Football Manager 23

[Mike]

I get beat every time I play Juventus. Just played them in a cup final though and


WOO

[Adramelch]

24 out of a possible 30 European trophies in the last 10 years have gone to an English club in my save.

[Raoul Duke]

Mbappe and Haaland to Spezia… #HereWeGo
(Not really, we could never pay them)

Reddit says you can get the selling club to pay a wage contribution too

Forgive my naivety, but what do you mean by it being a debug and not a bug? Seems rather buggy to me.

Debug: process of using an intentional tool/thing to let them test something
Bug: unintended behaviour

[Gray Fox]

24 out of a possible 30 European trophies in the last 10 years have gone to an English club in my save.

Brexit means Brexit.

[Mike]

Happy with that!

[Dan]

I don't think this will be a particularly exciting summer, but there are definitely a few spots I'll be looking to target & if we can hit on our moves we should be well set up for a good future.

Portsmouth 207/28 Midseason Update

After comfortably staying up in our first season back at the top we're now looking to solidify our status as a Premier League side, but with a few key players to replace & still comfortably being the smallest & least wealthy team in the league we had to get things right to avoid the sophomore slump.

Transfers:

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With Joel Ndala not wanting to make his three year loan spell permanent we needed to get ourselves at least one new winger, and Adriano Onyegbule seems like a pretty good replacement for a much cheaper price. We also added Matheus Nascimento, who can play as a winger whilst also providing cover up front, and we also added a wonderkid newgen in Arne Røyse to give us extra options at both spots. We did manage to get a loan deal for Joao Fonseca converted into a permanent deal, and we've also brought in a new left back in Marcelo Morales, and as you can see we made the decision to get a new starting goalkeeper - I went back to a couple of guys I've had before in old saved & as they were both so cheap I just decided to get them both in to be safe

Joe Morrell was the most notable departure, and we cashed in on a couple of academy kids who weren't going to make the grade, but other than that it was basically just a lot of loans, including sending the old GK back to Norway until the new year in the hope they'll buy him.

Results:

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League form has been up & down so far, with a nice start, then a horrible run in the middle & a good recovery to end the year. We're currently sitting in 8th place, although Newcastle are behind us with a game in hand & a few of the teams ahead of us also have some extra games to play so I don't think we'll be pushing for Europe just yet. Also just want to point out Spurs, who are in a relegation battle & have recently sacked their manager only to replace him with Jurgen Klinsmann, which hasn't exactly transformed their fortunes.

I'm still happy with how things are going - I was aiming for 10th we're on course to achieve a top half finish, although I have made the squad a bit smaller than I probably should have & we're feeling it at the moment due to a few injuries piling up, so I might need to recall one or two players if I can't find some stop gaps in January.

We had a quick run in the EFL Cup, outlasting West Ham in a marathon shootout before getting shown the door by Man City in the next round, and we'll be playing Birmingham in the third round of the FA Cup, so hopefully we can go through a few rounds there.

Some business needed in January, but we're in a decent spot to at least maintain our performance from last year & hopefully we can challenge for a top half finish.

[John Arne]

Did a test, found some young players with 170+ potential, still only 16. Had my scouts follow them... so far both had come back with only 3 star potential. So either my current team is absolutely stacked, or my scouts are just shite.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Scouts could be shit, there could be negatives that the scouts think will hold back the player (some of the hidden attributes you've shown us in that screenshot aren't great), it's a combo of both or you just haven't scouted him enough so your scouts only have a vague understanding of how good he could be.

[Baz]

Who’s a team that’s not loaded but has a decent enough reputation, in any country, that I can have a fun save using the transfer bug to assemble a team too good for their own right and whoop my way up to the top?

[Gray Fox]

Everton. Borussia Mochengladbach, Valencia, Fiorentina, Feyenoord and Marseille?

[Mike]

Here’s a list of budgets. It might be when the came launched, so before any patches/updates

https://sortitoutsi.net/football-man...ansfer-budgets

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

MASSIVE day for us in Hitchin.

[Dan]

Some business needed in January, but we're in a decent spot to at least maintain our performance from last year & hopefully we can challenge for a top half finish.

Portsmouth 2027/28 End of Season Review

After a solid start to our second season in the Premier League we were looking good to improve on last season's 13th place finish, and if we could finish strong it wasn't inconceivable that we could find ourselves in contention for a European place in what has proven to be a very competitive league this year. We did have some work to do in January though, so let's start there...

