Football Manager 23

[Baz]

FM Rensie sent me his private skin so using that for season two. Might change tactics too, but probably not.

New skin and old profile for comparison:

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Feels like a different game.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Why does he have a private skin?

I'm not a fan of it, looks a little too busy.

[Baz]

Why does he have a private skin?

I'm not a fan of it, looks a little too busy.

He’s made skins for years but this time decided to just give it to his mates cos people kept reusing his stuff without crediting him. Wasn’t the whole Zealand/FME skin stolen from him? Something like that.

And yeah it’ll take some getting used to. The skin I was using wasn’t the default one anyway, cos I pinched some QoL stuff from the skinning section of the SI forum.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Palamós CF 2024/25 Season Update:

Transfers:



Quite a few in (and a lot out too) as even though I felt my squad was good enough to compete at this level my scouts kept finding some real gems and some older players decided they didn't want to stay with us. Including my star striker from last year, he scored 28 in his first season and 29 last season but he didn't want to re-sign and he's still without a club now. It seems his contract demands were too hefty for third/fourth tier Spanish football which is what he was aiming for I believe.

We also sold some players for money:



£9k rising to £10k with a 30% of profit sell on. I brought him in last season with the idea of starting him at CM but I changed tactics and he didn't have a place in my team until our AMC was stolen but this year I upgraded and he went out the door.



I bought him this season and he was meant to be a star for next year but his potential ability was marked up too high by our shitty scouts and I took £3.7k for him.



Much like the guy above, although he only went for £1.1k.

League:






I thought we'd do well but I'm stunned that we did this well. It looked like it was going to be a three horse race but Espanyol (whose wages are almost 5x the amount of the second highest team) and Igualada (who I'm stunned did so well as they were in our league in the first season and we battered them twice) started falling off.

No one seemed to expect this as my board wanted us to survive relegation, the media predicted us 8th, my players wanted mid-table and the season preview before the first game had us in 5th.

Cup:

For some reason our league was not entered into the Copa Del Rey. I'm not sure if it's a league update bug or what but it is what it is.

Squad:



I feel this side is good enough for the fourth tier but 14 players (16 including the 2 loanees) contract's are expiring in a few weeks. Those include our starting striker who scored 24 in 28, both starting DMC's, our starting RB, our starting GK and starting AMC. Of those the only one I have offered a contract is the AMC, Olabe. I would also like to bring back the loanees (but that's almost impossible in FM23) but outside of that I think we can improve on the rest. Maybe the younger DMC (Angresola) and GK could be kept but all these players want to be starters and I'd want them as backups.

Here are the guys who are 4* who will be coming back, plus my latest youth recruitment:



I needed a CB when we stepped up and my scouts were struggling to find someone who weren't asking for silly wages and who would actually come to us (so many rejected us in favour of other clubs) and then I decided to look at the season preview of our old division. I wanted all of the top 5 but only this guy was interested and he's been a rock.



I kept looking for a RB as our current one isn't good enough and then the scouts finally found this guy, although he's a natural CB and that's where he's played all his games.



He was in our first youth intake and he played a few games in our first season before becoming a starter last year. He did well in the sixth tier but he exploded this year with 31 goal contributions in 30 games, he's got the highest average rating in the league as well as the most assists, is now our key player, has the highest current ability and he's listed as a leading fourth tier player. What a guy.



Our starting AMC, he played really well but I kind of expected more as he was meant to be our talisman but was out-shined by our wingers. He has been offered a new contract as he's finally agreed to talk.



He came in our latest youth intake and before he had even signed his youth contract my coaches were telling me to put him into the senior squad. He's a natural striker who can play as an AML. This is what I really like about the save right now, every single youth intake matters.

[Baz]

I'm not a fan of it, looks a little too busy.

Being able to actually see post match stuff straight after the final whistle has me completely sold.

First game of the second season:

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TTH are marching on, on, on.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

This xG table is disgusting btw.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Palamós CF 25/26 Season Update:

Transfers:



Feel like I improved the squad a lot over the course of the year but we are missing a striker.

Cup:



Battered by a 3rd tier side IIRC which is a bit shit as I wanted a nice run.

League:




Forgot to grab the table before I exited the game. Here though is the xG table after all was done:



I lost the title to Penya by 1 point but should have won it at a canter.

Also those string of 1-0 losses near the end were all because my only right winger got injured and suddenly we could not find the net at all.

Here is the playoff final:



Where the game robbed us again.

You will note the big green H by Osasuna B's name, that is to indicate they won by being the higher seed because they finish with a whopping 4 points more than us. I was gearing up for a shootout and then to have them just win was heartbreaking. The only tie that saw two second placed teams face off.

Their goals in normal time came from a kick off and from a throw in after the 3 minutes of injury time had been played. I'm absolutely drained and need a break for a couple of days, this is bullshit.

Squad:



The squad is good but we will be losing our best CB as he doesn't think we have the money (we don't) but other than that no one is leaving unless pushed. We need a new striker because our starting options combined for a whopping 22 goals this season with Jimeno (our striker who started the season as number 1) and Giner went so long without any goals.

[Baz]

Just did a 'full rotation' and lost. Third game of the season and we've already lost. 3-2, but still. Shouted at you all at Ben's come crying after the match that I was too harsh.

Need to loan more out so I don't have too many losers to keep happy. So far only Luca's gone out on loan.

[Baz]

Aaaand we've lost @-james-

[Adramelch]

Our return season in the Premier League was, as expected, a lot better. We went into it with a stronger squad (albeit with several weak points still) and a lot more money so I had the chance to build something that would see us avoid relegation, and that's exactly what happened.



We didn't spend a single week in the relegation zone and, in fact, the lowest position we were ever at was 15th for a total of 2 weeks. We had a fairly reasonable defensive record for a bottom-half team with 54 conceded, however our offensive record wasn't as good with just the 48 goals scored in 38 games and it really showed. We dropped a lot of points in games where we didn't take our chances and we either conceded a late equaliser or were held to a goalless draw. Late goals were definitely our achilles heel in general, as we dropped no fewer than 11 points from goals conceded in the last 5 minutes of the game.

