[FM24] Tulach Bòide [Scotland Tier 13]

[Jimbokav1971]

8 minutes ago, TIR669 said:

McAllister won't disappear from the database because

a) when removing a league, not ALL players are automatically deleted

b) you can still keep League 1 if you see Bolton getting relegated

I'm not used to adding and removing leagues so I didn't know how it worked. 

Nah, I'm not keeping the Championship or League 1 for him anyway. I don't mind the top leagues. I don't want any below that though. 

[Jimbokav1971]

12 minutes ago, TIR669 said:

Shame about the finances but hey, this is a long haul save anyway. You'll lose a few seasons in Championship due to this, maybe consider reducing junior coaching for 2-3 years to more reasonable levels, likely it is exponential and level 16-17 will be less than half the amount of 20.

I'm not upset about the finances and I don't think it's buggy or anything. In my opinion we had the early stages of the save far too easy and it should be harder, (much harder), to get Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment to L20 and we're basically paying the price for that now. We had it easy then and we've got it tough now. It's just the nature of the way that the edited database impacts things like this. If I want to play an edited database with this style of save and I want to upgrade the Facilities like that at a time when the game can't really cope with it, then this is the outcome. I'm fine with it. It certainly makes it challenging and I might fail, (because it seems really tough right now), but that's exactly why I play a save like this. Bring it on. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Nov 2040. 

Scottish Championship. It was a reasonable month, but it could have been a great month if we had just beaten Brechin. They deservedly beat us and the gap that would have been just 6 points had we beat them, is now a whopping 12 points and any slim hope of a playoff challenge is surely dead and buried. We had not 1 but 2 goals ruled out against St Mirren, and it's just the way things are going in the save right now. The truth is, if we beat St Mirren we probably smash Spartans and then go on and beat Brechin too. You know how key momentum is in the game now. We didn't beat St Mirren and that's that.

Internationals. 

Goal-scoring GK's.

Finances. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Dec 2040.

Scottish Championship. This is actually a decent month, with wins from both home games and 1 away win, with the 2 losses coming against the top 2 who we're simply not competitive with. I feel slightly negative about this season, but it's more based on my goals of getting into the Playoffs rather than my expectations of a mid-table finish. I suppose we've just had so much success in this save year after year, that now progress is slightly slower, (but still pretty decent), it just feels like we're in a tough spot what with that and the financial concerns. 

Goal-scoring GK's.

(23) Brass (Bal) 6'2" is 5/8 from the spot at 63%. (Is no longer at the club).
(23) Ewing (Bal) 6'1" is 17/20 from the spot at 85%. (Is no longer at the club).
(25c) Christie (F.Sport) 6'1" is 46/52 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club). 
(26p) Marsh (CAN)(SCO) 5'10" is 15/17 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club).
(30a) Ogilvie (Fickle) 6'2" * is 47/64 from the spot at 73%. (Is no longer at the club).
(31k) Lawrie (Unamb) * is 22/28 from the spot at 79%.
(33a) Black (Fickle) 6'0" * is 2/3 from the spot at 67%.
(37b) Niven (F.Loyal) 6'4" * is 8/12 from the spot at 67%.

Wages. At the very least I need to be able to offer the next youth intake players a youth contract, (or whatever is needed to make them sign). We currently have a wage surplus, (or available budget or whatever you want to call it), of £1,024 per week and as we won't be signing any new players between now and the Youth Intake, that's only going to rise if players reach career appearance milestones that trigger a wage increase, and that's likely to be somewhere in the region of £10 a time, (so not significant). 

We signed 15 of the 16 players in the last intake and their total wage almost 1 year on, (after many have moved from Youth contracts to PT contracts), is only £615, so I think I'm correct in saying we should be fine to sign as many of the next intake as we want, (which is the whole point of having the good Junior Coaching/Youth Recruitment remember). 

It feels like we're treading water just a little bit this season while we await the opening of the new stadium, and only then, (after the start of next season), be able to anticipate more accurately, the full impact that the bigger stadium and increased capacity will have on our finances. My original estimate of a £1M increase in income wasn't just picked from this air, but at the same time there are a number of variables that I just can't know right now so there is a little bit of guesswork involved, The biggest unknown of course is the price the club will charge for tickets and if you remember back to the start of the save the average price of a ticket for the opening couple of seasons was less than £1 I think. If the club do something like that to get bums on seats then it doesn't really matter how many tickets we sell. The price of the tickets is as key, (if not more so), than the tickets being sold. 

Finances. 

I was half joking when I commented previously that we don't pay our Youth Setup monthly bill, (or at least the full bill), when our debt exceeds £1M. 

It actually seems to be true. When we owe £1M+ our monthly payment is approx £50k. When we owe <£1M our monthly payment is approx £200k per month. 

It could be complete coincidence and I'm just pointing out the varied nature of the payment amounts. 

If it's not a coincidence I wonder do we get full value for our Youth Recruitment levels while we're not paying for them in full? 

[Jimbokav1971]

Jan 2041. 

Scottish Championship. We've actually played well for much of the month, but we're just lacking that bit of quality. Morale in the squad is an issue, but I think I might have resolved much, (not all), of the unhappiness before the window closed. Thankfully there is a nice 9 point gap between us and Arbroath in 9th. 

Scottish Cup. (The Big one). I made an ENORMOUS error here.  Over the last month or so, (basically the January window), I have been working REALLy hard to get the wage bill down low enough so that I will be able to sign all/most of the players in the intake in March. I have already done this once, (but the board cut the budget after I did it), but I am having to do so again now or I simply won't be able to sign them. (At least not the better players that demand a little more than a basic youth contract). I've transfer listed players, I've loaned players out, I "think" I've even done a deal to sell our best player, (and then loan him back in for 12 months), sold players, and I've basically been drawing a line under what has gone before, and starting again from scratch with the players that I plan on using next season. That's all well and good, but we're no longer entering the Cup at the preliminary stages and if we win a couple of rounds now then the prize money is pretty good. We were at home against a team from the league below and I STILL screwed it up.  I should have just gone with our strongest side. 

