Allez Les Verts - The Attempted Resurrection of St-Étienne

[brod_104]

Hi there - I'm a long time player of FM (dating back to CM 00/1, and occasional poster on these forums, but this is the first time I've had a go at putting together a post, maybe a thread like this. I've posted a couple of comments about this save elsewhere on these forums, but figured this was a more appropriate place, where I could go into a bit more detail sharing updates.

By day, I'm a big Liverpool fan - that's usually the focus of my main save, and sure enough I do have a Liverpool save that I'm a couple of seasons into. However, I wanted to try something different. I decided I wanted to stay in Europe and try a team that perhaps didn't have the resources of one of the Champions League regulars. I came up with a couple of options, but ended up settling on Saint-Étienne. I've kind of had a soft spot for this team, and honestly, I'm not sure why other than the fact that Étienne is the French equivalent of my own name. I realised that the team were relegated to the second tier in 2022 and decided that it would be a good challenge to see if I could get the team back to the top end of French football. I don't necessarily expect to overtake PSG at the very top with their resources, especially as I don't necessarily play as much as I used to, but maybe I could get them back into Europe on a regular basis.

Setup

I should point out that the game I've set up is using the original database from the release of FM23. The reason for this is a little bit of laziness - I've got quite a few custom leagues from the Around the Globe project and haven't got round to adding the latest updates! I guess this is important in that whilst we had a ban on fans attending home games for the first two months of the 2022-23 season, for some reason we did not start off with the points deduction that they received in real life (I don't know if this was overwritten by one of the custom leagues, or wasn't in the original database).

At the time of writing, my save has reached the end of the January 2024 transfer window, so I don't have any screenshots from the original set up, but I can post some end of season details.

The Club

For a bit of background, St-Étienne are historically one of the most successful teams in French football, having won the Ligue 1 title 10 times, a joint-record alongside PSG (at least until the end of 2022-23...). They've also won the French Cup 6 times, and also reached the 1976 European Cup final, where they lost to Bayern Munich. Their youth academy has an excellent reputation for bringing through young players, including Jacques Santini, Willy Sagnol, and Loïc Perrin (who spent his entire career at the club), and in more recent years, Wesley Fofana and William Saliba.

[brod_104]

The Initial Squad

The squad had quite a few players who looked like they should be leading players in Ligue 2. The squad also had a lot of young players with the potential to become solid players in the top flight. My preferred formation is generally a 4-3-3 - perhaps a boring obvious choice, but usually a successful one.

In goal, it was a straight choice between England U-21 international (and appropriately named) Etienne Green and veteran Matthieu Dreyer, with additional backup in Senegalese youngster Boubacar Fall.

At full-back, Sergi Palencia and Yvann Maçon were the main options for right-back, with 31-year-old Gabriel Silva as the only real natural left-back.

There was plenty of depth at centre-back. Anthony Briançon and Jimmy Giraudon provided the experience. Saïdou Sow and Mickaël Nadé offered youth and potential, whilst Léo Pétrot was a versatile option who could fill in a left-back if needed (spoiler, he would be needed...)

In midfield, I decided to go for a DM DLP, where my first choice options were Morocco's Aïmen Moueffek and Louis Mouton. I also opted for a pair of MCs, one as a BWM and the other as an AP. The ball-winner tended to by Thomas Monconduit, with Koimizo Maïga as backup, while the attacking option was usually another Moroccan Benjamin Bouchouari with Victor Lobry as his stand-in.

In attack, I had two wide midfielders. On the left was Mathieu Cafaro, on loan from Standard Liège with an optional future fee of £400k. On the right, my first choice was Lenny Pintor. Other wide options included Dylan Chambost and Senegal's Ibrahima Wadji.

At centre-forward, my initial first choice was Jean-Philippe Krasso of Côte d'Ivoire, followed by Togo's Charles Abi and Guinea-Bissau forward Edmilson Correia

On looking at the squad, I realised quite quickly that there was no room to spare in the wage budget, and my highest earners were Silva and Palencia, both on over £15k per week. Silva's contract would expire in 2023, so I made the decision that I would not look to renew his contract at the age of 31, and would look to try and cash in as soon as possible. Correia's contract would also be due to expire in 2023, and his attributes were nowhere near those of the other forwards, so he was also marked for an exit.

[brod_104]

2022/23

As mentioned, I'm currently in January 2024 in-game, so the first season in Ligue 2 has already been completed.

Pre-season was fairly successful, winning 4 games from 4 without conceding, including a 3-0 home win over Heerenveen as a highlight. The last weekend in July also saw the first league game of the season, which ended up as a 2-0 win away to promotion rivals Dijon, Cafaro and Pintor with the goals in the first half.

In August, the good form continued, picking up 3 wins and 2 draws in 5 games. However, Krasso picked up an injury in a 3-1 win over Quevily-Rouen that would keep him out for a month, while Abi was still recovering from injury. This, along with an injury to Cafaro at the beginning of September, saw the goals dry up a little, and we actually only scored two goals in 5 games covering from 27 August until the end of September. Fortunately, the defense was fairly solid so we only conceded one goal in that same period, in our first defeat of the season away at Guingamp.

In October, form picked up again as we won 5 games on the bounce (including our first cup game of the season), thanks in part to a run of 4 goals in 3 league games from Charles Abi. This included wins against Grenoble, Sochaux, Paris FC and Amiens, while lower-league opposition in the form of Frontignan were dispatched 3-0 in the Seventh Round.

Unfortunately, that would be as good as it got for Abi in terms of form and, with Krasso also picking up injuries, a centre-forward was identified as a requirement for the January transfer window. That new player was identified as a player recommended on the Good Player guide on these forums: 25-year-old Uzbekistan striker Bobir Abdiholiqov of Belarusian side Energetik-BGU. "Bobi", as I've taken to calling him, couldn't be signed immediately due to any excess transfer budget being reallocated to wages in order to secure some of our key players and youth prospects, but his contract at Energetik would expire at the end of December, so a free transfer was agreed.

During October, thanks to the Joker Window, we also managed to sell Correia and Silva before they could leave on a free, for £100k each to Bastia and Dijon respectively. The sale of Gabriel Silva would mean Pétrot playing at left-back fairly regularly, which was a success as he helped us have the best defense in the league, and chipped in with some stunning long-range goals on occasion too.

In November we suffered a setback in our promotion bid, losing 2-0 away at table-topping Metz, before recovering to beat Rodez in our final league game before the break for the World Cup. On the eve of the tournament in Qatar, there was still time for the Eighth Round of the cup, an unconvincing 1-0 win away to AS Yzeure. After a couple of friendlies to build up match fitness, the league opened up against on Boxing Day (aka St Stephen's Day...) with a 2-0 win against struggling Annecy, followed by a disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Caen to round out the year.

The opening of the January transfer window saw Bobi finally arrive and several youngsters head out on loan. I temporarily handed over responsibility of initiating players signings to my Director of Football, Yann Rousseau, and on deadline day he arranged the signing of two wingers on loan. Firstly, Algerian right-winger Farid El Melali joined from Angers (sadly he would be unable to displace Pintor in my first choice line-up). The more exciting arrival, however, was Alejandro Garnacho from Man United and he would end up with some vital contributions, providing 4 goals and 3 assists during his 17 games. Rousseau also attempted to bring in wonderkid Warren Zaïre-Emery on loan from PSG, but unfortunately this fell through as PSG already had 7 players out on loan domestically.

On the pitch, results were a bit of a mixed bag. We exited the cup in the Ninth Round, losing 4-1 away to Ligue 1 Marseille. This was disappointing given that Marseille are one of St-Étienne's traditional rivals. The performance for the first hour was actually really good - we were unlucky to trail 1-0 at half-time, and then equalised early in the second half. Unfortunately, we capitulated in the last half hour, with Luis Suárez (of Colombia, not Uruguay...) scoring a hat-trick.

In the league, we beat Laval 2-0 thanks to a brace from Bobi on his full debut, lost to Niort 1-0, then beat Bastia and Sochaux, both 2-0. In February, we took another 8 points from a possible 12, including a 1-1 draw with Dijon, who at this stage where in a three-way tussle for the two automatic promotion spots with us and Metz. Our unbeaten run continued throughout March and into April, dropping points away to Bordeaux, Paris FC and Grenoble.

