[FM23] Nessie Awakes!

[phnompenhandy]

Ebbsfleet unfortunately lost the final on penalties to Havant, meaning they'll be our main rivals next season. Let's look aroud the Kingdom.

Tier 1

Rangers and Celtic still there

 

[phnompenhandy]

TIERS 2-4

Hearts had a good season, our neighbours Inverness Caledonian Thistle got promoted, and a Scottish and Irish team come up from tier 4.

 

[phnompenhandy]

TIERS 5 AND 6

Irish joy in tier 5; English take tier 6

 

[phnompenhandy]

REGIONAL TIER 7 - NORTH AND SOUTH

 

[phnompenhandy]

FOUR REGIONAL NATIONS: TIER 8 - us first

 

[phnompenhandy]

The bookies would have us reach the play-offs

So would the board

Hang on ... am I being set up to fail???

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by phnompenhandy

[phnompenhandy]

As we segued into the pre-season phase, we sat down to plan out background matters. We needed to draw up a full-time training programme. I largely used what I’ve learned and am currently learning for my Continental Pro qualification at St. George’s in Burton. We hired more staff and released a few who didn’t want to commit to being full-time. Perhaps most significantly, we hired a dedicated Sports Scientist and persuaded Muir Morton to leave his post at Fortrose Academy to be our full-time Head of Youth Development. Also, Shane decided to be quite generous with the salaries if people agreed to long-term contracts. As he explained, players may come and go, but the infrastructure – hard infrastructure and human infrastructure must remain stable. Together with the massively swollen wage budget now all the players have accepted full-time contracts, our finances to me seem quite unsustainable. Presumably Shane has other ideas, but I dare not ask. All I can say is, we have the strongest backroom team in the league, amongst the best facilities and possibly the strongest playing squad. If we don’t go up this season, I have nowhere to hide.

A phenomenal amount of human resources at work here - it's all part of our philosophy

 

Our venture into the world of professional player contracts

 

Edited December 31, 2022 by phnompenhandy

[phnompenhandy]

One way to generate income is with money-spinning preseason friendlies, hence we opened with our newly traditional match against Ross County, soon to be followed by the arranged game against Blackpool. I didn’t mind losing the matches, but I did object to Blackpool tapping up Danny Taylor. Now I’ve got an unhappy key player.

The new training system irked some of the lads who weren’t quite prepared for what full-time involves – they’ll get used to it or quit. There were a few injuries too – again, a transitional issue we just have to run with – it’s why we hired a top-notch sports scientist.

We opened our account with two cup ties against lower tier opposition. Rostock scored four in a 6-2 win, but the B team found it harder, grafting to a 3-2 victory over Whitby. The second-string played that game because three days later the league season got underway.

 

a routine start to a new era

What wasn't 'routine' was the way we blew Welling United away in our opening league game. Only winning 2-0 was an injustice - have you ever seen such a dominant display or seamless teamwork?

 

Edited December 31, 2022 by phnompenhandy

[phnompenhandy]

Just when you began to think everything’s going well, in one training session our goalkeeper did his groin and is out for six weeks, and our only right wingback hurt his foot and is out for a month.

As a result, our squad depth was really put to this test at King’s Lynn. It was a closely-fought encounter, but the ‘old guard’ of Taylor and Harkiss, with Rostock off the bench and raw kid Reece Gray showed the lethal chops and we won 3-1.

the back-up earning their fancy new salaries

We came a bit unstuck against Chippenham. We controlled the whole game, but I made a mistake in giving a debut to an Under 18s right wingback and he crumbled, with errors giving away two goals (in truth, there was no one else fit to call on). But this time we finished strongly with two goals in the last five minutes to salvage a 3-3 draw.

The injury list had torn up my careful plans for my first team, under 23s and Under 18s squads already, and we could only take two of my first-choice Starting XI down to Ebbsfleet, in what over the summer I’d have labelled our toughest league game of the season notwithstanding the matter of revenge. That such a ‘weakened’ side played Ebbsfleet off the park, despite what the 3-2 score line might suggest only makes me more certain that this year is our year.

Edited December 31, 2022 by phnompenhandy

[phnompenhandy]

I realise now that my new training regime is exhausting the players, giving them insufficient time to recover between games. I’ll build in recovery sessions. In the meantime, my increasingly desperate attempt to plus the right wingback hole led me to starting McConnachie there in our home game against Guiseley. He did well enough, but we struggled to beat our pointless, bottom-dwelling opponents until Rostock’s brace confirmed a 3-2 victory.