(The opposition are in the league below us). We played ok and had chances to win, but if you're serious about progressing in the Cup, (and I thought I was), then you don't rotate the squad and give debuts to a 16 year old centre-half and an 18 year old GK. 

Debuts. 

Transfers. Wowee I have been working hard in this window. 

If you look at who has gone out, and how much they have gone out for, it appears that this hasn't been a good window, but you would be wrong and I will explain why. 

1. It's not really about selling the player for cash/money right now. Because of our PT status, (I think), player valuations aren't working properly, so a player that might be valued at £1M at a Pro club, might only be valued at £100,000 with us. (I've completely made those numbers up by the way). 
2. If it's not about the cash/money right now, then what is it about? 
2(a). Well initially it's about the sell-on clause. When we sold (35a) McColl (Bal) * in the Summer, we got a 30% profit clause. He was sold for £180k and he's valued at £450k-£1.4M, so if he goes for £1.4M then we get £366,000. In the case of (34b) Morrison (ENG) (Resil) * I was prepared in advance and we sold him for 50% re-sale, (not profit), and as he is valued at £325,000-£3.3M, if he is sold for £3.3M then we obviously get £1.65M. This is enormous money for us. I was considering keeping (34b) Morrison (ENG) (Resil) * with us and letting him see out his contract with us, but I thought that was ridiculous and it would even be better to be relegated and get this sale done than let him leave on a free. Yes it's possible these players will not be sold by their new clubs and will instead leave on a free when their contract expires, (or leave on a pittance), but that's just a chance we have to take. 
2(b). That money would be really big for us right now, not because it would put us back into credit and fix all our financial woes, but a small part of it would be added to our transfer kitty and I would swap that over to wage budget and it would give us just a little bit more to play with. 
2(c). Loaning the player back is huge for us not just because we get to keep playing the player, (and by the way I don't just get them back until the end of the season, I get them for a full 12 months and occasionally beyond). 
2(d). Loaning the player back is amazing, but if Carlsberg did loan-backs then it would obviously be for 0% wages and that's enormous for us right now because these are our better/higher paid players and this is money I can now spend on someone else. 
2(e). Our morale has taken a battering recently and this is impacting performances. Suddenly that's gone, (at least for the player in question) because the player wanted to leave, (and has left), but we've got a new and improved happy player back at the club so we could maybe even expect improved performances, (at least from him), for the 2nd half of the season. 
2(f). There is also a clause for a friendly. I just stick it in just about every transfer I can. If we were to use it now it would be worth very little, but when we open our new stadium next season and we can invite clubs like Sampdoria, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Bolton, Spartans & Montrose we should be able to generate a tidy little bit of cash from nothing but a few cheeky clauses. 

Most of the bids we received, (that were rejected), were in the £10k - £50k bracket, but there were quite a few between £100k - £200k and even a few upwards of £250k. El Chieftain held strong though and we didn't lose anyone who we weren't prepared to lose. 

#

Thank God for that! 

Goal-scoring GK's. No change. 

(23) Brass (Bal) 6'2" is 5/8 from the spot at 63%. (Is no longer at the club).
(23) Ewing (Bal) 6'1" is 17/20 from the spot at 85%. (Is no longer at the club).
(25c) Christie (F.Sport) 6'1" is 46/52 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club). 
(26p) Marsh (CAN)(SCO) 5'10" is 15/17 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club).
(30a) Ogilvie (Fickle) 6'2" * is 47/64 from the spot at 73%. (Is no longer at the club).
(31k) Lawrie (Unamb) * is 22/28 from the spot at 79%.
(33a) Black (Fickle) 6'0" * is 2/3 from the spot at 67%. (Is no longer at the club).
(37b) Niven (F.Loyal) 6'4" * is 8/12 from the spot at 67%.

Finances. I mentioned that I had just over £1k pw surplus wage budget saved for the next Youth Intake, (even with all the cost-cutting), by they have just bent me over and pulled my pants down. 

It seems like they have reduced our wage budget to almost exactly what we are spending, (we need to cut another £220 pw to get back under budget). Had we been spending less they would have cut it further. 

We have 13 players who's contracts are due to expire at the end of the season and that will save £1,065 pm if everyone leaves. 

The player earning £350 pm os WBR (32d) Gauld (Res) and he was knocked down the pecking order by the emergence of (35a) McColl (Bal) *, but as he has been sold to Premiership Ross County, (and loaned back), his minutes have been limited. There is no way we will be able to get him to re-sign, (even if he wants to), so I'm actually keen to tell him now in the Jan window rather than him leaving on a free in the Summer. The £250 at the top is another WBR (31l) Reid (Unamb) * and I will be trying to shift him this month too. Striker (32a) Kelly (SCO)(IRL) (Bal) is on £150 and ideally he will leave too and that will give us £750 pw to play with in terms of signing the new batch of youngsters. 

I will be absolutely fuming if I manage to reduce the wage budget this month, (to give us the ability to sign Youth Intake players in March), and they reduce the budget again between now and March. 

The Jan Transfer window has now closed and I've manage to reduce the wage spend from £5,340 pm at the beginning of the month to £4,183 at the end of the month, (which is now comfortably within the budget and assuming it's not lowered again, should allow me to sign whoever I want from the next Youth Intake).. 

The situation is still dire, but at least now it looks like we can get past the intake without incident and after that we have the new stadium and the increased income to look forward to. We will still be in the.... mud, but we have taken some big steps in the right direction. We will keep selling players with clauses and sooner or later 1 or a number of them will generate enough of a surplus to allow us to turn pro, and then we will be able to sell players for proper money. (At least that's the plan). In the meantime though, we need to stay in the Championship. 

Edited January 18 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

In demand. Deb 2041. 

I managed to get through the Jan window without losing (38a) Arthurs (NIR) (F.Det) *, but it's fair to say that he's in demand. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Feb 2041.

Scottish Championship. We continue to play well, without getting our full rewards. 

Goal-scoring GK's. Nothing this month. 

