They might not be wrong. There are free agents that won't even speak to me and the Costa Rican I had out on loan won't sign a new contract.Originally Posted by Gray Fox
They might not be wrong. There are free agents that won't even speak to me and the Costa Rican I had out on loan won't sign a new contract.
Not necessarily. There was a game breaking transfer exploit on FM20 that got discovered too late in its life and SI’s response was basically “there will be no more patches. Preorder FM21 here…” and washed their hands of it.
I'm a twit
Gotta love SI.
After a transfer was accepted by the AI, you could right click on the figure and change it to whatever you want.
You could do that in CM2 with ease.
Yeah, I think if we go up this year, I might be conservative with my spending and play the long game. Build some bank and raise the club's reputation. And if we can actually avoid relegation like that, even better. @Yevrah
On a different note, how many back to back goals does SI think happen in real life. Seems to be in one every four games of mine or so that one team scores and then the other one equalises/scores straight from kick-off.
Last edited by Adramelch; 10-10-2021 at 12:09 PM.
I've nearly finished my summer business and it would have been genuinely hard to spend £80m had the board given it to me, as it is I'm struggling to do the £30m. Most depressing was having a bid accepted on a good midfielder only to see he was more interested in Championship sides than me. I pulled the stops out with the wage offer and he still joined one of them.
Yes, and often he joins the lower division team as a squad player or something.
Oxford City Season 2034/35 - The PREMIER LEAGUE
To immerse us all in the game World a bit more (and especially me as I've been paying no attention to what's been happening at the top of the game) I thought I'd do a bit of a recap of the last 15 years. For part one, we'll look at the International game.
World Cup
England made one final, but yet to win it (I am shocked). Waistcoat was sacked after the 2021 Euros, having not quite had the luxury draw he did in real life, falling to France in the second round. Sean Dyce then took up the helm, inexplicably lasting for 6 years and 354 days, before handing the baton to Paulo Fonseca and then the current manager Jose Bordalas. It's nice that England haven't won anything yet as it sort of keeps me interested in managing them one day.
England's finest:
For those wondering what hosting fun was being had in 2026, it was split between the US, Canada and Mexico. Is that the deal in real life?
Onto the Euros:
So Portugal and France the powerhouses of the modern international game. The current 'best player (chosen by value)' from each:
Balloon Door Winners:
Dai Chao the first newgen to win it.
Offensively good.
Mbappe left PSG on a free and went to Liverpool. He retires at 35 years old tomorrow. Ronaldo and Messi seemed to go quite young too, so I hope they sort that for FM22.
Last edited by Yevrah; 10-10-2021 at 12:44 PM.
Oxford City Season 2034/35 - The PREMIER LEAGUE
The European Game
Proof, I think, that the game is in safe hands with UEFA and the closed shop the super league would have brought about has been gladly avoided.
And that definitely doesn't read like a list of teams who finished third in their Champions League groups.
Which ironically leaves it up to a tournament nobody asked for, nor wanted, to actually provide some diversity with its winners.
The Europa Conference League, you are in Oxford City's sights.
Last edited by Yevrah; 10-10-2021 at 01:05 PM.
Building on my list of grievances (although that one is just dumb luck and not the game's fault), in the last three years we've had FA cup ties against Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool, and they are all at home. I did manage to draw with Tottenham and we made 2 million from the game at their place, but then my electricity went off and we lost that sweet cash.
The Europa Conference League in my save:
Not as many unexpected winners as yours, but Brest did manage to win it, so there's that.
Last edited by Adramelch; 10-10-2021 at 01:09 PM.
Oxford City Season 2034/35 - The PREMIER LEAGUE
Domestic Football
Man Utd the team to beat. I was gonna post the cups too, but they've all been won every year by either Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea or Liverpool. bar one year for both where Wolves somehow snuck in.
Sunderland should really be sacking their commercial director. We're 2,000-1 to win it, not sure what that would make us to stay up.
Oxford City - Summer Business
The (hopefully) magnificent seven brought in to help us avoid the drop.
Former Southampton man, brought back to England for £5.25m from Vancouver.
