0 win was welcome.

Some big wins throughout the campaign, 5-1 against Wigan, 5-3 against Ipswich, 5-4 again Charlton and an absolute joke of a match in beating Preston 7-5, all away from home but our 10-4 win at home to Doncaster really took the biscuit. A hattrick of hattricks though....





Our total of 115 league goals was a record but we also had the worst defensive record in the league....madness.

Such an outlay in goals meant it was no surprise that we had at least one of the leagues top scorers, as it is though, we had the top three.



Promotion is promotion though.




FA Cup

We knocked out Colchester 6-2 in the first round and followed that up with home wins against Hartlepool (4-1) and MK Dons (1-0) so to reach the fourth round I had hoped for a money spinning draw but instead it turned out to be a bit of a north v south encounter as we were knocked out by Cardiff of all teams.



EFL Cup

Scraped through the first round against Accrington Stanley on penalties after a 2-2 draw, Port Vale were seen off in the second but Premier League side Wolves showed their quality in the third and sent us packing.



EFL Trophy

We actually faced the Wolves U23's in the group stage but were undone 3-2 but we did enough to qualify from it after wins against Bradford City and Grimsby Town. Leeds United U23's came in the second round and we dispatched them 3-0, Fleetwood were dumped out 4-0 in the third round and then I anticipated being knocked out by Arsenal U23's in the quarter finals, as it was we won 4-2 to set up a semi final against Man United U23's. I was a little gutted in the end.



Next Season

We've got a whole host of players who are due to leave as we won't renew their contracts and a decent sized transfer budget of £4,000,000 to play with. We've finally opted for one of the scouting packages so I hope we find one or two gems as we relied heavily on loan deals from our new feeder club Man City this season. Now it's going to get a bit fun though I'd imagine.

I want to finish as close to the play offs as possible so we just rapidly jump from Vanarama Conference to the Premier League but I sense this is where it gets a little trickier. I've been surprised at how little I've actually had to do overall. I'll do a squad update before we kick off the upcoming campaign but so far so good.

Wrexham - Season 2023/2024


League

A mid season slump probably cost us a chance of sneaking into the playoffs but losing 17 games over the course of the season suggests we'd have got rinsed in the Premier League anyway. I put this down to the number of new arrivals and I can't see the upcoming season being any different. It was nice not to lose to Arsenal as we beat them 1-0 at home and drew 0-0 at the Emirates but I'm still bewildered how they managed to find themselves in this division. Sign of things to come? Beware if Patrick Vieira replaces Arteta, I say. Other managerial change I clocked was Steven Gerrard is now WBA manager but he did win the SPL....




FA Cup

We drew at The Racecourse which was nice but Tottenham put an end to our run in the replay. Nothing more than we expected tbh.



EFL Cup

Not much different here either tbh but losing to Wigan was a little bit gutting given they are quite crap.



Transfers In

We made whole sale changes but scouting was an issue and quite a few I'd suggest were quite crap and if not for the loaned players, we'd have been in a whole world of trouble. I want to try move away from that for next season and since we have nearly £10M we can spend (mostly due to the sale of Rhys Plant), I reckon we've got more scope for some higher quality arrivals.



We probably wouldn't have finished in the clubs highest ever position since the 1970's too had it not been for Josh Thomas. Now a Welsh international. 34 goals in 50 appearances but he was out on his own in that regard.




Squad




Next Season

I never got around to doing a full squad update so maybe that'll come as I expect huge changes throughout as I want to go up to the promised land.

[Dquincy]

Good read, Smiffy. Keep it up.

I will one day post an update for my FM11 career. Especially as I've bought a new laptop.

[Smjffy]

Got touch and currently putting my logo and face packs back on the ipad. Curiously it seems despite increasing the league limit in other versions and bringing in dynamics on mobile they have fucked that off for Touch

How are you finding touch, @Lofty? I do prefer the speed of that compared to the full version with it's constant clicking of bollocks so I might move over again as I enjoyed the last one. I could rattle out seasons.

[Danny]

@Smjffy

Billy Sass Davies playing in the Prem? He is usually decent for my Crewe games but never that good.

[Smjffy]

@Smjffy

Billy Sass Davies playing in the Prem? He is usually decent for my Crewe games but never that good.

