[FM21] BackTheBulls - Jersey Bulls: a charge into the football league

[Jtomsett11]

February 2036

The predicted cup loss aside, this is a superb month. We've been pretty tight at the back and we've also scored at a reasonable rated. I keep thinking we're going to falter at some point, but we keep winning even when we don't deserve it. Against Swansea we had 0.61 xG compared to 2.41. De Rosa is doing really well and at the same time, we keep finding a way to slot home our chances.

The only team with better form than us has been Leicester. Sheffield United have continued to drop away, whilst Stoke have been good, but not as consistent as us. That leaves us with a 9 point advantage with 11 games to go. Crunch time. 

These are the games we have left.

March only sees two home games, but most of these games are winnable. All teams are in the bottom half. We then face 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th. I think if we manage to keep the gap to 9 points by the end of March, we stand a superb chance of promotion via the automatic spot. If the gap closes, I think we'll have to pull some huge results out of the bag. I don't want it coming down to that last game of the season!

 

[Sonic Youth]

You’ve opened a gap while keeping close to Leicester. April though is 

Interesting time to lose your Assistant Manager. Probably a better replacement you’ve signed, though maybe the personality could also make a difference…?

How do you find IR buttons anyway? Do you need to DL a skin to use it? Where’s the best place to find them?

Back on your thread, and got my fingers crossed you finish where your st or higher 

[Jtomsett11]

4 hours ago, Sonic Youth said:

You’ve opened a gap while keeping close to Leicester. April though is 

Interesting time to lose your Assistant Manager. Probably a better replacement you’ve signed, though maybe the personality could also make a difference…?

How do you find IR buttons anyway? Do you need to DL a skin to use it? Where’s the best place to find them?

Back on your thread, and got my fingers crossed you finish where your st or higher 

Yeah,  April is going to be very tough. I'll post March shortly as it was... interesting.  

I downloaded a skin. I can't remember which one,  but it was essentially the standard skin but with the instant result option. I do miss playing the games,  but for the scope of this save it wouldn't have worked. I have ideas for my next save where I won't start as low down so will probably go back to 'normal'.

[Jtomsett11]

March 2036

We started the month in frustrating fashion as we drew what I felt was a very winnable game against Shrewsbury. However, we were down to 10 men for almost 70 minutes, so I guess it's not actually a bad result.

The injury to Konate was the bigger problem, as he would be out for 4-5 weeks at the same time our other first choice Jakovljevic has also been out since mid-February. Jialiang and Mackenzie haven't convinced me, although they are reasonable backups. We do tend to concede more when they play.

The rest of the month was definitely impacted by this.

The draw against Millwall isn't a disaster, but it is when you then lose the next game. We really needed to beat Luton and MK Dons, and fortunately we did.

Campbell has picked up 3 goals and 2 assists in the last two games, which was a huge boost. 

Those results, 8 points from 5 games, don't leave us in as bad a position as they probably should. Sheffield United have a game in hand, so could close the gap to 7 points with 6 games to go. Although this month was a lot easier than next month and we should have picked up more points, if you'd have given me a 7 point minimum gap and guaranteed play-off spot after 40 games I'd have bitten your hand off. 

I think we're going to need 7-9 points from the next 6 games to go up in second place. That would leave Sheffield United needing 17-19 points from 21 to draw level and probably go up on goal difference. In reality, their form isn't likely to get them that, but I've seen crazier things before. I think we should be able to go up here, but I'm getting extremely tense pressing 'instant result' ahead of each game!

[Jtomsett11]

Youth intake 2036

At first glance we have 4-5 players with decent potential here. 

Attribute analysis highlights a few more who, if the potential ability ratings are wrong (and we know they can be), might be potential first team material.

Technically this is our best ever intake and I am really pleased by it. 6 Jersey-born players and two of them with decent potential is good too.

Kizito doesn't have the best personality, but it's not a disaster and the rest of his attributes are very solid for a CB. If he manages to develop he could be a great player and he's Jersey-born which is a bonus.

Quansah has that brilliant combination of low determination and ambition. Great. Otherwise there's a lot of potential here and he's our best keeper to come through the youth academy attribute wise.

His best position might be advanced forward, but his finishing and composure isn't great. Let's see how he develops before we decide on a position. 

Palmer doesn't like running with the ball, which we will have to try and encourage him to 'unlearn' unless we stick with him as a DLP. Mentally, he's very strong and he has a great personality. I'm not sure if I want to convert him to a DLF or use him as a playmaker and hope I can develop his passing, vision and decisions quite considerably.

 

[Punch]

Great looking season, and a good looking intake as well.

[Sonic Youth]

A nice break/intake before April waltz’s in 

[Jtomsett11]

April/ May 2036

I didn't realise when I last posted, but Sheffield United's next two games, not just their game in hand, would come before we kicked another ball.

