Galloping on with Randers FC

[TangoFM]

Intro

A new game version has me crawling back to FM with a heightened desire to find a save that sticks with me after I didn't really find that during FM22 and FM23. With life getting in the way, a new job and two young kids to manage it was difficult, but with work being quieter during the winter I immediately jumped on FM24 upon early access release, keen to crack on.

As with everyone, I have a specific way I like to play FM, for me I enjoy the building of teams and developing players towards their potential. So recruitment and training is a focus for me - I prefer to keep my tactical approach quite simple and take inspiration from real-life examples - I tend not to focus too much on in-depth analysis and data. 

I really enjoy taking charge of small to mid-sized clubs and developing them, finding the best way to influence the youth intakes and focusing on home-grown talents, and trying to supplement them with bought talents who no doubt will use the club as a stepping stone. I like to manage realistically with key focuses and like my clubs to make money. 

It's these topics and reasons that I found myself heading Randers (pronounced rah-nuh rs) in this game version. The team nicknamed The Horses hence the thread title, are a middle-of-the-table Danish Superliga with big potential. First of all, the Danish league is a league full of talented young players, filled with "fallen giants" like Brondby and Copenhagen and some well-developed clubs like Nordsjaelland and AGF - it's a league that enables younger talents to have minutes, to allow successful clubs to head into European competitions and enables profit to be made, selling players into the big leagues. The league also runs during the same calendar as the main European leagues, unlike Norway or Sweden which I find easier to manage.

Randers have a solid squad with a couple of high-potential players and that was enough to give them the edge over other clubs I was looking at. They have good facilities but not the best and overall they have a good base in all areas for me to make my mark and build upon. 

Meet Filip Bundgaard, one of the main reasons I chose Randers for my Beta save - a real jewel in the Randers crown and someone I can build my team around - at least for the first few seasons. But with 6 goals and 6 assists in his first 10 games, he's gaining interest from Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, both Manchester clubs, Bayern, PSG, Juventus and Barcelona - I'm expecting his £5,750,000 minimum release clause to be met, I just hope it's not in January.



And with those stats from Bundgaard, you can tell that we've started well, an incredible 8 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss from our first 10 games, scoring 26 goals and conceding 6. Our 4-3-3 Gegenpress style tactic is working well, with my style preferring high determined, high work rate players in our side. But I will discuss the tactic and choices further as the thread goes on.

Only 8 more games before we meet the winter break so I will follow up this post with a few more where I hope to explain some more of my thinking as I take over the reigns of Randers.

Hej hej! 

 

[Jogo Bonito]

Nice intro, and similar philosophies to how I play FM too.

A good choice of club and country, I've always enjoyed Denmark and also agree the calendar makes it an easy fit.

After the start you made, wishing you good luck is a bit weak. But I wish you a happy career there.

[TheMartello]

Great start! Looking forward to your tactical system!

[TangoFM]

1st December 2023: Season One 

Confession time...I am now playing a new save file compared to the first post in this thread. I had accidentally used a save file from my research that had only Denmark's top two tiers loaded alongside a small database so I have started afresh with a large database and all leagues loaded from Belgium, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. 

The save, however, has started in the same positive light as my first one. You can see my fixture list here and have a good idea of how the games are going, we started strongly with big wins over OB and Hvidore IF but that was followed by 3 defeats in the 4 matches in August.  A few tweaks to how we lined up, aiming to find that balance between scoring goals, possession and protecting our own goal we have subsequently gone on a 12 match unbeaten run, including 9 wins. That run leaves us in 2nd place with 6 matches left to play before the league splits. 



Away from the on-pitch success, we've had some challenges and continue to face some challenges around our squad building. when I took over the squad, I had 12 players who had expiring contracts, I have been successful in renewing 8 of those players, including a few where I'm just protecting their values as I don't want to lose them on a free. However, 4 prominent members of the first team are now considering their options, we are approaching January and their contracts expire in June. I have to think about what income I can gain for them during the January window and also weigh up how much of a loss they would be to the side for the last months of the season?

Here are the four in question, Patrick Carlgren, our first-choice goalkeeper and team leader. A very solid option between the sticks for our goalkeeper and we would have a big drop in quality without recruiting a new 'keeper here. However, recruiting here does give us an opportunity to bring a 'keeper in who is more comfortable with the ball at their feet. Alhaji Kamara, our first-choice striker option, for me he's a high-quality pressing forward and he's shown that by scoring 11 goals in 10 (3) starts for us. He will turn 30 soon so I'm sure he would be moving on within a few seasons regardless but it's always nice to extract some value out of your best players, and that financial side is key for our aims of the club. Our replacements for Kamara are the last two players on this list, all three of my strikers are considering their options, just great. Here are the last two, Marvin Egho and  Stephen Odey. 

  

I thought it also time to introduce some of the players that I'm taking a positive opinion of, meet William Kaastrup, Mustapha Isah and Mads Enggård. Three players that were all in the first-team squad at Randers when I took over but have played more of a role in my side that originally planned. Kaastrup owns the left-back spot, Isah is developing nicely as an inside forward in the AML slot and Enggård is the first-choice in the CM position. All three youngsters are performing well and developing nicely, a key part of our club strategy is to give young players minutes and these three will be the epitome of that.

  

If we look even younger, I can introduce you to Andreas Hoyer, Sabil Hansen and Magnus Zacho, three players I've promoted from the youth team to train with the first-team and play matches for the B team. I have high hopes for Zacho in particular, although I'd love that Determination up higher! Hoyer is developing as a left back, rather than centre-back due to my options there, his natural fitness quality too. I'm excited to see how these guys progress. 

-

As I've now reached December, my thoughts turn more to squad building, scouting and recruitment - I'm aiming to give an overview of my setup in the coming days which will most likely be quite cathartic for me and I imagine a good mind dump.

Thanks for following! 

[john1]

Decent start and good luck with this