We didn't get promoted so he's still in Championship.

Toggle Spoiler

He might not even get the chance regardless as I'm tempted to switch to Touch. I just tested it out and it's much faster than this full version and I don't faff around with most the features.

[Danny]

Looks about where he normally gets to. Solid if unspectacular!

Thinking about starting again with Wrexham?

[Smjffy]

Palermo I'm thinking They are in the bottom division in Italy and if I'm right I'll be able to sign foreign players as I please without Brexit, right? I've spotted a few during this save with Wrexham but I've been unable to sign them.

[Lofty]

How are you finding touch, @Lofty? I do prefer the speed of that compared to the full version with it's constant clicking of bollocks so I might move over again as I enjoyed the last one. I could rattle out seasons.

Haha at the rate you go you'd get your money's worth. It's a slight upgrade this year, seems a little faster and the match engine is better, otherwise not much on 20.

Started my traditional first save as Arsenal. Just got to December using the same squad Arteta has and I'm 3rd in the league. #ArtetaOut

[John Arne]

I'm at Crewe and managed to get 37yr old Yaya Toure on board (realism) on about $3,200 per week. He had a decent season (30-2-12) but I was also looking forward to getting him off the books...
End of the season and I get a message that his wages have increased to $5,300 due to 'match highest earner' (whatevs, he's leaving soon), I then click on his contract to see which day exactly he is leaving... I signed a 37yr old Yaya Toure to a 3 year contract by mistake



Those physical attributes sinking



Almost a $1m on this fucking waster. Expect to see a few 1's and 2's in his stats before he leaves. Tried and failed to offload him. Can only hope retires.

[Shindig]

Is a birthday cake actually a contractual thing? The Yaya clause?

[John Arne]

Creative license. He'd better fucking retire.

[John Arne]

Oh you beauty...



What... wait, what...



Absolute stonking cunts.

[Baz]

[Spikey M]

[Raoul Duke]

At least you get to have some more cake

[Smjffy]

Flintshire FC have gained access to the Vanarama National North at the expense of Alfreton Town. No players so I'm going to draft in a squad of the greyed out under 18's to get the ball rolling and then it's onwards and upwards.

EDIT: Lasted less than 6 months. We were getting battered each week so I'm going to go a different route and start again but with a sugar daddy.

[randomlegend]

I couldn't get rid of De Gea so I'm stuck paying £570k a week on goalkeepers

[SvN]

Wife and son away for the weekend. Think I'm gonna buy this.

Where's the best place?

[Spikey M]

Baz (I think) posted a (probably affiliate) link a couple of weeks back. That was the cheapest then, anyway.

[Giggles]

I normally find cdkeys cheapest.

[Spikey M]

ShopTo is cheaper

Turns out it's not a link, but check there and CDKeys.

[Baz]

Dickhead

[Pleb]

[Smjffy]

I've bought the editor for FM21 full version but any idea where it actually is? I want to give Wrexham a sugar daddy and just go mental but I can't find it, it's not in the steam and it didn't seem to download anything but the £4 has definitely gone out.

[randomlegend]

I've bought the editor for FM21 full version but any idea where it actually is? I want to give Wrexham a sugar daddy and just go mental but I can't find it, it's not in the steam and it didn't seem to download anything but the £4 has definitely gone out.

Go to your steam library. On the top of the list of games, there's a drop-down menu which will be set to "Games". Click it and tick tools as well. Then the editor will appear directly below the game in the list.

[Smjffy]

Brilliant. I've found it. Thanks.

EDIT: It would appear that that's the pregame editor one, I bought the in-game one. Or am I completely missing something here?

[John Arne]

The pre game editor is free. The in game editor is what you have paid for. When playing the game there's a little '/' near the setting button. That's it.

[Spikey M]

Brilliant. I've found it. Thanks.

EDIT: It would appear that that's the pregame editor one, I bought the in-game one. Or am I completely missing something here?

Booooooooooo!!!!!!

[Raoul Duke]

The pre game editor is free. The in game editor is what you have paid for. When playing the game there's a little '/' near the setting button. That's it.

That is some of the worst UI design I think I've ever seen

[John Arne]

That is some of the worst UI design I think I've ever seen

Yup. I just grabbed the image off Google. I immediately download a dark, less retina destroying skin.