So we're 10 points clear with Sheffield United able to get a maximum of 84 points. We need 6 points to guarantee promotion and I really think we should be able to do that! Some of you will notice that it was former Bull's player Bondswell who sunk Sheffield United against Brentford. Thanks Bondswell!

We started off with two draws, and Sheffield United won their next game to close the gap slightly.

Our home game with Stoke would probably be our best chance of picking up 3 points now. 

Campbell and Dilrosun do the business!

How did Sheffield United do?

They lost! We're promoted to the Premier League!

We played some youth players and rotated quite heavily for the final three games as a result, and so ended on 85 points. 

Quite the achievement. We go up with a wage spend of just £4.4 million a year. 

This may inflate player demands somewhat I'd imagine!

 

 

[Punch]

That's awesome! Congratulations

This clubs rise has been an awesome story to follow.

[Sonic Youth]

[Pompeyboyz]

21 hours ago, Jtomsett11 said:

I can see this save lasting a lot longer as long as nobody gets me FM22 for Christmas 

You might hate me, but I nominated you for the FM22 code in the OFT forum giveaway  

[Jtomsett11]

On 24/12/2021 at 10:38, Pompeyboyz said:

You might hate me, but I nominated you for the FM22 code in the OFT forum giveaway  

Haha saw this! No problem! Just saw I didn't get it anyway,  so more FM21 for me 🤣

Edited December 25, 2021 by Jtomsett11

[argento]

Just caught up with all this, epic thread. Good luck in the prem 

[Jtomsett11]

Player performance review 2035/36

Goalkeepers

De Rosa has continued to maintain his number 1 status. Gordon got a couple more games in the cup, and as his contract is set at 'cup goalkeeper' I'll use him in all the cups next year while De Rosa stays at our number 1. Our reports say he's near his potential now, but I'm hoping there's a bit more to come from him. Adding up his saves, he made an average of over 3 saves per game and we conceded less than our xGC, so I'm very happy with his performance. 

Centre backs

It's funny, we definitely felt more vulnerably and I thought we conceded more goals playing with Jialiang and Mackenzie, but they won more points per game. Mackenzie has the lowest ratio for tackling success and interceptions per game and second worst ratio for winning headers, although he does still win the most headers. He's probably a bit of a weak link now, but he is a youth product so I'm unlikely to replace him as a backup. Konate and Jakovljevic had a real impact this season with the former also scoring 6 goals. This is probably one of the stronger areas of the squad, although the step up the Premier League football will probably see us concede a lot of goals again!

Full backs

This is the first time Howells has gotten close to Holder's game time and this season he contributed quite a few goals (2) and assists (5) for our full backs. I am unlikely to keep Holder as he would want a really high wage to join and his ability probably doesn't justify that. Harte was ahead of Davidson. He has a lower interception rate, but his tackle and heading success is up (he's now up to 12 jumping). If his jumping gets much higher, we could move him back to CB, but he does now have the PPM 'gets forward whenever possible' which isn't good for a CB obviously! I thought he was stuck at 10 as he'd been there for a whole year.

Midfielders

Clarke and Robbins tie for the highest rating this year and that's partially down to Clarke getting more game time at BWM as well as DLP. He picked up 7 assists in the end, which isn't very high but he didn't take many free kicks or corners this year. O'Neill was inconsistent, but when he played well he did really well, contributing 8 assists. It was nice to have a good quality option to rotate with Clarke and this is an area to work on in the transfer market. Knill is a nice backup player and seems happy with that role currently. Johnston was completely out of his depth in the last 2 league games I played him in. I think a loan or an U23s run is needed for him.

Wingers

Another really strong area of our team. Dilrosun was really good this season, with 14 assists and 6 goals in just 37 games. When he lacked consistency, Bienvenu was able to come in and make an impact with 9 goal contributions himself. He's developed nicely. Harrop is again up and down, but had 15 goal contributions in 29 games, again at a rate of 1 per every 2 games. Scott was our standout performer, with 31 goal contributions in 38 games, of which about 25 were at RW in the end. I have him on loan for next season along with Mascall as you can have 2 long term loans in the Prem, so as long as United don't recall him I'm very happy with the wingers. Nuhu got some game experience once we were promoted and probably needs a loan next season.

Strikers

I'm pretty happy with my strike force, but we probably do need some reinforcement. Mascall scored 33 goals in 38 games which is superb. He was the top scorer in the Championship despite missing 20% of the available games. Bah did struggle to score in the league this season, but he mainly played AF when Mascall was out of form, and that tended to coincide with poor form from our creative players, so he had a tough gig. Campbell is definitely the most effective DLF we have, but had a hard start to his career with us before ending up with 5 goals and 7 assists in 24 games, which is much better than previous DLFs have managed in their first seasons. Although he probably isn't Premier League quality, he'll definitely get a shot.

While we continue to be very effective going forward, our improvement defensively is what got us promoted in my opinion as a lot of our high goal scoring games were 5-0 or 6-2: we didn't need to be as efficient to win those games, so it's the games where we won 2-1 despite having a xGA much higher than our xG

Awards and ToTY

No complaints with these awards.

