[FM 16] Climbing (or Falling down) the Stairway to Heaven (or Hell)

[JerseyShoreDave]

After checking out a few careers this season, I noticed dafuge and it seemed like he wasn't climbing the leagues as fast as he once did so I had to come back and check out the new version of FM to see. And since it was on sale on Steam, I picked it up.

I loaded up every league to be viewable and in case I switch things up, the leagues will have a history and what not.

The rules are have fun... if I get bored somewhere go somewhere else... if you the reader want something well then maybe I can be convinced... maybe not. Time will tell.

I figured I'd start in England at the beginning of the 2015-2016 season. I waited for the first team to sack their coach in either Vanarama National League North/South and go with it. Well things couldn't be as bad as things are. Although the club has no debt, I have no money and very small team to work with. I have to avoid relegation. I come in with only 3 points from 12 games and a -23 goal differential. The club has no scouts even... I'm working on bringing in more staff for obvious reasons.

My first match in charge is vs. St. Albans which is another bad team... if we can't at least draw 'em its going to be a long long season.

We scored the least goals in the league with 8, and gave up 31 goals. But we have the most fans... which if we survive will equal more cash sooner... At least we don't have debt.

Nothing special, one of the smallest stadiums but we are also one of the newer ones as it was just rebuilt. Not a fan of the synthetic grass but one day I hope to be Premiership material.

Finances are alright for now.

The Squad is small, we have some decent talent... our best 2 are injured. We have 5 loaned players that I inherited. We have no money for new players so unless I can find someone for 0... I'm not sure I'll survive long, but what's life without a challenge. Will update at the end of the season.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Good luck in Kent.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Good luck in Kent.

Thank you, we needed all the luck we can get

[Deisler26]

I see you have the two ex-Arsenal youth in Kerrea Gilbert and Adam Birchall. Good luck in Maidstone, just try not to end up in the Medway, eh?

[JerseyShoreDave]

I see you have the two ex-Arsenal youth in Kerrea Gilbert and Adam Birchall. Good luck in Maidstone, just try not to end up in the Medway, eh?

Yes indeed I noticed, and both were willing to get new contracts for the next season. At this level they're both good players. I had Adam on loan but Bromley were willing to sell him for 500. Its tough to find players I can afford at this level.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Possible Takeover

Well if we get taken over, apparently I'm out of the job... plus I got a transfer embargo until things are sorted out... Pretty annoying

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Vanarama National League South - 2015-2016

League Table - We just managed to survive by 3 points.

FA Trophy - I Fielded a full team and just lost in OT.

FA Cup - Before my time.

Squad - A mix of great and not so great talent... our defense till the end was the worst in the league. We gave up the most goals, and were the 6th best on scoring. The bottom 7 players plus the top 3 and Adam Birchell are staying. The other good players are not interested and the crappy ones are crappy. Need to build up a better defense. We gave up the most goals in the league.

Transfers - We had no available funds, all the loans were done prior to my appointment.

Season Review - Pretty much speaks for itself, it shows we're a long ways off from the Premiership

Injury report - The top 3 hurt us bad... I figured we lost about 10 points thanks to it.

Stadium Expansion - This surprised me a bit, but I guess its necessary.... 500 more standing room.

Petersborough is now our parent club - Let's hope they lend us a lot of players

Initial Budgets - Plus 1000 on the weekly salary and 40k transfer kitty... not bad... no only to get this embargo lifted.

Pretty much due to my advancing the game too fast I didn't prepare screenshots soon enough for the old season. I wanted to see if we're getting taken over. Next season when the team is mine assuming the team doesn't get taken over I'll show player profiles, too much work to put stuff together. Should be easier to look at previous season stats... just saying Sega lol.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Current Lineup - As you can see we have 2 substitutes and that's it lol... The starting lineup is stronger than ever, we just need a supporting cast.

[JerseyShoreDave]

2016 European Champions - England beat Spain in the Final!

Takeover Completed

Message from New Chairman - on July 11th We get a 375k Injection of funds and I'm getting a chance so it seems...

I remain as Manager - On the 21st of July I'm confirmed to remain the manager of the club....

[Deisler26]

Well survived! Onwards & upwards!!

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Vanarama National League South - 2016-2017

League Table - We Finished 5th in the League. Scored the most goals, gave up the most goals too...

Past Positions League - Was a bit bumpy but far better than Last Year.

League Fixtures - This is more to show the end than the season. We defeated Chelmsford in the Semi's to fight Margate at their stadium... to lose in the final....

Vanarama South Playoff Finals - In the first half Margate scores 4... In the second half we Score 4... in extra time no one scores.... We make it to Penalties and we miss one and its over.

FA Cup - First 2 teams were leagueless and underneath us. Next 2 teams we beat were in our league, then we got beat solidly against Notts county who is in Sky Bet League 2.

FA Trophy - First 2 teams were Leagueless then Sutton who is in the Vanarama National League beat us in extra time.

The Squad - The top 8 players are leaving. Had 4 loans from our parent club, wanted to keep one player but he didn't want to stay with us. Overall a good squad. Little large but I was testing formations. We just need some better defenders, a new goal keeper, and some wingers to get promoted.

Transfers - The guys who left for the most part I wanted to stay... but we brought in a few and have some really good gems for this level!

Finances - Most months we make a profit. I'm not concerned.

Key Players

Lee Worgan - Our Welsh Keeper for the second year once again allowed more goals than any other team in the league. We need to replace him. In 52 appearances he allowed 93 goals, had 10 clean sheets, 2 Player of the match honors with 1 yellow card for an average rating of 6.75. We'll work to replace him!

Kerrea Gilbert - The former 30 year old Arsenal defender was argueably the best defender on the team. In 48 matches he had 10 assists, 1 Player of the match honors with 4 yellow cards for an average rating of 6.99. Should be with the team till retirement if he doesn't mind becoming a bit player at the end.

Joe Healy - He is one of our key players. He mostly plays in the midfield as an advanced playmaker. In 46 appearances he scored 13 goals, converted 2 penalty kicks, with 13 assists and 3 player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.44. He held out longer than almost everyone else in renewing his contract, I'm happy to have him.

Adam Birchall - Our Welsh Striker isn't the most played player, but he's been impactful in many matches he played. He'll continue as a backup for the foreesable future. In 34 matches he scored 8 goals with 5 assists, 1 player of the match moment with an average rating of 7.00.

Matty Whichelow - He is our best winger and he's hopefully going to get help. In 31 matches he scored 9 goals, converted 1 penalty kick, had 11 assists and 3 Player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.17. He's done quite well despite my staff initially not wanting him.

Jack Friend - Our best loaned player from our parent club Petersborough. During his good run he became one of the lead strikers. I'd keep him due to his ability to double as an advanced playmaker. In 28 matches he scored 12, had 6 assists and have 3 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.24.

Seedy Njie - Currently our only injured player at the moment with a dislocated shoulder. Not highly rated by my staff... I got him for his name. In 40 appearances he scored 18 goals with 13 assists. He also got 1 player of the match honor, and 1 yellow card with an average rating of 7.25.

Frannie Collin - The man, the myth, the legend! Our English striker led us to almost promoting. Thankfully he likes me a lot. He was our top goal scorer and assist leader. In 51 matches he scored 36 goals, converted 1 penalty, with 16 assists. he also had the most Player of the match honors with 8... for an average rating of 7.4.

Player of the Season - Collin was the league player of the season!

Top goalscorer award winner - Collin was the top goal scorer in the league!

Other Thoughts

Gallagher Stadium Expansion is completed - Nice to increase the number of people who can watch us... its all about the $$$$.

Season Injury Report - Not many injuries in the past season.

We're working on our National C Licence.

Increase to transfer revenue retained from player sales at 70%. Not sure anyone we want to sell has a value at this point, but thank you.

Initial Budgets - 17,500p/w with a transfer budget of 394k. Should be sufficient to get promoted.

Consortium plans takeover - Again???? As long as I can get the players I want, this is fine... but another transfer embargo could cost us promotion.

Overall we need a better goal keeper, more wingers, and even some better defenders.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Doing well fella.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Doing well fella.

I do try....

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Vanarama National League South - 2017-2018

Preseason

Another Embargo - Once again we start the second season the same way....

Second Takeover Complete - So I still have to wait and see if I'm fired...

Persuaded to allow me to stay - Still here!

Board to upgrade Training Facilities - Can't complain, no loans needed and it only helps the club... so far so good from the new management.

Season Results

Vanarama National League South - Ended up 4th and made it thru the playoffs to Promotion! We scored the most goals and were only the 16th worst in giving up goals.

Past League Positions - Overall not bad... St. Albans though... damn they were good the whole season.