Transfers:

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We didn't need huge moves midseason, but we definitely needed to increase our depth at a few positions, with the main focus being to get some reinforcements along the back four, so we made a couple of loan moves, bringing in Lenny Yoro to help cover for Joao Fonseca's injury, along with Rainey Breinburg to give us some extra depth at LB. We also needed some extra cover up front, so we recalled Bobby Murdoch, who hadn't been playing while on loan at St Johnstone. The only other move was to do some wheeling & dealing in midfield, as we brought in veteran model pro Morten Thorsby for peanuts while flogging Filippo Ranocchia for £7.25m.

The League:

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Pretty much the definition of an inconsistent mid-table team, as we were able to beat Liverpool one week but then limped to a draw against relegation fodder Leicester when they had 10 men for more than an hour. That left the final table looking like this:



Spurs Who could have guessed that hiring Jurgen Klinsmann wouldn't work out?

As for us, we benefitted from teams dropping points all over the place & ultimately managed to hold on to 8th when we could easily have slipped a couple of spots if the likes of Fulham hadn't completely shat the bed over the final few months of the year (sorry Thommo). I think we would've had European football if Crystal Palace hadn't beaten Liverpool on penalties to win the FA Cup, but to be fair we could probably still use another year to build before we get all those extra games chucked our way, so I'm not too disappointed.

The Cups:

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I've already covered our brief EFL Cup run in the midseason update, but we had a good run in the FA Cup, reaching the semi finals while being involved in a lot of high scoring games, including beating Fulham on penalties after a 5-5 draw (sorry Thommo).

The Players:

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Goalkeeper:
We started the season with Magnus Smelhus Sjøeng still between the sticks, but he was so bad in the first game of the year that I immediately got him out of the squad & went shopping for replacements. In the end Stefano Turati took the spot as our starting GK, but Alessandro Plizzari played in the cups & proved to be a capable alternative. MSS will be gone in the summer, and I'd consider selling Plizzari too as we still have a decent veteran in Josh Vickers, as well as three newgen GKs that could provide emergency cover.

Defence:
Things have stayed pretty consistent here, with Loic Mbe Soh, Joao Fonseca & Malachi Fagan-Walcott sharing the two CB spots again this year. Sean Roughan (LB) & captain Regan Poole (RB) have also continued as our fullbacks, although there's a bit more movement here as Roughan is out of contract in the summer so he's slowly been phased out in favour of Marcelo Morales, and I'm also looking to give Simon Walde the RB job moving forward.

Lenny Yoro will be going back to Brighton, but I'll probably bring Rainey Breinburg in permanently since it only costs £30k & we need the depth. I still feel like we can upgrade LB, so that will probably be the main area of focus for the summer, even though I've already got Mário Tabuaço on the way.

Midfield:
I'm planning on making some changes here, with Miguel Azeez & Félix Lemaréchal likely to leave, and I'm also intending to try to get Charlie Patino out the door as despite an improved season this year he does still seem to have started getting dinged up consistently & he doesn't have a huge impact on games. We have a couple of academy kids that I'd planned to use to fill out the squad, but then I stumbled across two newgens who were too good to turn down, so we'll be having Vladimir Petkov & Mahir Hadžić in the side next year. When you also include Leopold Uhlig & Morten Thorsby, who have been sharing the B2B role this season, and Alex Robertson, who will likely be playing CM more next season, you can probably see why I'm willing to let Patino go.

On the wings we got decent seasons from Adriano Onyegbule & Arne Røyse, but it was Paddy Lane who really stood out, creating 21 goals & adding 6 of his own. Eli Junior Kroupi has begun to take control of the AMC role, and continues to attract a lot of interest from bigger clubs, so we're getting ready to double his wages in order to get his release clause for CL teams up to £80m rather than the £34m one that he currently has - we've already had bits of up to £50m for him from non-CL teams, so this should hopefully help avoid us losing him on the cheap. We do have Fábio Esteves behind him, as well as another newgen who will be returning from loan, so it won't be a disaster if someone does end up taking Kroupi from us, but I'd definitely prefer to keep him here a while longer.