We also did really well in the League Cup, through a quite tough run:



Highlights were of course the back to back wins against Chelsea and Liverpool, but we eventually came unstuck against Newcastle in the final. They didn't deserve to win by that much mind you, but we were second best throughout the game nevertheless. Still a great run, unlike the FA Cup where we fell at the first hurdle, losing to Leicester away, albeit in a fairly even game.



Not that many players standing out, but that's to be expected a bit for a bottom-half team. In terms of the players that were with us from the start of the season (and from last season even), Fetih Ozdiraz was quite consistent albeit with not that many impressive performances, while Saric was the exact opposite with some insane games and then nothing for the next two or three. His stats are not quite representative though, as he did feature a lot on the right wing, so his 1 in 2 record is quite high. That said, the obvious star was ex-Arsenal youngster, Catalin Cirjan, whom we picked for just 3.8m in the deal of the century. His arrival didn't quite improve our results by much, but we just started playing a lot better in general. Here he is if you are interested in his stats. How he was playing in Romania before we signed him baffles me a bit.

So we've shown we can hang out with the big boys and we have a very young squad, so there's a lot of promise. I will be doing my best to improve the defenders and the midfield, cause even though our offensive record is what was lacking, it did feel like the problem started from the back in that respect.

As an aside, having played 8 seasons now, I am enjoying the game but it does have some glaring errors. The one that really irks me is that it feels like more than half the goals scored (for either side) come from very simple mistakes from an opposition player, be it misplaced 5-yard passes, outrageously bad first touches or just players holding the ball for way too long. Obviously all of that should be in the game, but I think the frequency of them is way over the top.

[Browning]

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Started my traditional save of starting unemployed with no rep and seeing where I end up. The difference between this and the one I did on FM21 is that it's on Full Fat FM instead of Touch, and I'll hopefully be adding some more countries to move into later in the save (though I've started with only England and Scotland playable and a bunch of places on View only).

The first team to offer me a job was Buxton. They were languishing in the relegation zone of the National League North and spending over £1000 a week on one striker. I took the job and I swear the board wanted a mid-table finish but as soon as I got there it was changed to Play Offs. It wouldn't have mattered either way as I was absolutely shite and didn't even get them out of the relegation zone before I resigned. The only significant thing I managed there was signing Josh Hmami on loan from Southport because....

My next job would be at Southport where I would reunite with him. Our wage budget was 7k a week, down from the 11k I had at Buxton (although I never got to do anything with that). They wanted a midtable finish and were predicted to finish 14th. Jordan Archer, brother of Cameron at Villa was a very good striker for this level and the previously mentioned Hmami was a midfielder I really liked despite the coaches not rating him. They also had 2 quality CBs for this level but not a lot else. Annoyingly, despite having Accrington as a parent club, they had already wasted that union on loaning 2 kids for the youth team from them. I bought in a couple of players on loan from Walsall and a defender on loan from Kidderminster who would all play a decent enough role and my most significant signing to that point was Jake Burton on a free transfer after his release from Tranmere. He would bag 16 goals and 5 assists in 36 league games for us but ultimately despite a bright start the season fizzled out into nothing except midtable mediocrity, which the board were thrilled with.

As contracts expired and we had the option to get players from Accrington I was hoping we could push on and do better in season 2. I would secure Joe Starbuck on loan from Wrexham and Bobby-Joe Taylor on loan from division rivals Scunthorpe who would be our starting wide midfielders with both having the option to play RB/LB if needed. The accrington relationship would yield us Emerich Polly who would rotate with Jack Bainbridge who was already here to play in CM alongside Hmami, who was our best playmaker no matter what the coaches said. We also bought in Blaine Rowe after his release from Coventry to be out starting RB and Jaden Forrester to start on the left or up front came in from Rushall Olympic of all places. A new first choice keeper joined in the form of Aidan Dowling released from Blackburn.

We went flying out the gates this season and soon settled in as the 3rd best team in the division, miles behind champions elect Fylde and somewhat behind Spennymore. Then in January came the pivotal moment of our season as 35 year old Scott Sinclair rocked up looking for a job. We had no money to give him, but towards the end of his 4 week trial and after negotiating some pay cuts we were able to offer him a massive £250 a week and a 1 year extension if we got promoted. Shockingly, he took it. He made his debut against top of the table Fylde and scored in a 2-1 loss. Had we won we would have moved to just 4 points behind them with a game in hand, but the loss ended any faint hopes we had of challenging them. His 2nd game he netted twice but we again slipped up and drew 2-2. This began an awful run of form for us that saw us win just 1 in 6 games, and that was the 1 game Scott didn't get on the pitch. Despite his bright start his career wasn't going so well here. With Scott dropped from the team, only featuring occasionally off the bench, we continued to stall and I place the blame on the fact Jordan Archer went on a massive goal draught and was moaning about wanting to move to a bigger team. Having taken 5 points from 6 games after Scott signed, we proceeded to take 9 from the next 5 which was clearly an improvement but we were very lucky and not playing well. A 2-1 win away at in form Banbury where Jordan Archer got back on the score sheet seemed to be a turning point and we then thumped 2nd place Spenny 4-0 and won 1-0 at Hereford with Scotty Sinclair being the super sub hero.... things were looking up but another poor spell saw us fall to 5th for the first time. I was genuinely afraid we might throw it all away and not even make the play offs but with 5 games to go something clicked. We battered Bradford PA 3-0 and then went away to Fylde and won 2-0 despite Jake Burton seeing a straight red 20 minutes in- Sinclair netting in stoppage time to wrap it up. The suspension to Burton combined with an injury to Archer left us with only Forrester and Sinclair to play up front... and Scotty rose to the occasion bagging a hat-trick against Scunthorpe in a 5-0 win and scoring again against Scarborough on the final day (2-0) saw us, somehow, finish 2nd, ahead of Spenny on Goal Difference. The makeshift strike force of Forrester and Sinclair continued to click in the Play Off Semi as both netted and we dispatched Hitchin 2-0 but disaster struck as Forrester went down injured....