Season Schedule end of season - With Collin injured at the end of the season it made things look dim for us... the semis vs. Dover took place at home... we just got the win thanks to Greg Cundie in the 90th minute. We went to Dover's stadium for the next one where the one goal win at home was the difference maker. In the final we met Weston-super Mare who normally beat us for fun... I didn't like our chances... but with a defensive stance we once again owe promotion to Greg Cundie's shot in the 80th minute which secured promotion!

FA Trophy - Our Journey started out slow where we had to get a replay against a team underneath us, our secondary team was lame... we got the victory at home. Then we had to meet Brackley who was in our division and they kicked our butts out of the tournament. We met the minimum expectation so I didn't really care.

FA Cup - We started well off with the low end team since we started some regular team players... In the third qualifying round we tied Staines with some decent players in the team... and even with basically the full squad we beat them in extra time in the next replay.... then in the following round we got a goal in the 1st minute and thats it... We made the goal for the FA Cup 1st round but we faced stiff competition from League 2 side Northampton and we lost. Condie at least got the consolation goal for us.

The Squad - Its the best squad we've had, if it wasn't for the transfer embargo early on we could of had a team that could of challenged to win the league outright.

7 Losers - In our under 21s we had to put 7 losers that became very whiny over the fact that David Hunt wasn't getting playing time and neither were their other players... well they're backup players... so what did they expect??? Sinclair played 24 games and complained after not playing in 4 games... The soap opera almost killed the team and put us in a bad run. The top 7 in this graphic are the ones. Campbell is a good player and could of done more. But since I switched from 4-3-3 and then to a 4-1-3-2 to a 4-2-3-1. I know who my top striker is and its not Campbell.

Transfers - The best group yet.

Finances - The club masters are doing a fine job with finances.

Key Players

Eric Odhiambo - I have to admit, signing Eric was a must once I saw he was a Tanzanian international with 3 caps at the time, now he has 4. Though he had some injury problems and is our most expensive player sadly I hope he can shine injury free this season and earn that money... in 27 matches he scored 2 goals, had 7 assists with an average rating of 6.88.

Charlie Grainger - We played 3 goal keepers this year and Charlie was the winner and new main keeper. He's young and can only get better. He led us at the end of the season. In 11 appearances he conceded 14 goals, had 6 clean sheets with an average rating of 6.87. He can only get better in a tougher league.

Deam Inman - Our best performing defender had a great season. In 49 appearances he scored only 3 goals, and had Player of the match honors 3 times for an average rating of 7.08. He didn't scored much this season but he blocked and tackled well in the back so we can't complain. I think settling him into his Limited Defender role kept him from scoring as often.

Adam Walker - Our midfielder was mostly handling defending resposibilities but even so in 48 matches he scored once, had 5 assists with an average rating of 7.15. He's a reliable guy that I hope continues to be reliable in the new league.

Greg Cundie - Greg plays either as Advanced Playmarker or Shadow Striker... depending who's on the field and who our opponent is. In 40 matches he scored 10 goals, had 8 assists with 1 Player of the match moment with an average rating of 7.20. He also completed 75% of his passes making him quite a good player that I hope I can count on in a tougher environment.

Adam Burchall - Adam Burchall played his role in the transition the club made this season. He's probably not good enough for the next level and wouldn't be the top striker in any way. In 21 matches he scored 12 times with 3 assists and 2 Player of the match honors for the average rating of 7.36. We'll see where he ends up, but I doubt he'd have many matches since there's only 1 striker position these days.

Joe Healy - Joe is our versatile midfielder who mostly plays as one of the center midfielders and as an Advanced Playmaker he did go forward and thank god he did. In 50 appearances he scored 13 times, converted 5 out of 6 penalties, had 7 assists, 4 Player of the match honors and 1 yellow card for an average rating of 7.23. Without him we wouldn't of made it this season and he's critical next season at this point.

Michael Bryan - The surprise of the season the best winger on the team is actually quite good at our level. In 37 matches he scored 15 goals, had 10 assists, had 1 player of the match honor with an average rating of 7.08. I'm not sure how he'll fair at a higher level... time will tell.

Frannie Collin - The 3rd top goal scorer in the league was gold for us still. In 46 appearances he scored 23 goals, had 11 assists, with 3 player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.04. He had slow moments this year, like his facial injury and the injury that kept him out of the playoff... other than that I'm curious to see how he does in the new league. Either was he's a club legend already.

Other Thoughts

Season Injury Report - Injuries didn't hurt the team much this season... Collin's knee at the end of the season ended up not hurting us. Eric's career kinda went bad after his ankle injury. And seedy just fell off the radar. We'll see the longer term effects this season.

Stadium Expansion Another 550 seats being added to our stadium, no new debt needed either.

Initial budgets $37k p/w and transfer budget of $297k.... Another 10k in salary at this level is sweet. At least money with the club is good.

So far I'm not seeing many good player options to strengthen the team at this point. Most I want to get don't want to be bothered with us so far. Had the same problem last 2 seasons but the embargos killed us. Without a takeover it'll be fun to see where we get.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Vanarama National League - 2018-2019

World Cup Results - Mexico beats Algeria on Penalties after a 1-1 match.

Season Expectations - I mess up when renewing my contract by saying I'd go for a mid table finish. At the time I thought it was for next year, not this year... I was pretty much the #2 most likely to get fired in the off season even though I'm rated as stable. Oops. But at the beginning of the season I went for out staying out of relgation, relegation, 4th qualifying round of the FA cup, and first round of the FA trophy.

Squad Bonus - Normal... up to now I always did low.

Stadium Expansion completed! - We now have a 2500 seat stadium!

I got my National B licence!

Injury Report - We had some concerned injuries including Joe Healy who was out 3 months with a broken ankle he isn't quite the same either.

Club Overview - In the league we were the 3rd highest scorers.. but we were worst in the league in conceding goals. 7th highest in Average attendance.

Season Review - Forest Green knocked us out of BOTH the FA Cup AND FA Trophy... I don't like them...

League Table - We ended up in 17th place. 9 points out of relegation.

Past Positions - We did well until the final quarter of the season. If we manage to get good players in we should be good.

The Squad - Best team ever, we got 13 players chillin in the under 21s. The team needs upgrading for this league and that building will continue. We did however pick up some gems this season.

The Transfers - Richie Sutton for $4k was a decent deal, he did well for us in the defence. Jamie Philpot for $24,500 was a steal for a young striker. David Bell for $29k was a total scam. Tom Bradley for $4,400 was great for the keeper, and Tom Platt for $40k was a steal for how well the guy plays.

Finances - With stadium upgrades every season the balance is slowly going down.

Key Players

Frannie Collin - At times he struggles at this level, he was still one of the top strikers in the League and our second best striker. I'm not sure if he'll be a headline player next season but he did well at this level this season. In 49 matches he scored 28 goals, converted 6 out of 6 penalty kicks with 14 assists and 3 Player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.18. In October Collin was the Player of the Month.

Joe Healy - It wasn't the best of times for Joe Healy this past season. He's not quite the best Midfielder anymore and his contract will probably lapse next season. This season the broken ankle pretty much ended most of his time on the team. He played in 9 matches, scoring once with 3 assists for an average rating of 7.15. I imagine he'll be nothing more than a substitute/low end cup player from now on. Will probably see his contract run out at the end of the season.

Craig Stone - The team captain ended the season with a sports hernia. His importance to the team has lessen over the past season. He played in 29 matches with 3 assists and an average rating of 6.91. I can see him leaving the club next season.

Tom Platt - We got him from Dover in January for $40k. He's a great midfielder and has been the consistant anchor in the midfield. He played in 18 matches, scoring once with 2 assists and 1 player of the match honor for an average rating of 7.44. I can see him getting us to League 2.

Luke Gambin - Our best winger is an Maltese international with 26 caps. He played 37 matches, scoring 10 goals, with 14 assists with 2 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.12. He represented his national team 8 times this season. He'll be a player on the team awhile.

I'm not sure who give the honor of Goalkeeper to next season yet...

Charlie Grainger - Charlie played in 37 matches giving up 69 goals with 2 clean sheets and 1 Player of the match honor for an average rating of 6.87. With 2 clean sheets I don't think I can use the 22 year old.

Tom Bradley - Tom played in 17 matches giving up 41 goals with 1 clean sheet for an average rating of 6.83. Even worse clean sheet wise.

Either way I need better defenders.

Chris Henry - Our best and only loaned player from our parent company, the 17 year old is one we'd love to keep but Petersborough refused to sell him... however for a second straight season we have him on loan. In 8 appearances he scored 3 goals with 2 assists and 1 Player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.57. He'll be great backup in case its necessary.