Three record breakers. Robbins moves ahead of Knill and is likely to add to his record appearances next year. He might make 400 appearances in the league, but he's very unlikely to hit 500. I think we'll probably break that £3m transfer record now we've been promoted. Folkes had an awful season at Brentford!

Just 4 Jersey-born players in our Championship promotion-winning team plus 3 other youth academy graduates. It's our lowest total for years, but still, 7 youth academy graduates in a Championship promotion-winning side is an excellent achievement considering that this isn't a youth-only save.

No record breakers this season. 

 

[Jtomsett11]

Club overview 2035/356

This has obviously been a highly successful season as we make the step up to the Premier League after three seasons in the Championship. I can't remember who commented on one of my posts during last season to suggest that a slight blip of a season might allow my young players the experience to then make a push for promotion this year, but they were spot on really as players such as Dilrosun took huge steps forward. In addition, our growing reputation allowed us to seal a few transfers which helped create a very solid first team squad.

Our 16th season has seen big strides off the pitch as our facilities improve and we're set to move into our new 14000 seater stadium before the start of the Premier League season. I'm very interested to see what the attendances are like.

It's interesting to note that we've not won a league since 2026/27 and we've never won a cup. We've lost one cup final (Cherry Red Records back in 2020/21), lost two play-off finals and we've won two play-off finals as well as getting promoted via league position 4 times. While I just want to stay in the Premier League, our next intermediate goal has to be to win a cup. The FA Cup was the original goal of the save, but I'd obviously take the League Cup too. 

Staying in the Premier League is going to be a difficult task. Fortunately, the board will be happy if we fight bravely, so hopefully I'll keep my job either way.

I'm going to be very careful with new contract offers as a lot of them now want £1 million a year as we're in the promised land and I don't want average players on that kind of money if they have 2+ years left and aren't going to be particularly useful at the next level. I also don't want to lose our focus on Jersey-born youth and other youth academy prospects, so we need to allow our young players game time at this next level even if it risks results to some degree. With that in mind, once I've done some attribute analysis and a separate post on our best Jersey-born and academy prospects, I'll be looking to sign 2-3 players to bolster key positions and replace some loanees (Holder and O'Neill) who we can't renew as we're only allowed 2 loans next year.

For those interested, the other team to come up in the play-offs was Forest.

Forest have not been promoted in this save, so this will be a challenging return for them too.

I do feel for Sheffield United, as their cup run to the FA Cup final coincided with their awful second half of the season form. They ended up losing the final as well.

 

 

[Jtomsett11]

Attribute analysis summer 2036

Goalkeepers

De Rosa made good strides last season, but I do hope his potential isn't already maxed as the coach reports appear to suggest. Morris is another making significant progress out on loan. He probably needs another loan stint next year. Quantas is the latest prospect.

Centre backs

Pleasing development from my new signings, Jakovljevic and Konate, even if only slight. Jialiang and Mackenzie also developed. The big one here is Harte, who played at RB this season. His jumping is now up to 12 and he shows no signs of stalling in his development. I think he will play RB next year with a potential view to moving to a CB if his jumping increases up to 14. I have played with short CBs before, but our tactic relies on our defenders winning lots of headers so it's not really an option here. Feeney looks our greatest prospect at CB in terms of attribute growth, and he stands a chance of playing for us. Kizito is new this year and so growth already is promising. More about him shortly.

Full backs

Howells had his best season with us this year. Davidson has slowed his growth and I'm concerned he's hitting a bit of a wall in terms of development. Let's see how he does next year. Edwards grew quite a bit in the U23s this year. He's maybe in line for a loan, or another season of development at that level. 

Ball winning midfielders

The top three all have slight growth often associated with players very near their peak grinding out their final growth due to good form. Johnston, Holland and Fontaine all look capable attribute wise, but if you look at them closely, it's elements such as bravery, aggression, team work and work rate that give them such high scores. All of these attributes I believe can be moved up and down without affecting CA much, if at all, and therefore these scores are slightly misleading. Fontaine has been on loan and perhaps Johnstone and Holland need the same treatment.

Deep lying playmakers

Clarke is our first 85+ rated player. Black's growth on loan was impressive, but realistically the Premier League is too big a step up. He may have earnt a new contract if he doesn't want millions a year though as he was due to expire in June and I'm rethinking that now. Palmer joined two months ago, so his growth is astonishing. He can't pass yet, and has limited vision and decision making, but he is also 15/16.

Wingers

We have a lot of players again. Dilrosun has made huge strides this year. I'm hoping his development continues, unlike Harrop who has hit his peak. Scott and Bienvenu should make up our other wingers next year and this quartet are streets ahead of our other options. 

Pursall has stalled badly, so it's players like Dowling, Palmer and Nuhu who are likely to get the nod to join the first team squad. Nuhu made his debut once we were promoted.