This left me with my toughest team selection to date. Forrester could play with injections but I didn't want to do that if I could avoid it. Burton returned from his 3 game ban and was an obvious choice. Archer was also back in contention following injury but a combination of him being a moody cunt and not being fit made me not want to use him. Sinclair was on the form of his life but had started the last 3 games and was 35. We also had a young striker out on loan in Belgium who had been called up for the Belgium Under 20s as a result of his form there- Eden Benteke. Benteke was recalled for the Play Off Final, but to my surprise a 17 year old from Newcastle's academy- Fred Luvovadio arrived and could play. Picking the 2 strikers gave me a headache but in the end I opted for Burton and Luvovadio, giving the kid his professional debut at Wembley. Forrester, with injections was on the bench along with Sinclair as Archer and Benteke missed out. We went 1-0 down after just 2 minutes but Burton levelled it after 6 minutes and then Hmami gave us the lead from the spot. The youn kid Lovovadio could have been a hero when some good skill got him through and he squared it to Burton but Burton missed a sitter. Not to worry as Scott Sinclair came on for him and netted the goal that sealed the win, sealed promotion and sealed the old man another 1 year deal.

I wasn't planning for promotion. I was waiting for the deadwood contracts in the squad to expire (my 5 top earner are 4 players I'm releasing for not being good enough and Archer who doesn't want to stay) and to allow me to rebuild and push for promotion next year. God knows how we'll do next year but one thing is for sure.... even if I end up at Real Madried, I'm taking Josh Hmami with me.

So this hasn't continued in the way I expected. After taking Southport up the following season in the National League was..... a train wreck. The board barely increased my already pathetic wage budget to the point mu budget was still higher at Buxton than it was here. I thought I did some good work on improving the squad but seemingly not as we were the whipping boys of the league. I'd have stayed and gone down with them, but the minute the board changed to "disappointed in my management" after the miracle promotion, I was done with them. Zero backing financially and now they weren't even backing me results wise. I resigned and their new manger was almost fired for being even worse than I was at that level, but somehow got a new deal in the end despite taking them down without a fight. 2 of the kids I signed are their best 2 players now though, so that's something.

There was quite a bit of demand for my services but the most appealing job (with the most money) was Airdrieonians FC in the Scottish Championship. They were 5th in the table and their manager had just departed for a job in the SPL but they only wanted to avoid relegation which seemed easy enough. It was a trap. I quickly realised the squad was by far the worst in the division and they also had the least money of anyone in the division. We were quickly sucked into a relegation battle and down to 9th in the 10 team league. We then beat the champions Ayr and followed that up with a win over 3rd placed Hamilton to move 3 points clear of the drop zone... but the team directly below us (Queen of the South) battered us 4-0 to move above us and a loss on the final day sent me into a relegation play off with Dunfermline. The first leg was a boring, pathetic 0-0 at their place and we bossed the 2nd leg until we conceded a cheap penalty from a corner, and then conceded a 2nd goal straight from the kick off. Season over, relegated and sacked. Josh Hmami (who wasn't good enough for them) would sign.... after I had left the building.

What followed was a long summer of interviews. I was interviewed by 3 of the 4 teams who were relegated from League 1 into League 2, as well as Posh, Wycombe, my own team MK Dons and Hartlepool. None of them offered me the job but at least Dons and Hartlepool have since sacked the guy they picked over me.... so.... there's that. Finally at the end of October 2 teams offered me a job.... Woking and Newport, both in the National League. The Dons job was about to come up again and League 2 Stevenage named me as their leading candidate so I held off on both.... but eventually could hold off no longer and signed for 19th placed Newport. We've hit the ground running, with me taking 15 points from my first 7 league games to move into the Play Off places. We also faced League 1 Cambridge at home in the FA Cup and battled to a 2-2 draw, taking us back to their place (where they only attracted 3000 fans vs our 8000 for fuck sake...) where a 1-1 draw saw us progress on penalties. Unfortunately, League 2 Bristol Rovers in round 2 were a bridge too far and they battered us 4-1 and then drew Man United in round 3.... oh what could have been..... but they're at home so fuck them.

[Dquincy]

Gillingham : Mid Season Update - Season 2081/82

After a shocking first four games, our form gradually picked up and we're performing slightly better than predicted at the halfway mark. The media predict us to finish 7th.







Apart from the Man Utd match just now, we have been flying. Does help not having Europe, so fixture list isn't overly heavy and we have plenty of time to recover.



This is the squad at the halfway stage. You might notice that i've pinched 3 players from my old Atalanta team. Mosquera has been our star man up front.

Finances, however, are a bit shit. The lack of European involvment is limiting the revenue, but hoping a top 6 finish this year will help sort that out.

[Dquincy]

This fella, worth buying or not? Will cost me my remaining £18m transfer budget (ignore that we're already in debt )

[randomlegend]

Being able to actually see post match stuff straight after the final whistle has me completely sold.

First game of the second season:

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TTH are marching on, on, on.

@Yevrah and Randomlegend partnership dishing out donnings from Southgate to Dagenham

[randomlegend]

This fella, worth buying or not? Will cost me my remaining £18m transfer budget (ignore that we're already in debt )

IDK because having every stat above 10 being green has completely messed up my ability to judge at a glance.

[Adramelch]

He's been in a crazy form this season (26 goals in 27 games), but sadly Real just activated his release clause (at 101m mind you) and obviously I can't convince him to stay:



Don't know that I will be able to find a good replacement in time which sucks, but oh well.

[Bam]

IDK because having every stat above 10 being green has completely messed up my ability to judge at a glance.

Ok autism.

[Dquincy]

It's also two different colour greens so I don't get what the issue is.