£6.75m from Bournemouth.
Been on loan with us for the last four years. City released him on July 1st and we swooped.
On loan from newly relegated Villa.
£7.5m from Brentford. Becomes our record signing.
On loan from Man Utd.
£750k from Bournemouth.
Just gotta sort the backroom team and the massacre can begin.
Pity. Real cunts beat us on pens in the final of last year's cup AND on pens in an early round this year. Oh well, Igor's off before he gets sent to Gambian debtors prison.
An upper mid table side in the Liberian top division, aim is to stick around a couple of years and try to win the league. 22 game league season is terrific quite frankly.
Immigration FC > Watanga.
Oxford City Season 2034/35 Aug to Oct update - Premier League
AND IT'S LIVE!
A brilliant start to the season, but one that illustrates how fragile the grip on our stay in this division is. I'm simply not going to take any points from the top 6/8 clubs and will struggle against the next four to six, so it's vital we beat or at least don't lose to the shite. We've done that very well so far with an opening day win over Sunderland followed up with wins over West Brom and Reading.
38 points remains the target. 32% of the way there.
Oh and the money in this league is amazing. We were in the red in July once we finished our spending and we've now got £13m in the bank.
What a comeback
You ever accidentally let your Director of Football speak to a player who wants out, knowing that you could persuade them to stay, only to see that the DoF has agreed to sell the player?
No, but this might have been just as traumatic...
And we break a 110 year old record.
Oxford City Season 2034/35 Mid Season Update - Premier League
A tough run to say the least, but vital wins against Wolves and Bournemouth (I punched the air for both Corness goals) to keep us 15th.
Squad morale was damaged by both Grant and Murtagh whinging about inconsequential shit as we headed into December, so they'll both be gone in January. The players will learn, nothing gets in the way of us staying in THE BEST LEAGUE IN THE WORLD.
Our incredible season continues, and we're even making a visit to Wembley.
We've had a number of niggly injuries that have kept players out, but the squad depth is noticeably better this season and we've just kept marching on. We just managed to scrape a 3-2 win away at Colchester, courtesy of 89th and 92nd minute goals, to keep our unbeaten streak in the league alive. The title really is ours now, and Championship football awaits.
Cracking stuff thommo. Fancy your chances of winning the cup/staying up?
We should win the cup, we've beaten Wigan 1-0 and 4-1 so far this season.
To stay up, I'll definitely need a few signings, but the team cohesion and dynamics are all off the charts, so I'll look to keep the old heads on as backup players to keep the harmony rolling. The Greek midfielder has been amazing too, and is now wanted by the majority of the Championship and some of the lower end Premier League teams. Might be a struggle to keep him.
The board have given me a new deal.
4 and a half years! That's faith in the manager.
True, but I have been there for 15 now. I'll earn more in a year on that deal than I have in my entire time so far.
I hope you have a son come through soon. Let the Bin-Maan name live on.
I'm a twit
A son would be amazing (I've never had that in a game before), but just one usable newgen would do me. Reis Bartlett was the best and he was ultimately rubbish.
Yeah, just adopt a regen and nickname them. BinBoy.
While we were 2nd for most of the season, it wasn't as easy as it seems. Just Brighton decided to not go for it by the looks of it, with them getting just 19 points from their last 15 games and then getting trumped by Middlesbrough in the playoffs.
We will be working with similar budgets to Yev:
and a new stadium:
Sure, I got them from Conference North to Premier League in 10 years, but they'd rather name it after a defender who (credit to him) played for them for 13 seasons in the Conference. I'm totally not salty about it.
And now time for a few of our stars:
Jabulani Sithole (GK)
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Picked him up for a measly 400k when Nottm Forest were relegated a couple seasons back and I am pretty sure he will be our first choice goalie for the next few.
Jamie Dunn
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Signed him from Chelsea for 300k last winter and while he initially struggled, he came up big this season with 12 goals and 7 assists in 43 games.
Simeon Barthram
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The first of a trifecta of loanees that have been with us for the last three seasons. 42 goals and 32 assists in 144 games.