Deep lying forwards

Campbell made some progress once he settled and is our best choice here attribute wise. Bah's growth was slower this season, so I'm hoping his growth accelerates next year. Vines made some progress on loan while the others are very young.

Advanced forwards

While Campbell may be top here, it's been about Mascall the past few seasons. Bah made more progress in this role so that's pleasing. Palmer seems a good option in almost any role from the midfield forward! Hassan was wanted by a few Championship clubs this year but has stalled in his growth. He needs to go out on loan.

 

[Sonic Youth]

Good review and breakdown of what to expect for the coming season.

Funny your also reviewing all JB players. My first thought was Bondswell and would he be good enough for the Prem 

[Punch]

17 minutes ago, Jtomsett11 said:

Attribute analysis summer 2036

A lot of blue in there which is great to see.

Squad is coming along nicely

[Jtomsett11]

Jersey-born players May 2036

One of my goals for the save was to have players born in Jersey representing the side. Essentially, a youth focused save but with as many born in Jersey as possible. Last year we had just 4 in the team of the year (but a few other academy prospects born elsewhere) as we've bought more players in and our youth recruitment is much wider.  It's a good junction to consider the available Jersey-born players in our squad and out in the market. 

Let's take a look at the current squad.

So, two important players, three squad players and two backups currently. With the exception of Harte, none of them are of actual Premier League quality or potential. Clarke is possibly a little underrated by my assistant manager; I feel he is slightly ahead of the rest of the pack. 

We have two outstanding prospects who are both growing in the youth academy, Dowling and Kizito. I would expect them both to feature next year, but probably not this year. Vines and Fontaine are both older and their need for game time a little more pressing. They've both had loan spells this season, and Fontaine last year, but at League Two and Vanarama National level. I could perhaps risk Fontaine as my backup BWM next year, but that's a serious risk to take in the Premier League as he's very slow.

Ramsay and Curtis have time on their side, but we do need to monitor their attribute growth. While Curtis grew by 4 points last year, Ramsay grew by just 1. Perhaps it's the different starting points as their personalities would suggest Ramsay should grow more. 

Rasulo signed a contract with Le Havre and Holder wants £800k a year to sign plus a £2.5 million transfer fee. Not sure he's worth that.

Let's take a look at our former players, or players born in Jersey.

Firstly, I've noticed one player born in Jersey but not from our academy or poached from us and that is Ciaran Robertson. Exciting!

Secondly, most of this list is pretty poor and there's a reason we let them go. I am going to add them to our 'Jersey' shortlist as I've forgotten to do that for the ones not scouted. 

Thirdly, this is the list of players interested in transfers.

This list does include some of our old players who I would say yes to! Bondswell, Toomer and Brooking would make good additions I think. They do want a small fortune in wages though.

I'll have to keep them in mind when I scout for players as some of those asking prices aren't that high really. I shall be scouting Geddes too and seeing if he's interested!

Overall the picture isn't bad and I feel we'll at least have some representation from Jersey-born players even in 5 years time. I'll take another look in 2040 and monitor this.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Jtomsett11
Added context

[Jtomsett11]

24 minutes ago, Sonic Youth said:

Good review and breakdown of what to expect for the coming season.

Funny your also reviewing all JB players. My first thought was Bondswell and would he be good enough for the Prem 

Yes I've looked at him, I'm going to do some scouting as he's willing to come!

[Jtomsett11]

May 2036

I'm already struggling to decide what path to go down this summer. 

I have had a look at signings some Jersey-born players such as Geddes, Toomer and Bondswell, and even agreed deals for two of them.

Bondswell still has a 50% clause active, so we'd have paid just £6.38 million for him. 

However, I'm really not happy paying these wages. Our highest current wage is £450k per year. I know I'm going to have to break my wage structure and offer new signings more, but paying Bondswell over £46k a week just seems so excessive. Let's be honest, if he wasn't Jersey-born I wouldn't even be interested in him. So, do I focus on former youth, or cast the net wider and consider who else there is available to improve the squad? This isn't a youth-only save and I still have a high number of homegrown players who will play a part next season. 

I've cancelled these deals for now, as there's no interest in either player other than us, so I can always go again later in the summer, plus I'm not sure they improve the squad enough to justify the wages.

One area I have been more decisive on is the staffing. We now have the best coaching teams I could get.

 

[Sonic Youth]

Those wages are sure to cause a stir with the squad. Could stop you from staying up! But, if they make a difference and are definitely a top talent, might be worth it. Your walking a highwire here now without the benefit of a balancing pole 

That coaching set-up looks great 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Sonic Youth
Out

[Jtomsett11]

July 2036

In the end I came up with a compromise between buying Jersey-born talent, improving our squad and keeping faith with the players who got us promoted. I very rarely buy more than 3-4 players in a season as I find this unsettles my squads.