The next key game came on 22 April, a top-of-the-table meeting with Metz, who had beaten us earlier in the season. Krasso gave Les Verts the lead after 14 minutes, only for us to concede an 81st minute equaliser. However, in the fourth minute of stoppage time, Maçon played a long ball over the Metz defense for Bobi to run onto, and the Uzbek international made no mistake, securing a vital win, sending us a point clear at top of the table with 6 games remaining.

The Metz game really was key to setting up the momentum for the title run-in, as we went on to win 5 of our final 6 games, whereas Metz could only win 2 of their final 6, and Dijon only 3.  This run of results meant we were able to secure promotion and the title with two games to spare, confirmed with a 3-1 home win over Quevilly-Rouen.

The developments didn't stop on the pitch either. Towards the end of April, reports began to appear suggesting a board takeover may be in the works. Rumours continued for weeks, to the point where the chairman, Roland Romeyer, put out a statement at in the middle of May asking for the takeover to be resolved as soon as possible to end the uncertainty around the club. Things moved quickly after that. Barely a week after his ultimatum, Romeyer announced he would retire at the end of the season - new owners were therefore a certainty. On 8 June, this was confirmed, with Bulgarian businessman  Petar Peshev (who has been involved in Bulgarian club ownership before) taking over and floating the club on the stock market. This takeover offered a small financial boost, but didn't affect the transfer budget for summer 2023, which was set at around £16m.

[brod_104]

2023/24 (part 1)

As mentioned, I'm currently in January 2024, so thought I would also provide a report on the first half of our first season back in the French top flight.

First of all, transfers. It was a busy summer! El Melali and Garnacho's loans came to an end, and they returned to their parent clubs. I would have liked to keep Garnacho, but the finances would have been too expensive. Mathieu Cafaro's loan deal was also due to end, but after his excellent season, I took up the option to make the deal permanent for £400k. Cafaro was one of 11 signings made in the summer transfer window, while 20 players left the club (including those release at the end of contract). Returning from loan deals away from the club were Cameroon attacking midfielder Yvan Neyou and French midfielder Mahdi Camara.

Notable exits included Wadji for £165k (to Neftçi Baku), Lobry for £1.3m (Bordeaux), Marie-Gael Mukanya for £325k (Nîmes), Nadé for £600k (Dijon), Dreyer for £300k (Gijón), Sow for £1.8m (Gent) and - on deadline day - Pintor for £1m (Augsburg). I was disappointed to lose Nadé, Sow and Pintor, as they were definitely in my first team plans, but unfortunately they were all indicating that they would not extend their contract at the end of 2024 or 2025, so I cashed in. There were also loan deals for Abi, Bouchouari, Chambost and Maïga, who would find otherwise find their playing time limited due to summer arrivals, and the likes of Yanis Lhéry, a young prospect who I wanted to get some first team football. Krasso would also end up leaving on loan as part of the Joker transfer window.

Signings were a mix of free transfers and younger players who could go straight into the team. The free transfers included former Barcelona midfielder Riqui Puig (unattached), Irish winger Chiedozie Ogbene (Rotherham), Dutch midfielder Branco van den Boomen (Toulouse) and Dutch wing-back Daley Sinkgraven (Leverkusen). Other arrivals included two strikers, Bulgarian Preslav Borukov for £2m (Lokomotiv Plovdiv) and Croatia's Dion Beljo for £7.75m (Osijek). We also signed 19-year-old Ukrainian left-back Andrii Buleza for £4.5m (Shakhtar), teenage Senegal goalkeeper Landing Badji for £96k (AS Pikine), German goalkeeper Lino for £1.4m (Antwerp) and finally Liverpool's French defender Billy Koumetio, initially on loan but with a mandatory future fee of £1.1m.

Over the course of the first half of the season, the 4-3-3 formation has remained, with the first-choice line-up initially being Green in goal, a back four of Maçon, Briançon, Koumetio and Sinkgraven, a midfield three of Moueffek, Camara and van den Boomen, Neyou and Cafaro as the wide midfielders, and Beljo as the first-choice striker. Sinkgraven and Neyou have been a little underwhelming in terms of form however, while Moueffek has had injuries, so Buleza has played more games than expected at left back, and played well too, the right-wing spot has been taken by youth team graduate Ayman Aiki, and Mouton has excelled as the DM. The stars of the season so far are van den Boomen (9 goals and 8 assists from 22 appearances, admittedly helped by being on penalties and set-pieces!), Aiki (4 goals and 3 assists for the now 18-year-old in 21 appearances of which 11 were starts), Mouton and Koumetio (who has scored 3 goals in 20 games, including on debut).

The media predictions had us down for a struggle to avoid relegation, and our league campaign didn't start brilliantly, with defeats to at home to Monaco and away to Toulouse in our first two games. These defeats were only 1-0 though, so there was potential, which was demonstrated in our next game, a 4-0 win against Angers, which saw Beljo, van den Boomen and Koumetio all get their first goals.

September saw more promise, with a draw at Rennes and a win against Clermont. We then lost 3-2 away at Lens, before a dramatic home game against Marseille. Van den Boomen scored a penalty after 8 minutes to give us the lead, and in the second half the lead was doubled by Aymen Aiki's first goal for the club. However, Marseille fought back through Luis Suárez (again!), who scored a penalty on 82 minutes to reduce our lead, and then grabbed an equaliser in the 90th minute after a mistake by Green. This was already deflating, but then a highlight came up in the second minute of stoppage time. My heart sank as Marseille lined up a free-kick, Harit over the ball and a crowd of players on the edge of the St-Étienne box. The ball was played short to Kolasinac half-way into our half but their last man, and he took a heavy touch. Maçon pounced and robbed the former Arsenal fan, and sent the ball forward for Beljo. Running from his own half, the Croatian was onside and raced towards goal, as the keeper desperately raced back to his goal. Beljo advanced, was able to get into the area, and smashed the ball home to secure a dramatic 3-2 win. This win not only cemented our place in the top half, but in contention for European qualification, confounding those relegation fears.

Our good form continued throughout October, November and December, our only defeats coming at home to PSG (understandable, and actually a little unlucky) and Strasbourg in our last league game before Christmas (which was more disappointing). Other notable results in that run included a 1-1 draw away to historic rivals Nantes (who were second at the time) followed by a 2-1 home win in the local Rhône derby against Lyon.

In the cup, we entered at the Ninth Round (where we fell last season), but needed penalties to squeeze past relegated Ajaccio after throwing away a two-goal half-time lead. In the Tenth Round, we had slightly more comfortable time, winning 5-2 away to Trélissac. Our reward? Marseille away again on the first weekend in February...

As we have just completed January 2024, we've played a gruelling run of 5 league games in 15 days, which certainly caught up with some players. Those 5 games ended with a draw against Toulouse, and win at Angers, a home loss to Rennes, a draw at Montpellier, and a 4-1 win at Clermont (with 3 goals coming in the last 10 minutes as I think the run of fixtures also caught up with them!).

The January transfer window has been very quiet, with two arrivals and no departures. 18-year-old Colombian winger has arrived from Óscar Perea has arrived from Atlético Nacional in his homeland to provide cover for Cafaro, and promptly scored on his debut in the draw with Toulouse. The other arrival is an English newgen left-back, Carl Garbutt, signed from Doncaster Rovers for £125k - definitely one for the future, but I thought his mental attributes looked outstanding for his age:

In summary, we currently stand 7th in Ligue 1 with 39 points from 23 games, 5 points ahead of Nantes in 8th who have a game in hand against Monaco who are 4th. It's a very tight scrap over the final two Champions League spots, the remaining European qualification places (which potentially goes down to 7th for the Conference League), or missing out altogether. Hopefully we can get past Marseille in the cup and have a good run in that, whilst also securing European football.

[brod_104]

2023/24 (Part 2)

This update will cover the second half of the 2023/24 season. Going into February 2024 and the final 15 games of the season, St-Étienne were 7th in the league and into the Eleventh Round of the French Cup.