(23) Brass (Bal) 6'2" is 5/8 from the spot at 63%. (Is no longer at the club).
(23) Ewing (Bal) 6'1" is 17/20 from the spot at 85%. (Is no longer at the club).
(25c) Christie (F.Sport) 6'1" is 46/52 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club). 
(26p) Marsh (CAN)(SCO) 5'10" is 15/17 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club).
(30a) Ogilvie (Fickle) 6'2" * is 47/64 from the spot at 73%. (Is no longer at the club).
(31k) Lawrie (Unamb) * is 22/28 from the spot at 79%.
(33a) Black (Fickle) 6'0" * is 2/3 from the spot at 67%.
(37b) Niven (F.Loyal) 6'4" * is 8/12 from the spot at 67%.

Finances. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Youth Day. Mar 2041. 

All the Scottish born players are still born in Alloa. 
4 of the top 8 players (ranked by PA), are Unamb. 
3 of the Unamb players also have L.Det. 

I really don't want to sign the players below, but the 3x Unamb players are just too good not to sign. 
I'm less against signing the 2x L.Det players, but they appear to have less ability so theoretically would be easier to release. 
I'm torn. 

Assorted players from the intake. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Mar 2041.

Scottish Championship. We're starting to keep clean sheets, but we appear to have forgotten how to score goals. 

Debuts. 

Internationals. 

Goal-scoring GK's.

Finances. 

[Jimbokav1971]

NxGn 2041. 

Edited January 19 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Apr 2041. 

Scottish Championship. Only we can score 6 goals in a single game and not even draw. 

I think it's safe to say we need a new GK and this is borne out by our 1st choice GK being ranked bottom of 8x GK's at the club by PA. We need to look to the future. All in all I should be satisfied with the season because we stayed well clear of relegation. (We're 19 points clear of Arbroath at the bottom and 15 points clear of Spartans in the relegation Playoffs). The problem though is that we're in limbo, because we're also 24 points, (but only 2 places), off Brechin in the last Playoff spot. The gap between the haves and the have-nots in this league is enormous. It's like the Top 5 are competing for the Title and the Playoffs and then the Bottom 5 are competing to avoid relegation and the Relegation Playoffs. 

Internationals. 

Goal-scoring GK's.

(23) Brass (Bal) 6'2" is 5/8 from the spot at 63%. (Is no longer at the club).
(23) Ewing (Bal) 6'1" is 17/20 from the spot at 85%. (Is no longer at the club).
(25c) Christie (F.Sport) 6'1" is 46/52 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club). 
(26p) Marsh (CAN)(SCO) 5'10" is 15/17 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club).
(30a) Ogilvie (Fickle) 6'2" * is 47/64 from the spot at 73%. (Is no longer at the club).
(31k) Lawrie (Unamb) * is 23/29 from the spot at 79%.
(33a) Black (Fickle) 6'0" * is 2/3 from the spot at 67%. (Is no longer at the club). 
(37b) Niven (F.Loyal) 6'4" * is 8/12 from the spot at 67%.

Finances. 

[TIR669]

15 finishing striker and a non-dwarf 15 passing defender with crazy mentals, both with positive personalities and 5* PA...what more do you want?

I'd say you need to invest in your staff properly instead of delegating to DoF to ensure others come out better too. What's your HoYD like these days?

 

Crazy amount of goals, Arbroath defence is comical.

I expect a new stadium, return of at least 1 or even ex players during the summer and a top 4 finish next year.

[Thebaker]

it not surprising that there is a huge gap amongst some of the teams, i bet the attendances have the same sort of gap, although i didn't realise Queens Park was well supported.

Hopefully the new stadium can help ease those finances or cashing in a big sell on fee from the players sold.

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, TIR669 said:

15 finishing striker and a non-dwarf 15 passing defender with crazy mentals, both with positive personalities and 5* PA...what more do you want?

(41b) Gourley (NIR) (F.Det) * is far more than just a 15 finishing striker. He looks the real deal. A decent personality + LH MH gives much reason for optimism. He didn't find the net in 3(1) appearances at the end of the season, but I was really just blooding him to boost his morale and get some good training levels out of him. He's only signed to a Youth contract, but I will hopefully sort that over the Summer but he is already being tracked by Dundee Utd & Hibs. 

(41c) Hogarth (Res) 5'9" * looks amazing, but he very much is short, (albeit a short person who can actually jump). He also has a Res personality and Reserved MH style, (which is win-win). The only real issues with him is that he doesn't have the vision to go with his 15 passing, his Natural Fitness is REALLY low, (so jumping might never pop to double figures), and he's managed to get injured already.  The good news that much of the injury period will take up the Summer off-season, so it could have been worse. Straight away he's come in and performed at a level above that of our existing centre-backs and his average rating of 6.84, (albeit from only 3(3) games), is higher than any other centre-half playing for us last season. He' only on a Youth contract and is already wanted by Dundee Utd and Hibs, so I had better get him on a PT deal sharpish!

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, TIR669 said:

I'd say you need to invest in your staff properly instead of delegating to DoF to ensure others come out better too. What's your HoYD like these days?

I'm trying to hold off on that until we get to the Premiership. 

This is our HoYD. 

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, TIR669 said:

Crazy amount of goals, Arbroath defence is comical.

You know, if I was looking at them and possibly going there as a new manager, I don't actually think the problem is goals conceded. I think the problem is control of matches and not scoring when they have good spells. 

There were 17 league games last season when they only conceded 0, 1 or 2 goals, but they only got points out of 11 of them. Yeah they're conceding goals, but bloomin hell they only conceded 6 more than us! 

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, TIR669 said:

I expect a new stadium, return of at least 1 or even ex players during the summer and a top 4 finish next year.

If you had asked me a year ago I would have said that was exactly the plan, but I'm not sure there will be anyone returning at all simply because the wage budget has been cut so much. If I go back to this time last year then the wage budget was over £10k pw. It's now at £5,120 and until we start bringing in money and selling a few more players I don't think our financial situation is going to change hugely. I expect our best players to leave, (for not great money unless we somehow turn Pro while being in debt), and I think we will have to rely on a the 2nd tier of players to drive us forward on the pitch. Anyone who is any good, (like the 2 above), are likely going to leave pretty quickly. (very quickly if I can't get them to sign a PT contract before the vultures start circling). 