Transfers in

Mascall joins having spent the last three seasons on loan. I'm not sure if there was some sort of bug, as he was valued at £19m and Blackburn asked for £20m. When I countered I added 40% sell on and £5 million in two installments and they accepted. It's nice to have him permanently rather than on loan. He has asked for a £19 million release fee for clubs in European competition, but to be honest I don't think he's good enough. He's asked for just less than £20k a week which I think is very reasonable!

He's been superb for us, and although his mentals are slightly lacking, his finishing is excellent. I may add 'shoots first time' or something similar as a PPM as well as runs with the ball often as I feel they might maximise his impact when he receives the ball over the top/ through the middle and when he receives it in the box.

Cook comes in to replace O'Neill, who is off back to United after his loan spell.

Mentally, he isn't as strong as Clarke, or Knill, so only scores  as a deep lying playmaker, but his technicals and PPM's should make him a great player for us. He required over £30k a week, but I'm coming round to accepting the higher wages all my players want when they need a renewal.

Next, we add a LB to compete with Howells. Moreau was rated much higher by my scouting staff, but he still scores a which makes him our best full back according to attributes. He'll either do really well, or we'll sell him for a decent amount if he doesn't! I love his personality so he's a good addition to the dressing room.

Finally, we do bring in a Jersey-born player and former legend, Bondswell. He scores  and so is our best CB.

Okay, as a ball playing defender he'd be awful, but we don't really use those yet and at 25, Bondswell is a very solid defender who can do a job for us for a number of years. He accepted less money later in the summer and arrived for less too. 

That means we spent just £5 million on him. If we add in his 4 year deal and bonuses, it's probably £13 million in total, so I think that's worth it for a player we loved when he was here. He's had a few rough years, but has had Premier League experience, so he'll be a useful addition.

Transfers out

It's all loans apart from Jialiang. He was seriously unhappy with my contract offer and then me rejecting a bid, so I agreed to sell him and decided to bring Bondswell back. £12.5million is the minimum the board would accept and bearing in mind we brought him in on a free, I think this represents a great deal for the club.

Club news

We're in to our 14000 seat stadium and we're already seeing 90% attendances in friendlies, so we may be increasing the capacity or buying the stadium if we are successful in the Premier League.

I had to include the next item of club news to show how far we have to go still.

If we can improve this situation, along with our stadium improvement and the Premier League TV deal, we could find ourselves in some serious money. This is where we find ourselves financially and budget wise before the season starts.

We're already at our highest financial point of the save due to TV money, season ticket sales and Jialiang's sale and we're predicted to hit £40 million by the end of the year. I've always found the end of year predictions are horrifically low and don't include prize money so we could end up much closer to £100 million. 

There's one more potential transfer before I show the squad for the year ahead and then we face Arsenal away first! A tough start!

 

[Jtomsett11]

16 hours ago, Sonic Youth said:

Those wages are sure to cause a stir with the squad. Could stop you from staying up! But, if they make a difference and are definitely a top talent, might be worth it. Your walking a highwire here now without the benefit of a balancing pole 

That coaching set-up looks great 

Yeah, I managed to keep some wages down, but realistically I've just got to accept we're going to pay through the nose for players now. To be fair, our wage budget of £18 million a year would still be bottom 10 in the Championship, so I won't worry too much unless we get relegated!

I'm very happy with the coaching set up. Once I'm able to ask for facility upgrades I hope we can get up to state of the art with both youth and training facilities.

[Jtomsett11]

First team squad 2036/37

Bondswell, Cook and Moreau improve us, while Mascall was here already. The BWM2 spot is there for the taking as Knill is cover now really, while Scott appears both as AMR1 and DLF2; in reality Bah will play as DLF2 and AF2 when he is fit. I also may use Dowling, the 16 year old Jersey born winger, as backup AMR and AML. 

There is potential to bring in a young BWM but I'm not sure if he'll choose to join us and the Arsenal game is one click away, so this is the squad we start with. 

We're 1000-1 to win the league, joint with Nottingham Forest. This could be a tough season, but escaping relegation even by a whisker is all that's required!

[ToMexico!!]

I've read this from the off and its been great progress with the mindset of Jersey-born first, sometimes a hard thing to implement without a hardcoded restriction in place. Some fantastic signings in this latest window and surely survival in your debut season in the Premiership.

Good Luck! 

[Punch]

That's a pretty decent looking squad, even if you're not going to be pushing for ECL spots, your should at least be competitive in staying up.

[Jtomsett11]

August 2036

We made one final signing just before the Arsenal game. Rafael joins us for just £475k and looks a real prospect at BWM. He scores  on the attribute score. He'll rotate with Robbins.

We made an inauspicious start to life in the Premier League. Bondswell in particular did not have a second-debut to remember.

A 3 game ban, at least no own goal! 

However, we made up for it in our next game against Newcastle.

2 goals in 2 minutes in our first competitive home game at our new stadium saw us on our way to our first points in the Premier League. Things got better 7 days later against Blackburn. We were 3-0 up before Blackburn scored twice. We then scored again before hanging on for all 3 points. Our first away victory and 6 points out of a possible 9. 