Keith Campbell
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Had a very average season this time around but was very important the previous two. 35 goals and 21 assists in 127 games.
Darren Tinto
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The man of the hour. 82 goals and 19 assists in 133 games, including an insane 34 and 9 in 44 games this season. He's not considered Premier League standard, but with Fulham being relegated this season I think I'll try and pick him up (for a low price hopefully).
I think my plan for next season will be to not overspend, try to mostly pick freebies and loanees and I won't be very disappointed if we get relegated, as long as we keep it competitive.
Jabulani looks amazing.
The funny thing is that whenever I bought him, we didn't really need a keeper. It was just too good an opportunity to not go for it. And then West Brom came knocking for the one I had signed on a free 6 months earlier and they gave me a combined 6.5m for him (I probably could have gotten even more but I was afraid they would pull out of the deal).
Yev, this is an absolute delight! Great effort. Shall be interesting to see how you fair in the Premier League.Oxford City End of Season 2033/34 Update - Championship
Third season in the Championship, with the aim having to be to make the playoffs after last season's 8th placed finished.
Transfers
With a few players shipped out on loan and with some done to get work permits, our only sale in the summer was Liam Potter to Swindon, for £250k. With finances at a minimum only two players joined:
Joined on a free and immediately packed off on loan.
£700k from Benfica. With the deal done a while ago Daniel had progressed nicely since it had been and joined armed with a work permit. Lovely stuff.
Kolar joined at the turn of the year:
And then this happened:
Which was massive. He'd never played for us as he hadn't yet got a work permit, but had been doing pretty well on loan. Palace came in with a bid I managed to negotiate up to £5m and then decided to whore him out for £10m in the hope of some takers. Premier League Everton bit and we now had some money to do something in the January window.
After scouring the market I couldn't find anyone to buy to improve the first team, so whacked the increase in budget into wages and snapped these two up on loan.
Both went straight into the first team, improving the spine of our side immeasurably and hopefully giving us the push to make the playoffs.
The Championship
The thing to note here and what I was absolutely ecstatic about was that the three newly relegated sides (Palace, West Ham and Watford) all had shocking seasons, which made the points required pretty low. It all came down to the last day and we needed a win over Palace to guarantee a playoff spot. The other dynamic was hoping to avoid Derby in the semi's if we did make it as they were in fantastic form. We drew with Palace, but Boro coudn't manage a win and we'd made it. Perhaps even better Norwich lost again and in form Derby snatched the second automatic spot, setting up a playoff Semi against the East Anglian side.
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Also, special mench for the name 'James James' and the first fella who's name I cannot pronounce.
Oxford City Season 2034/35 Jan to Mar Update - Premier League
First some business in January. In came:
£800k from Dinamo. No work permit, so straight out on loan.
And this chap, who might turn out to be the best or worst bit of business I've done. Man Utd and PSG were sniffing around him at the same time our £600k bid was accepted by Leon. The kid then wanted £25k p/w, which both horrified me and intrigued me in equal measure. Is he a complete chancer or really that good? Further down his list of contract demands was a minimum fee release clause, normally they're set fairly low and the type of kid who'll join Oxford City can easily be persuaded to remove them, normally. His was hard coded and set to a mind boggling £78m and to clubs in a continental competition (the first player to ask that of me). Thinking I wouldn't get him anyway as some big boys were after him and even if I did how would he get a work permit, I perhaps foolishly (or brilliantly) offered him £40k p/w. The first of two surprises happened when that was enough to seal the deal and the second was that he only went a got a bloody work permit too (confusing me even more as to how those actually work).
The shithouses mentioned earlier also left the club.
Grim stuff this, punctuated by a cracking win over Newcastle.
Tight and nerve wracking as fuck. Our final 8 games:
I think I'd give up an organ for a win over Fulham.
Oh and we now have £40m in the bank, having trousered £77.7m of TV money so far this season.
Utterly nuts.