Striker:
Arnaud Kalimuendo continues to be our main source of goals, and he was basically our only true striker this year, with Røyse & Matheus Nascimento also playing out wide a lot, but Bobby Murdoch did okay when he saw the field, which is encouraging. I do have one guy out on loan that should probably rejoin the squad next year, but I might keep an eye out for other options in case there's a monster out there who can be the long term starter.

--

We have about £60m to spend already, so if we can get a few players off the books I think we should have more than enough in the warchest to get in a new LB & a striker whilst also finally pushing the wage budget over £1m a week.

Other Stuff:

We should be heading back to Fratton Park after a year away, with the stadium expansion almost completed. That should take us to about 31,000, which was roughly what we've averaged in a bigger stadium this season, and I think we can still sneak a few extra seats in down the line if needed. We're also continuing to upgrade our facilities, although you wouldn't know it from the rather uninspiring youth intake we got this season.

Taking a quick look around the league, Everton have finally had the tycoon takeover that seems to happen in every save, so I'm expecting to see them go flying up the league in the next couple of seasons, which will probably have a negative impact on our own prospects of securing European football moving forward. It doesn't seem like we're going to be far from the bottom of the league in terms of rep & finances any time soon, so we might be entering a consolidation phase while we drag ourselves up onto a level playing field with the rest of the league.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Hitchin Town 2028/29 Season Update:

League:






We started really well and then had our customary collapse but thankfully we stopped the rot early and were never in danger of getting relegated (16th was our worst position) and we were mathematically safe with 5 games to go. I feel like we could be on for a playoff run very soon.

Cups:



Annoying we couldn't do more but whatever.

Squad:



Sammon really drove us forward massively this year:



He's a stunning finisher and he works so well, it took him a little bit to take over Hatcher as first choice but when he did he didn't look back. It's going to be gutting when some bigger team poaches him from us. I think the squad is starting to take shape and it showed with our performances this year. The worst thing is that Matthew Hughes is probably done after the following season as he didn't want to sign a new contract (we had a 1 year extension clause thankfully) and I've managed to piss him off now.

Youth Intake:

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Most excited about Ojo who is already our second best CB, he has played some games as has Gavin who had to play a few games after our starter got injured.

I feel I need a new HOYD to get the most out of our recruitment from next season.

[Baz]

MASSIVE day for us in Hitchin.

This is awesome. Did you just ask to upgrade youth recruitment everytime you could?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

This is awesome. Did you just ask to upgrade youth recruitment everytime you could?

Yes.

They rejected it many times but I kept asking and would argue as much as I could. The best argument for me seemed to be "We'll be left behind by our rivals".

Sadly I cannot get them to be so forthcoming with coaching courses. They always say that they feel if I get too good I'll outgrow the club and leave so I decide to threaten to resign which they turn around and tell me to do it if I've got the stones. It doesn't make sense but I respect the challenge which they know I wont take them up on.

[John Arne]

Is that not going to cripple you financially? I believe highest youth facilities cost something like £4m to run.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I think as everything else is still low, including youth level, we should be fine.

We had 3.5 last season and we lost a total of 30k over the season.

[Dan]

Wasn't expecting to get that message. Kane is 34, Rashford has retired from internationals at 30 & I currently have Grealish & Jadons Ancho on trial as free agents, so it definitely seems like it would be time to overhaul the squad. I'm actually kinda tempted...

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

He's so fucking good and this hurts so much.

[John Arne]

Anyone ever had a players physicals just collapse? Got a young player who is developing well, but last 3 months his physicals have fallen off a cliff.

Before


After

[Dan]

That 2kg he’s put on must’ve been all pizza.

Is there anything on his training/coach reports to give you a clue? I’m assuming he hasn’t just broken his leg in between the screenshots

[John Arne]

That 2kg he’s put on must’ve been all pizza.

Is there anything on his training/coach reports to give you a clue? I’m assuming he hasn’t just broken his leg in between the screenshots

Few minor injuries, nothing major. Torn his knee ligaments, but his decline had already started before that. I think perhaps I just overplayed him, over over trained him - basically had double intensity for 2 years

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

No wonder he turned to pizza.

[Clunge]

Did a test, found some young players with 170+ potential, still only 16. Had my scouts follow them... so far both had come back with only 3 star potential. So either my current team is absolutely stacked, or my scouts are just shite.

Ambition and professionalism are the two biggest determiners of whether a player achieves his potential, iirc. I read a long deep dive into it a while back.