We lost away to Villa in our final Premier League game, but again we impressed and were slightly unlucky to lose 3-2.

We end the month in 8th place, which is really impressive, especially when you consider we've played 3 away games.

The one real downer in the month was losing in the cup to Ebbsfleet. We played quite a strong team and played well, but just couldn't finish. A simple error from Howells led to their goal and then they beat us on penalties. The only positive was Dowling, who set up a goal on his first appearance for us.

Club developments

Off the pitch, there have been a number of developments.

We broke our attendance record, having already sold out our season tickets. 100% attendance in our first game at our new home.

I decided to cheekily press this button. 

And they've granted it. 4000 extra seats and I'm sure we'll be able to fill that too!

We also then requested extra facilities. The chairman said no at first, but agreed pretty quickly with me.

We're very rapidly going to establish ourselves at the top table at this rate.

Even with the £7million on facilities, we only made a £3.5 million loss, so we should be in a healthy position by the end of the season.

[Jtomsett11]

September 2036

We've had a shocker of a month really.

The Wolves game we made 3 individual errors, while the Brighton game we had an xG of 3.76! 

What's compounded the problem is that Konate got very upset with my offer of a contract and then said I'd broken too many promises. 

21 of my squad were siding with him on this, and I couldn't find the team meeting button for this particular problem until after the West Ham game.

At first I tried a general team meeting.

That had a positive affect, but they were still unhappy with me (all 21 of them). Finally I saw on the Squad page a link next to 'internationals' and clicked on that and was able to resolve it by essentially telling them I do everything in their best interest. Now nobody cares at all!

I hate the whole promises and team meetings module, as I know pretty much everyone does. Konate came in, wanted to play as a ball playing CB and wanted me to improve the coaches. I've actually done the latter, but didn't do the former. However, he decided he was over both of these problems and then wanted a new contract. I offered him one, which he rejected as I only offered 'important player'. This apparently means too many promises are broken. It's a bit of a joke and probably contributed to our losses as poor morale often increases defensive mistakes and decreases attacking efficiency in my experience.

Our next month now looks difficult.

We'll do well to get a point I feel and that'll probably see us in the relegation places.

I think we can see where our glaring weakness is. We are the worst team defensively in the league. That doesn't bother me if we win the odd game, as we can concede 100 goals and stay up if we win enough.

Edit: I did forget that we were also without Clarke this month and Cook has been useless. Nobody seems to match Clarke in the middle.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Jtomsett11

[Jtomsett11]

September 2036 youth update

I wanted to write a separate post as Hassan has been pulling up trees in League Two with Gillingham.

Although in the profile below he only has 4 goals in 6, he now has 8 in 10. I'm not sure he'll cut it for us without development technically, but he's the first loan player for a while to really flourish other than our goalkeepers. Majernik and De Rosa both played on loan before cementing first team status but nobody else has made the step-up for quite a few years. Ultimately Hassan's personality will also likely hold him back, but it's nice to see him do well.

 

[Jtomsett11]

October 2036 part 1

I've only played 1 game in October, but what a game it was!

We shifted Campbell back into midfield to replace Cook and kept faith with the front four and they responded superbly. Dilrosun now has 6 assists in 8 league games and Bah has 4 goals in 7 this season. Wins at the bottom mean we're just 3 points from 18th, but this gives me a little faith that now our team morale issues are behind us that we can continue to shock teams and we won't always concede 4 each game!

Just to provide the context of our challenge, look at these commercial income comparisons.

Chelsea make £71 million a season.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Jtomsett11

[Sonic Youth]

Team cohesion really affected your team! That Chelsea win was fantastic 

It’s a good thing that your doing a youth only challenge.

Are there business and finances courses you can send your chairman on? Not doing his job commercially 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Sonic Youth
Of Course!

[rmcf2017]

Finally caught up and i am thoroughly impressed by the save, specially your development of younger players seems top notch

[Jtomsett11]

On 30/12/2021 at 01:09, Sonic Youth said:

Team cohesion really affected your team! That Chelsea win was fantastic 

It’s a good thing that your doing a youth only challenge.

Are there business and finances courses you can send your chairman on? Not doing his job commercially 

Yes, it had a massive impact. The Chelsea win may have been a one-off unfortunately 

Remember I'm only focused on the youth, I have made signings, especially in the past two seasons. From what I've seen this season more may be necessary!

1 hour ago, rmcf2017 said:

Finally caught up and i am thoroughly impressed by the save, specially your development of younger players seems top notch

Thank you! I have managed to eek the most out of most of the young players it seems. The difficulty now will be maintaining the younger player development side and staying in the Prem!

[Jtomsett11]

October 2036 continued

I posted our win against Chelsea, which was a bonus, but the rest of the month was as expected.

5 losses out of 6 games sees us right on the edge of the drop zone.