Our first match in February saw us take on Marseille in the Cup away from home. Despite being underdogs, we took the lead after half an hour through a Dion Beljo strike. We lead at half-time, but sadly conceded with a minute of the restart. There were no further goals, so the game ended up going to penalties - all four penalties were scored by Les Verts, whilst Marseille missed two of theirs, which put us through to a Quarter Final where we would face a home tie against... Monaco. Unfortunately Monaco were too strong and despite going in level at 1-1 at half-time, the team from the principality scored a second half winner to end our cup hopes. Monaco would go on to lose in their semi-final against second-tier Rodez, who in turn faced PSG in the final. Sadly there was no fairy-tale ending for Rodez, and they were thumped 8-0, with Mbappé scoring 5 in the first half.

Meanwhile in the league, our form hit a rough patch through February and March. After beating Lens 2-1 at home, we would subsequently win only 1 game (against Nantes) in our next 7. This run included away defeats against Marseille, Lyon and PSG, which is perhaps not a big surprise, but the manner of the defeats (4-0 against PSG, and 3-0 in the other two games) was particularly disappointing, as were the home draws against Reims and Auxerre. April on the other hand was a huge success, winning four games out of four. This run of games put us back up to 5th position in the league. Results for other teams had really closed up the chase for European football. Nice and Marseille had struggled over the past month or two, both potentially distracted to a run to the Europa League Quarter-Finals. Lyon meanwhile had been in excellent form and moved into a Champions League qualification place themselves.

After such a good run in April, and with only four games to go, we suffered a big reality check at home to Nice. We conceded two goals within the first 15 minutes and never really recovered. A goal early in the second half from Beljo could have given hope, but was immediately cancelled out by a third goal for Nice. We then drew away to Strasbourg, but recovered with a big win at home to Montpellier.

This meant we were still 5th going into the final day, but it was all very close:

Mathematically, we could still qualify for the Champions League, although goal difference means this was unrealistic. The final day fixtures were also not in our favour. Marseille and Nice both had seemingly winnable games against teams in the bottom half (Toulouse and Auxerre respectively), whilst our game was away to Monaco... 

The final day didn't start brilliantly, as Marseille took an early lead away to Toulouse. Meanwhile Monaco began to to apply significant pressure on our defence as they sought to break the deadlock. Better news came through from elsewhere on the south coast, as word came through that Auxerre had taken a surprise lead against Nice! As we reached half-time, Marseille had climbed to 5th thanks to their lead, whilst we were holding Monaco and so held 6th place on goal difference. The second half began and our worst fears were realised, as Kevin Volland broke the deadlock to give Monaco the lead on 52 minutes. Barely 10 minutes later, Nice equalised, and now we only held 7th place on goal difference. Fortunately after another 10 minutes, Auxerre retook the lead against Nice, which restored a 1-point advantage in our favour. Despite encouragement, Les Verts couldn't find an equaliser of our own, and in fact conceded a second goal in the final minute of added time. The full-time whistle went, and I was immediately sent to the tunnel post-match interview, with no idea whether there had been any late goals in the games involving Marseille or, more importantly, Nice. The reporter's questions didn't give me any hints either, so I nervously continued to find out the results...

Marseille had held on, so finished above us, but Auxerre had also held on to beat Nice, which meant in our first season back in the top flight, St-Étienne qualified for Europe!

The players have generally been very good this season, with the lowest average rating being 6.7. In the end only three players managed an average rating of over 7.0. In third-place, the first of these is French defensive midfielder Louis Moutton, who probably played more than I expected this season due to injuries to Moueffek. Next up is Dutch midfielder Branco van den Boomen - Branco actually had a slightly disappointing last couple of months, but ended up with 10 goals and 9 assists, so ended up being an excellent free transfer. However, the star of the season was the big money signing, Dion Drena Beljo, who scored a fantastic 23 goals including 19 in the league, which was also enough to earn him his first international cap for Croatia.

The other players who I was impressed with this season were three youngsters in Billy Koumetio, who will be making his loan move permanent in the summer, Ukrainian full-back Andrii Buleza and teenage winger Ayman Aiki. Aiki in particular worked his way into my first-choice line-up this season, and ended up with 5 goals and 5 assists from 21 starts.

The squad will obviously need some strengthening again for next season. I may look to prioritise a right-sided centre-back, as Briançon and Giraudon have made a few too many mistakes for my liking, given their experience, and I may look for a right winger/inside forward to replace Yvan Neyou (who was unhappy because he wanted to play centrally) and Ogbene, who has unfortunately not been as successful as other signings. I may also look for an upgrade on Camara as my BWM. I'll also be hoping to use some of the extra European games to blood some more youngsters, as there were some more interesting prospects in our latest youth intake - which did in fact include a couple of players for the positions I'm looking at, but at 15 they might be a bit young to throw straight into the starting line up!

[brod_104]

As an small mini-update, I'm starting to get offers for interviews from other clubs, citing the performance of St-Étienne! Both Bayer Leverkusen and Marseille have offered interviews, with Marseille also commenting on my history of signing under-23s for the first team. However, I intend to decline them, because this save is geared around trying to do as much as I can with St-Étienne (where Beljo and I have now also made it onto the favoured personnel list...)

[Hootieleece]

Great to see someone doing ASSE save they are my favorite French Team. (I have one for almost every country......even though my fandom often means the Kiss of Death see Hertha in Bundesliga for example)

[brod_104]

2024/25 (Pre-season)

OK, I haven't got a whole lot further since my last update at the weekend (have been a bit under the weather, so not played much of anything this week!) However, I thought I'd prepare a quick update just before the start of the new season, because there has been some rather significant transfers taking place...

First of all, the pre-season fixtures have generally been satisfactory. Admittedly we lost 1-0 at home to Slovan Bratislava, which was disappointing, but we have won all five of our other friendlies. This includes some comfortable wins against local lower-league sides while on a training camp in Portugal, and home games against Racing Santander and Aris. We're about to play our first competitive game of the season in the first leg of the Europa Conference League Third Qualifying Round, away to Ararat Yerevan of Armenia. If we get through that tie, we would face the winner of Aris Limassol or Istanbul Basaksehir.

Now, summer transfers. I'm quite excited by the first two players I signed in the summer window, both Norwegian and both from Molde. The first is a central midfielder, Sivert Mannsverk, signed for £3m and who I'm hoping will be an upgrade in my BWM role. The second is a right-winger or striker, Gustav Kjølstad Nyheim who I ended up signing for £6.5m. The second one I may have ended up overpaying slightly, because I was trying to arrange this in May (before the end of the 2023/24 season) and ended up setting the transfer date to "end of season in France", thinking this would still go through in summer 2024. Instead I realised the contract start date was going to be summer 2025, so I ended up cancelling, and had to go back later to get the deal done in 2024, which gave Molde the chance to bump up the price...

In addition, there were incomings at centre-back. Billy Koumetio's loan deal became permanent through my obligation to buy, but I also wanted a right-sided centre-back who could be an upgrade on Briançon and Giraudon. This second defender arrived in the shape of Clemens Riedel, a 20-year old German from Darmstadt, for £3.9m.

The only other arrivals were a pair of 17-year-old newgen strikers on free transfers: Ismaïla Diallo from Senegal (who doesn't officially join until March 2025 after his contract expired at Génération Foot in his home country, but is on trial so that he can train until then), Thomas Jensen from FC København.

So whilst I've spent around £14.5m, I've brought in around £12.75m. Sales have included Yvan Neyou (£775k to Sheffield United), youngster Lorenzo Cerutti (£575k to Montpellier), Koimizo Maïga (£160k to Eupen), and Chiedozie Ogbene (£2m to Espanyol). I also ended up moving on Jimmy Giraudon (£1.4m to Brest) - he did well enough for me in our promotion season, and was generally OK in our first season back in the top-flight, but there were some mistakes creeping in and at 32, and with Briançon and Riedel both ahead of him on the right, and Pétrot and Mbemba providing cover for the left, I decided to cash in before his contract expired.