[Clunge]

Right, I've been playing Touch '23 but the whole only small database thing is going to irk me too much. So please, how best can I make the full-fat FM experience more bearable? Do all the stupid meetings, etc, actually really matter? I basically just want to build a squad, blood youngsters and play. That's it. Can everything else truly be ignored?

[Gray Fox]

You can quite literally delegate everything to the assistant manager, bar taking control of the games if you want.

You could even put a DoF in charge of signings and let that be taken care of too.

[Jimmy Floyd]

From about three versions ago I have played as a GM more than a manager. All training, team talks, press conferences, touchline instructions, oppo instructions are delegated. All I do is build the squad and pick the team and tactics.

[Baz]

Training is a ballache if you dare take control of it. You have to set the routine every week. I regularly forget and presumably go weeks on end allowing Pokémon TCG tournaments in the canteen.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Training is a ballache if you dare take control of it. You have to set the routine every week. I regularly forget and presumably go weeks on end allowing Pokémon TCG tournaments in the canteen.

Yep.

I've been downloading "Mike's best training schedule" (I assume not your Mike) for a while but I might just go back to delegating it to the Ass Man. It's been a joy not having to do it for Palamos as they can't use fully professional training schedules at the moment.

[Baz]

Yep.

I've been downloading "Mike's best training schedule" (I assume not your Mike) for a while but I might just go back to delegating it to the Ass Man.

Same here. And his preseason one.

[Adramelch]

Bit of a quick update as I went through another season during the weekend.



Came a bit out of left field, but it wasn't an accident by any means, as we spent the majority of the season in the CL spots. We made several improvements across the board, with a new goalie and new midfielders being the ones that immediately stood out. I also was hard at work in the pre-season and sorted out our set-piece routines and we certainly reaped the rewards. We didn't score a significant amount, even though we did improve in that respect, but we most definitely minimized the goals we conceded from set-pieces. I also started switching to more of an attacking mentality in games that we should be winning and it really improved our results. This time around we also managed to win the League Cup, even though our run was once again not that easy, as we had to beat Tottenham, Liverpool and City in the process.



Wrong stats in the case of Savic (it shows his Real stats), but he did score 27 goals in 28 games, enough to still keep him in the best eleven come the end of the season. What's more important though is that we managed to improve across the board, with more diversity both in scoring, but also in creating goals. The money from Savic also means we have a "warchest" for the summer (which I have already gone through and spent).

[Luca]

You are excellent. Wanted by 20 clubs, as a matter of fact:

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Here are the squad stats for those that opted to stay and win the league:



I played to give everyone a fair amount of games, as you can see.

Nice that everyone scored a goal. Even Lofty scored a penalty in the cup to open the scoring in a 10-1 win against a leisure centre or something.

And the ones out on loan:



Definitely must include 'can be recalled' on any future loans. Moyes and Vieira are never loaning anyone ever again.

Fucking Crotone.

[Baz]

Fucking Crotone.

SPAL this season.

[niko_cee]

Glad to see that the game has me as conclusively the worst player, probably all because I picked Baron Davis as a picture. Racist game.

[Baz]

Glad to see that the game has me as conclusively the worst player, probably all because I picked Baron Davis as a picture. Racist game.

I finally found someone willing to play you at leftback (and not wingback) on loan so I’m happy.

[Clunge]

Ngl, I look the bees knees statistically

[Browning]

The season at Newport was a ridiculous success and I have no idea how this team were 19th at the end of October when I took over.

As part of my interview I demanded a parent club and the board delivered with Crystal Palace. This allowed me to sign 2 of their young players on loan for the season for free. One of them, Marc Hulse would probably be our most important player of the season. The other Nicky Maher was a fantastic sub option who ended up winning a spot in the team more and more towards the end of the season. I also bought in Thomas Riley on loan from Lincoln who wanted to be an AMC but I insisted on playing him up front, which paid off as he netted 22 goals and provided 19 assists in 40 games. It's a shame that probably none of them will return next year as they'd all like to but their clubs won't allow it.

After getting dumped out of the FA Cup by Bristol Rovers in my last update we went on an insane run of 10 wins and 2 draws from the next 12 league games, while also making our way through the rounds of the FA Trophy. The streak ended with a 0-1 loss at Torquay where we just didn't turn up, but already the season was looking like a complete success seeing as the board just wanted me to avoid getting pulled into a relegation battle. Somehow, South Shields, managed by Kevin Phillips, were the runaway league leaders when I took over but we continued closing the gap and a 3-2 win over Chesterfield and a 3-1 win at Darlington saw us finally reach the top ahead of our game with them. For some reason, South Shields then played midweek and won to go top again, but it wouldn't last. They turned up at our place and were one of the worst teams I saw all season. We battered them 3-0 and their only meaningful contribution was hacking down my star midfielder in the middle of the park when 2-0 down to get a pointless red card. Bowen would pick himself up and curl in a free kick at the end of the game to cement the win and send us top.

We wouldn't stay there though as our FA Trophy run meant we stopped playing league games and Chesterfield moved above us, at one point being 4 points clear but we had 3 games in hand. We navigated the FA Trophy semi finals, drawing 0-0 at Fylde before coming back from 0-2 down at HT in the home game to win 5-2 and progress. Unfortunately, the first of our games in hand was the most ridiculous games of the season and the one where I realised just how vital CB Marc Hulse was. We lead 3-0 at HT when I subbed him off as he was tiring.... only for Hartlepool to get it back to 3-3 when one of their players scored on 61, 68 and 70 minutes. We then went 5-3 up with the 5th coming at 90+2... just for them to score on 90+5 and 90+7 to snatch a point. I was fuming. It looked like we might make this hard for ourselves but in the next game, our hardest remaining fixture, Gillingham away, we dusted ourselves off to win 3-2 (scoring the winner on 90+4....) as Chesterfield lost to South Shields, putting us back on top still with 2 games in hand. Which was lucky as we went to Bromley and lost to 2 of the same corner routines.... going down 2-1. A 2-1 win in our next game with Altrincham, whilst Chesterfield also won meant that with 2 games to go we were level on points with them but they only had 1 remaining game. Our GD was also miles better so if we could beat relegation threatened St Albans at home, we'd be basically there. We delivered, smacking them 7-0 to mean Chesterfield would need a 15 goal swing on the final day to stop us. We romped home to a 3-0 win at Scunthorpe (who were relegated as a result) whilst Chesterfield bottled it, losing 3-1 at Woking to finish 3rd in the end.