Jamie Philpot - The 22 year old is the best striker we have now, probably the best the team ever had. Thankfully we got him on a 3 year contract with 2 years remaining. In 50 appearances he scored 30 goals with 14 assists and 3 Player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.27 he was the 3rd best goal scorer in the league. He is the replacement for Collin long term. I think next season if we're able to upgrade our wingers he could be the top striker at this level.

Thoughts on the upcoming season

Stadium Expansion - 1500 more standing room for our loyal fans with no additional financing necessary.

Right winger, Central Attacking midfielder, and 4 National League level defenders would make things a lot easier and we haven't identified anyone yet. Hoping to pick up like 6-8 players to round out the team and make a push.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Well done staying up.

[dllu]

That World Cup, though...!!

[JerseyShoreDave]

That World Cup, though...!!

Yeah that world cup is definitely random... funny how many Algerians are having great seasons Mexican players in Europe are awful at the moment. People can't say there's a bias in the game.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Well done staying up.

Looked bad for a bit there but we pulled through... my current season was quite interesting... ups... downs... player revolt...

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Vanarama National League - 2019-2020

National B License completed & National A License completed

Expectation Review - Fair expectations

Out of nowhere I got a job offer from Bohemian FC. They were about Mid table and considering the player revolt we had I considered moving to Ireland.

Stadium Completed - 4,000 seat stadium after adding room for 1500. 1942 seats, with terracing for 2058 more!

Season Review - FA Cup we lost to Stockport in the second round... it was shame to lose to a team in the same division. The highlights was winning the FA Trophy and getting 4th in the Vanarama National League.

FA Trophy Win - A Title!

Final stats - winning in Penalties

FA Trophy Tree - The road we took the finals!

I was the Vanarama National League Manager of the Year!

Injury Report - Wasn't too bad Tom Murphy missed the most... eventually making him a secondary player. The rest were minor but at the time was tough.

Club Overview - We were first in goals scored and 20th best in goals conceded with the 9th best in average attendance!

League Table - 4th Place. We did well overall.

Playoffs - Made it to the finals... almost but not quite.

Past Positions League - In the 11th week the team came to me and demanded we switch things up. we were playing a 4-1-3-2 wide formation (game calls it a 4-1-5 wide). So I took a look at the players we had and I noticed we had some damn good center midfielders who were better then our second strikers and our central attacking midfielders... so I switched things up to take advantage of the quality. So our current formation since the revolt is 4-3-3 wide by the game but its really a 4-3-2-1. And we did quite well with it and its now our starting formation.

The Squad - The first team is strong for the league... the backups were not. We asked the most from the starters and it led us to a successful season. What we need for the next season are 3 quality defenders, 1 midfielder, and 3 wingers where at least 1 can be an alternate striker.

The transfers - Some good signing some not so good. Yes I spent 250k on a transfer. We needed a defender and yes I got him. He's not as good as the price would suggest but we needed a defender and got him.

The Finances - not the best at the moment, I'll need to be careful with money and try to save money. We can get promotion with not too much I think.

Key Players

Jamie Philpot - I will cry if we lose him and aren't able to resign him. He's the man who makes things happen here. In 56 appearances he scored 42 goals had 21 assists with 5 Player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.48. Without promotion I think we lose him.

Top Goal Scorer Award Winner - Very much so, surprised no one has tried to approach.

Player of the Season - I fully agree with this sentiment.

Ben Tomlinson - Only cost us 16k to get him. He's our backup striker when Jamie couldn't play due to fatigue or injury. In 47 appearances he scored 16 goals with 6 assists for an average rating of 7.09. He's not the most consistent player but he's been there when necessary thru thick and thin.

Luke Gambin - His 8 international appearances for Malta probably cost us a few points. In 48 matches he scored 14 with 13 assists and 6 Player of the Match honors with an average rating of 7.18. He's not as consistent either as I'd like, however he's a good player and helps us out. As long as he puts better performances for us than when he's on international duty, he should be around for the next 2 seasons.

James Rowe - One of the most popular players. The central midfielder is the man who starts our attack. In 54 matches he scored 5 goals with 14 assists and 10 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.57. He's our midfield beast and hopefully he resigns before his contract expires at the end of this coming season.

Tom Murphy - He never seamed to be as good as he was since his injury. In 25 matches he scored 4 goals with 11 assists with 1 player of the match honor and a 7.16 average rating. Might not play that much this season, depends on who we sign.

Fergus Bell - Another one of our midfield studs who didn't disappoint this season. In 46 matches he scored 3 goals with 3 assists for 5 Player of the match honors with 5 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.25. Our Ball winning midfielder does just that, and its nice that someone does so well and so much and contributes to the team as he does without having much of an offense position on our team.

Tom Platt - Argueably our weakest midfielder, he's probably the next captain. In 53 appearances he scored 9 goals with 7 assists with 4 player of the match honors and 10 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.40. He's been the one who gets down and dirty with the opposition, he'll definitely have a spot as the ball winning midfielder for the season depending on signings.

Ryan Huddart - In January we were about to lose our secondary keeper and we needed a new backup so Ryan was available on a free for only 500 a week so we snatched him up and he's apparently better than the other 2. Then the other keeper suddenly wanted to stay. And Ryan became the new starter. In 21 starts he conceded 21 goals, had 7 clean sheets for an average rating of 6.70. Hopefully the 23 year just gets better.

Fraser Horsfall - The most expensive transfer of all time didn't earn that money back yet, but he's still a great player of the league. In 24 matches he scored 1 goal for an average rating of 6.90. I think he'll do better this year.

Chris Henry - Our loaned player did great this season in 25 matches he had 4 assists and an average rating of 6.94. He will be out of contract at the end of the month and I want him... so far he isn't interested but never know with persistence and if no other club wants him.

Frannie Collin - After 7 seaons its time to move on. when the revolt happened at the beginning of the season he was on my side at least. When we didn't need 2 strikers anymore he was relegated to the bench for the season. In 7 appearances he had 4 goals and 3 assists for an average rating of 7.33. I figure he'll be back down to the North/South division to end his career.

Thoughts

Initial Budget - Better than initially stated, I believe its enough to at least get to the playoffs with the players leaving.

3 Players Leaving - 3 players leaving... 3 players who didn't take part in the early season revolt suddenly blame me for crappy conditions at the club.... they're leaving the club at the end of next month, why would they care???

At the end of the day 2 good backup defenders and a Left back are necessary, 1 ball winning midfielder, and 3 wingers with 1 who can play striker would make us in my opinion title contenders and FA Trophy winners. Not sure what will happen but we'll try.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Playoff pain. I know that all too well from my Newcastle Town save on FM11.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Playoff pain. I know that all too well from my Newcastle Town save on FM11.

Everyone know that pain. It worked out in my opinion as we would of been crushed in League 2.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Vanarama National League - 2020-2021

European Champions - Holland - Beating Russia in the finals 2-0. I thought it would be England vs. Belgium.

After last years playoff sadness and FA Trophy Triumph... we were ranked 14th pre-season so how did we do you ask?

Season Expectations - Fair Expectations and the budgets were sufficient.

League Table - 4th place and won in promotion in the playoffs! Braintree were beasts this season. Total domination including FA Trophy winners.

Past Positions - Brought in too many players and it proved bad in the beginning of the season, but by the end we were rolling on all cylinders

Club Overview - We were only the 5th best scoring team with only 80 goals, and the 4th best in goals conceded with 49. Also had the 3rd highest average attendance.

FA Cup - Our FA Cup dream started with Dartford who are in the National League South... 3-1 victory. Next came another National League South team in Farnborough Jamie got his hat trick there. Then we played League 1 Bradford City and the beat us 1-0 at their stadium. Should be noted they got promoted to the Championship Division. Losing that match was expected and we were praised for losing it by only 1-0.

FA Trophy - Wasn't our tournament. First round was against Bromley in our same division, good win. Second Round was a tight contest against fellow national leaguers Colwyn Bay where we fell apart in the second half but we managed a win. In the Third Round we fought Kettering who has one of our ex players on the team and they managed a 2-2 tie... in the rematch our new midfielder got the only goal. In the next round was AFC Fyde a National North team who once again caused us a tie at home, and in the 4th round repeat took us to penalties where we won to get into the semi finals. In the semifinals we were playing League Champions Braintree. We took the 1-0 lead early and after that it was a mess, we were lucky it was only 1-1 at the end. In the second leg it was all Braintree, they won and ended up winning in the finals as well. Great champions.

The Squad From top to bottom all weaknesses have been eliminated. I think we can survive relegation with no additions.

Transfers - About 10 of the transfers are now permanent fixtures on the team. We got sign Chris Henry after sweet talking him and offering him nice money. We got rid of a lot of dead wood.