The big news though concerns Etienne Green. Sadly, the most aptly named player for St-Étienne is no longer at the club, and has joined Tottenham in the Premier League. Spurs saw both of their senior keepers Lloris and Forster retire in the summer, and made a bid for Green. I did ask if there was any way I could convince him to stay, but he felt the opportunity to play in a stronger squad was too big. Now I know Spurs have been a bit of a mess in real life recently (and in fact finished 10th in 2024 in my save), but I felt this would be a losing argument, so decided to let him leave without ruining the rapport we'd built up. I ended up agreeing a deal that should rise to £9.75m, although Spurs did also later sign Bijlow from Feyenoord, so we'll see if we get the payments based on league appearances...

The sale of Green means Lino will get an opportunity to impress, at least for the first half of the season, in part because the deal to sign him last summer included a promise that he would become first choice if/when Green left. I just wasn't anticipating Green leaving only a year later! On the other hand, I can't see that promise listed anywhere any more, so maybe I could get away with signing a new keeper...

As things stand, assuming there are no more transfer dealings, I think my first-choice line up will look something like this:

Areas that are more likely to be subject to rotation are full-back, where Palencia and Buleza are very close to Maçon and Sinkgraven, Mouton for Moueffek, Puig for van den Boomen and Kjølstad Nyheim for Aiki.

[haier_fm]

Good choice of club and I like your writing style too.

KUTGW!

[brod_104]

23 hours ago, haier_fm said:

Good choice of club and I like your writing style too.

KUTGW!

Thank you!

September 2024

So, a quick update at the end of the summer 2024 transfer window, and there have been no further arrivals by the end of the transfer window. I decided to stick with the plan of giving Lino his chance in goal, and so far he's done pretty well, with 5 clean sheets in 8 games during August and the first day of September. Aside from a few loans from youth players, there was one more permanent departure, with 22-year-old Moroccan midfielder Benjamin Bouchouari signing for Southampton for £1.8m plus a percentage of future profit - Southampton have immediately listed him for loan with the express intention of making a profit themselves, so hopefully we'll see some more funds come in from that deal in the future.

I was a bit worried that I would be forced into some deadline day deals, as bigger (or at least, more wealthy) clubs have started to circle around some of my players. Lino is attracting interest from Wolves - if that had gone through, I would definitely have needed to find a new goalkeeper, as I don't think Badji or Raveyre are quite ready for the first-team. More worryingly, Aiki and Beljo are also starting to attract interest - Aiki from Wolves and Southampton, Beljo from Wolves, Southampton, Leicester, Juventus, Roma and Sporting CP. I put Beljo's asking price as high as I could without unsettling him, at £46.5m, but that hasn't really discouraged potential bidders yet - there could be a bidding war triggered there if it comes to it...

Wolves made a bid for Aiki, but I was able to talk him round by explaining he'd get more first-team opportunities if he stayed put. I'm relieved about that one, because the £4m or £5m offer would have been a lot less than I was wanting for someone with his potential. A bid was also made for Lino on deadline day, not by Wolves but by Monaco, who had allowed their first-choice goalkeeper to move to Marseille - Monaco's bid was swiftly rejected.

In terms of games played so far, things have started reasonably well. I'll come to our European campaign in a moment, but the league has seen us have a fairly solid start. We're four games in, and after a slightly disappointing opening day draw at newly-promoted Troyes, we recorded home wins over Lorient and Brest. That was followed by a trip to Monaco, where we suffered yet another narrow defeat, this time 2-1. We're currently 6th in the standings, still within 3 points of PSG - I'm under no illusions that we could catch PSG though, as in one of their wins they put TWELVE goals past Nantes...

In our European adventure, we starting in the Europa Conference League Third Qualifying Round against Ararat Yerevan of Armenia. A narrow 1-0 win in the away leg was secured thanks to a second half Bobir Abdiholiqov goal, and the tie was secured with a 4-0 home win through van den Boomen, a quick brace from Beljo, and a late cameo goal from Colombian winger Perea. This set up a Fourth Qualifying Round tie against Istanbul Basaksehir. I was a little nervous about this one, given that the Turkish side had comfortably beaten Aris Limassol 9-4 on aggregate. I needn't have worried though, as a 2-0 home win (Aiki and Beljo with the goals) was followed up with a 1-0 away win thanks to a boomer from Boomen! The Conference League switches to its new League format in 2024/25, and our opponents have been drawn... somehow... I still have no idea how fixtures are decided in this new format! Anyway, we will be playing Slask Wroclaw of Poland (Away), Zeleznicar of Serbia (A), Club Brugge (Home), Shkëndija from North Macedonia (H), Fenerbahçe (A) and FCSB (formerly known as Steaua Buchuresti) (H). I don't think that's too bad a set of fixtures (and, personally, I enjoy the variety - as much as I enjoy my usual Liverpool saves, it does sometimes get a bit tedious drawing the same mix of Spanish, German and Italian clubs almost every season!)

[brod_104]

January 2025

It's been a little longer than planned, but time for another update. I've now completed the January transfer window in 2025. The season so far is going reasonably well, overall, and I'll come to competitions so far, but first of all, there has been some big transfers take place. The January window has seen 5 players arrive and four leave.

We had a run of disappointing form in December, in which there were a few silly mistakes starting to creep in, notably from Lino, who had been given an opportunity following the departure of Green in the summer. I therefore decided to look for an upgrade in goal and the option I went for was another addition to the Norwegian contingent. Kristoffer Klaesson arrived on loan until the end of the season from Leeds United - I had asked about a permanent deal, given he no longer had a UK work permit, so couldn't play for Leeds. His visa situation, plus the fact his contract is running out in the summer meant he could potentially have been available for just £100k or so. Unfortunately, he is planning on reviewing his options in the summer, so a loan deal was the end result. This actually ended up resulting in Lino leaving, joining Girona in the end for £1m - this is a small loss in the end, but releases a spot in the European squad.

In early January, my scout reports through up a potential wonderkid who could be available for a very low fee. The player in question was Madi Monamay, a teenage centre-back from Belgium playing for Bayer Leverkusen. The contracts of Pétrot and Briançon are expiring in the summer, and they aren't really good enough for the top end of Ligue 1 any more, so I took my scouts' advice and signed Monamay for a fee of around £1.2m.

I decided that part of the reason for our slump before Christmas was down to a lack of experience in my starting line-up. To try and resolve this, and add a bit more quality to the team, I looked for additions at centre-back and in central midfield. The midfield option was quickly filled with the signing of Polish international Jakub Moder who was a free agent having been released by Brighton in the summer. Centre-back was a tougher deal to secure - my scouts were strongly recommending Brazilian defender Diego Costa, formerly of São Paulo, but who had joined Fulham in the Premier League in 2023/24. Theoretically he was available on a relatively cheap deal following Fulham's relegation at the end of that season, but it took several rounds of negotiations to get a deal done, and I still had to break the club's transfer record, with the deal costing an initial £12.5m, potentially rising to £16.75m.

The final signing was another potential wonderkid, this time a Romanian left-winger from Farul Constanta. Enes Sali arrived with high hopes for a fee of £3.4m.

In addition to the sale of Lino, the three other departures were Thomas Monconduit on a free transfer to Guingamp (at 33, his contract was another ibe due to expire in the summer, and he had dropped well down the order), and loan deals for Óscar Perea (who is frustratingly inconsistent when he plays) and Pierre Mbemba.

In terms of results, the league campaign is going OK so far. We currently sit in 6th position after 20 games, with two games in hand on most of the teams around us following a weather postponement and clashes with cup games. If we win our two games in hand, we would go fourth, one point behind third place. However, one of those games in hand is against PSG so... I figure that's unlikely! Since the end of my last update, where our most recent result was a defeat to Monaco, we've lost only twice in 16 games: a dreadful 3-0 loss at Toulouse, and a narrow 1-0 defeat at Reims. We've had some very good wins, including 2-1 against Rennes, and 3-1 in the local derby against Lyon, but we've draw too many games in my opinion. Some of these are probably still decent results, against Marseille and Nice, but dropping points against Nantes and Lens who have been in the relegation fight so far was very disappointing. At the time of writing though, we've just played the home fixture against Monaco, and finally got a win - not just any win either, but a 4-0 thumping! After a goalless first half, Branco van den Boomen put us ahead just before the hour mark, before Cafaro gave us breathing room 5 minutes from time. As Monaco crumbled, top goalscorer Dion Drena Beljo scored twice in injury time.