Chesterfield and South Shields, who had been our title rivals, contested the Play Off Final and South Shields won it, so that should be 6 easy points next season. Unfortunately, the season ended on a sour note as Boston, from the tier below us, beat us 2-1 at Wembley to win the FA Trophy. Honestly we just didn't look bothered and didn't look fit, possibly due to the 3 week gap between the end of the season and the game, whilst Boston were busy winning the NLN Play Offs to seal their own promotion. Would have been lovely to win it all but given I took over in 19th place at the end of October, and won 75% of my matches in charge, I can't complain too much.

The board want a top half finish next season..... I don't know how likely that is without our loan stars, but we'll see.

[John Arne]

Is it me or is scouting still borked on this game? I'm getting scout reports from players I scouted over 12 months - even if I already checked the no more reports button. Same players all the time coming through.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Yep, I've even had players still get reports when I put them on the not interested list.

[randomlegend]

Ok autism.

I notice you've not given an opinion either.

Nor has anyone else.

Ergo, I am right.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Palamós CF 2026/27 Season Update:

Transfers:



Still yet to sign anyone for actual cash but I had my highest ever sale:



Signed him last season to be our star man but he flopped hard despite looking really good for this level. He only scored 6 league goals in 20 starts and 14 sub appearances (he was ousted about halfway through due to his shitness). He also hasn't done well with his current club only scoring 8 in 36 starts.

League:






We should have won it easily on xG last year but the shitness of our strikers let us down. This year we stormed it and led the league from match 1 until the end. We set a record for most league goals in the division with 90 having broken the old record with 13 games to go. We had little wobbles near the mid-season break where we'd batter a team and then not look like scoring and we wobbled near the end where we'd go 2 or 3-0 up and then either draw or almost hand the points away.

Cup:



Our first win in the cup so far. 2-1 flattered them as we battered them but couldn't score a second in normal time before one of our defenders gifted them a late goal. Granada then made us look like chumps but we did at least make some decent cash. We also set records for our lowest attended game in the first round and our highest attendance in the second round.

Squad:



We had a lot of players turn up but I'm going to pick out these two:





I had about £700 a week in wages to spare but my scouts were struggling to find someone who would add quality to our team without spending crazy cash. I decided to increase our scouting package to WORLD for a week or two and hoped that they'd find something. They found these two, Bertelli has been a real improvement over our last starting AMC and Ozer, whilst a little streaky, was magnificent in finding the net. I would like to bring back the German (who my coaches feel could be La Liga standard) but I'm sure the game wont allow me.

Next season might be a bit tricky, the board want playoffs in the Primera Federacion but we've only got a wage budget of £16.25k (thanks to being £262k in debt) and our players are now all asking for new contracts with big demands, especially as we're now a professional outfit.

[Dquincy]

Gillingham : End of Season Update - 2081/82

This season has been a surprising one tbf. The media predicted us to finish 7th, but after 5 games we were in the relegation zone. We then however discovered some form.

First, transfers in:



Brought in quite a few new players given that it wasn't 'my' squad. The main two were purchased one in the summer and one in January.



Stole this chap from my previous club as he always showed promise when out on loan. As you can see, he didn't disappoint and was our star striker. If it wasn't for injuries, his goal tally would have been much higher.



This fella joined in January after my scouts loved him. A wonderkid, so should pay back the fee in years to come.

Onto the Premier League, so given our shit start we found our form and were pushing for top 4 at the turn of the year. But we just kept on going!



Given we had no Europe this season, the League Cup and FA Cup were a focus for me.

League Cup:



This set up a final with Sheff Utd, who have finished 2nd and 3rd in recent years. Could we win it?

Toggle Spoiler

Onto the FA Cup:



A fairly easy run set up a final with Liverpool. Shame we shat the bed.



So this is the squad at the end of the season. A decent team, but we're losing both LB's and a MDF so need to replace them along with strengthening in depth due to the Champs League next season.

[Gray Fox]

So as @Browning earlier shared, Pleb, Browning, Thommo, Myself and Mahow are in a succession save, starting as a nobody, with a fair few leagues loaded, hoping to get to the top of the game. Pleb Lasso has a dream.

Pleb kicked us off and found our first job at Gloucester City, however by his mid-season hand off to Browning, found us in trouble. He did his best to steady the good ship Lasso, but it'd already taken on a lot of water and we walked the plank before the season was out. Without us they survived by a point, so maybe they had the last laugh.

Even so, the job hunt began and with a couple of offers on the table, Dulwich Hamlet became our new destination. Thommo was first up in the new job and found our new home was seemingly newly decorated. Everything nice and shiny. As such has romped to a great start and we find ourselves in this situation as I take over and inevitably fuck it up:

[Jimmy Floyd]

I've buckled and got it (predictable).

'Sounded positively chuffed'. What is this, Dressage Manager 2023?

[Yevrah]

Great stuff Jim, always enjoy reading your journeys on FM.

Where to begin?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Chelsea, whereupon I've just gone in for the CL draw and was absolutely not expecting the entire speaker system of my flat (an Echo dot) to belt out THESE ARE THE CHAAAAAAMPIOOOOOONS. Shat out 100,000 Swiss francs.

Quite a good challenge I think as we have a good squad, but a really poorly constructed one with some huuuuugely overpaid players (not to mention kakkers out on loan raking in £350,000 every seven days) and I can't see any realistic way of catching City and Liverpool in the near term. I have however signed Gavi, who Barcelona were strangely willing to part with for only 50 odd million.