As for Top 4, well that was my goal this season, (albeit a little ambitious). I will just be happy with another mid-table finish, but I would like the gap between ourselves and 4th to be less than 24 points. 

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, Thebaker said:

it not surprising that there is a huge gap amongst some of the teams, i bet the attendances have the same sort of gap, although i didn't realise Queens Park was well supported.

Hopefully the new stadium can help ease those finances or cashing in a big sell on fee from the players sold.

St Mirren came down from the Premiership last season and they have struggled to adapt. 
Arbroath are the other under-performers,

Other than that, the Top 5 were the Top 5 and the only thing up for grabs was where teams finished within that split. 

The salary spend shows that things are slightly tighter than the attendances suggest, but look at how far off everyone else we are, (and our budget was cut in half for the 2nd half of the season). 

Motherwell sold players to the value of £14.75M this season. How the hell are we meant to compete with that? 

We've still never paid a penny for a player in this save, (and I can't see that changing anytime soon). 

Sponsorship shows us more of the same, but to be honest I think that's always how it's going to be in the Championship because the team relegated from the Premiership, (this season it's Falkirk), are always going to be HUGE hitters in the Championship. Falkirk averaged 19,300 fans at their home games this season. Their salary was £3.64M this season just gone and they sold players to the tune of £13.5M. It's an enormous step up for one of the bottom 5 teams to somehow get into the premiership, and even then they are likely coming straight back down again. I think there are parachute payments in the SPL, so the gap just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. 

We have much work to do before that though. One step at a time. Let's not walk before we can run. Let's just get through this next season in the new stadium, see how that impacts things financially and see if we can keep our best young players for longer. 

[Thebaker]

I'm surprised your sponsorship is actually close to the other teams, usually it lags way behind, although you are quite far into the save time wise.

[TIR669]

Sorry I have to say I don't understand. Why would you play a youth-only save, and then do a 12 year run using a HoYD with 5 WWY and just 11/12 in JPA/JPP?  I found in few places official SI replies on how the three attributes matter more if HoYD will actually lead the team in games, help with training etc., but they very much impact any freak players in each intake, meaning WWY+JPP should boost their attributes greatly. Of course game importance, facilities etc. are still much more important. Do you play 5-2-3 WB (what he has for preffered), I don't think so? Never saw any tactic stuff here but I don't recall you had wingbacks ever, most likely some 4-4-2 diamond or similar?

Same goes for rest of your staff, as far as I know it has been proven that other staff personalities also impact newgen personalities. Why not at least get rid of the negative ones (if you have them)? Since its a youth only save, I would do as much as I can to maximize it. Especially with the debt situation, why wait until Prem which can potentially be a long way off?

 

Also curious to what will your attendance jump next season - when are you moving?

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, Thebaker said:

I'm surprised your sponsorship is actually close to the other teams, usually it lags way behind, although you are quite far into the save time wise.

I think that might be linked to the way the edited database worked. We effectively started off in the 13th tier, but of course there aren't 13 tiers in Scotland, so all this success upon success upon success is not realistic at all. I would suggest that this has been a significant driver in the increases in stuff like sponsorship, (and attendances to a lesser degree), not really working the way the unedited game works. 

You're right though. It is 2041 though so it's still taken some time so maybe that's more understandable. 

[Jimbokav1971]

2 hours ago, TIR669 said:

Sorry I have to say I don't understand. Why would you play a youth-only save, and then do a 12 year run using a HoYD with 5 WWY and just 11/12 in JPA/JPP?  I found in few places official SI replies on how the three attributes matter more if HoYD will actually lead the team in games, help with training etc., but they very much impact any freak players in each intake, meaning WWY+JPP should boost their attributes greatly. Of course game importance, facilities etc. are still much more important. Do you play 5-2-3 WB (what he has for preffered), I don't think so? Never saw any tactic stuff here but I don't recall you had wingbacks ever, most likely some 4-4-2 diamond or similar?

Same goes for rest of your staff, as far as I know it has been proven that other staff personalities also impact newgen personalities. Why not at least get rid of the negative ones (if you have them)? Since its a youth only save, I would do as much as I can to maximize it. Especially with the debt situation, why wait until Prem which can potentially be a long way off?

Also curious to what will your attendance jump next season - when are you moving?

You make some really good points and the quick answer is..... I'm just lazy. 

The slightly longer answer starts with.. just because "someone official from SI" says something, does not make it true. It should make it true, but I promise it doesn't. Just take how penalties are calculated as an example. (The penalty taking attribute is almost irrelevant). 

If I was to go into more depth, (and I'm happy to), then while the HoYD attributes has some impact, my personal opinion, (not fact backed up by evidence), it doesn't have a significant impact. It should be said though that this was just about the best HoYD I could sign at the time. Remember we're a Semi-Pro club with a 2nd lowest reputation in the Championship. I'm not sure quite what level of HoYD you were expecting us to sign when I limit myself first and foremost to someone who has 523 DM wide (or similar). 

When you consider that such a tiny Semi-Pro club has already produced players such as (34a) McGrandles (F.Det) *, then we seem to have been doing ok. 

In my experience the impact of WWY & JPA/JPP on player attributes coming through the intake is negligible. I have actually run experiments on this and maxed out the HoYD attributes and the impact seemed pretty random. These experiments were done with an old issue of the game so however accurate they were or weren't  back then, they;re largely irrelevant now. 

With regards to positive impact from HoYD on negative personalities, I think the impact is tiny. I think it's of similar value to 1 round of mentoring/tutoring, and only works for players who have the HoYD on their favoured personnel list. (Please remember that this is opinion rather than fact by the way and based on my experience over many issues of the game rather than specifically FM24, so it's quite possible that my opinions, (even if they were once accurate), are now out of date. 

Yeah we do use WB's, but your confusion is probably my fault because I call our WB's DL's and DR's and that's where you probably got it from. Not only are we playing with WB's, but we're also playing with a Libero. 

I appreciate that what you have said has been written and re-written and copied and regurgitated by many, but I'm afraid that I just don't think it's that important, (and the players we've produced would seem to support that). 