The big disappointment of the season so far was our performance in the French Cup. As we struggled through December, we squeezed through in the Ninth Round with a 1-0 win away to Le Puy Foot 43 - an affiliate club in the fourth tier of French football. We faced another fourth-tier side, Angoulême Charente, in the Tenth Round and threw away a 2-0 lead before going out on penalties.

In more positive news however, the European adventure continues. We qualified from the League Phase of the Europa Conference League in 6th place, avoiding the play-off round. We were unbeaten, winning our first four games against Slask Wroclaw (1-0), Zeleznicar P (5-0), Club Brugge (4-1) and KF Shkëndija (1-0). We secured qualification with 2-2 draw away to Fenerbahçe and a disappointing 0-0 draw at home to FCSB.

In terms of player peformance, Croatian centre-forward Beljo is once again the main man, with 23 goals in 28 appearances - this includes 14 goals in 19 league games, and 9 goals in 8 appearances in Europe. Teenager winger Aiki is the next top scorer with 7, following by fellow right-winger Kjølstad Nyheim and Cafaro on 6 each. Cafaro is the top provider, with 12 assists to go with his goal contributions.

I've also been trying to blood some of the youth team players (which I think in part explains the exit from the domestic cup, as the team was heavily rotated). This has had some mixed results. Newgen midfielder Butrint Morina is a ball-winning midfielder with dual Albanian-Kosovan nationality, and has performed reasonably well in his 8 appearances so far, mostly in Europe for the last 15-20 minutes or so. Young French midfielder Antoine Gautier has done very well in three appearances so far, assisting for a late equaliser against Fenerbahçe, and also for the winner against Le Puy in the cup. Teenage midfielder Florian Gros had a less successful debut however, getting sent off in stoppage time in that games against Le Puy after coming on as a late sub.

Anyway, I think our next two games are our games in hand in the league, firstly at home to PSG, and then away to Montpellier, so this should give us a better idea of whether we can challenge for the Champions League, or whether we should have our sights on the Europa League instead. Currently we don't know what the future holds for the Conference League campaign, as the play-off round hasn't been drawn yet, but at some point we could end up against West Ham, Bilbao, Feyenoord or Braga, who are probably the biggest sides already through to the last 16, with Fenerbahçe, AZ and Trabzonspor amongst the teams in the play-off.

[brod_104]

Very quick mini-update, as we've played our two games in hand, and we took 4 points from them! A 1-1 draw at home to PSG is a very welcome point gained, followed up by a 1-0 win at Montpellier, which could have been a more convincing scoreline as we hit the woodwork 3 times. Those results lifted us to fourth in the table, "only" 10 points off PSG who are top. Obviously a title challenge is probably unrealistic, but the Champions League is a reasonable target at this stage I think!

[karanhsingh]

Just had a read through, always enjoy a French save and St Etienne are a great club to manage. Nice job so far!

[brod_104]

A couple of quick notes as we enter April 2025...

We had some promising looking prospects in our youth intake. I'm particularly excited by this defensive midfielder, who I think looks amazing to say he's only 15. Already valued at up to £7.5m too:

We got through our Round of 16 tie in the Europa Conference League, although we didn't make it easy for ourselves! Against Banik Ostrava of the Czech Republic (or Czechia as I think it is now called...) we went 1-0 up early on, but then capitulated to a 3-1 defeat. We came storming back in the second leg though. Goals midway through each half from Cafaro and Beljo took the game to extra time. The tie was completely turned in our favour by two identical van den Boomen free kicks within two minutes of each other - they were so similar I had to double check I hadn't clicked on something and ended up watching a replay! To add icing to the cake, both backup strikers, Borukov and Abdiholiqov added to the scoresheet, for a 6-0 win on the night, 7-3 on aggregate. We've been drawn against Club Brugge in the Quarter Final (having beaten them in the League Phase), with either AZ or Braga in the Semi Final if we get that far. (The other half of the draw sees Feyenoord play West Ham, and Athletic Bilbao play Mainz.)

Our long 14-game unbeaten run in the league has come to an end meanwhile, following a 1-0 loss away to Strasbourg. We also lost to Rennes at the end of March, in a game that on the balance of play we probably deserved to win. We're still in the race for the Champions League places, but it's very tight, as you can see from this table:

PSG have re-established a 10-point cushion at the top of the table, but 2nd to 6th place are covered by just one point! We were 2nd before the weekend that we lost to Rennes! Throw in Marseille as well, as they are only two points further back with a game in hand. You really have to include Lyon and Troyes in the mix as well, only a further three points behind Marseille. Lots of twists and turns to come I expect!

I have started making signings for next season, with loan goalkeeper Klaesson making the move permanent on a free transfer when his contract with Leeds ends at the end of the season. He has agreed terms as a backup too, so if I can find another keeper who's better, he shouldn't become unhappy. I'm also thinking I'll look for an upgrade at right-back, probably for Palencia who is the older of the two I have at the moment, with Maçon likely to stay.

Finally, the NXGN 2025 list has just been published, and two St-Étienne players make the top 10 - both right wingers, Aiki and Kjølstad Nyheim are in the top three!

New signing Enes Sali has also made the list at number 50.

[karanhsingh]

Wow, that Halifa kid looks like a monster in the making!

[brod_104]

(Early) May 2025

OK, so a quick sit-rep as we enter the final stages of the season, because it could be quite exciting ... or alternatively a complete anti-climax!

First things first, we have a European final at the end of the month!

We just about got through the Quarter Final against Club Brugge. After a 3-0 home win in the first leg, we seemed to do our best to throw it away in the return, going 2-0 down in the first half-hour, and being fortunate not to be 3-0 down at half time! We managed to have on though, for a 3-2 aggregate win. The semi-final was much more straight-forward against AZ. A deserved 1-0 win away was followed up with a 3-0 home win, for 4-0 overall.

The league could be very nervy though, where we could still qualify for the Champions League, or we could end up with no European football at all (depending on the outcome of the Europa Conference League final)!

So this screenshot is taken in the middle of matchweek 36, so that's why Monaco, Rennes and Nice have all played a game more. Our game is against Angers, so a win in that would move us within two points of the top four and Champions League football. After that though, we have PSG away and Troyes at home, so not necessarily the easiest run in.

Meanwhile, Marseille visit Lille this match-day, before games against Strasbourg and Toulouse. Elseswhere, Rennes play Brest and Reims (both at home), Nice play Dijon and Nantes (who are both in the relegation zone), and Lille's remaining games after Marseille are against Montpellier and Lyon. So, aside from Lille, I'd say we have the toughest run-in...

Edited May 22, 2023 by brod_104

[brod_104]

Live updates - sort of!

The Champions League dream is over (for this season). We beat Angers, and Marseille beat Lille, so we were two points off Rennes in fourth going into matchday 37.

Unfortunately game 37 was away to PSG, whereas Marseille, Nice and Rennes were all at home against teams in the bottom half, whilst Lille were away, but again at a team in the bottom half. In the end, all four of the teams above us won, while we eventually lost 1-0 to PSG.  Despite PSG having just played a midweek cup final, they were still able to call on the likes of Neymar, who ended up getting the winner.

At least the cup final seemed to take its toll on their opponents Lyon, who dropped points against Auxerre, which means St-Étienne are guaranteed a second consecutive 7th place league finish. We still have a chance of qualifying for the Europa League though, if we beat Bilbao. I think I will be resting my first choice XI as much as possible for our final league game against Troyes!

[brod_104]

St-Étienne are Europa League Champions 2025!!

A fully deserved 3-0 win in the final, with Dion Drena Beljo scoring a second-half hat-trick, taking his tally to the season to 37 goals in 51 appearances across all competitions, with 15 goals in this competition.

Something tells me I might have some offers for Beljo in the summer, with interest from Fulham, Southampton, Leverkusen, Gladbach, Milan, Benfica, Nice and Juventus, following the performance in the final. I'm hoping to ward off interest though, with a £65m asking price (as a minimum), which he has no arguments with at this point. Once the new budgets are announced, I'll also be looking to offer him a new contract...

[karanhsingh]

Wow well done! That's a great achievement. 