Wrexham Football Club - 2033/2034
Season Summary
The summer turned out to be much busier than expected as over £200M worth of talent was let go with the likes of Peter Blackwell joining West Ham, former number one Gary Bevan joining Championship leaders Aston Villa, Danny Evans making a big money move to Man City, an £85M bid couldn't be rejected given our latest tactical switch meant he'd be a bit part for a while..
Neil Gibbon and Jon Saunders both left to Newcastle and Crystal Palace.
After our Europa League win last season we would get the opportunity to square off once more against Arsenal albeit this time in the Super Cup. Arsenal beat us in the Europa League final the year before we landed it but on this occasions, we were far too much and a nice early piece of silverware added to our small collection.
Seeing Parker, Blake and Cummings all on the scoresheet too was pleasing as our formation change was made deliberately so all three strikers could always start. It came at the cost of our wingers receiving much less game time all season but it was a vindicated decision in the end.
EFL Cup
After reaching the final last season, I felt we had a shot but that was quickly put to bed as Man City knocked us out. Parkers late goal didn't even spark a late onslaught.
FA Cup
We didn't fare much better here either as Watford sent 1,110 away fans back to North Wales knowing that there would be no domestic cup success this season.
Champions League
Winning the Europa guaranteed the club entry into the group stage, a group that contained Bayern Munich, Levante and Benfica. It was the Germans we would face first and we looked to be stealing a point until Andy Appleyard-Clamp scored from the spot with five minutes remaining sending us home empty handed. Levante and Benfica both arrived next to The Racecourse, the Spanish side swiftly put aside by 4 goals to nil whilst a stoppage time winner from hattrick hero Craig Cummings saw us come from 2-0 down to win 3-2 against Benfica A draw against the Portuguese followed in the return fixture leaving us top of the group after Bayern's surprise defeat and with just two games remaining, qualification was firmly in our hands. We thought we'd done it when Brett Parker bundled what looked to be the winner over the line with barely two minutes to go. Impressive not just because it was Bayern but because we'd played the entire second half with ten men. Sadly, football stops for no one, David Morris (92") and Kevin Bohm (95") snatched all three points from us. Victory in the final match against Levante would still do but alas, it never happened either. In fact, we lost 1-0 and finished bottom.
But would we be returning to Europe's top competition any time soon?
League
Since reaching the top flight in 2027/28, the club had finished 15, 14th, 9th, 4th, 6th and 5th so it was hoped we'd do one better this time round, a year wiser, the players a year older, physically, mentally. We knew before a ball had been kicked that if we could get a decent result on the opening game of the season at Old Trafford and against Everton thereafter, we had a rather favourable looking fixture list to get some point down early doors but taking maximum points was way more than we expected as we beat Man United 4-2 and Everton 3-2. A 5-2 win away to Burnley followed, Alec Blake grabbing three and his strike partners Cummings and Parker continuing to mesh well as a trio. A slight slip up against Brentford (0-0 against the team who ended up finishing bottom) reeled us in a little but we responded with five successive wins against Brighton (3-2), Bristol City (3-2), Newcastle (6-1), Sheffield (2-0) and Leeds United (3-1). It wasn't until travelling to London to face Arsenal once again that we suffered our first league defeat of the season but sat on top of the pile and we had done since our victory over Newcastle which was September 25th.
No one expected us to stay there. Rivals. Fans. Players. Myself. I anticipated the inevitable slump, the run of defeats, the usual but it just didn't occur and each title challenger started to fade away expected Man United. The Red Devils were busy playing catch up fixtures wise but still, we were little Wrexham, we'd buckle like the bottlers I accused us of being not twelve months ago.
Eight points is all well and good, better to have them on the board but in my mind, it was five. Five points.
We were just relentless though. Cup disappointments aside, we were either a long term fluke this season or the kids really came of age.
No matter what happens. I'm proud. At least that is what I told my entire squad of homegrown players. I imagined we would take it to the final day but as was the case with so many things this season, I was wrong again because Man United slipped up on match day 37 by drawing meaning we could seal the league with a victory later in the day against West Ham.
We did.
We actually did. We won.
The Match.
The League.