[Browning]

Newport County 2027/28

Having won the National League (despite taking over 19th in October) and almost won the FA Trophy last year, the board wanted a top half finish. My plans for the summer were to learn from the disaster of my last promotion with Southport. I would try and keep the band together while strengthening the areas we were weak in. This meant I was targeting a new keeper and a goal scorer. We also needed a new LB and a new RB because our starting LB had refused to negotiate a new contract whilst our starting RB wasn't very good (and now I'm halfway through the season.... he's spent almost all of it injured too, so it was lucky I replaced him). We also had some loanees in last seasons 11 that would need replacing, namely Marc Hulse (CB), Thomas Riley (ST) and Nathan Moriah-Welsh (RW). The last of those was made easier when Moriah-Welsh agreed to join us permanently after his Barnsley contract expired.

Before the transfer window officially opened we began our business and I limited myself to just 1 youth signing after going overboard with them last time.... Brian Martin, a LB from Man City. He wasn't good enough to start but had bags of potential. Ryan Wood, a handy looking CM who wasn't quite ready for the first team would join from Dundee (I had previously tried to sign him for Airdrie only for Dundee to trigger a 1 year extension on his contract) and we paid £4k for veteran striker Elliot Lee from Torquay who would go down as a dud. The most exciting business was bringing in Ross McCausland, a very good winger for this level on a free from Swansea. We also added John Griffiths on loan from Coventry to be our starting RB and got 3 youngsters from our parent club Crystal Palace, the pick of which was a CM named Marc Francois.

When the transfer window opened we confirmed the signings of some new starters- Evan Watts (Goalkeeper, free transfer from Swansea), Will Reddie (CB, on loan from Bolton) and the previously mentioned NMW. They were joined by Lewis Freestone (a LB/CB from Rotherham who made his loan permanent) and utility man Elijah Dixon-Bonner on a free from Cheltenham. There was still work to do as we desperately needed a LB (Freestone would do, but we needed an upgrade), Watts wasn't particularly good as a GK and we still needed at least 1 if not 2 strikers to come in. As the summer progressed we signed some more loans who wouldn't end up featuring much due to the limit of being allowed to use 5, and Harry Tyrer signed on a free from Fylde to compete for the GK job. Not long after the season started we raided Plymouth for 2 LBs- Evan Towler on loan and Bryant Akono Bilongo on a free.

All of this meant our line up for the opening day would be:

GK- Harry Tyrer, who had narrowly beaten out fellow new signing Watts to get the nod.
LB- Brian Martin- too young and not good enough, but our other options were injured and the 2 new ones from Plymouth were yet to join.
CB- Declan Drysdale and Will Reddie- The best player at the club paired with a new kid on loan who looked decent.
RB- John Griffiths- Another loanee who was much better than what we had.
CM- Jack Jenkins and Marc Francois- This was meant to be Jenkins/Bowen, our pairing from last year, with the young Palace loanee Francois providing cover off the bench, but Bowen had a knock and couldn't play.
LW- Jahmal Hector-Ingram- last season's best player.
RW- Nathan Moriah-Welsh- Also great last season, now our player.
ST- Omar Bogle and Ross McCausland- Bogle is 34 but that's one less than the goals he scored last year. McCausland is more of a winger but we had no options at ST so he plays there....

Francois would boss the first game and score 2 in a 2-1 win over Sutton. By the time Bowen was fit, it was clear this kid was vital to us, so Bowen came back in for Jenkins who was demoted to a bench/rotation player. The 2 Plymouth LBs would come in and displace Martin who was loaned out. But the big news came on transfer deadline day when a headline said that Thomas Riley could be heading out on loan again from Lincoln to Crawley. Over my dead body... I put the bid in and the boy came home. This let us deploy him up front and move McCausland back to RW where he belongs with NMW becoming a bench option. And that was us done for the first half of the season.

The results were.... very good. We won our first 10 league games before hitting a bit of a blip. We lost 4-0 at South Shields (of all fucking places) and then after taking 4 points from our next 2 games (including vs title rivals Pompey) we got beat 4-1 by Orient. This lead to me changing the goalkeeper to our other new signing Watts but he (maybe due to lacking match fitness) was woeful as our run of results with him in goal was a 5-2 win over lowly Harrogate (where they scored their only 2 shots on target), a 2-0 loss at Bradford, a 3-2 win over Altrincham who are 2 leagues below us and a 3-1 win over Brentford U21s followed by a 1-1 draw with Southend where again they scored the one time they managed a shot on goal. Still performances had been good even in the drubbings (where we matched them on xG) and we were overachieving so I didn't want to change much. I handed the keeper duties back to Tyrer (slightly worse attributes but I trusted him more) and decided to finally bench old man Bogle despite his top scoring form (as I write this he is our top scorer with 20 goals from 25(8) games, second place has 11 from 25(2) and 3rd place has 10 from 33). The changes paid off as we won our next 6 games in all competitions but annoying Hector-Ingram who I had moved up front and had started banging them in (he's our 2nd top scorer) picked up a 3 month injury which meant the old man came back in. Tyrer also got a 3 week sickness to hand the goalkeeping job back to Watts, who improved enough to keep the job after Tyrer returned. We followed this up with another wobbly spell as we took 2 points from 3 games (albeit they included Crewe and Pompey away, our 2 toughest games of the season on paper) but rounded off December with wins over Wycombe and Northampton which were vital given I'm from MK and thus hate both.

All of this means we get to January with the table looking like this after 26 games:

Newport- 58
Crewe- 56 (played 25)
Portsmouth- 53
- - - - - - -
Cheltenham- 46 (played 25)
Orient- 45
Grimsby- 41 (played 25)
Stockport- 40

Crawley and Carlisle also have 40 points and have a game in hand so could move up into the play offs, as could Stevenage (39) or Exeter (38).