If you consider that I haven't done any tutoring/mentoring in this save at all, and then look at the personalities in our squad, then it might be surprising when you consider that the only Staff member I have appointed in the whole save is this HoYD, (who isn't great), and I'm not sure if I appointed the previous HoYD too. Possibly but I'm not 100%. 

If we consider Balanced as a negative personality, (and I do), then it's about a 50/50 split between good and bad, and that's with approx 1% effort from me. 

With regards to my staff, while it has been proved that the attributes of staff influence the personalities of players coming through the intake, what's still very much in debate is how much it influences them. My opinion again is that it influences them in a way that is so small as to make it not worth worrying about at this stage. Don't get me wrong, when we get to the Premiership I will look at recruiting staff myself for just this very reason, but in my experience I can get there without it, (and all the promotions so far would probably support that). 

Just because you mentioned it though. here are a list of the staff and their personalities. We've recently lost quite a few to other clubs, but I still haven't been involved in finding their replacements. 

DoF. Pro. I've just terminated his contract because he's still on an Amateur contract and has been here for ages. Someone can find a replacement. 
Technical Director. Jovial. I've just terminated his contract because he's still on an Amateur contract and has been here for ages. Someone can find a replacement.
Ass Man. Bal. 
Ass Man. Unamb.
HoYD. F.Pro, (was Pro). 
GK Coach. Temp. 
GK Coach. F.Loyal. 
Fitness Coach. Unamb. 
Coach. Bal.
Coach. F.Pro.
Coach. F.Det.
Coach. Sport.
Coach. F.Pro.
Coach. F.Pro. 
Perf Analyst. Unamb.
Head Physio. F.Sport.
Physio. Bal. 
Sports Scientist. F.Amb.
Recruitment Analyst. Merc.
Loan Manager. L-Heart. 

Yeah of course the negative one's will be the 1st to go, but I really can't be bothered at this stage. 

I'm really curious as to what our attendances will be like next season too. We move into the new stadium on 28th June 2041, (so about 4 weeks away). 
 

[Jimbokav1971]

May 2021. 

PT contracts for players still on Youth contracts from last intake. Talks with both (41c) Hogarth (Res) 5'9" * and (41b) Gourley (NIR) (F.Det) * broke down. It's the same agent and he seems a little impatient, but I did want a longer contract with +2 options so maybe I have to give a little more to get the deal done, (just for these 2 specific players). 

These are big deals for the club because when I rank all players at the club by CA, these players come 10th and 11th, despite the fact that they are both 15 years old, and 2 of the players ranked above them have already left and are only back in on loan. '

We get them each on a 3 year deal, then we have an option for a +2 after that, and then on top of that there is an automatic +2 if we manage to get promoted. They both start of £100 pw and it will only rise to £150 on this contract, so that's fantastic value. 

Clauses. We have a few clauses outstanding, but only 2 players we can sell any on. 

It's not worth cashing in the (30b) McAllister(NIR)(F.Det) * clause. (Bolton avoided relegation by the way, but the league is still being deactivated). 

It's not worth cashing in the (36c) MacKenzie (Res) * clause either. He's contracted until 2045 and is valued at £300k-£900k while on loan in 2.Bundesliga, so I think we would be better of letting it remain. 

Internationals.

Commercial. 

Finances. We're not classed as OK rather than Insecure, and as a result they have put the budget back up to a much more reasonable £10k pw. 

[erik45]

13 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

DoF. Pro. I've just terminated his contract because he's still on an Amateur contract and has been here for ages. Someone can find a replacement. 
Technical Director. Jovial. I've just terminated his contract because he's still on an Amateur contract and has been here for ages. Someone can find a replacement.
Ass Man. Bal. 
Ass Man. Unamb.
HoYD. F.Pro, (was Pro). 
GK Coach. Temp. 
GK Coach. F.Loyal. 
Fitness Coach. Unamb. 
Coach. Bal.
Coach. F.Pro.
Coach. F.Det.
Coach. Sport.
Coach. F.Pro.
Coach. F.Pro. 
Perf Analyst. Unamb.
Head Physio. F.Sport.
Physio. Bal. 
Sports Scientist. F.Amb.
Recruitment Analyst. Merc.
Loan Manager. L-Heart. 

Could you check what is your manager's personality? 

In the last longer save I had (in FM22) I checked "my personality" at the start of the season. They were: balanced for the first 4 years, fairly loyal for the next 4, next 14 years: casual 12 times, slack 2 times; and the last of the year of the save fairly loyal again.

I stayed in the same team for the whole time, so loyalty is quite expected, but otherwise I couldn't understand the negative personalities I had most of the time. I was fairly successful, bringing a team from 4th level to the top division with youth only, but that success didn't (positively) affect my personality.

I also follow the personalities of the players from youth intakes. My observation is that when facilities, reputation, coaching etc. gets better there will be less players with negative personality, but not more with positive. (My interpretation of positive/negative personalities is very subjective and I categorise many personalities as neutral).

It would be interesting to find some correlation between manager's personality and personalities of players!

[Jimbokav1971]

3 minutes ago, erik45 said:

Could you check what is your manager's personality? 

I didn't know I had a personality, but then again it's not a screen I look at too often. 

I couldn't find anywhere that showed what my personality was, so I added it to the staff contracts screen and I'm not happy about it at all. 

Slack!   

[Jimbokav1971]

13 minutes ago, erik45 said:

In the last longer save I had (in FM22) I checked "my personality" at the start of the season. They were: balanced for the first 4 years, fairly loyal for the next 4, next 14 years: casual 12 times, slack 2 times; and the last of the year of the save fairly loyal again.

I don't think I have ever checked my personality before, (or if I have I can't remember). Surprised by how much yours changed though. 

[Jimbokav1971]

15 minutes ago, erik45 said:

I also follow the personalities of the players from youth intakes. My observation is that when facilities, reputation, coaching etc. gets better there will be less players with negative personality, but not more with positive. (My interpretation of positive/negative personalities is very subjective and I categorise many personalities as neutral).

It would be interesting to find some correlation between manager's personality and personalities of players!