[Dark Soldier]

Fucked about with corners again and have everyone attacking near post. Chaos.

[Bam]

The keeper taking the corner also.

[Mike]

Easy

[Gray Fox]

How have Dortmund been drawn against Bayern?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Hitchin Town FC 2029/30 Season Update:

League:






Again we started so well (and at one point we were 6 points clear in the last playoff spot) before the house of cards collapsed spectacularly. We just kept conceding stupid goals and we constantly lost points in games we should have won. Here is the xG table:



For instance we lost a game near the end 3-2 which saw our opponents score in the 93rd and 96th minutes. We also drew a game 2-2 (we had an xG of 3.13 and they had an xG of 1.07) due to a 98th minute equaliser. The game was just against us.

There was a lot of promising bits, including Sammon who scored 32 goals and came second in the top scorer charts. That kid could fire us to the playoffs soon.

Cups:



Much better run this year. Really impressed that we fought so hard against Chester who came 4th in the National League although they were top when we faced them.

Squad:



Sammon is an absolute beast. Outside of him it's harder to pinpoint who did well. Big props to Gareth Griffiths though, he came through this year and was an instant starter and did really well even breaking a few records for the youngest to play, start and score for us. Gutted as we've lost Hughes now as he's walked out as his contract expired and he refused to sign a new contract, he'll be hard to replace.

Youth Intake:

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A few have already started for us (Griffiths, Gilfedder, Godfrey and Johnson) with Griffiths and Godfrey coming straight in as starters in CM and RB respectively. Really like this crop for us.

All in all a decent season but it feels like it could have been more. I always knew we'd slip away as we aren't good enough to make the playoffs but to collapse that hard really hurts and I'd have loved us to have shown a bit more fight. It is two seasons in a row though in which there was no chance of us going down which is nice.

[Clunge]

'Anti Parts'

[Shindig]

Gilfedder looks genuinely life-threatening.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I feel he's an excellent addition to our afro gang.

Here are the others:

[Shindig]

Is that not just the same bloke coming back through the door with a different number on his shirt?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Hmm, I've never seen all of them at training on the same day.

[Gray Fox]

Someone needs to invest in the Newgan facepack.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I feel he's an excellent addition to our afro gang.

Here are the others:

RIP the Afro Gang:

[Baz]

Randomly started a save with Lommel in the Belgian second-tier, and within a week of starting I’ve had news of a mystery foreign tycoon wanting to takeover the club. That’ll do.

[Bam]

That newgan pack is a load of shit, they all look like there in there 30's.

[Baz]

Signed a few potential worldbeaters using the exploit and assembled this motley crew:

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Plan to sell them all before they reach 50 appearances (and I have to pay £2.5m for each) and try and get 50% sell-on fee. Then rinse and repeat until I'm battering Anderlecht and Union SG every year and can go legit.

[Dan]

It doesn't seem like we're going to be far from the bottom of the league in terms of rep & finances any time soon, so we might be entering a consolidation phase while we drag ourselves up onto a level playing field with the rest of the league.

Well, we've had a pretty interesting six months, as we've broken our record sale three times & I've got a new job. We've also played some games of football.

Transfers

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I said at the end of last season that we needed to recruit some LBs, and I might've gone a bit overboard on that as I signed four of them, including securing the return of Adam Aznou, who had been on load with us a couple of years ago. Esteban Argüello has stayed in Paraguay until the end of their season but is arriving in the new year, which might cause a few issues with game time for the rest of the season.

I also signed a couple of CBs, with Alan Ramirez coming straight into the squad & Paul Scholl staying at Schalke for the season, and then after some of our big outgoings we needed to add some reinforcements out wide so we reunited with Joel Ndala again & also managed to bring in Lamine Yamal, although I'm not sure we'll have either long term.

The outgoing were where things got interesting though - we'd already done a decent amount of business selling squad players & youth prospects, but I'd been working to get a decent offer for Charlie Patino for the whole window & we finally managed to offload him to UAE for a club record £23m, only for Schalke to come in a few weeks later & offer £36m for Matheus Nascimento, which was too good to refuse.