Off the field issues continue to blight us. Konate agreed to sign a new contract and to prevent problems I gave him a very good deal.

However, his morale actually dropped after signing the deal.

Yes, he's signed a deal and started complaining again. 

He was our best performing CB so this isn't good at all.

Compounding matters, after one U23 game to gain some fitness, Clarke is out again. This is a huge blow as Cook has been shocking and Campbell played well against Chelsea but not against Liverpool or City.

The finances are the only thing off the pitch helping us at the moment!

[Sonic Youth]

Ugh, Konate is a piece of work 

Winning one out of three ain’t bad, especially scoring 4 goals in that run 

Clarke needs to get over those injuries pronto!

Time to grind out a bunch of results and set up an easier end of season.

[Jtomsett11]

November 2036

We're on a rotten run and we now sit 20th. The Forest game we were 3-2 up, but to be honest they deserved it. The Leicester and Leeds game worry me as usually at home we at least create some decent chances. 

We're breaking records, but they aren't good ones.

Yes, not good. We're not adrift at all, but we do need to start winning the odd game if we're to survive.

December is a busy and key month. If we win some games we can go into January knowing we stand a chance. Lose all of these and I fear it'll be a return to the Championship for sure.

Off the field, the issues continue to mount.

He hasn't played well, but this is a blow nonetheless.

Howells I've promised more game time as Moreau went and got injured for a month the day before he complained!

Harrop is happy for now.

Dilrosun wasn't happy to wait to the end of the season to be sold, so he'll just have to be unhappy.

 He only played 45 minutes for the U23s this time!

I'm not exactly optimistic about our chances 

 

[Sonic Youth]

Oh dear, that’s a far from positive November.

That GA column is hurting at the moment and December is full of opportunities against teams around you. Those injuries definitely aren’t timed well though.

[Jtomsett11]

4 hours ago, Sonic Youth said:

Oh dear, that’s a far from positive November.

That GA column is hurting at the moment and December is full of opportunities against teams around you. Those injuries definitely aren’t timed well though.

Yes agreed,  it does all seem to be going against us.  I think in reality we're an okay championship side achieving much more than we should have and now we're paying the price. I think this may be a long old season and we may lose quite a few players when we go down, but we'll most certainly then be able to give more opportunities to others and hopefully continue to develop as a club

[edgar555]

I just read this over the last couple of days and must say it’s a tremendous save and thread. Very good work. 

[Jtomsett11]

On 01/01/2022 at 18:47, edgar555 said:

I just read this over the last couple of days and must say it’s a tremendous save and thread. Very good work. 

Thanks! I've really enjoyed it until the last couple of months of this season, as you'll see 

[Jtomsett11]

December 2036

I'm not particularly enjoying playing right now . Between work and a very long winless run, I'm not finding the time or motivation and just about fought through to the end of December.

Some of these games have been quite close, and we really should have won them. The Bournemouth game in particular was disappointing.

However, overall we're not good enough. I'm not sure if it's tactical. Perhaps it is, we've stuck to our pretty offensive 4-2-4 tactic and we're just too up against it for it to work. However, it's got us this far and I'm slightly loathe to change things hugely. I do have an alternative 4-5-1 tactic that I may try from my first career on FM21. 

We've had a number of other issues again this month.

Dilrosun, who is by far our best player, really isn't happy.

Our first choice RB, ST and LB have all been out or will be out for a good while.

Our backup RB and backup LW can't handle the pressure. 

And just to run salt into the wounds...

That looks like a good intake!

The table looks like this, so you can see we're not adrift at all, but we are going to need a huge turnaround and we are going to need to win some games!

 

 

[Punch]

Scoring enough goals, just need to find a way to concede a few less, and you’ll be in with a shake.

[Jtomsett11]

Mid-season analysis 2036

Let's see just how rubbish the players have been this season!

Goalkeepers

De Rosa has had a tough time this season. He's conceded 50 in 21 games but I don't think he can be blamed for many of them to be honest. He's one of a select few of our players who are probably of reasonable premier league quality. 

Defenders

If we start with our CBs, Konate is the best in the tackle and Jakovljevic is the best in the air. These numbers aren't much worse than in any other season to be honest. Bondswell has definitely been a disappointing signing and the old adage of 'never go back' seems to fit here.

At full back Harte has been better than his rating suggest when you compare him to Moreau. Davidson has the only assists of any fullbacks, which isn't great really!

Midfielders

Clarke is the only midfielder contributing a reasonable number of key passes, but let's be honest, along with Cook and Knill he isn't doing particularly well. I feel we're often overrun in midfield, so maybe a change of formation might help. Robbins and Rafael are both winning tackles at a reasonable rate, but they're not making many interceptions at all compared to last year, again a problem.

Wingers

Bearing in mind Dilrosun had 6 assists in the first 8 games, his record has been rubbish since he decided he wanted to leave. Scott has been our next most effective player, but his numbers are way down on last year. Harrop and Bienvenu have been pretty average. Dowling will get more game time to help his development.