Finances - Could be better, could be worse. We did take out a loan for switching to grass which I'll highlight later. Hopefully we make more money.

Facilities - Our 4,000 capacity stadium now with grass!

Key Players

Ryan Huddart - Our 24 year old keeper had his best year yet. In 60 appearances he conceded 65 goals, had 18 clean sheets with 2 Player of the match honors with an average rating of 6.84. I'm afraid to see if we'll be back to the same league numbers we had the previous season since League 2 is a much tough game.

Adam Thompson - In 59 appearances he had 8 assists and 2 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.09. He's our best defender and gets the job done, we're happy to have him.

Nicolas Sumsky - Our 27 year old Czech attacking midfielder proved his worth. One of our best January Transfers he's a reason why I believe we'll survive League 2. In 26 matches he scored 12 times with 5 assists, converted a penalty kick, had 3 player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.25.

Joy Rifat - Joy has been a joy to say the least. The 21 year old former Arsenal man had a great season with us. In 46 games he scored 3 goals, topped the assist charts at 16, for an average rating of 7.05. It'll be tougher for him in League 2 so we'll see how he does, the better competition will teach him better.

Jamie Philpot - Our 24 year old striker seemed to slip abit this season. He was only 3rd best in the league despite playing in every match. In 60 matches he scored 39 times with 10 assists and 5 player of the match honors with a yellow card with an average rating of 7.14. He did sign a professional contract with him after the screenshot as did all our top players so I can only hope he still performs or he'll be just a backup player with a lot of time on his hands.

Chris Henry - We got the signature of the Chris Henry after sweet talking him a bit. The fans love him and he's our second best player this season. He had some injuries limiting his play and he was a lot of competition for playing time in the midfield. In 38 matches he had 7 goals with 7 assists and 6 Player of the match honors with 11 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.66. He'll be a good player for us in League 2.

James Rowe - Our 29 year old ball winning midfielder was one of the best players in the League. In fact he was the Player of the Season in the Vanarama National League. He also broke the record for the average rating in the league with an average rating of 7.71. In 53 matches he scored 14 goals, with 10 assists, converted 4 penalty kicks and had 9 player of the match honors with 5 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.70. We'll see what happens with all the great midfielders we have, I'm not sure Rowe will ever have as great of a season as he had this season again.

Thoughts on the season

Injury Report - At one point in the season we had 4 wingers out with injury at once. The most damaging was Chris Henry's groin muscle problems. We took our time bringing him back into his stride and I'm happy I took that approach. Other than the 2 crisis we were pretty good with Injuries

Friendly Matches - Our first 2 friendlies were against Premiership clubs. Why? I guess to make money since the matches weren't in any way competitive for us. We have relationships with Chatham and Petersborough so those matches make sense. Walsall I believe is League 2 only 1 league above us and it was competitive. But playing a team in a league 4 levels above ours is a little silly... just sayin'

Big Changes for the Future

Pre-Season Training Camp - We're going to South East England for training camp... I'm sure this will boost the squad considerably!

Commercial Summary - Its all about the money!

Grass! - Good news is we'll have actual grass, the bad news is the 300k loan to do it.

Scouting Range - Scouting range is increased from England to the UK & Ireland.

We're Professional! - We're going to have all our staff professional by the end of the season, our top players already are professional and all new players will be professional as well.

Delay in required Stadium Expansion - We're 58 seats short and overall capacity need to go up by 1000 to meet minimum requirements and the costs are too much to handle currently.

I really only need some good backup players, especially 1 goalkeeper and I think the team is well suited at the moment to not get relegated.

[noikeee]

So... you've played 6 seasons in a week?

For whatever reason I really like your style of updates. Comprehensive yet clear and easy to read, which usually you never see in threads that are all text without pictures. Quality progress so far, too. Keep it up and good luck for League 2.

[JerseyShoreDave]

So... you've played 6 seasons in a week?

For whatever reason I really like your style of updates. Comprehensive yet clear and easy to read, which usually you never see in threads that are all text without pictures. Quality progress so far, too. Keep it up and good luck for League 2.

Yep... I got time on my hands at the moment so I said why not. Though I might move to another former premiership club if they get knocked down into the National North/South leagues but that club has $30 million in debt so who knows I'm playing a lot to see that club slide and fail... we'll see. Thank you for the feedback, haven't received much. The jump to League 2 is actually enormous. Quite a few players have struggled so far, its definitely going to be a battle.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Well done so far, seems you have a decent board behind you which certainly helps. Good luck with the step up

[JerseyShoreDave]

Well done so far, seems you have a decent board behind you which certainly helps. Good luck with the step up

Thank you. The board does what it wants. Other than looking for a parent club and managerial training I normally get denied everything else.

[JerseyShoreDave]

2022 World Cup Update - First Round and Oddities

World Cup Group Phase Part 1

Group A - Nothing Odd

Group B - Spain tied Denmark 0-0 other than that nothing special

Group C - Supposedly the group of death... Chile failed and were favorites after Dominating South American Qualifying... USA was unbeatable but couldn't beat anyone either...

Group D - Nothing Odd

Group E - 2018 finalists Algeria didn't do well. Serbia looked sharp beating Argentina then losing to Australia...

Group Phase Part 2

Group F - Sweden Beats Brazil... Brazil out of the world Cup the difference is Brazil beats Iran 1-0... Congo Beats Iran 5-0

Group G - Uruguay fell apart, 2018 World Cup winners get destroyed by France

Group H - Switzerland fell apart after beating Curacao... yes Curacao is in the World Cup. Ghana couldn't beat them either.

North American World Cup Qualifying Table - 5th Round

Curacao qualifying simply by beating Canada and Guatemala twice. Note the -5 goal differential. Curacao's star players are too expensive for me to sign...

The English Manager - Well they hire the former Turkish Manager who totally ruined Chelsea after 2 seasons...

The French Manager - I laughed at this one, he went to Italy first and utterly failed... then the French were lucky enough to get Jose Mourinho. Oddly his Profile says he doesn't want to manage Spain or Germany. And no the Special One isn't going to win the World Cup, I've seen part of the Knockout Phase of the World Cup.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Sky Bet League 2 - 2021-2022

European Champions Cup - Manchester City Destroys Olympic Marseilles and Arsenal destroyed Barcelona 5-0... Only to lose 1-0 to Arch rivals Tottenham in the Finals. Tottenham has done nothing in my save so this was quite odd.

Got my Continental C License

Our Scouting Range is in all of Europe now.

Peterborough Link Terminated - We're too good to have them as a parent club now. Tried to get a new club but got nowhere. Trying again.

January Transfers - Our trade of our 2nd keeper to Molde made headlines surprisingly enough.

Win Bonus - We're broke so low bonuses

Average attendance is now 3,546!

League Table - We Finished 18th, we were predicted to finish 23rd.

Past Positions - Started out weak, our new players settling down. Our mid season was good then we slacked out for the last quarter of the season making 18th spot our own.

Club Stats - 12th highest in goals scored, not bad, 13th best in goals conceded again not bad. 14th highest in attendance. Great base to start with.

The Cups

Capital One Cup - Championship side Portsmouth just kicked our ass 3-0. Didn't expect anything else.

Johnstone's Paint Trophy - Our former League 1 parent club Petersborough provided tough competition but at least we were competitive in the battle.

FA Cup 1st Round - We dominated against National League side Woking, but only managed a single goal

FA Cup 2nd Round - League 1 side Exeter just destroyed us.

The Squad - The best squad we've had, trimmed out the non performers.

Transfers - Another good intake of winners and not so winners. We got rid of the unhappy and those who aren't suited for League 2

Finances - Finances are poor. So much so they've cut back on our staff, I won't be able to resign most of them when the time comes.

Commercial Summary - We need more shirt sales

Injury Report - Top 2 midfielders had a rough season, and immediately after we got our loaned striker he was out 6 weeks most of the team was injury free.

Key Players

Adam Thompson Our 29 year old Northern Irish right fullback had a good season. In 45 appearances he had 2 assists with 1 yellow card for an average rating of 6.95. He stays back and defends, totally underrated but he does more for us back there than anyone. He's worth so much more than his current price. Hope he continues to perform when it matters most.

Jamie Philpot - Our 25 year old english striker is no longer the man at the club. He's just not suited for this level of football. In 12 appearances he scored 4 times with 1 yellow card for an average rating of 6.59. We tried to sell him in January for $60k and 2 League 1 teams bid for him. I couldn't believe League 1 teams were after him, and he turned them both down to to sit in the under 21s.