[brod_104]

An additional bonus from the season just completed - our Under-19s won the youth championship, beating Lyon in the final:

A bit of early transfer business for the coming season. Towards the end of the season, two free transfers were finalised - both young players who were on trial for a while  until they turned 18, as both came from Africa. These players are Senegalese striker Ismaïla Diallo (who I think I have previously mentioned had signed a deal), and Cameroon centre-back Junior Souleymanou. Both players were putting in amazing for the Under-19s while on trial (Diallo scoring 17 goals in 15 appearances in the youth league, plus buckets more in friendlies).

I've also signed Julian Araujo, a (now) 23-year-old Mexican international right-back as competition for Maçon and Palencia (with the latter probably on the list of players I'll try and move on). Araujo is an IRL player who's played his entire career in MLS, mostly at LA Galaxy, but on my save in 2024 ended up bouncing around between SEVEN clubs (three clubs twice) through waiver claims! (MLS is weird...). So that's three free transfers (plus Klaesson, whose loan deal becomes permanent).

My first signing for cash is Petar Dukadin - an 18-year-old Bosnian defensive midfielder picked up from Hajduk Split for around £4m. I'm quite excited by some of this kids stats already - my coaches reckon he's already as as good as Mouton and Moueffek, which the potential to be even better!

I've currently got a contract offer in for Warren Zaïre-Emery too, who would also be a free transfer as his contract at PSG runs out. He does also have offers from Man City, Tottenham, Porto and Sporting though, so I'll have to hope the promise of regular football wins out over money I think.

Possibly the most important bit of business though is a contract renewal for star striker Beljo. I had to get the board involved to get him anywhere close to the wages he wanted, but he's signed, and that new wage looks to have driven off the circling big clubs from England, Spain and Italy.

Thought this was amusing. England and Spain got the extra Champions League spots for the 2025/26 season - no real surprise there. The surprise was which club one of those spots went to. England's representatives in the Champions League will be Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and ... Bournemouth?! Yes, Bournemouth finished 5th, 7 points clear of Tottenham and Man Utd!

 

[brod_104]

Pre-Season 2025-26

Time for another update, this time at the beginning of August 2025. The new season is about a week away, and there is still a month of the transfer window still to go, but I'm unlikely to do any more major transfer business aside from loans, and I'm quite excited by the players who have come in this summer, including those who have returned from loan and will be integrated into the first team this season.

Transfers in this summer are as follows:

Only four arrivals this summer, three of whom I've already mentioned: Araujo is a 23-year-old Mexican right-back to offer competition for Maçon, Dudakin is a teenage Bosnian deep-lying playmaker at DM, and Klaesson is a 24-year-old Norwegian goalkeeper who spent the second half of last season with us on loan. The extra signing I've made is Emmanuel Njoku, an under-21 international for England winger/inside forward, who also has Nigerian nationality so doesn't count towards the non-EU count under Ligue 1 rules. Njoku arrives from recently relegated Crystal Palace, having rejected offers from Leverkusen and Udinese, and was immediately rated as the best player at the club alongside Beljo. This means I've broken St-Étienne's transfer record twice within 6 months, after Costa in the previous window, but in both instances I think we've got something of a bargain!

There have been a lot more deals involving players leaving the club this window:

Some long-serving players have left this summer, alongside a player I would consider a cult-hero. Briançon and Pétrot have both been allowed to leave on free transfers at the end of their contracts. I'm a little sad to see Pétrot leave, as he's close to being a club icon after two spells at the club, including scoring some absolute worldies in our promotion season, but sadly neither he nor former captain Briançon are good enough to challenge towards the top of Ligue 1. The other player I'm particularly sad to see leave is Bobir Abdiholiqov - 25 goals in 62 games is a good return for the Uzbek international, who joined on a free in January 2023, especially given he was mostly a substitute in the last two seasons. Fellow striker Borukov has also left the club, for a slight loss, having never really convinced when given the chance. Sergi Palencia and Mahdi Camara are the other two first-team squad members to leave the club for transfer fees (for £5.25m to Sevilla and £3m to Verona respectively).

"Bobi" and Borukov were both allowed to leave in order to allow opportunities to be given to a trio of young strikers: Yanis Lhéry, Ismaïla Diallo and Richard Berthon. Lhéry hasn't quite developed as much as I would have hoped in his time out on loan, but offers a bit more experience than the other two, who are both excitingly talented forwards:

 

[brod_104]

Pre-Season Results

The defeats against Ferencvárosi and Raków Czestochowa were disappointing, although the former was a team comprised mostly of youth players, so perhaps that's not too disappointing, and the whilst the second game did involve a lot of first team regulars, it was their first game of pre-season.

We started to get into the swing of things in games against Beijing Youth and China Locomotive. We also made use of two of our affiliates for some morale boosting match sharpness - the 9-0 win against Savigneux Montrison also involved hitting the woodwork EIGHT times! I was particularly impressed by our performance against Maccabi Haifa though - a win by a five-goal margin away from home is very promising!

One possible transfer that might still go through that I didn't mention previously is the potential loan of Óscar Perea to Ludogorets to get him some regular first-team football, given that Njoku and Sali are ahead of him for that left-wing spot, with Cafaro a more experienced option on that side too. He could play on the right, but we also have Kjølstad Nyheim and Aiki on that side.

[brod_104]

OK, maybe one more signing...

Tumelo Mosehlenyane has been signed for £2m from Kaiser Chiefs in South Africa, where he will stay on loan for the season.

[karanhsingh]

Njoku looks great man, as does the South African. Good moves!

[brod_104]

August 2025

Something of an inconsistent start to the new season. The defeat against Lille was very disappointing - we had the slightly better xG from the same number of shots, but conceded from a set piece, a second-phase set piece, and a long range shot that Klaesson might have done better with. The win over local rivals Clermont was comfortable. Despite the player ratings, I felt we played well against Nice, who spent a lot of money this summer (more than PSG!), to limit their opportunities before succumbing to an 80th minute winner. In the final match of the month, we were a lot better going forward and deservedly scored a lot of goals, but Brest's goals were all avoidable, with Klaesson again at fault (practically throwing two of them into the goal).

Transfer deadline day came and went without any major activity (despite more rumours of big clubs looking at Beljo, and even Koumetio). Young Tunisian midfielder Jebryl Sahraoui joined Nantes for around £300k - he had reasonable potential but his contract was expiring at the end of the season, and couldn't agree a renewal, and I felt there were other better future prospects in the squad. There was actually a departure after the deadline as well - Riqui Puig never really got a run in the team due to the form of van den Boomen and more recently Moder, and ended up being left out of the Europa League squad. He didn't kick up a fuss, surprisingly, but given he was on relatively high wages and was unlikely to play a lot of games, and there was interest from clubs in the Middle East, I decided to offer him out, and managed to secure a deal for £6m for him to join Al-Wahda in the UAE.

Europa League games have also been decided, and we have away games against Genk, Anderlecht, Pafos (of Cyprus) and Inter, and home games against Union Berlin, Villarreal, FCSB (again, after playing them in the Conference League last year), and FC Midtjylland.

Edited May 29, 2023 by brod_104
Added Europa League fixtures

[brod_104]

September 2025

Overall a positive set of results this month. We returned to action after the international break with a 1-0 win away at Marseille. After being unfortunate to lose at Nice, this was perhaps the opposite and we were probably a little fortunate to win. Marseille were the better team in terms of the number and quality of shots, including one effort in particular following a mix-up in defence where it was a fairly open goal, albeit from an ever-narrowing angle, which was put into the side netting. In the end though, Beljo's first-half header was enough for victory.

We then opened our Europa League campaign with a win away at Genk, with Njoku bagging a brace to open his account for the club. We were then beaten by PSG in our next game in what was again a surprisingly even game - Heung-Min Son and Mbappé gave PSG a 2-0 lead, but we fought our way back into the game and could potentially have grabbed a late equaliser. We then recorded back-to-back wins against Lorient and Troyes. I was particularly pleased with the performance against Troyes (who we failed to beat last season), as we rested a lot of players and gave opportunities to a lot of youngsters including Morina and Diallo, with the young Senegalese striker getting his first senior goal for the club. He could have had a hat-trick too, with two more efforts disallowed for narrow offsides - Sali also had a second goal disallowed for offside.