[randomlegend]

Brilliant. I've found it. Thanks.

EDIT: It would appear that that's the pregame editor one, I bought the in-game one. Or am I completely missing something here?

Sorry should've been obvious you meant the in game one when you said you'd bought it.

[Smjffy]

Booooooooooo!!!!!!

Never fear. It's not what I was hoping for. I wanted to stick those two celebs as the new owners and see if I could switch off the Brexit thing but alas, you can't do either.

[Dquincy]

Previous season (taken from the FM 2020 thread)

Toggle Spoiler

Parma - Season 2065/66

A very good season.

Serie A






We were always in the hunt hovering around 3rd or 2nd, but after Christmas we got our noses in front and never looked back. Won the league with 2 games to spare. First time Parma have won the Serie A in their long history.

Special mention for my final league game against 2nd place Inter Milan. Every shot I had went in!


Italian Cup



Final against 2nd place Inter Milan.




Fairly even match but it meant Parma's first domestic double in their history.


Champions League



Group stages went down to the final game against Valeranga, but we beat them easily at home. Special mention for my old club Cork City.




Barca were always in the control. Lost it in the first leg.


End of season first team squad.




Key players:



My star striker. Broke the Serie A record for most goals in a season.




My big signing last summer and easily our best player of the season. Missed the last month of the season due to injury.




He may be young, but he was a consistent starter in the centre of my defence. At 18 yrs old, he should become a star player providing he's not poached.

Next Season: Probably going to stay at Parma and push for success in the Champions League. Bit of an issue with our stadium only having 27,000 capacity, so the income isn't great in this regard.

Shout if you do not want my vintage game in your FM 2021 thread. Otherwise...

Parma - Season 2066/67

The aim was to improve on the previous season, wining Serie A again and go far in the Champions League.

Turns out we had a very good domestic season again, topping the 100 points total and my superstar striker topping the goal scorer charts.





Won the Italian Cup, beating AC Milan 1-0 in the Final



You'll see from above PSV stopped our crusade in Europe at the semi final stage.

Overall a decent season and my players dominated the awards. Bit weird that i had the top 2 GKs.



















I'm a few seasons ahead so shall post another one shortly.

[Lofty]

First season as Arsenal FM21 Touch: I only signed one player, Arezo, amd sold Mustafi in January having not signed or sold anyone in the summer. Finished 6th and potless, got to the Europa League final against Lille and conspired to cough up a 94th minute equaliser then Xhaka missed the decisive penalty forcing it to sudden death.

I've been given a hundred million quid and a stern reprimand to improve things, had a couple of 'bad result could be a sacking' news items at the end of the season. Looking to sell Lacazette, Kolasinac, Xhaka and let Özil and Luiz leave on a free to hopefully bring in two or three top quality players and bring the rest of the young guns through around them.

[Smjffy]

Oxford City - 2020/21

It was a busy summer for The Hoops as wholesale changes were made right off the bat and twenty-one new arrivals moved to the club. In part this was due to a wafer thin squad but the goal was to go up at the first time of asking and for much of the season that looked as though it would be via the playoffs given Havant & Waterlooville's storming start to the season but a spectacular bottle job in May put ourselves and Maidstone United right in it with Havant taking just two points from their final six league games, defeated by ourselves and then Maidstone on the final day causing them to finish 3rd. Maidstone went into that game knowing that if they were to claim top spot then they would need to beat the former long time leaders and hope that 4th placed Welling United caused an upset at Court Place Farm, our ground. That didn't occur and up we went, surprisingly so did Ebbsfleet United who were perhaps the worst of all the promotion contenders.

Goals were easy to come by and we rattled in more than our fair share. James Roberts and Harvey Bradbury being the main two but a decent spread throughout the squad meant we weren't lacking in that department.





Our fortune in the domestic cups was what it was. Torquay United knocking us out of the FA Cup in the fourth qualifying round meant any chance of some money spinning ties was put on hold and though we reached the quarter finals of the FA Trophy, our 3-2 defeat to Brackley was disappointing given we were in full flow back in February.



Our squad did all it needed to do as the sole goal was to move up a division but we have plenty of work to do in the summer once again given most the new arrivals were on twelve month contracts. I'm hoping to snap up the released Premier League/Championship players as is the norm.