I don't think the level of facilities has any sort of impact on player personality, so anything you see there is likely a by-product of something else. If you were doing constant work on improving Coaching personalities then this would have had some impact, but it's a very gradual process and even a move from lots of negatives to fewer negatives but not more positives is still significant. I think it's unrealistic to expect to have too many good personalities and I wouldn't like it if we were able to game the system like that. 

[erik45]

2 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

I couldn't find anywhere that showed what my personality was, so I added it to the staff contracts screen and I'm not happy about it at all. 

Slack!   

Oh, slack is... not good

You can also find manager's personality from league's season preview when you click your team. There you can also find your squad's personality! I feel that doesn't perfectly correlate with the individuals' personalities, squad personality has always been quite positive in my teams (determined, professional, very professional etc.).

It would be interesting to know if slack personality negatively affects your players' personalities (or maybe even your staff's personalities as they're the ones mostly working with you, but I haven't seen staff personalities change).

[Thebaker]

Don't you prefer to get rid of slack individuals

[Jimbokav1971]

2 minutes ago, erik45 said:

You can also find manager's personality from league's season preview when you click your team. There you can also find your squad's personality! I feel that doesn't perfectly correlate with the individuals' personalities, squad personality has always been quite positive in my teams (determined, professional, very professional etc.).

Ok. So here is the League Season Preview. 

And if I click on Tullibody then I just go to the Overview screen. 

The Squad Personality is Pro, but I've always thought that there should be a different personality for each squad, (such as U18's, U21's Senior etc). Otherwise it should be called club personality. 

[Jimbokav1971]

2 minutes ago, Thebaker said:

Don't you prefer to get rid of slack individuals

Shush!  

[erik45]

1 hour ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

And if I click on Tullibody then I just go to the Overview screen. 

Sorry, I should've been more specific. You should see your team's season preview by clicking the row of your team (but not the team name as that's a link to the overview page) on league's season preview 

[Scribe]

57 minutes ago, erik45 said:

Sorry, I should've been more specific. You should see your team's season preview by clicking the row of your team (but not the team name as that's a link to the overview page) on league's season preview 

I did not know this existed!

 

Glad to see the finances are stable, even if in the red now.

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Depth. Jun 2041. 

GK. 26 year old (31k) Lawrie (Unamb) SELL has been our 1st choice GK for 6 years and now he's gone it's time for someone else. I expect our defensive record to be significantly better than last season. 

1st Team. (37b) Niven (F.Loyal) 6'4" *
Backup. (39c) Telfer (F.Pro) 6'2" *
Loan. (35d) McGinlay (IRL) (Unamb) *
Loan. (38l) Hastings. (Unamb)
U18's. (40e) Qurbonov (UZB) (Res) *
U18's. (41h) Cairney (Unamb) 6'2" * 

DL. Although we're short of numbers here, I'm still getting rid of (30l) Docherty (F.Pro) SELL because although he has been great for us, he's not going to be good enough to take us to the next level. The others aren't good enough for that yet, but might be so in the future. It's a risk, but it's one we have to take to get to the Championship Playoffs. 

1st Team. (38d) McMullan (NIR) (Unamb) *
2nd Team. (41d) Dichev (BUL) (Bal) * PPM
U18's. (40h) Marshall (Unamb)+(L.Det)
Sell/Release. (30l) Docherty (F.Pro) SELL

DR. We again don't have loads of bodies in this area, and if we have to I'm just going to play a centre-back at full-back. 

1st Team. (33b) Skrzyński (POL)(F.Pro) *
2nd Team. (37d) Romanis (L.Heart) *
U18's. (41m) Richter (L.Det)(AUS) PPM
U18's. (40p) Tomaszewski (Bal)

DC.

1st Team DLC. (38b) Jayes (SCO)(Unamb) 6'4"*
1st Team DC. (34b) Morrison (ENG) (Resil) * (for the 1st half of the season and then) (41c) Hogarth (Res) 5'9" *
1st Team DRC. (39d) Thijs (NED)(Bal) 5'11" *
Backup. (41c) Hogarth (Res) 5'9" *
Backup. (36e) Dickson (Unamb) 6'2" *

2nd Team DLC. (41g) Thomson (F.Loyal) 6'1" *
2nd Team DC. (40c) Villanueva (PHI) (Res) *
2nd team DRC. (38p) Gordon (F.Det) 6'4" *

Loan. 

U18's DLC.
U18's DC.
U18's DRC.

Sell/Release. 

MC. This is a relatively weak area of the squad because we have lost key players in this position. 

1st Team MLC. (38a) Arthurs (NIR) (F.Det) *
1st Team MRC. (40b) Stewart (SCO)(IRL)(Pro)*

2nd Team MLC. (38i) Waddell (Res)
2nd Team MRC. (36h) Stewart (Bal)

Loan. (38f) Mason (L.Det)+(Unamb) *

U18's MLC. (40l) Robertson (F.Pro) *
U18's MLC. (41l) Aitken (F.Amb)
U18's Backup. (40f) Ellis (SCO)(ENG)(Bal) MC
U18's Backup. (41f) Redman (Unamb)

Sell/Release. (34d) Millar (Bal) *

SC. I think we're really strong in this area with 6 players who are pretty good at this level and considerable depth below that in terms of of PA. The fact that they're all contracted for a minimum of 3 more years really puts us in a strong position because it gives El Chieftain much less reason to sell, (where he might be inclined to accept offers with just 2 years left on a contract). 

1st Team SLC. (33c) P.McCormack (Unamb) *
1st Team SC. (36a) Cunningham (IRL)(F.Det)* is valued at £475k - £1.2M and contracted to 2045 so having 4 years on his contract might just stop El Chieftain from selling him this season. 
1st Team SRC. (39a) Banner (Bal) * is wanted by Newcastle, Lecce, Parma & Torino, but is contracted until 2044 so we're in no rush to sell the 17 year old. 