Ashley Fletcher - Our replacement for Jamie was Ashley Fletcher a 26 year old striker. He did better than Jamie but didn't seem to be anything special. In 30 appearances he scored 11 times, with 8 assists and 1 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.13. He'll make a good backup but that's about it.

Juraj Svrcek - Since we're poor and I happened to notice this player was out for loan, we took him for the rest of the season. In 22 appearances he scored 9, had 5 assists and 1 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 6.94. At 22 the Slovakian is said to have great potential at this level, and before his loan was up he wanted to pledge his future to us. Since his contract with Leicester was up we snatched him up on a free. I hope he'll lead us out of League 2 in the upcoming seasons.

Marcus Maddison - Probably our best winger. On the season he was the only winger with 10 goals. In 33 appearances he scored 10 with 4 assists and 2 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 6.84. This part of the reason we didn't score more goals, our wingers underperformed.

Joy Rifat - Our young up and coming winger Joy Rifat struggled at times and other times he was a good player on the field. In 35 appearances he scored 7 goals and had 9 assists for an average rating of 7.03. He's got everything going for him at this level, he'll get the playing time to become a League 2 star.

Chris Henry - Injury has hampered our 20 year old english midfielder. He's still performing fine at this level, he's more of a ball winner now. In 26 matches he scored once with 3 assists with 3 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.16. Hoping for an injury free season where he can play to his potential

Stijn Blommaert - In January he joined us and played 21 matches, conceding 37 goals with 2 clean sheets with 1 Player of the match honor and an average rating of 6.84. The young belgian keeper is highly rated by staff so i'm keeping him as #1.

Stadium Expansion - We knew the 1,000 seats were coming sooner or later and its coming. Thankfully its only a 80k loan.

Possible Takeover - Another takeover, as long as I get to stay on and they give lots of $$$$ its all good.

Thoughts

With the signing of our striker, we've managed to sign 2 other players. The best right winger/defender we ever had along with the striker have high release clauses that could potentially solve our financial crisis on their own. I don't want to lose them but its possible with their clauses. The third player I signed is an up and coming midfielder who was rated too high when scouted sadly when he joined the club he turned out to be not so good. He has potential though so we'll go with it. If I manage to find other star players I'll try to sign them but overall our financial crisis combined with everything that happens with a takeover we're probably sticking to 3 incoming transfers till January.

[noikeee]

Stayed up and it seems as if relegation was never at risk, that was the most important thing for this season, well done.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Stayed up and it seems as if relegation was never at risk, that was the most important thing for this season, well done.

Thank you we did well enough in the league, I was quite surprised myself that it wasn't a closer battle

[radosst]

so how are maidstone doing?

[JerseyShoreDave]

so how are maidstone doing?

I'll be posting the results when I can.

[Deisler26]

Well done on a good season!

[Nobby_McDonald]

You're doing very well Dave.

Curacao did very well at the World Cup.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Well done on a good season!

Thank you sir, this new season is even better

You're doing very well Dave.

Curacao did very well at the World Cup.

Thank you too. Curacao is one of the fun things about this save, I like odd things happening in the games.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Sky Bet League 2 - 2022-2023

World Cup 2nd Round

World Cup Tree - Germany Wins World Cup over Argentina in Penalties. Congo over achieved in this tournament.

Germany vs Argentina - Messi's last match as international player and in the second minute of the final he misses the penalty kick... in the penalty shootout he misses there as well.

Pre-season Happenings

Takeover Talks - Here we go again, no transfers July 8th 2022

Takeover Complete - Took 1 day to settle that...

New Ownership Message - No new investment and 1.09Million loan to to be taken out... ugh, and the transfer embargo is lifted.

New Parent Club! - English Premier Team Sheffield United are our Parent Club!

Win Bonuses - We went low for financial reasons

Season Expectations - Wasn't sure how good things were to be, our new signings and the team as whole performed above expectations.

I got my Continental B License and working on my Continental A License

Stadium Expansion was Completed! - 4942 supporters with 2000 seats!

Injury Report - We did lose key people at the worst times what little time they were injured but I'd say overal injuries were not a major issue, more of a road block we overcame.

League Table - Second in the league to Hartlepool, and we won automatic Promotion. We were predicted to be 21st in the league.

Past Positions - If you look at the top 4, only us and Hartlepool were consistent in the league... there were about 10 different teams in 3 and 4th place during the season. Very tight league, every point counts.

Club Overview - Things too look at... We have almost $4 million. Top goal scorer got 43 goals, a new player got top average rating and new assists... 5 different players tied for 5 Player of the match honors... We were the top goal scorers with 93 in the league and 8th best in conceding goals.... 11th highest in attendance.

Transfers - Best intake ever. Backup goal keeper and striker. We got our Striker on a free from the team we loaned him from last season. We got 1 defender from our new parent club. We got the whiners out of the club and some we wanted to keep but couldn't. Former backup Ryan Huddart left for AFC Telford for 28.5. Blackburn tried to get 7 of my players, they got 2. Our good backup striker Fletcher and our backup goal keeper Rivero. Our defender Smith-Brown was suppose to get a deal from another who never made a bid so he ended up at Bradford City for 16k. Sumsky who was a good backup winger wanted to move back to the Czech republic and for 74k I cannot complain. Our crappy defender left for Eastleigh and Boston United should get promoted since in the afterseason they sealed up Philpot which should lead them to promotion.

The Squad - Stronger than ever, with MORE transfer rumors at the end of the season we pretty much renewed everyone till the end of the season to be safe. Phil Deane goes back to Sheffield so even if we don't get a strong intake like last year you'll see what the team was capable of in the cups.

The Finances - Finances are OK. Compared to where they were they're awesome now!

Commercial Summary - Average I think

Capital One Cup

1st Round vs. Coventry - The league 1 side was suppose to destroy us so they put up a cup team that simply couldn't compete and we beat them with a solid 3-1 win thanks to our wingers.

2nd Round vs. Sheffield United - Our new Parent club, premiership side who ended up last in the league and got relegated did beat us in extra time as our play maker Henry scored first in regular time with our striker Svrcek making it 2-2 in the 82nd. In extra time though we got beat by the better team, no shame.

Johnstone's Paint Trophy

South 1st round vs. AFC Wimbledon - The League 1 side should of beat us, we scored first in the 24th, they got us in the 80th. It went to penalties where we actually destroyed them.

South 2nd Round vs. Southend - The League 2 side put a cup side in there and we nailed them hard to win.

South Quarter Final vs. Leyton Orient - Another League 2 side putting up a crappy team set on just defending the whole time, we got the goal and just sat on it to a solid victory.

South Semi Final vs. Newport County - The third league 2 side but up a fight but still couldn't hang with us at the end, in the 87th minute Maddison got us the win!

South Final Leg 1 vs. Leicester - The League 1 side that got promoted and won League 1 brought it all to our home stadium in the first half we dominated scoring twice, in the second half they dominated us and the final score was 2-2.

South Final Leg 2 vs. Leicester - We got beat by the better team.

FA Cup

1st Round vs. AFC Fylde - The national league North side couldn't keep up and we nailed them hard, our top striker Juraj Svrcek got a brace.

2nd Round vs. Dag & Red - The League 2 side should of knocked us out, as we were cocky, our 2 subs in the match got us through to the replay.

2nd Round vs. Dag & Red Replay - At Home things started bad when in the 2nd minute they scored on us, but then by the 7th minute it was 2-1 and there was no turning back as we just hammered them till we beat them 5-1 to get to the next round.

3rd Round vs. Hartlepool - In the league the top team beat us twice but here, Joy Rifat got the hat trick away as we finally beat the top team in the League!

4th Round vs. Leicester - The League 1 side who knocked us out of Johnstone Paint Trophy got us again here. Once again we gave up the early goal but this time we tied it up by half time and in the second half we did kick their ass and beat them 3-1.

5th Round vs. Leeds - The Championship Side came out flat, they started playing well scoring in the 62nd and it was looking good for them but the tide changed and Juraj made it 3-1 as we slid to victory.

6th Round vs. Hull City - The Championship side got relegated and never really seemed to show up. We dominated the match. It should of been 6-0. Svrcek brought home the brace that helped us win the match.

Semi Final vs. Arsenal - The Premiership side just utterly beat us. We didn't get a shot on goal. Not surprising since they were the defending Premiership champions. Their sin in beating us was even worse for them since they lost in the finals to Tottenham.

*I did play to win in all the Cup matches since I was clearly doing well in the League my aim was to make money in the Cups for the Club finances and I overachieved by making them the priority to the League. I was surprised I did so well but when all the key player had Superb morale... your team just plays awesome.

I was one of potential candidates to take over at Hull City after we beat them in the Cup... Wayne Rooney became their manager in the end.

FA Cup Review - Juraj Svrcek was the top goalscorer with 8 goals.