Forwards

Bah is the success story so far this year. 7 goals and 3 assists in 18 games. Mascall hasn't been brilliant at this level, but did do very well before our form dropped off a cliff. Campbell looks way off the pace at this level.

[Sonic Youth]

That run of fixtures made me hesitant to see the league table. Not as bad as I expected actually, though does show how hard the step up to the top league has been.

Dilrosun has been an ass 

Bondswell I guess is a dream.

Bah is dreamy though, and long may he perform for you 

You’ve got 17 games to decide this season’s fate.

Bring on a deceptively good/amazing youth intake 

[Jtomsett11]

10 hours ago, Sonic Youth said:

That run of fixtures made me hesitant to see the league table. Not as bad as I expected actually, though does show how hard the step up to the top league has been.

Dilrosun has been an ass 

Bondswell I guess is a dream.

Bah is dreamy though, and long may he perform for you 

You’ve got 17 games to decide this season’s fate.

Bring on a deceptively good/amazing youth intake 

Yes, we're not too far adrift, but I just can't see us winning.  I've been having a little play with a 4-5-1 on an old save and might give it a go. 

Bah already has a minor issue that he thinks he should be at a bigger team, so I think he'll ask to go if we get relegated.  I think at the end of January I should know more about whether we've got a chance or not as we've got some reasonable home games coming up. The squad could look very different if we go down as our good players may leave and our average players haven't really been getting enough games so aren't happy and want to leave now anyway!

 

[Jtomsett11]

January 2037

Hello! 13 matches without a win and then two come along within one month! The first game against Blackburn saw us make our tactical switch to 4-5-1 and on the face of it there was an instant reward. When you look at the match in detail, you can see we clearly deserved the win, but boy did we leave it late!

We played a relatively strong team against Forest in the cup, and again the new tactics paid dividends and sent us through. We then had three very close games, even the loss against Newcastle was pretty tight.

Bah scored again against Wolves, as did Dilrosun who finally seems to be able to be unhappy and play football for us. Perhaps it's because it's January and he's hoping for a move! The Brighton loss was poor, but we stuck with the tactics against Villa and West Ham. New boy Dempsey (more on him in the transfer summary) scored an equaliser against Villa in a very low xG game (both teams having less than 1), leaving me quite frustrated and considering switching back to 4-2-4. I saw the West Ham game as crucial as we've some tough fixtures coming up. 

I made the decision to stick to 4-5-1 and goals from Konate and Dilrosun saw us through 2-0 winners in a game we dominated. 

Okay, we're only just out of the relegation zone on goal difference, but that's a significant turnaround for us. Of our 20 points, 8 have come in the last 5 games of the season. If we can keep this form up, we may be able to claim safety. It's a big 'if'. These are are remaining 12 fixtures.

I really only see 2 home games that we should see as winnable, Bournemouth and Forest. We're either going to have to upset some big sides, or win games away. I don't see anyone needing 40 points to stay up, but probably 35 or 36. It's a big ask. To add to the problem, I noticed this when looking at Cook, who had played as advanced playmaker against West Ham.

I must have clicked 'match plan' and we used our 4-2-4 formation for that game. And we won. And dominated. What on earth do I do now?! The next three games are 'a draw would be amazing' kind of fixtures, so I think we'll try and stick to 4-5-1, but in the easier home games this becomes more complicated. I'm just going to have to plumb for one and see what happens.

We've also had an unfortunate injury. However, the next three game won't decide our season, so hopefully he's back for the crunch games as he's very useful on the right wing.

[Punch]

That's a good turn around. Hopefully you can keep it rolling on the run home.

[Jtomsett11]

15 minutes ago, Punch said:

That's a good turn around. Hopefully you can keep it rolling on the run home.

Yeah I was really surprised with the Blackburn game and we've just kept inching forward since then. At least we're putting up a decent fight!

[Jtomsett11]

Transfers January 2037

I made some big decisions in this month, although they'll probably seem quite minor compared to squad overhauls some people tend to do. While I'm loyal to my squad and my 'Jersey-boys', this can only go so far when you're bottom of the league.

I've agreed the sale of Howells, with the condition that we get him back until the end of the season. Despite his statistics being better than Moreau, we gain double the points when the frenchman plays and right now it's points that count. He was unhappy with game time and this way we get a great fee and don't need to buy another LB until the summer when we'll know our future.

Knill also went out on loan to who are 4th in League One. That kind of shows his level. He may have been our club captain, but I couldn't give him the game time anymore. In comes Dempsey, who is a bit of an interesting 18 year old prospect. He's been bought to add pace to the midfield 3, but is still reasonable suited to both BWM  and DLP .

Could I have done more business? Yes, perhaps. However, I feel we've turned a corner with these players and want to give the majority of them the chance to keep us up. Perhaps my faith will come back to haunt me. Let's find out!