I'm not sure we'll win the league. Crewe looked fantastic when we lost there and they have players who are just too good for this level. I will, however, be disappointed if we don't get automatic promotion, we're definitely good enough for that.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Chelsea 22/23 - First Half
Money was reasonably tight and the wage bill more extravagant than Liberace's wardrobe. Things needed freshening up, though, with all the youth out on loan and the squad thin in some areas. Out went Little George, or 'Jorginho' as he is known in foreign climes, to a gullible Real Madrid for £50 million. The same sum found its way to Barcelona in exchange for younger model Gavi. I extended Ngolo Kanté's contract by a year in exchange for a 50k per week wage cut. What a nice man.

Tactically the plan was simple - 4-2-fucking-3-1, except against the big sides where the AM would retreat and become a DM in an altogether more negative arrangement. I soon found we were shorter on wingers than anticipated, particularly with Pulisic having the staying power of an ice statue in a foundry. Early results were not great, with points binned against Fulham and Brentford as well as a defeat at OT in the first four games. However, the visit of Friendly Arsenal F.C. for a 2-0 win had us back up and running and after that only City, Liverpool, Evert'n and somehow Dinamo Cunting Zagreb could best us before the migrant worker break. That 2-1 reversal in Croatia was the only points dropped in a remarkably kind CL group of Porto, them and Waxy Tap Republic of the Donbass. In the last 16 draw, 5 of our 7 possible opponents were German, so obviously from the available panzer batallions we drew Bayern Munchin'.

In the league, we are 3rd, gazing up longingly at the top two and pretty much level pegging with the People's Arsenal and Man Yoo. Edging at least one of these two out for 4th will be the aim this season. Fortunately Tottenham have plunged to about 11th so they're not much of a concern.

The big pluses have been Raheem Sterling, Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell. The minuses, this being Chelsea, have been the centre forwards, who can't hit a prozzie's hind parts with a ukulele. Mount leads the way on six goals, while Havertz and Aubameyang have five each.

I can't really be arsed with screenshots at this stage so instead here are my top nine terrible value contracts currently at the club:

1. Romelu Lukaku, £350,000 a week for the next 4 years. Now half of this is currently being paid by International Milan, but what the fuck?
2. Baba Rahman, £86,000 a week for the next 2 years. What a life he must lead.
3. Kalidou Koulibaly, £300,000 a week for the next 4 years. What in God's name were they thinking? He's a tidy defender but already 31 and by the time this contract finishes will be one of the world's oldest people ever to have lived, up there with Jeanne Calment and Noah.
4. Kepa Arrizabalaga, £145,000 a week for the next 3 years. Who the fuck pays a bloke this much money to sit on the bench?
5. Wesley Fofana, £230,000 a week for the next 7 years. You can tell some dumb fuck Americans have taken over, can't you. What if he turns out to be shite and/or injury prone? 'Gee, buddy, he won't pass to free agency until Joe Biden is 87 years old. Team control!' My word.
6. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, £150,000 a week for the next 2 years. This guy keeps rejecting moves away, and I can see why. Who in God's name decided he was ever worth spaffing the value of four brand new Jaguar XFs on every week?
7. Carney Chukwuemeka, £100,000 a week for the next 6 years. Todd, he's 19.
8. Marcus Bettinelli, £30,000 a week for the next 1 years. You might as well just pour £30,000 a week into a rubbish chute.
9. Raheem Sterling, £350,000 a week for the next 5 years. Do you know how much money that is? That's £91 million.

[Browning]

We faced Southampton away in the FA Cup and they only rolled out a 35 year old Neymar against us. The worst part was he did nothing for 90 minutes and then whipped in the game winning corner and we went down 2-1. Still, at least we made about £310k from it.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Palamós CF 2027/28 Season Update:

Transfers:



We didn't have a huge wage budget £16.5k which is £602k per annum (well what we spend is) which is the lowest in the division. The next lowest? Ejea who are spending £1.26m per annum. As such loans were going to be vital especially as we had been pushed to a professional club and every fucking player wanted a new contract.

We have two cash sales this year, one sanctioned by me the other by the board:



He was our best CB last year and I just about managed to convince him to sign a new contract and stay this year. By the time the season started though the two CBs I signed with him last year had progressed past him and I had a couple of loanees so he was 4th/5th choice so I cashed in.



This one hurts. I protested the transfer as it was way too low but the board told me to fuck off and Tenerife also wouldn't offer a loan back as they wanted him in their first team. Thankfully we do have 40% of profit so we stand to make a lot seeing as he was sold for peanuts. I could sell the clause now for just over £300k but I'm going to let it ride for now.

League:






When we won our first two games 3-0 I thought we were going to piss the league but then he had a big wobble. We slipped to 12th and dynamics were starting to tumble which I made worse by saying the wrong thing in a meeting. Thankfully we lifted ourselves in November and from there it was a three horse race with us, Logrones and Andorra. We went into the final two games knowing a win or two draws would be enough. We drew the first but we played like shit in the second and lost but thankfully Logrones who were 2-0 up after 8 minutes conceded an equaliser in the 75th minute and they weren't able to find a winner handing us the title.

Cup:



A tough opener against a La Liga team (they finished 15th this year) but we battered them and 3-2 flattered them. An easy game in the next round and then Real fucking Madrid. It's a shame the Spanish system has lower division sides at home automatically as I'd have loved some gate receipts from the Bernabeu.

Sadly FM did the classic little v big team and we had a man sent off after 11 minutes and the ref gave them a penalty after 60 minutes. We did score in the 89th minute and we started looking decent with 45s on the clock we started a final counter attack but the ref blew the whistle early and Real Madrid (who had battered us especially in the first half) took the win.

Squad:



These three deserve special mentions:







Early in the season Hammouche was our striker with Rouabah being our AMR inside forward but nearer the end of the season they swapped but were great at scoring goals and it helped us so much. Yegor was our rock at CDM (although he was the one to get a red against Real Madrid) and he spent most of the season listed by our coaches as either a La Liga 2 or La Liga standard player on current ability. I feel their judgement is a bit wonky but he was great for this division and that average rating is huge for a CDM.