FA Record for most Goals - No one scored more Goals in the FA Cup than us!

Juraj Svrcek's 8 goals is the new FA Cup Scoring record!

League 2 Review - We were the biggest overachievers and Juraj was the top goalscorer with 33.

Season Review - "All of Maidstone's dreams came true this season as they defied expectation suggesting that they would struggle to avoid relegation and instead mounted an almost unbelievable promotion-winning campaign." -BBC Sport

Key Players

Stijn Blommaert - Our 24 year old Belgian isn't playing as well as I wanted but I couldn't find much better so we kept him. In 62 appearances he conceded 79 goals had 16 clean sheets with 1 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 6.89. If we happen to come across a better affordable player we'll take them.

Jonatas Centeno - Our new signing the 25 year old portugal right winger... he can play Right defender and right winger equally well. If we can find a better defender I'd use him as a winger thanks to his numbers. He's one of the reasons we did much better on defense this season. In 59 matches he has 14 assists with 5 player of the match honors and 3 yellow card while averaging a club high of 7.68 for his average rating. He'll need to be his best for us to succeed but his $1 million release clause could mean we could lose him at anytime and that's frightening.

Nathan Ralph - Our new English left defender joined the club in January and made a significant impact immediately. In 33 matches he had 10 assists with 2 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.29. Either way he'll at least be a nice back up for the season.

Raequoun Brady - Our 24 year old Ball winning midfielder did all the little things that you'd expect from such a player. In 49 matches he scored 10 goals with 3 assists and 5 Player of the match honors with 5 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.44. Glad to have him doing the things no one else does.

Marcus Maddison - The 29 year old didn't play as much as he did the previous season as we got some really good wingers. He's still got a role to play we just hope he'll resign to play. In 38 total appearances he scored 11 goals with 7 assists with 3 player of the match honors and 1 yellow card for an average rating of 7.14.

Chris Henry - Our 21 year old playmaker did alot of the club. Its not always about the assists and goals, its the little things. In 52 appearances he scored 9 goals with 6 assists and 5 player of the match honors with 6 yellow cards and 1 red. He earned his average rating of 7.38. I hope he performs as well in a tougher league.

Joy Rifat - The 23 year old right winger was used in the rotation of the position, and he still did well. In 43 appearances he scored 13 goals with 11 assists, 4 player of the match honors with 2 yellow cards and an average rating of 7.45. He keeps on improving I hope he can this well in League 1.

Oliver Rathbone - The 26 year old midfielder had a great year. In 42 appearances he scored twice, had 7 assists with 1 penalty kick with 5 player of the match honors... with an average rating of 7.57. Our midfield is the backbone of the team.

Keanan Bennetts - The 24 year old winger is considered the best player on the team by his teammates. In 45 matches he scored 17 goals with 7 assists with 4 player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.36. He's one of my favorite players on the team to watch when I watch the matches... he plays as I would.

Juraj Svrcek - The 23 year old Slovakian player had the best year. He's the man who leads us into victory... I fear the day if/when his minimum release clause is activated. In 58 matches he scored 43 goals with 11 assists and 1 penalty with 5 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.50. If he can get at least half his goal tally in League 1 I think we'll be fine.

New Maidstone Record 43 goals - Svrcek is the clubs top season goal scorer.

Sky Bet League 2 Top Goalscorer Award - No surprise here.

I'm the Manager of the Year in League 2 - I believe I'm the manager of the year every year, just sayin'

Another 500 seats at the stadium - No new debt at least...

More Transfer Saga

Maidstone Chairman looking to step aside - It was said that the Owner would never leave and then he'd suddenly sell the club after not even a full year of ownership???

Maidstone in Takeover talks - Another embargo yay... when I need to strengthen the team to ensure we don't get relegated...

Maidstone United takeover collapses - Good

Personal Message from the Chairman - Ok tell them please next time to do it after transfer time k? thx...

Maidstone directors lift transfer embargo - Ok wait till September if you need to do this.

Consortium plans Stones takeover - Second time this season a charm?

Thoughts

We're still playing the 4-3-2-1 otherwise known as the 4-3-3 wide by FM16. Our staff wants us to do a 4-2-3-1 even though we have no Central attacking midfielders. Our current formation got us where we are so we're not changing it.

we need better players everywhere and we have the budget to get better talent its scouting them and having the time without transfer embargos to sign them... plus most of our players get a pay raise for promotion of 25-30% that we need to account for. We have no players that we need with expiring contracts. At the end of the upcoming season we'll see how many we keep by then. Once September rolls around I hope to get our best players contract extensions and then in February get the second stringers done if funds permit.

[pheelf]

I've always enjoyed your career threads and want to congratulate you on how well this career seems to be progressing. One question though...that formation you posted...the 5-3-2 Wide...how are you managing to win games with that?....It just seems so unbalanced and with the mentality and the 13 team instructions I'm totally baffled by it. I would have thought that having Play Out of Defence with limited full backs and no support anywhere near them would just be a recipe for disaster. Also some of the instructions seem to contradict one another so I'm curious how it's working for you if you still use it.

[dllu]

World Cup Tree - Germany Wins World Cup over Argentina in Penalties. Congo over achieved in this tournament.

And Denmark, clearly...

[JerseyShoreDave]

I've always enjoyed your career threads and want to congratulate you on how well this career seems to be progressing. One question though...that formation you posted...the 5-3-2 Wide...how are you managing to win games with that?....It just seems so unbalanced and with the mentality and the 13 team instructions I'm totally baffled by it. I would have thought that having Play Out of Defence with limited full backs and no support anywhere near them would just be a recipe for disaster. Also some of the instructions seem to contradict one another so I'm curious how it's working for you if you still use it.

Thank you for the kind comments Pheelf. I did use in the beginning a 5 defender, 3 attacking midfielder and 2 striker formation when that's what best benefited my team due to the players I had at the time, it did work at the lower National North/South Level, but I did give up a lot of goals... In FM 16 I noticed most of the top clubs at the beginning of my save used a 4-2-3-1, I tried it in the second 16-17 season and I failed with that formation, so much so that in the Vanarama National League I was 1 loss away from being sacked, I never mentioned it cause I was doing that bad but when I modified to a 4-3-2-1 formation I started rocking it. 5-3-2 wide wasn't a good formation and I didn't like it much looking back on it. I would like to play if I can manager to switch to a 4-3-3 narrow as I did in my Icelandic campaign, I did really well and I didn't have to spend so much time searching for attacking midfielders for a long time, as they're at a premium. I was even considering a 3-3-1-3 narrow... just so I have to worry about 5 positions, keeper, central defs, midfielders, 1 attack central mid and strikers... not sure how effective it is but I think it makes man management easier. With having the scouting being vague it adds to the realism that finding good players isn't that easy particularly at mid level. Let me show you where I'm at as of the end of the '23-24 season.

All I can tell you is its working with the players I have. And note that player roles are always set to their strengths, if the striker is an advanced striker or poacher that is what its set too. I'm sure I can do better tactics wise, I prefer a possession game and when we achieve it we destroy and we don't well... we get beat. Makes the game interesting to say that. 5-3-2 is gone with the wind.

And Denmark, clearly...

Denmark is a bit like Belgium currently is with a massive swell of a youth movement. In 2018 Denmark got 3rd place at the world cup in my save at least. We'll see where they end up.

Denmark's team - They're decent

Tactics - Obviously scares the big teams

Secret Weapon - The $62 million monster!

European Championship Group Phase - You know Denmark can beat, Ireland, Greece and Holland!

International Ranking - Denmark is 18th in the world. Greece and Ireland aren't in the top 36 in the world and Holland is only 6 spots ahead at 12th.

I see a second round appearance for the Danes at this competition, their monster might be the next world player of the year!

[Nobby_McDonald]

Great season in League Two there Dave.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Great season in League Two there Dave.

Thank you, it was quite shocking to do so well!

[pheelf]

That's some nice evolution of your tactics. I too like my teams to play possession football but I've always found it difficult to get the balance right between possession and quality of chance created. You seem to have gotten it pretty much sussed out though with your success so far showing that. Good job so far and good luck in League One.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Sky Bet League 1 - 2023-2024

Takeover? - Oh Joy another takeover on the horizon?

Consortium Completes Takeover - They want to toss me again...

Decision, keep me or not? - I got options if you don't want me.

I'm staying, they're impressed with me - Hey boss can I get a raise?

Embargo Lifted - Thanks after my 5 first choice players are already taken...

New board decides to upgrade training facilities - It needs to be upgraded.

Stadium Expansion Completed - 5442 can watch me manage my team!

Low win Bonuses - More money the better...