*I tried on the last version to make Oxford City the most dominant side in the world beating all records like the total Premier League wins, Champions League wins and if any remember my efforts there, we didn't do too badly.

Unfortunately it is going to be on touch because quite frankly I don't have the time to rattle out seasons on the full version and found most of my time was spent just faffing around with things I have no interest in.

[bruhnaldo]

Anyone tried this on Xbox

[Boydy]

Similar to Bruh, does anyone play the Touch version on the Switch? I'm tempted to buy it but I've read the controls are a bit annoying.

[Raoul Duke]

I had it last year and it was fine. Bit fiddly but not bad overall. Did a game with Milan that went on a few seasons that I enjoyed

[Spikey M]

I hate FM Touch. It feels every bit like the mobile phone app it is (unless it has improved hugely since FM19's version).

[Boydy]

I had it last year and it was fine. Bit fiddly but not bad overall. Did a game with Milan that went on a few seasons that I enjoyed

Cheers. Might get it then.

I hate FM Touch. It feels every bit like the mobile phone app it is (unless it has improved hugely since FM19's version).

Have you played FM Mobile? There's definitely more depth to Touch than it.

[Spikey M]

I've played all 3 and Touch felt a lot closer to Mobile than to the proper version to me.

[randomlegend]

4.5 star potential, 48 goals in 37 games for the u18s.

Finishing of 7 and composure of 8.

[mugbull]

Bought FM, first one since 14 and I completely forgot how fucking hard this game is. Took over Palermo in Serie C and got 2 wins to start off, before going 9 games without a win and running (scoring about 5 goals in the process). Somehow the board are “pleased” with my performance so it’ll be a while before I’m put out of my misery

[Dquincy]

Season 2067/68

After my successful exploits at Parma, the Ayr Utd job became available again in the summer of 2067. They finished mid season and seemed to had sold all of the decent youngsters i have previously acquired. I had unfinished business in Scotland with Ayr from my previous stint so i resigned at Parma and took the job at Ayr.

Transfers:

I bought and sold a few in preseason. The top 3 free transfers are youngsters who weren't going to make it at my previous Parma team; i made them redundant on my last day. I would show you screenshots of the transfers, but I'm a few season past here currently.




League:

Having managed to off load a few of the shit that the previous fella bought in, we had a decent season, but again Hearts were the dominant force as per usual. My 9,000 stadium being no match for their 50,000+ stadium income.






Cups:

I did manage to get one over Hearts in the League Cup final. Didn't deserve it, but we'll take it.




Awards:

The only award my players received was the Young Player of The Year award.




Aim for next season is to improve the squad, try and finally get a stadium expansion to improve finances and finish higher in the league.

[Lofty]

I've played all 3 and Touch felt a lot closer to Mobile than to the proper version to me.

Mobile is a paddling pool (and pretty easy), Touch is a swimming pool and PC is the ocean.

The minor update for touch has apparently binned all my facepack and logos

[mugbull]

Got sacked by Palermo after a dozen or so games, so I started a new save with Feyenoord, whom I like because their badge is just a big “F”.

First season went okay, finished 4th. Made a lot of cheap investments over the following summer so I ended up with a bloated squad and managed to draw the first four league games of the season. Tried to get rid of some squad players so I offered a few out. For some reason the entire squad took grievous offense to my attempt at offloading some bit-part attacking midfielder who apparently wasn’t part of any social group to begin with. I go into the team meeting, and am immediately faced with twenty “Disenchanted” players asking me to explain myself. I tell them he’s not really very good, they (or rather their ombudsman) retort by telling me he is actually quite good. I’m then forced to select between essentially telling them all to fuck off, or “I’m really pleased with how this meeting has gone, thanks for the productive conversation”. Not wanting to start a completely unnecessary row with my whole team, I choose the nonsense option. Predictably, they all become furious and my assistant informs me on the next screen that he has just observed a catastrophic drop in morale. Thanks mate.

[Smjffy]

I found I struggled with keeping players happy on the full version too and the 'gestures' are largely just a waste of time. At least on Touch that doesn't seem to be as big a problem.

[Shindig]

This should be good.

[Mike]

Finished my first season in Germany. It went well!

[Mike]

Second Season has gone well