That was all for the summer, but as we reached the end of 2028 we got some big interest in one of our best & most beloved players, which resulted in an enormous offer I couldn't turn down, so we're saying goodbye to Arnaud Kalimuendo, who will be joining Benfica for £60m We signed him for £3m & he's been banging them in ever since, so he's going to be hard to replace, but we have a couple of decent young strikers that will have to step up & I've also got another one on the way at the end of the season, so hopefully I won't end up regretting this one.

Results

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Things have been going well so far & we've been playing some entertaining games including three 6-3 wins in the space of a month. You might also notice that we've scored a lot of important late goals, and that resilience has helped contribute to our push for Europe, which is looking very promising at the turn of the year...



I'm not sure we'll hold on to a Champions League spot, especially given the concerns around replacing Kalimuendo, but we're in a great position to get Europa League football next season, which would be a huge boost to our reputation. We could probably use an extra year before we have to stand up to Champions League football anyway, so it wouldn't be too bad if we missed out on the top four this season. Missing out on Europe completely, however, would be a disaster from where we are now, so hopefully that doesn't happen.

Anyway, on to the new job...

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I did end up deciding to take the England job when they offered it to me in the summer. We've got time to revamp the squad for WC2030, starting with the Nations League where we were drawn in a group with Italy, Poland & Ukraine. I've not gone too crazy just yet - this is the first squad I selected - but I have started working a few newgens into the side & the FA don't care about the Nations League so we can rotate people through without consequence.



Results have been good in the Nations League as we topped our group & have Portugal in the semi finals, and we've also been handed a very winnable group for World Cup qualifying, so things should be fairly straightforwards here until we hit the World Cup. I'm sure that won't come back to haunt me...

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Hitchin Town FC Season 2030/31 Season Update:

League:






This season saw us break our team record for most wins (at 15) but it was also one of the tightest in terms of relegation. We were 4 points from safety with 6 to play and it was looking bleak. We then went on a mad run to save our hides and push Ilkeston down with the highest points total relegated in this save.

We struggled so much without Matthew Hughes at the back and my keeper went to absolute shit so I kept cycling youth keepers and defenders. Then the intake happened and we found ourselves a new bonafide number 1 CB and he helped us to only concede 3 goals in the final 6 games.

Props to Stourbridge for quite possibly the worst season ever in an FM save. Their points came in the following games (0-0 against Solihull in November, 1-1 against Redditch in February thanks to an own goal, 0-0 against Scarborough in March and then they finished the season with 2 0-0 draws in their final two games against Bamber Bridge and Ilkeston). Their fans must have had fun.

Cups:



We were in our awful run of form during the two losses and our keepers seemingly had no hands at all.

Squad:



The two Thomas' were huge, Sammon wasn't as prolific as he was last year but he had injuries. Johnson though became a fucking star down the stretch in the league and we'd have been buried if it wasn't for him. Big props to Ryan O'Conner our new CB as well as Javelle Bennet and Ejike Babatunde who really stepped up this year.

Youth Intake:






















As mentioned above, Ryan O'Conner is the star of this intake. He's instantly our best CB and he looked assured when he came in as a starter.

[wullie]

2027/28

After finishing 8th with Cov the season before a distress call came out from Arsenal who'd just had a recent low of 6th so I jumped ship with a fairly low bar set of doing better than sixth




Having beaten Southampton in the League Cup, pipping Man City to the league and beating Juventus in the Europa, facing Rotherham in the FA Cup to complete the set was a bit of an anti-climax. Anyway, as Arsenal have already won the Champions League in the seasons before me I've resigned



Also to prove how magic I am, Cov immediately went down having gone through three managers in the single season.

[Dan]

Portsmouth 2028/29 End of Season Update

I'm not sure we'll hold on to a Champions League spot, especially given the concerns around replacing Kalimuendo, but we're in a great position to get Europa League football next season, which would be a huge boost to our reputation. We could probably use an extra year before we have to stand up to Champions League football anyway, so it wouldn't be too bad if we missed out on the top four this season. Missing out on Europe completely, however, would be a disaster from where we are now, so hopefully that doesn't happen.

Having hit the midpoint of the season in contention for the Champions League, but with our star striker on the way out, we were approaching the rest of the year with a sense of uncertainty as we were relying on some unproven youngsters to step up & keep our European push on track. We didn't end up making any moves in January, preferring to show faith in the squad we've assembled, but would that be the right decision?