Season Expectations - All within reason

Our Facilities and stadium update - Needs to get better

Continental A License - Thank you for paying for it.

Continental Pro License - Yes I am the Champion

The Squad - The Strongest team yet. A few will be leaving as we upgrade and fine replacements, other backups will leave cause they don't want to be backups, but that's life. Finding replacements is tough as we don't have the finances to do so properly.

The Transfers -

Adama Soumaoro - a promising central defender who turned out to be a cry baby when it turned out he was over rated.

Liam Wakefield - Scouts didn't scout him enough...

Sonhy Sefil - our french central defender who does well

Ryan Meadows - wonderful midfielder

Yoichiro Kakitani - Scouting overrated him but he's still useful

Ben White - starting central defender

Fabio - brazilian left back on loan from our parent club Sheffield Utd

Adil Nabi - due to circumstances explained later, Pakistani international striker.

Outgoing

Jamie Philpot - He went to the Vanarama National League winners Boston Utd and is already on his way out for underperforming... Boston Utd got promoted to League 2

Horsfall - Our central defender wasn't good enough anymore so Boston took him and now he plays regularly

Maddison - A good winger and he produced results for Boston too.

Ralph - Was the National League assist leader for Telford.

League Table - Tight Table We ended up 15th. 7 Points away from the playoffs, 9 points out of relegation.

Past Positions - It was a rollercoaster for us, we could of made the playoffs but we got bad luck. Hartlepool who got promoted with us won the league... was quite amazing.

Club Overview - Despite the Chaos we were the 5th highest scorers in the league, but were the 19th worst at conceding still. Had the 18th best average attendance as well.

Finances - Still okay, the board inject $2 million. We need some cup runs and Promotion!

Commercial Summary - Gimme Mo' Money!

Capital One Cup

First Round vs. Exeter - The League 1 team did alright, solid match and wil.

Second Round vs. Crystal Palace - The relegated Premiership club was too much for us to handle and in the second round we were knocked out.

Johnstone Paint Trophy -

South 1st Round vs. Cambridge - The League 2 side was easily taken care of.

South 2nd Round vs. Leyton Orient - We should of defeated the League 2 side easily, but we dominated them in Penalties.

South Quarter Final vs. Northampton - The League 1 side tried hard to tie,, but thankfully couldn't do it.

S Semi Final vs. Swindon - Figures we choke on TV. The League 1 side put up a great battle and we were exhausted by the time penalties came and lost.

FA Cup

First Round vs. Preston North End - The League 1 side got destroyed by us.

Second Round vs. Ebbsfleet - The national League side really bunkered down and didn't want to attack much, we eventually won, but damn tough match.

Third Round vs. Nottingham Forest - We dominated the match, they had 2 shots on goal.

Fourth Round vs. Everton - We were lucky to tie it at home, our keeper had a night to remember.

Fourth Round Replay vs. Everton - I expected to lose but not by THIS score, at least we scored first for the second match in a row vs. Everton... lol

Key Players

Stijn Blommaert - Our 25 year old Belgian Keeper did well. The top Belgian club wants him, and if wants to go home, I don't think I can stop him, but so far he's satisfied. In 57 appearances he conceded 87, had 15 clean sheets and had 1 Player of the match honors for his match at home vs. Everton. He had an average rating of 6.80. Looks like he's our started again this season, I haven't come up with anyone better who is interested in joining.

Fabio - every team needs a Fabio and so do we. We got him on loan from Sheffield United and before his contract ran out, we went to sign him and he accepted the offer. The 33 year Brazilian sign a 2 year contract with us. In 53 appearances he scored 4, had 3 assists, converted 3 penalty kicks (he's brazilian remember), had 4 Player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.38.

Jonatas Centeno - Our 26 year old Portuguese full back had another stellar season, in 51 appearances he had 16 assists with 4 Player of the match honors, 4 yellow cards, and an average rating of 7.48. Its nice not to have the release clause in his contract anymore!

Chris Henry - He's been with the club now 6 years, more than any player on the current roster. At only 22 he's slowing falling the pecking order at the club as my staff doesn't think of him as highly as they once did. I'm afraid he'll be considered not good enough if we get promoted again. Regardless he had a great season. In 47 matches he scored 6 goals with 5 assists. He had 3 Player of the match performances with 5 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.44. We have a new central midfielder that will bump Henry (if the scouts are correct) to being the leading backup to the main team. time will tell how much he plays this season.

Juraj Svrek - we'll never know what could of been, but when one literally breaks their leg and are out for most of the season... there isn't much you can do. In 16 matches he scored 8 goals, had 1 assist and 1 player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.21. We'll see if he's good enough for this level, I'm not quite sold.

Yoichiro Kakitani - He was brought in as backup winger and striker... for awhile he was our main striker as well. In 47 appearances he scored 15 with 7 assists with 2 Player of the match honors with 1 yellow card and an average rating of 7.10. Not the best stats but not the worst either. He can hold his own and I think its his last season in the position. He's at the end of his career so, while its possible he may stay another year, its not likely.

Adil Nabi - A well regarded striker with international experience couldn't hurt. In 34 appearances he scored 14 goals with 6 assists with 1 player of the match honor for an average rating of 6.97. With Pakistan he played in 8 matches and scored 7 goals with 2 assists with 1 yellow card and 1 player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.50. Overall not bad but not the best, but for $3,000/week can't expect the much. We'll see what happens next.

Keanan Bennetts - Our 25 year old winger ended up being our top goal scorer. In 48 appearances he scored 17 goals with 3 assists, 4 player of the match honors with 1 yellow card for an average rating of 7.17. He's our top winger and will be key to our success.

Ryan Meadows - Our 29 year midfielder is now the man. He recently signed a contract extension till 2027 @ 10k/week. He commanded our team to do so well and I do believe we could've been relegated without him. In 52 appearances he scored 12 goals with 12 assists and 9 Player of the match honors with an average rating of 7.82. And to understand that he'll have a new teammate who actually is better than him leading the team will make our midfield outrageously good.

Meadows sets new average rating record - 7.83!

League 1 Player of the year! - Indeed must be the formation and the quality of the player and most of all MY leadership!

Thoughts

Season Review - good first Season in League 1.

Injury Table - Even though we didn't have manylong term injuries outside of Juraj's broken leg, had injuries coming in bunches. As you see on May 12th we had 3 injuries at the end of the season that caused us to miss out on potential playoffs. I think we might of been in the playoffs if key people weren't hurt at particular times.

Training Camp - I chose Scotland since we already went to South East England

Dutch League - Ajax are Champions, PSV almost relegated.

Job Offers

I have been offered I think 15 jobs during the season. I did investigate them to see what they offered to see if its worthwhile to go... I didn't find any real reason to leave yet but these are clubs offered. Since imgur is being bad tonight I'll just list 'em.

Cardiff City

FC Sion

Sportvereinigung Ried

FC Vaduz

Leeds United

AFC Bournemouth

Inverness Caledonian Thistle

Burnley

ADO Den Haag

Stade Rennais FC

FC Nantes

Fussballclub Wacker Innsbruck

Aarhus Gymnastik Forening (AFG)

FC St. Gallen

Fussballklub Austria Wien

Upcoming Season

With good players costing at least $10k/week I need more money as our backup lineup is not good for this level but getting players good enough is getting tougher and tougher as they keep getting more expensive. Overall we're in good shape when it comes to our A-Team. We just to make sure we're covered for subs when needed and I think we can do at least as well. We're not losing anyone important, just the fringe players. Its quite possible that our new midfielder could be good enough to influence the team enough to get promotion, I dunno. Getting high in the league on top of some good cup performances is what need need to progress.

[JerseyShoreDave]

That's some nice evolution of your tactics. I too like my teams to play possession football but I've always found it difficult to get the balance right between possession and quality of chance created. You seem to have gotten it pretty much sussed out though with your success so far showing that. Good job so far and good luck in League One.

Yeah what gets me is how so many AI teams do 4-2-3-1 and for me making that into a 4-3-2-1 aka (4-3-3 wide in FM16) made a lot of difference. Possession Football is where its at, I always think of Barcelona under Gardiola. I have the same problem with balancing between possession and chances which is why I let the AI kinda do it. I've tinkered with settings since adopting the current set up and I think the less managed the better when it comes to tactics. I just go from Control to defense when playing like Premiership teams in cups and stuff, but control is my standard. I dunno, we'll see what my new players bring and maybe I'll once again adjust. If you don't tinker around you'll never learn how to do things better, in my opinion anyways. Not sure if its a nice evolution, but the results I get now are working fine. Never be afraid to change things up based on what your players bring to the table. Either way thanks for the support!