Madness. Perhaps if the fixtures were less favourable, perhaps if Man United had points instead of games in hand we would have felt the pressure more, who knows but one thing I/we do know is, Wrexham are the English Premier League Champions!
Player Analysis
Craig Cummings
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There were rumours during the summer that he would seek a new challenge after being forced out of the starting eleven for the first time at the back end of last season but a tactical rejig meant he returned as an automatic starter this time round and it paid dividends as he ended the campaign as the clubs top goal scorer with 40 in 47. Such form helped him win back the Welsh Footballer of the Year Award too after losing it to team mate Brett Parker.
Talking of whom..
Brett Parker
29 goals in 48 was less than last season but he's got a slightly altered position. He's probably the best we have at this stage but it didn't make it any easier finally buckling to his massive contract demands. £300,000 a week! Thankfully we have plenty but that's besides the point. Another good campaign though.
Alec Blake had his most eye catching to date grabbing 27 in 40. Bit part player and rarely used Lewys Jones somehow helped himself to 16 in 13(12) .
Just really really unexpected.
Now to push on. Again, the YDWAWK ends if/when we finally get taken over but it rarely ever seems to happen.
Manager Stats
Time at Club - 5057 days
Players Sold - 32
Total - £446M
Games Played - 773
Games Won - 422
Games Drawn - 144
Games Lost - 207
For - 1,675
Against - 1,085
Win Percentage - 54%
6 Cup Wins
3 League Wins
4 League Promotions
Just realised that Solskjaer is still managing Man Utd in my save. One league title and 3 FA cups in 10+ seasons. Huge success.
He's still managing Man Utd in mine too and Lewis may want to look away here...
4th most successful manager of all-time.
Oxford City End of Season 2034/35 Update - Premier League
We did indeed beat Fulham, but then in an admitted tough run of fixtures, hit a wall.
Which left the final day looking like this:
If we beat Bournemouth away it wouldn't matter what happened in the 16:30 kick off (witafbtw) between Reading and Derby, if we didn't a Reading win would send us down.
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Onto the finances, with a comparison to our very first season.
That tv money.
You'll come straight back up, at least. Gutting to lose it on the last day.
As ridiculous as this question might be - any danger at all of the sack?
Yeah, I hope I'll come straight back up, we should be pretty well set for it with two shit teams going down with us and Villa and Palace coming back up the other way. Due to the way the funding works we should have an obscene WARCHEST if we do come back at the first attempt.
The board seem fine, so it's looking ok on that score and while some of the players won't sign new deals they're not agitating for moves (bar one, who I'll detail in the next update).
lol GET DOWN
Well done on not save scumming
I'm a twit
I once had a game crash after losing a cup final. I relaunched the game again and won it, and it felt so dirty, so I closed it and lost on purpose.
Yeah, it just feels so dirty if that happens.
Which makes me realise, kudos to SI for the stability of this version, I haven't had one crash in 16 seasons and that's on a shite laptop too.
Ah, unlucky Yev, although staying up with 30 points would have been a bit of a miracle, maybe so eve for 33. No harm in getting some sweet sweet parachute payments.
What's the deal with some of those club badges? Chelsea and Everton appear to be the wrong way round, although Everton's actually looks more like Leeds and Chelsea's god knows what.
Loving the realism of Oxfords climb. What's the strategy for the summer window? Are you going to try and secure Premier League ready talent or invest in youth?
They're just the ones that come with the game. I normally go with the megapacks on sort it out SI but this laptop won't handle them now.
It's got to be youth this season as for the most part Premier League ready talent still won't join our club and its 3 star reputation (which we pleasingly held onto after relegation). If I do go back up and have £60m or so to spend on players I might try and get a couple of heavy hitters then.
I am still very early in the season, but I think I'll be following you down to the Championship Yev. I am fairly happy with the squad I have assembled but it feels like we are significantly weaker than everybody else. Still though, you will be in the Championship with a much stronger squad than last time around so it should be fairly easy to get back up.
Where are you lacking most do you reckon?
For me it was centre backs, almost impossible to attract genuine Premier League quality ones and without which you just get torn a new one by the Premier League calibre forwards.
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