[Hootieleece]

Good Start!

Is the 4-3-3 Wide the tactic you use? I find it better to have the opp. formation in the schedule so at a glance I can see formations I have trouble against.

ASSE is one of my favorite teams and would love to see them make a comeback IRL.  (I like to pick underdog teams except for Liverpool)

[brod_104]

6 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

Good Start!

Is the 4-3-3 Wide the tactic you use? I find it better to have the opp. formation in the schedule so at a glance I can see formations I have trouble against.

ASSE is one of my favorite teams and would love to see them make a comeback IRL.  (I like to pick underdog teams except for Liverpool)

Yes, I use a positive or attacking 4-3-3, with short passing to try and retain possession.

I'm not at my PC at the moment, but my first team squad at the moment is generally:

GK: Kristoffer Klaesson

DR: Yvann Maçon/Julian Araujo

DCR: Diego Costa

DCL: Billy Koumetio/Clemens Riedel

DL: Andrii Buleza (Daley Sinkgraven)

DM: Aïmen Moueffek/Louis Mouton (Petar Dukadin*)

MCR: Sivert Mannsverk (Butrint Morina*)

MCL: Jakub Moder/Branco van den Boomen

AMR: Gustav Kjølstad Nyheim/Ayman Aiki

AML: Emmanuel Njoku*/Enes Sali (Mathieu Cafaro)

ST: Dion Drena Beljo (Ismaïla Diallo*/Richard Berthon*)

Where players are separated by "/", this is where some rotation is likely, whilst players in brackets are backups or youth players getting game time. Players with an asterisk are newgens.

I'll try and remember to take a screenshot of tactics in-game showing roles, if that would be of interest.

[brod_104]

Back on my PC, so here's a bit more info on my preferred tactic and line-up. In this line-up, Mouton is probably a 50-50 choice to rotate with Moueffek, and Riedel is likely to swap with Koumetio a fair bit. The closest I have to "undroppables" are Klaesson (because none of my other keepers are at the same level yet), Costa (for his 19 leadership) and Beljo (although he does tend to get tired relatively quickly). Njoku will play quite a lot this year, but Sali will get a fair amount on the left, as will Aiki on the right.

The squad planner looks a bit a little like this:

Spoiler

 

[brod_104]

October 2025

The latest update in 2025-26. Our European form is great, our domestic home form is great, but our domestic away form, not so much.

The month started with a stunning performance to come back from a goal behind to beat Union Berlin 5-1 in the Europa League. We then drew with Toulouse away and beat Lens at home. We then got another big European win, 2-0 away to Anderlecht, with 18-year-old youth academy product Richard Berthon scoring his first goal for the club. However, we then followed this up with more dropped points in the league, losing away at Strasbourg.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of our domestic form away from home this season. These most recent dropped points have been against sides who do seem to be bogey teams for us. We've played Toulouse and Strasbourg 5 times each now since getting back into Ligue 1, and we've beaten them once each. The only teams we've done worse against are PSG, Monaco and Nice, who are financially a lot better off than us. These games also came immediately off the back of European ties as well, so I'm not sure if it's the bogey teams striking again, fatigue after the midweek games, or a mixture of the two.

I have also played the first game in November, which ended in a 4-2 home win against Reims, and Dion Beljo has hit a milestone of 50 league goals for the club, in just under two and a half years, which I think is pretty good going!

[Hootieleece]

Games after European nights are tough especially if you really can't rotate the side.

The Media are always complaining about how many players I use in a season somewhere between 27-32 depending on injuries and transfers.

I generally use backups in matchups at home against Relegation fodder. 

[brod_104]

November 2025

A positive month overall. Three wins in four league games, and we're still unbeaten in Europe.

We put in a strong performance against Reims, as mentioned in my previous post. We followed this up with a goalless draw against Villarreal in the Europa League - we're level with the Yellow Submarine at the top of the table in the League Phase, so on the face of it that's a decent result, but I was actually disappointed in the result, because we battered them!

Following the European game, we had another tough league game against Monaco, in which we were disappointing in a 2-1 defeat. We bounced back though with a 3-0 win over relegation-threatened Auxerre, before returning to European competition with a 2-0 win over FCSB. Our next league game after that was yet another tough game, our local derby against third-placed Lyon. Lyon slightly edged the game on xG and total shots, and had a couple of goals disallowed for offside, but we took our chances and secured a 3-1 win thanks to an early goal from Beljo, a rare strike from Maçon (only his third ever goal), and a first league goal for youngster Berthon.

I've also made an early start on January transfer business. I've sealed a deal for another Scandinavian teenager, this time from Denmark, in the form of Lars Steinlein, an 18-year-old left-back from Nordsjælland. He's been a first-team regular in the Danish top-flight for the past year and a half, but was unsettled as he wanted to move to a bigger club when my scouts spotted him. I've had to trigger his release clause to get him, at £5.25m, but he's already rated better than my existing left-backs, particularly Sinkgraven who I will likely try and move on.

I need to be a little careful though, as my youth teams have a two or three more left-backs with similar potential, so Buleza might move on in a year or two depending on how they develop.

[KlaaZ]

Very good business on that left back, quite a steal for that kind of money!

[brod_104]

December 2025

Another month's games completed. We haven't actually reached the end of December yet, but we have no more games until the New Year.

We started with a narrow defeat to Rennes, who are one of our rivals for the top European places, but bounced back with league wins against both Montpellier and Angers. We continued our run in Europe with a win away in Cyprus against Pafos, although we had to come back from behind and bring on both Beljo and van den Boomen, who I had hoped to rest. We also cruised through our first French Cup match against fourth-tier Genêts Anglet, in a game where I did manage to rest some of my bigger names.

At the (almost) half-way stage of the season, we currently sit 5th in the league, with Lyon, NIce, and Rennes as the main rivals for the final two Champions League places, although Lille aren't far away. We're also top of the Europa League table with two games (against Midtjylland and Inter) left to go.

We also have another signing confirmed, who will arrive at the end of the season, a 17-year-old right back from Peru. Leonardo Flores will arrive from Alianza Lima in his homeland for a flat £350k:

I've also made an enquiry about a Colombian defender/defensive midfielder called Víctor Pacheco at Atlético Bucaramanga. He's described as a centre-back, but his heading is dreadful and my scouts think he would be better as a DM:

I'm also starting a search for another improvement in the goalkeeping department. Klaesson is decent enough, but a couple of mistakes have crept in recently. In January I'm also going to look into the possibility of moving on Sinkgraven to make way for my new left-back.

[brod_104]

The transfer window is now open and Pacheco is in for £1m, with a loan back his former club in Colombia (where he has been a regular starter) for the rest of the season.

Sinkgraven is leaving, sold to Sampdoria for £1.2m and will move to Italy on 2 January - as bids were coming in, he'd also said he was going to consider his options at the end of his contract in 2027, so even more reason to cash in! The fee is a little below his market value, but it gets £23k off the wage bill for a player who would find himself with less game time in the remainder of the season.

Mathieu Cafaro has also indicated he wishes to run down his contract (also expiring in 2027), so he is now also transfer listed, although I need to be a little careful with selling Cafaro, as I upset him by trying to offer him out this time last season, and the expiration of the promise not to sell him doesn't run out until the end of January! There are a couple of teams interested (Palace and Middlesbrough for instance), so hopefully they'll make an offer.

I also have clubs interested in Koumetio (I've already rejected a bid from Mallorca) and Riedel, Juventus want newgen centre-back Souleymanou, Palace want my other main left-back Buleza, and Beljo once again has a host of Premier League clubs hovering.

[brod_104]

January 2026

I'm calling this section January 2026, but it spills into February a little bit because of the way the transfer window falls, and there have been some significant exits.

First of all, let's cover the results for the month and, somewhat unbelievably, we've had a 100% record this month!

