[FM16] In pursuit of eleven soaring magpies

[Key Basher]

My first ever game of FM and I had to start with the team I support in real life:

Backstory to Save

At the beginning of the 2015/2016 pre-season Key Basher took charge of Newcastle United who had finished the 2014/15 season in 15th position, whilst respectable this fell far below the expectations of the board. The board asked Key Basher to come in with the expectations of a mid-table finish and reaching the fifth round of the FA Cup. Former professional footballer Basher is a lifelong supporter of Newcastle United and is determined to return them to the glory days of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Key Basher's Goal is to remain at the club until they are Premier League Champions. In terms of leagues loaded I've loaded all English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and Irish leagues - it's my first game so I wasn't sure how computer (a ****** laptop) would handle databases - I'll load more in future games - currently have about 20k players available. Here's the where are we now of the save:

Pre-Season



The budget given to me by the board was paltry and really wasn't able to buy anybody with it so I've kept most of the players they'd already signed and players from last year. The only transfer made was to sell Tim Krul to Watford - Rob Elliot will now be our primary goalkeeper with Karl Darlow his sub - a U21 GK will replace either in event of injury, for just over 9 million, the board also want me to sell Vurnon Anita even though he scored in our first league match - I'm clinging on to him for now in the hope they change there mind as I want to replicate the real life team in other aspects. I've also loaned out a few youth players who were moaning about training workload or wanted:

Preferred Squad for Newcastle this season (the covered name is Vurnon Anita):



Transfer History



Results

The team aren't performing badly, however there's still a lot of room for improvement - the pre-season involved quite a few friendlies against foreign teams (game decided rather than arranged). The first league match of the season being a 2-3 loss to Man Utd after being 3-0 down at half time - not ideal but not a woeful performance by any stretch of the imagination. The formation I've been using is the 4-4-2 narrow diamond.

League Table after one round an early kick off of next:



Fixture Results from pre-season and PL match 1 as well as fixture list, as you can see Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Bradford, Arsenal and Villa are the next games (and yes I did arrange an in season friendly with Consett for the lols):

[Deisler26]

Good luck with this

[Northernpilgrim]

Good luck

[Key Basher]

2015/2016 Quarter Season Update

And so it begins, Newcastle's rise from mid-table mediocrity to storming top-of-the table finishers. At least Key Basher hopes that the next chapter of his Newcastle United tenor reads as promisingly as the first, the fixture list has probably helped a little bit but it's still a canny performance by any stretch of the imagination.

Transfers



As outlined in the pre-season no major transfers have been made excepting Tim Krul. I was offered 20m for Sissoko but turned it down, rightly as things seem to be suggesting - Daryl Janmaat was also the focus of some interest. A few clubs were interested in Vurnon Anita, who wants to leave the club but none of them made offers and as I explained last time I'm not making a massive rush to sell him - he seemed to think I'd made a concerted effort to sell him which is fine by me. An attempt on my part to buy Danny Drinkwater fell through due to lack of funds. I've focused on accepting scouts recommendations for the shortlist and trying to get by on the 3m transfer funds for the rest of this season - a fair whack might be pumped in to wages at the minute. In terms of registration - all my first team players and youngster are eligible to play. The transfer window has now shut! Yay.

Injury News



Rob Elliot's 5 week spell out due to a broken finger was probably the biggest hammer blow to my strategy of Newcastle without Krul, for the first few matches after this I was just crossing my fingers hoping that Darlow lasted until the end of the game so I'd didn't have to use my woeful youngsters - Elliot returned to full fitness before the Stoke away game. Sylvian Marveux and Paul Dummet are the bigger other injuries. There's more than that but none of them have had a horrendous impact on the squad overall.

Thanks for the good luck guys, it seems to have paid off:

Off-the-Pitch



Mike Ashley got a bit angry that I leaked his refusal to increase the transfer budget and Siem de Jong got a bit annoyed that I was not using him in the first team. Almost ev

Results

The bit everyone cares about right. Firstly please ignore the Capital One Cup 9-0 defeat to Bradford, whilst it did generate some amusing the end is nigh headlines it's important to consider that I was experimenting a bit with the match engine - no first team players were playing in the event as the board considered it unimportant and the Arsenal match three days later was - the team was therefore very youngster heavy and in addition I got so pissed off with our young GK I replaced him with 16 year old midfielder Owen Bailey as I forgot to put a GK on the subs bench. Bradford lost to Tottenham in the third round. After a 2-3 loss to Man Utd, the season got off to a bad start and a good one of the same footing - the 8-4 goal bonanza at Crystal Palace was disappointing to lose but fun to watch - I've included it in the highlights packages section of this update along with the 6-2 victory at Norwich. Having made a few tweaks to the tactics and player rotations things have started to improve with victories over Aston Villa, Arsenal, Everton, Norwich and Stoke taking us to 2nd place in the PL. The main issue at the minute is players moaning about workload. Up next is Southampton -

Results:



League Table:





Highlights Packages



That 12 goal bonanza at home to Crystal Palace that set a new PL goals scored record:

[video=youtube;2cIOFAH5F6o]

The 6-2 victory over Norwich at St. James Park:

[video=youtube;jzfuOSxin3c]

And for fun the 9-0 loss to Bradford with a midfielder in goal for two thirds:

[video=youtube;CDq4fCZi2TY]

And following the 5-0 over stoke we got 5 players in team of the week:



That wraps this update up - next one should be after Christmas.

[Key Basher]

2015/2016 Season January Update

My plan was to update at the end of the season however due to a run of horrendous tactical decisions and injury bonanzas I have been asked to depart Newcastle United by Mike Ashley. The low-point was probably the 14-0 loss to Leicester, despite the fact we managed to draw our next meeting against them a week later things were running in the right direction too slowly for Newcastle's board, they also appeared unimpressed with my decision to list every player for transfer in order to raise capital for a more balanced team.

Where next?



My ultimate goal with this save remains to take Newcastle United to the Champions League final, however this will now require a bit of a journeyman career for the following decade or so in order to build up the required experience to be re-employed at Newcastle. I have now taken the ginormous step down to Concord Rangers of the Vanarama National League South who currently sit in 17th position and merely wish to avoid relegation. How hard can it be?