2nd Team SLC. (41b) Gourley (NIR) (F.Det) *
2nd Team SC. (37i) Morrison (Pro) *
2nd Team SRC. (31j) Fullerton (Unamb) *

Loan. (37j) Hanley (IRL) (Fickle)
Loan. (38g) Reid (L.SB)
Loan. (37c) Brass (F.Sport) *
Loan. (39b) Christie (L.Det)
Loan. (39i) Shaw (Bal) *
Loan. (40d) Gallagher (IRL) (L.Det)

U18's SLC. (40g) Paterson (IRL) (F.Pro) *
U18's. SC. (39f) Foth6 (IRL) (F.Det)
U18's SRC. (40a) Brass (F.Pro) *

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, erik45 said:

Sorry, I should've been more specific. You should see your team's season preview by clicking the row of your team (but not the team name as that's a link to the overview page) on league's season preview 

Wow.  

I've never done that so never seen that page. Thank you. 

It's weird though. It says that my preferred formation is 523 WB, (I've never used anything else), but the projected line-up is in a 442. 

Maybe the suggestion is that I should be playing 442? 

[Jimbokav1971]

33 minutes ago, Scribe said:

I did not know this existed!

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who missed it. 

[Jimbokav1971]

34 minutes ago, Scribe said:

Glad to see the finances are stable, even if in the red now.

I think it will take a month or so before I can work out what sort of income we can expect from the new stadium in terms of Season Tickets, normal Gate Receipts and Match Day Income. 

The finances are only really stable because El Chieftain has pumped in £1.5M last year and £2.1M the year before, so that's about a £4.5M shortfall over a 2 year period, (off the top of my head). 

I made a conservative estimate of the new stadium being worth at least a £1M uplift in income, but I'm actually hoping that it's more than that. 

I will do a more detailed post after I have done the 1st month to project where I expect us to be in terms of finances at the end of the season, (barring a Cup run which we're finding impossible at the moment)(. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Jun 2041. 

Big bid.

£450k + £100k +20% profit. 

£600k + £135k + 20% profit.

£825k + £180k +20% profit. 

Reputation. 

Facilities. I can't remember who it was, but someone in the thread suggested that our rent might be upwards of £100k per annum. I thought that even that was quite doable, (but expected it to be much less), and so it is. 

I thought this was going to be an all -seater stadium?  Did I imagine that or getn it wrong or something? 

Finances. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Jul 2041. 

Friendlies. Don't worry about the scorelines or the result. Just look at the attendances, particularly those against Bolton & Gladbach. It will be interesting to see if we can replicate these sort of numbers against domestic opposition. 

League Cup. (Premier Sports Cup). (They're really just glorified friendlies). Again, don't worry about the score or results, (because I just class these as friendlies), but look at the 2 home attendances..... They have left me a little confused if I'm honest. 

Forfar is only 65 miles away, but they have been a League 1 side for 6 seasons now so I'm not sure why the demand from home supporters was so high, (there were only 284 away fans). 
Alloa is right on our doorstep, (or was until we moved), and they've been in League 1 for 5 seasons now, but despite 720 away fans!!!  there were only 437 home fans. 

Why is the attendance so big on a Wednesday compared to Saturday? Any suggestions? 

Big Bids. 

£1.1M + £245k + 20% profit. I'm astonished that El Chieftain has turned this one down. We're £856k in the red and while we don't have an exact like for like replacement, I think we could cope without him quite well. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy the deal was turned down, (because we got him on a 4 year deal), and it possibly asks the question how much we might get for him when he does actually go. If he's this good, then selling him to a big Scottish club and then reaping the rewards when he moves on to England or somewhere else in Europe could be great, (rather than selling him directly abroad). 

£600k + £155k + 30% profit. 

£1.2M + £600k + 20% profit. 

I wonder what it is about (36a) Cunningham (IRL)(F.Det)* that is attracting all the big bids, when everyone else is getting no more than £50k? Maybe his PA is special? 

I have all 1st Team and 2nd Team players marked for "reject all transfer bids", but in view of the amounts being offered for (36a) Cunningham (IRL)(F.Det)* I have decided to take control of it now and maybe negotiate a deal with loads of add-ons and see if I can get a REALLY good deal out of the situation. 

Or not.... 

Transfers.

Debuts. 

New Stadium. It wasn't a sell-out, but we did get a whopping 5,557 punters through the door for the 1st match at the new stadium. 

It's still a pretty basic stadium, but 5,500+ paying fans on opening day is beyond my wildest dreams. 

While I thought we were building an all-seater stadium, it's standing on 3 sides with just a small seated stand that holds 1,556 seats on 1 side. I don't know what the scope is for the stadium to be improved, (at least to European competition level which I think is a min capacity of 8,500), but as it hasn't cost us a penny and we're just paying £6,460 rent per season, I'm certainly not complaining. 

Records. 

Goal-scoring GK's.

Finances. 

[TIR669]

I never knew manager personality existed. 

 

You made fair points regarding HoYD and staff - with almost zero effort from yourself, results from intakes are very good indeed. And don't get me started on how little official information exists on some game mechanics, not specifics but basics even...

 

100k from one match meaning you should be at 40-50k per match with a 2500 average, so almost a million without any cup competitions should be minimal income from gate receipts. Nice and welcome surprise. Hope that Irish striker goes for 2m + sell on. This year I found the market much more active - when you accept one offer, other clubs start bidding at least that much and more.

[Jimbokav1971]

Aug 2041. 

Season Preview. 

Scottish Championship. Despite not winning any games this month, I'm actually really pleased with how we played. 

We should have beaten Raith but we had a penalty saved and a goal disallowed.
We battered Clyde and I have no idea how we didn't win. 
We were the better team against Montrose, but conceded an OG and then had 2 good chances to level it before they scored a late 3rd. 
We hammered St Mirren and had a goal ruled out, so only came away with a point. 

It seems like we're really good at home and competitive at least away. I like the sound of that. 

Season Tickets. 

TV Rights. This doesn't mean that we get £3.5M, but £3.5M divided by 3 years is £1,166,666 per season divided by 10 teams in the league = £116,666 per team per season, (assuming that it's distributed equally).

Last season we received £6,250 

Transfers.