[JerseyShoreDave]

Maidstone - Sky Bet League 1 - 2024-2025

2024 European Football Championships - Denmark made it to the second round ready to win the tournament, but there's no shame to losing to the eventual winners. Serbia won the tournament!

Squad Bonuses are Low

Youth Recruitment Improvement - The board approached me and asked me if I thought this was a good idea... considering I've never used anyone we've trained yet... I said sure do it.

Training camp in Scotland!

The Squad - better than ever, but we're also poorer than ever as well.

The Transfers

Incoming

Danny Johnstone - Backup striker/winger headed out the door

Josh Sheehan - See player profile

Fabio - permanent part of the the team now, see profile.

Leca - backup defender

Deane - second year running we have him on loan from Sheffield united, not worth signing

El Hadji Ba - See player Profile

Tony Marwood - See player Profile

Steve Kroll - See player Profile

The Greek dude on the bottom, a good backup midfielder who we got on a free when the injuries were aplenty.

Outgoing

We got rid of alot of guys who got us here... quite a few of the top ones retired and are now staff. 3 are noteworthy

Walkes went to TNS and is doing well.

Romero plays for Wycombe in our league, we played him in the cup and won thankfully.

Stijn Blommaert want to go to the Belgian Champs, but in the end they didn't sign him so I had to search high and low for his replacement... and I did. We kept him on transfer and another club came but we wouldn't sell him. Then he wanted to stay, then he complained about no first team football and then we got a crappy 40k transfer bid from Aberdeen and the board accepted it cause we're broke... that's the story now at the club

The Finances - don't look! We're almost $3 million in the red.

Commercial Summary We need about 10x this...

Injury Report - While it did hurt us, we still got results... maybe not in cups though but in the League.

League Table - We are the Champions! Notice the top 5 Teams all have 76 points. Then notice in Past Positions how we were first for the entire second half the season, well during the end run we had injuries and then just lost a bunch of matches. The league playoffs and automatic promoted clubs weren't decided until the last day of the season which is nuts.

Past Positions - We deserved promotion, it was mostly us and Rotherham fighting for the title.

Capital One Cup

First Round vs. League 1 side Oxford - Solid performance. In fact one of the best of the season

Second Round vs. Premiership side Swansea - We pushed Swansea to Penalties only to lose.

Johnstone's Paint Trophy

South First Round vs. League 1 side Wycombe - Not the best match, we barely beat Wycombe... it was one of those days.

Sout Second Round vs. League 1 side Luton - It was one of those losses, Luton was just better and we couldn't get a second goal.

FA Cup

First Round vs. League 2 side Cambridge - We tougher than expected, we did get the win but not how we should.

Second Round vs. National League side Sutton United - We should of won by a larger margin, but a win is a win.

Third Round vs. League 2 side Doncaster - Too close of a match, we really have to stop giving easy goals in cups

Fourth Round vs. Championship Side Huddersfield - We did well to win, was surprised at the result.

Fifth Round vs. Premiership side Manchester City - No miracles here. Total Domination and we had 1 serious and 2 minor injuries thanks to the match.

Club Overview - Before the playoffs we had the most goals scored in the league AND Least goals conceded, believe it or not! We're 3 million in the red. Our team is kinda strange due to lack of money and our results were different. 4 players shared with 5 player of the match honors, 2 players shared top assist leader with 10, 2 players shared top goal scorer with 21... We Still barely won the league.

League 1 Review - We're mentioned in both Overachievers and Underachievers!

I am the Special One - Nothing new

4 Clubs wanted me... Chesterfield, Sheffield Wednesday, Stadt de Reims, Estac Troyes

Key Players

Steve Kroll - Our new 28 year old german keeper let in the least amount of goals in the league for the season. He became the top keeper when our previous one wanted to leave... other than injury he was our top keeper. In 46 appearances he conceded 51 goals with 12 clean sheets and 1 Player of the Match honor for an average rating of 6.92. Due too lack of funds I expect him to be top keeper again.

Fabio - Our brazilian inverted wing back had a stellar year, in 52 appearances he scored twice, had 7 assists, converted 2 penalties (hey he's brazilian), with 5 player of the match honors, 10 yellow cards, and a red card with an average rating of 7.54. He doesn't have many years left in him but I think he can get the job done at the Championship level for another 2 years.

Tony Marwood - Our 23 year old english right defender was brought up in the Liverpool Academy... we bought him, started him, and now he's signed a 4 year contract with a minimum release clause of $7.5 million. In 51 appearances he scored once, had 4 assists with 2 Player of the match honors, 6 yellow cards for an average rating of 7.21. It only gets better from here!

Josh Sheehan - Our 30 year old midfielder is a Welsh international! With all the competition in the midfield he didn't get to play as much as maybe he should of and international call ups interfered too. In 48 appearances he scored once, had 9 assists with 5 Player of the match honors and 1 yellow card for an average rating of 7.53. I see him being in the club for a few more years.

El Hadji Ba - A cheap 32 year old midfielder that ended up getting more playing time than expected thanks to both his performances and his teammates injuries. In 35 matches he scored 4 goals, had 8 assists with 1 Player of the Match honors. He also got 4 yellow cards and had an average rating of 7.45. As long as he doesn't demand first team football he too has a few more years to play around the midfield and be a substitute as well.

Raequoun Brady - He did well, but I think he slipped over the past year in quality. In 49 appearances he scored 5 goals with 10 assists, 3 player of the match honors, 2 yellow cards with an average rating of 7.42. I think I just expected more out of him. He'll be around thru the next campaign.

Juraj Svrcek - Just when our 25 year old Slovakian striker was gaining momentum he gets injured again with strained knee ligaments. Since he's only 3k/week we resigned him, he's probably going to be backup for now... or maybe sharing striking duties so no one whines about lack of first team football. In 20 appearances he scored 8 goals with 4 assists, 1 yellow card for an average rating of 7.12. He could of gone to the top team in Slovakia at the end of the season so I offered him a 50% raise from 2k to 3k a year and he accepted. since we're broke, I don't see us getting any better strikers

Jonatas Centeno - Thanks to bringing in Tony Marwood, Jonatas went from Right defender to right attacking midfielder. Unfortunately he had some injuries as well this season but he still did wonderful as our right winger. In 42 appearances he scored 15 goals, had 10 assists with 3 Player of the match honors. His average rating was 7.40. Be interesting how he does at the next level.

Keanan Bennetts - Our 26 year old left attacking winger was our joint goal leader. He was injured a bit, missing 25% of the campaign but still put up great numbers for when he did play. In 35 matches he scored 21 goals with 7 assists and 5 Player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.54. I'm hoping he can do the same in the Championship.

Adil Nabi - Our 31 year old Pakistani international had a great year. In 39 matches he scored 21 goals with 6 assists and 5 player of the match honors for an average rating of 7.28. For Pakistan, in World Cup qualifying he played 8 times, scored 7 times with 2 assists, with a Player of the match honor and a yellow card for an average rating of 7.50. He scored 4 against New Zealand. I imagine as things stand for now he's our top striker.

Season Thoughts

We'll see how monetary contraints will hurt us. I've got a new back up keeper coming in and got a contract offer to a young central defender, if he takes the bid I imagine that is about all I can manage in personnel. I'd like to get a backup L/R winger in 1 player but I doubt I'll have the money. Otherwise I expect a slugfest at the Championship level. One other thing, its so easy to find good central defenders but so tough to find anything else of the same quality, its odd to me. Just wondering if anyone else noticed that.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Blimey you knock the seasons off quickly. Well done winning League One.

[JerseyShoreDave]

Blimey you knock the seasons off quickly. Well done winning League One.

For me I just take the time to survey the team, bring in guys, sell guys, and go play. I think I got the game down pretty good for my formation, but my heart is telling me to go from a wide 4-3-3 to a narrow one since crossing just seems bad compared to passing. I dunno, we'll see. I'll put out the current season later tonight... and no we're NOT in the Premiership yet... and thank you as always!

[noikeee]

Fantastic progression once again. I think the best bit so far was that FA Cup run until the semi-finals 3 seasons ago though. We've been missing shock cup runs in this forum this year!

[JerseyShoreDave]

Fantastic progression once again. I think the best bit so far was that FA Cup run until the semi-finals 3 seasons ago though. We've been missing shock cup runs in this forum this year!

All I did in that Cup run was go from control -> defensive and we kept on winning til Premiership Champions Arsenal beat us. I keep on trying to do well in cups for the $$$$ particularly FA cup but things don't always go as we want. Its been quite tough, as it should be, to play against Premiership sides. This season saw another 5th Round Exit this year to Stoke though we did force a replay... Capital One Cup was 2nd round exit thanks to Premiership side Watford. I doubt I can win a cup while in the Championship, but we'll try.