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Kinda ended up going roughly how I'd expected, as we continued to show promise but the lack of an elite goalscorer held us back slightly against the bigger sides. A 3-1 win against City was huge, but losses in our final two games ensured the drama went right to the end of the season...

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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.

Quick update on the cups too:

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Not particularly impressed that we consistently drew good Premier League teams - the only exception was Blackburn, who made the playoff final in the Championship (then lost to Spurs, the dickheads).

Man City immediately dumped us out of the EFL Cup for the third season in a row, however we fared much better in the FA Cup & after battling through a couple of replays we powered our way to the final, where we'd take on Man Utd...

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For the second time in three seasons United have beaten us in the FA Cup. Clearly we just need to avoid the Manchester clubs if we want to have a chance at winning anything.

Players:
Goalkeeper:

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We've settled things down in goal, with Stefano Turati firmly established as the number one now - he also got to score an injury time penalty when we smashed Luton 7-1. We've also tied down veteran backup Josh Vickers for another couple of years, but I do have a few young GKs out on loan so I might have to add one of them to the squad for next season as well.

Defence:

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I think the main area of focus for the summer could be the back four, where Loic Mbe Soh, Regan Poole & Malachi Fagan-Walcott are all beginning to be passed by younger players & I might consider moving all three on this summer. We have João Fonseca & Alan Ramírez as the CB pairing of the future, with Paul Scholl also available following his arrival from Schalke, and there are some good youngsters who can also fill out the depth over the coming seasons. I do have a few veteran upgrades on the shortlist in case we sell our three current vets, so there's potential for a lot of changes over the next few months.

The battle for the starting LB spot will continue, with Adam Aznou, Mário Tabuaço & Esteban Argüello all trying to take the job - I think Tabuaço is the long term starter, but having three good options here should be useful given we've got extra European responsibilities next year. Simon Walde is the starting RB now, and I also want to give a couple of youngsters some game time next year so we should be okay there for the moment, although we might need to upgrade next year if nobody really steps up.

Midfield:

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We're all set here, as despite nobody really standing out I'm very happy with our current blend of ascending youngsters & capable veterans. Wonderkids Vladimir Petkov & Mahir Hadžić are the future, with Leopold Uhlig also likely to stick around long term, and they've been complimented by Alex Robertson & Morten Thorsby, who will both be here a while yet. We also have a decent selection of academy kids we could add to the side if we need some more depth, so there's no real need to spend here any time soon.

On the wings both Joel Ndala & Lamine Yamal will be returning to their parent clubs this summer, which could leave us a bit short out wide, and we're not great on academy talent either so there could be some money spent here. Adriano Onyegbule will start on the left, although he's had plenty of interest over the last year so there's no guarantee he stays long term, but assist machine Paddy Lane has a place in the squad for the next few years - he's had 10+ assists every season of the save so far so hopefully he can keep the streak going a while longer.

Eli Junior Kroupi continues to excel in behind the striker, retaining the PFA Young Player of the Year award, and with Fábio Esteves as the backup, along with some returning loanees & the versatility of our central midfielders, we're good for attacking midfielders for the foreseeable future.

Striker:

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With Kalimuendo leaving I was hoping we'd see one of Arne Røyse or Leo Scaltriti step up, and to my surprise it was Scaltriti who looked the more reliable player down the back half of the season. Both guys will stick around next year, and they do give us some extra cover out wide, but we do already have a pre-arranged transfer for a young Spanish lad who will hopefully be able to lead the line next season. I'm willing to hold firm here at the moment, but we might have to make a move if goals become an issue through the first half of next year.

This also seems like the worst position for us in terms of academy talent, with literally nobody looking useful so far, so hopefully that changes soon.

England:

Not much of an update here, as we've only played a couple of WC2030 qualifiers, both of which we won. We've got our Nations League semi final against Portugal coming up soon, but I'll do a proper update at the end of the year.

[John Arne]

Anyone ever had a players physicals just collapse? Got a young player who is developing well, but last 3 months his physicals have fallen off a cliff.

Before


After

Well, spent a season doing just normal training and massively reducing his playing time... but it seems the damage is done... he's slowly gaining wait and losing all athleticism

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Fat little shit.

[John Arne]

Must be the famous Crewe pies.

[Mike]

Pep’s worst nightmare

[John Arne]

The Kenny Lunt Arena gets a massive upgrade.

[Baz]

Patch is out. Reapply your real name fixes, everyone.