We had comfortable wins against Ligue 2 side Quevily in the Cup, followed by demolitions of Bordeaux and local rivals Clermont. The narrow win over Nice was massive as, having moved into third with the previous two wins, immediately above Nice, this result allowed us to build a 5-point gap over fourth place. We then returned to Europa League action with another 4-0 thrashing, this time against Midtjylland. We then built up another comfortable lead over Brest before almost throwing it away, but managed to hang on for a 3-2 win. Then came the big test in Europe: Inter away. Incredibly, we secured a 1-0 win which also secured top spot in the League Phase table with 7 wins from 8 games, the only dropped points being the goalless draw with Villarreal, which we should have also won comfortably. Finally, moving into February, we beat another lower league side in the cup in the form of Toulon, which sets up a Quarter Final tie away against Lille The French cup is another decent opportunity for a trophy this year, because PSG are already out!

Now the transfers. Not many arrivals, other than those I think I've already mentioned:

Pacheco and Steinlein were arranged before the window opened, and I've already posted screenshots of their profiles, along with Flores who will join in the summer. The only other signing added was Serbian striker Miroslav Dordevic (which I think would be pronounced Djordjevic?) Dordevic arrives from TSC in Serbia but was loaned back for the rest of the season.

And now for the departures...

Sinkgraven to Sampdoria I've already mentioned, which made room for Steinlein. Then there were a number of loans... then there was deadline day... The deals are in a slightly different order, but I'll deal with them in the order in which they started.

Firstly, Mathieu Cafaro has joined Cagliari for £7.25m (signed for £400k, so a profit of £6.85m). I had tried to cash in on Cafaro in January last year when there was interest from Marseille. I'd just signed Sali and Moder and could see that Cafaro would eventually play less. Unfortunately Marseille didn't follow up their interest, and Cafaro was unhappy I tried to offer him out and I ended up promising I wouldn't sell him. The expiry of this promise wasn't until the end of this window, but then first he decided he was going to consider his options at the end of his contract in the summer of 2027, and then Middlesbrough made a £10m offer. I accepted the offer, which made Cafaro upset that I broke the promise not to try and sell him. Cagliari then made a rubbish loan offer which I rejected - this then upset Cafaro again, that I'd blocked a transfer, so we agreed that I would look to sell him after all. I ended up managing to get a bit of an auction going, and eventually got a £11.75m bid from Swansea. Cafaro then rejected the contract. I managed to agree another £10m deal with Middlesbrough, only for him to reject the contract again. I eventually ended up with the £7.25m offer from Cagliari, along with £9m offers from Norwich and Palace, plus a loan offer with a mandatory future fee of around £9m from SPAL in Italy. I accepted all of them (not wanting to risk another contract rejection, I decided against pushing for another auction), and eventually he agreed to join Cagliari.

Junior Souleymanou is a sale I really didn't want to happen, because he had 5* potential. However Wolves made an offer in mid-January, which I rejected. This upset the Cameroon teenager who wanted to join what he thought was a stronger squad (although I'm not convinced he'll get any game time there...). Souleymanou then handed in a transfer request, which I initially rejected, but then figured it wouldn't be good to keep a sulky player around, so I decided to try and get a decent deal out of it. After further bids from both Wolves and Benfica, he eventually joined the Premier League side in a deal worth an initial £9.75m, with a further £2.5m based on club and international appearances, plus a percentage of any future profit. Not a bad return on a free transfer from the Cameroon leagues... (minimum £9.75m profit).

Finally, we ended up with interest in two more of my centre-backs, Koumetio and Riedel. I was able to reject the offers for Koumetio with no issues, and initially also Riedel. But then Leipzig came calling, and Riedel indicated he would become unhappy if he wasn't allowed to talk to them. This deal happened quite quickly over the final weekend in January, but I ended up accepting a deal worth an initial £11m (all upfront, no instalments), plus further payments based on appearances plus 40% of any future profit. Riedel joined for just under £4m so that's another £7m profit (minimum).

Overall in the January 2026 window, we had a net transfer INCOME of around £22m.

I decided against making any immediate signings on deadline day in response to these sales. I already have plenty of options in midfield to cope with the departure of Cafaro. I could have made a signing at centre-back, but there weren't any interesting options available, and we still have Pierre Mbemba and Madi Monamay as young options to fill in for the rest of this season, plus Pacheco to return at the end of the season and couple of additional options in the youth team.

All in all, a busy month!

[brod_104]

OK, so it's been a while - I haven't been able to play FM quite as much over the past month or so, but I've finally managed to get to the end of the 2025/26 season. Here's how the rest of the campaign went:

February 2026

February was a dreadful month. No goals and only one point from four three league games, and a disappointing exit from the domestic cup against Lille. I guess a draw with Marseille and defeat against PSG might be expected, but the Lorient game was very poor. I was also disappointed to go out of the cup against Lille, mostly because PSG were already out before the Quarter Finals, so I felt it was a winnable competition.

March 2026

In contrast to February, March was amazing! Four straight wins in the league kept us comfortably in the top four, and we eased through in the Europa League against Genk to set up another European Quarter Final. Disappointingly, that tie would be against domestic rivals Nice.

April 2026

April was a mixed bag. We bookended the month with a solid win against Reims and a nerve-racking comeback from 3-1 down to beat Rennes 4-3. However, in between those games we had disappointing defeats away to eventual league runners-up Monaco and Lyon, who at the time were 4th. These results, along with results for Lyon and Lille meant that top four was no longer as comfortable as it was at the start of the month.

May 2026

The league came to a close in May. We opened the month with a poor defeat to Montpellier, a result which meant only two points separated us in third, Lille and Lyon who were in fifth with 35 games played. All three teams won their next two games, which left us with a final day showdown with Lille, knowing that if we avoided defeat we would qualify for the Champions League. In the end, we squeezed out a 1-0 win, while Lyon drew, meaning St-Étienne finished third and returned to Europe's top table.

Once again, Dion Drena Beljo was the star player of the season, scoring an incredible 30 league goals in 36 appearances. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for the golden boot because of someone called Mbappé who scored 40... Beljo ended up with 38 goals in all competitions and an average rating of 7.43 The other main notable performer this season was Branco van den Boomen (12 goals and 18 assists in all competitions, average rating 7.21). There were then a further 13 players, all with average ratings over 7.00, including the season's big money signing Emmanuel Njoku, who did pick up quite a few injuries but still recorded 8 goals and 8 assists.

This is likely to be my last update on this save, as I want to try a couple of other saves, but I have arranged some future transfers, as I will probably dip back into this save occasionally.

These include:

18-year-old Shin'ichi Ishii, a Japanese central midfielder who will arrive from Kawasaki Frontale for £4.1m

... and another 18-year-old, Diego López, an American right-back who I'd been tracking for a while, and somehow ended up being released by St Louis in MLS through the waiver system... I quickly managed to snap him up on a free transfer and whilst I couldn't register him for the final few games of the season, just look at that transfer value already!

I've also picked up a Canadian right-winger, Lewis Lynch, and an American-Brazilian central midfielder, Fábio, on free transfers after they also fell through the waiver system. Those two are both 4-star potential, so hopefully they'll develop nicely, but if not I might be able to get a decent sell-on fee for them.

If I do continue into another season with this team, I will need to look at moving some players on. Ligue 1 rules mean I can only have 4 non-EU players. Currently two slots are taken by defenders Araujo and Costa. López will definitely take a slot, and I have Colombian winger Perea to return from his loan spell at Ludogorets. On top of that, there's English left-back Garbutt, plus my two other new North American signings in my reserves, plus Ishii, Pacheco and Flores who will be arriving in the summer. I'll probably look at moving on Araujo to accommodate López (with Maçon as back-up at right-back). I might try and cash-in on Perea (who hasn't really convinced when I've tried to give him a chance, and has been solid but unspectacular in his loans away). I'll probably look to register Costa, López and Pacheco plus one other, and loan out the others.

In other positions, I'll probably look at improving in goal again. Klaesson has done ok, but is prone to the odd error. There are a couple of options I'm looking at, including Elia Caprile (who's at Genk at the moment, but has just signed a new contract, so might be difficult to obtain). I'd potentially look at a new centre-back if an option came up, but other than that, I think any other signings would need outgoings first.

And with that, I think I'll end. I'm going to go and watch the 2026 World Cup, but then whether I will continue with our the Champions League campaign, I don't know.

[Guest]

My first season managing Nice and Moffi scored 36 goals and was still handsomely beaten in the Golden Boot race by Mbappe. He's ridiculous in game and irl too I guess.