Finances:

We're £400k in debt which isn't great but it's also not bad for Spain. I just checked our division and only 3 are not in the red with quite a few being in millions pounds worth of debt. That said:



We have a transfer budget for the first time and the wage bill is going up by £8.5k a week so we can do a lot with that. Not sure how many of the current squad will be kept, I'd like to keep all of the loanees but that's going to be a tall order (especially Yegor) but we'll see.

On to La Liga Smartbank which the club have not been in since 1995 and will only be their 7th season in it.

[Adramelch]

My 10th season at the helm of Wrexham is over and it was another great one.



We finished 3rd again, consolidating our status as one of the top clubs in England and I would argue this season we were quite comfortably the third best club in the country. We only managed to gather 1 point more than last season, but that's because we somehow managed to lose 3 of the last 4 games of the season, when we had already guaranteed 3rd place. We were generally hard to beat and even though I don't really look to defend in games, we generally tend to have low-scoring games as evidenced by our 61 goals scored (still 4th highest in the league, but not what I'd classify as "high scoring") and 32 goals conceded (second best after United). Our status as a big club also showed in the cups as we made it to the semis of the League Cup before getting knocked out by United, and we also ended up winning the FA Cup after beating Arsenal (3-0) and City (3-1) in the semis and the final respectively. This time around we also had European football to look forward to as we were entered in that absurd 36-team Champions League group phase. We remained unbeaten in that stage, eventually finishing 3rd behind Inter and City meaning we would phase Juventus in the round of 16. We were the better team in both games, but unfortunately we struggled to score and conceded a bit too easily, so we ended up going out after a 2-1 aggregate defeat. Still a very impressive debut in the competition I'd say.



Generally satisfied with all the players, though I do think we could improve our full-backs. They are not bad per se, but they are very inconsistent. Up front Grabowski made it to our best eleven due to his amazing performances from the bench, but as you can tell from the amount of games played, he wasn't our main striker. That was Fabio Silva of Wolves fame, who joined us last January when Real bought Savic. He was decent last season, with 7 goals in 16, but he really came to his own this season with 30 goals in 44 games. He's not the most consistent player, but my main issue is that he seems to be injury prone, picking a 2-month injury in February as well as 4-month one in the tail end of the season. That coupled with the fact that he'll soon be 30 means I will probably be looking for a replacement. He was sort of a panic buy anyway when we lost Savic. Speaking of age, we have a very young squad, with just the 5 players above 25, so we should be set for the foreseeable future. That's not to say that I won't be looking to improve the squad but it's good to know that there's a solid basis to work on.

[ScousePig]

I've started a new journeyman save. For anyone wondering about the ultimate challenge I occasionally update on in here, I'm still at Arsenal and will continue that alongside this save, but for the time being I'm staying put at Arsenal because we have such a fabulous team. My new goal in that save is to discover/train/sign/create the 'next Messi' i.e. a world's best player who wins several Balloon Doors and scores 400/500 career league goals. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to go about it yet though. I have a couple of fantastic Brazilian forwards at the moment at Arsenal who are world class, but they're not best in the world/best ever territory and they're already early twenties. There is one English lad who signed for Inter who potentially fits the bill, but he's already 23 or 24 and I'd have wanted him much younger to start with. So the search goes on.

For a journeyman save, I usually start unemployed and holiday for a season, either taking over a newly promoted club to a bottom division, or applying for anything and everything. However, that invariably leads to me managing a National League North/South team, or a team in the lower leagues in Scotland. I didn't really want to go down that path again, so I decided to appoint myself in one of the lower foreign leagues. I ended up in the Croatian second division at a club called Dugopolje FC. We're a semi-professional club to the east of Split, with our parent club being Hajduk Split. Our stadium holds 5,200 and we've never been in the Croatian top league.



My profile, which shows I'm pretty much as useless as it gets to begin with.



Fortunately, the team allowed for a pretty conventional 4-3-3 with attacking full backs and inverted wingers. This made things pretty straightforward from the start, and meant I didn't really need to make any signings. The only thing I don't particularly like is both wide attackers and the main striker being on attack duty, but it was fine.





A pretty comfortable start to the season and nothing to suggest we wouldn't go on to secure a fairly comfortable promotion.



It was very easy. In the meantime, I managed to get my first coaching badges, improve my reputation to 15%/1 star, and the club have turned professional.





195 shirt sales!

Although it's a journeyman save, my reputation won't allow me to move anywhere better yet, so I imagine it'll be at least one more season with Dugopolje.

[Adramelch]

Strong start that. The reputation doesn't update that fast initially so you do get that bit of "lag", where you have to stay at the club one more year, but given how easy it was in the second tier, perhaps you get to make an even bigger name for yourself by having a decent season against the big boys. I personally look to stay at each club for 2-3 seasons anyway so it suits me I guess.

What's your finances like? It's typically the biggest hurdle in the first few clubs I've found.

[ScousePig]

They gave me nearly £20k wage budget for the second season, which was about ten times what I had in the first season. I've only used about half of it.

We're £420k in the red but our turnover is around half a million more than expenditure and the projection is to be well in the green by the end of next season.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Got boned by the La Liga 2 wage rule which I had completely forgotten about (clearly didn't pay enough attention to Yev's Melilla save) as I had brought in a lot of good loans that make sub 1.3k.

I wasn't going to continue paying for these scrubs to sit around and had no terminate clause so I have used the in game editor to terminate them that way. It's not ideal but the game really should warn you on the loan screen.

Also annoyingly I'm going to have to loan out the youth who would normally be my backups as I'm not giving them new contracts.

[Yevrah]

There are indeed some utterly counter-intuitive rules in Spain now. Wage cap coupled with (a very generous) minimum salary per player? Cheers.