Three days later we were down in Maidenhead, second to our first-place and a different quantity altogether. It was a tough game. A 0-0 draw was a fair result.

I had a deputation of mini-rebels in my office, supporting Taylor as Blackpool continue to tap him up. He’s not happy with me, but he’s playing out of his skin anyway. I’m just hoping this goes away – the transfer window shuts in a few days – could be tense.

 

august -  a lot tougher than it looks here!

and yet here we are - can we stay the course?

 

Edited December 31, 2022 by phnompenhandy

[phnompenhandy]

Liam Crighton, still with us on a voluntary basis, has matured from a geeky 15-year-old schoolkid to a geeky 19-year-old with ever-more savvy computer skills. Due to technology upgrades that fly right over my head, he's bringing me more sophisticated data analysis.

He showed me data for our season so far:

Should this concern me? In isolation - yes. In context - not really; I'll take it. The low number of blocks and clearances are due to us having so much possession, the defenders do less defending that in other teams. But I'd like to reduce the number of goals we concede and keep more clean sheets. I'm well aware that instilling a club DNA necessitates players trying to play in ways they're not entirely comfortable with - until they are. This takes years, and we're still early into the process. Besides.....

This is incredible. Are they not two sides of the same coin? If I try to tighten us up at the back now, would it not be at the expense of reigning in our attacking numbers? Let's look at the whole picture:

 

On balance - and the results say as much - we're doing great, and I don't feel inclined to change a thing. As I have related, in a few victories this season we've had a stroke of luck, or the rub of the green and things won't always go our way, but tinkering with the process might improve one aspect a little by reducing another area more. I spent months on the planning of Highland DNA - it's a complex holistic system. Right now, I'd say it's working better and faster than I'd anticipated and most players are buying into it, although a few of the fringe players are suffering and will likely be released later in the season. I'm expecting that as the season goes on, my regular players will get fitter and cope better whilst improving their skills, and we will go from strength to strength.

Edited January 1, 2023 by phnompenhandy

[phnompenhandy]

For the first match in September the third-string were good enough to see off Bo’Ness 3-0 in the FA Cup whilst more senior players got a much-needed rest. Five debuts were dished out.

The transfer window closed with loads of players grumpy with me. We were fobbing off bids of like £2,000 when Woking sold a player for over £200K. Hopefully our boys will realise their worth and get their heads down.

We played the Woking side that was rich but without their star player with what was close to our best side. MacKay was fit but I kept Reid in goal as he’s done so well (apart from all the goals he let in), and Cooper was back too. We performed as we do at our best, with Rostock, McConnachie and Harkiss (from the bench) chipping in for a 5-0 thrashing.

Our second-string struggled but thanks to a stoppage time winner from Harkiss, overcame South Shields 2-1. What do they say about winning when you’re not playing well? Our first team overwhelmed Worthing although we only had a Rostock brace to show for it. 2-0 and three more points.

My Regional Cup squad despatched Poole Town; it was 3-3 at full time but 6-3 in the end. Harkiss was the only senior player to take part (unless you include MacKay for his first game in goal since his injury) and he effectively won us the tie. The ‘reward’ is another draw against an amateur outfit. This competition is inherently worthless, but it gives experience to players far from the first team and is my best chance of winning my first-ever trophy. The important one is the FA Cup where we try to progress in the hope of a money-busting away tie, but so far that evades us – in October our 3^rd round tie is at Queen’s University in Belfast. Maybe the 4^th round?

Despite our wage budget being, in my opinion, unsustainable, it’s still by far the lowest of the professional clubs in our league, only a third that of the likes of Ebbsfleet and Halifax. On the other hand, our facilities are by far the best in the league, if you factor in Shane’s masterstroke of using Ross County’s training facilities and investing our money elsewhere.

In his new role as full-time Head of Youth Development, Muir still spends half his time in his old job at Fortrose Academy as it's our junior coaching centre. The other half of his time is spent at the Royal Academy in Inverness, although still with the same bunch of kids from Fortrose. Along with our new Under 18s manager Stefan Beith, he's basically just evolving what he's been doing for years but as part of his Continental coaching course, he's been shadowed and a video has been made of his junior coaching philosophy within the framework of coaching in The Netherlands and Portugal:

Porto Training Diaries - Progression Score

We will have played a ridiculous nine games in September. I'm desperately looking forward to October when each month will involve four or five matches in order that rotation can be minimised and my Under 18 squad can get back to an uninterrupted training schedule.

Edited January 1, 2023 by phnompenhandy