I think this is a really strange bid to accept when you consider that in the last few weeks we turned down £1M+ offers for other players. Maybe the fact that it was Celtic and the fact that it was a big % of profit + a friendly + a season loan-back swayed them. Not even an opportunity to protest though. It's a real disaster and it changes our financial situation hardly at all. Then player has 3 whole years left in his contract.   On the plus side we have him for the whole season for no wages, and I will obviously arrange the friendly straight away which should generate a bit of cash. 

(36c) MacKenzie (Res) * isn't one of our players, (but he's an ex player), and we made more in sell-ons in this deal (approx £52,000), than we did by selling one of our stars to Celtic (£50k). 

Goal-scoring GK's. It was 1 pen scored from 2 pens taken for (37b) Niven (F.Loyal) 6'4" *, but he also saved 2 of the 4 he faced. 

(23) Brass (Bal) 6'2" is 5/8 from the spot at 63%. (Is no longer at the club).
(23) Ewing (Bal) 6'1" is 17/20 from the spot at 85%. (Is no longer at the club).
(25c) Christie (F.Sport) 6'1" is 46/52 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club). 
(26p) Marsh (CAN)(SCO) 5'10" is 15/17 from the spot at 88%. (Is no longer at the club).
(30a) Ogilvie (Fickle) 6'2" * is 47/64 from the spot at 73%. (Is no longer at the club).
(31k) Lawrie (Unamb) * is 23/29 from the spot at 79%. (Is no longer at the club). 
(33a) Black (Fickle) 6'0" * is 2/3 from the spot at 67%. (Is no longer at the club). 
(37b) Niven (F.Loyal) 6'4" * is 9/14 from the spot at 64%.

Finances. I will do a separate post looking at the finances as a result of our move to the stadium and the 1st proper month of the season. 

Edited January 20 by Jimbokav1971

[TIR669]

I would 1000000% reload the save when the chairman accepted that. Its just plain stupid coding in the game.

 

Sad to see just 300 ticket holders, I expected above 500 for sure.

[Jimbokav1971]

Finances with the new stadium. Sep 2041. 

It's hard to see the development of our Gate Receipts post new stadium move on the graph because it's such a small time period with just 2 league games. That being said, you can see that we've generated £114k this month alone and £390k already this season, (after just 1 month of friendlies & League Cup games, and 1 month of League games and friendlies). I'm not doing anything with the friendlies that I wouldn't have done before. The 1st Team play 2 games a week and if they don't have competitive games they play friendlies. The 1st Team play at the weekend and the 2nd Team play during the week, (usually on a Monday). ]

Despite that, we've already generated £390k from Gate Receipts alone, (after 1 month of pre-season and 1 month of the season proper), compared £264k over the whole of last season, (which is an increase of approx 67% on the whole season, after just 2 months). 

Match Day Income has also seen a huge rise since the move, and this stands out more on the graph because the difference is even more significant. After 2 months of the season we've already increased last season's income in this area by approx 64%. 

Corporate Facilities Income has also increased by a similar %, with the figures being 153% of last seasons whole total. 

When I looked at this about 12 months ago, I estimated that there would be an uplift of income of approx £1M, (and that was a conservative estimate). Obviously I didn't know what we would be charging for tickets and I also could only guess at what the demand might be. 

Looking at income from Gate Receipts alone, and it's hard because when we sell players we gain friendlies with opposition who can almost sell us out, (such as the 5,454 Bolton attendance, the 6,151 Gladbach attendance, the 3,925 for the Wolves game or even the 1,535 attendance which is still significant). I haven't managed to create the Celtic friendly yet, (possibly because the player is still on loan with us), but I will keep checking and I expect it to be a sell-out when it's arranged. If we ignore these "good friendlies" as friendlies that will become the norm and shouldn't be excluded from calculations, then I can at least hazard a guess at what our total Gate Receipts , (excluding a Cup Run), might be over the course of the season.

1 way of doing it would be to say that we've played 2 home games of 36 games, meaning that we have 34 still to play, but I think that would give us an inflated position because of the friendlies and League Cup games in July. 

Instead I''m just going to class June as a normal month and say that we have completed 2 of the 10 months of the season, and all months are equal. With that in mind we can expect the following. 

Gate Receipts, (excluding Cup runs and playoffs), of £390,760 x5 = £1,953,800
Match Day Income, (excluding Cup runs and playoffs), of £62,770 x5 = £313,850.
Corporate Income, (excluding Cup runs & playoffs), of £16,193 x5 = £80,965.

So that gives me a total estimated income, (from these 3 sources), of 2,348,615.

We then compare that to the £263,955 + £38,582 + £10,563 = £313,100 that we generated from these 3 sources last season. 

That gives us, (a very rough approximate), increase of £2M per season in just these 3 areas. 

Yeah this might be a little bit off, and it won't include the rise in expenses linked to these areas, but it should serve as a pretty decent very basic guide. 

[Jimbokav1971]

25 minutes ago, TIR669 said:

I would 1000000% reload the save when the chairman accepted that. Its just plain stupid coding in the game.

Nah. I don't do reloading. The game is just the game. Just because I don't understand it doesn't make it broken or a bug. 

In El Chieftains defence, the player was actually transfer listed, (which I didn't realise at the time), and I think this would have made a difference to the decision. He was transfer listed by request, but he was still transfer listed. In any case, if he had gone to someone other than Celtic then I might still be bitter about it, (I was for about 10 mins), but I'm hoping that he will either blossom at Celtic and the 30% profit will be huge, or they will rate him and offer us quite a few quid to buy the clause off us. 

He's already valued at £13M-£15M so assuming that he goes for £15M then the 40% profit is going to be somewhere in the region of £7.5m, which would obviously be enormous for us. Celtic Seem to be playing very much 2nd fiddle to Rangers in this save, but from a personal point of view I would always prefer to see a player sold to Celtic than Rangers just because.

If I manage to sell the clause for £5M 12 months from now, I don't think any of us are going to be complaining about the deal. 

[Jimbokav1971]

34 minutes ago, TIR669 said:

Sad to see just 300 ticket holders, I expected above 500 for sure.

Nah, I don't mind that. 

It was an increase and that's all that matter. We're chugging on in the right direction. 

Every step forward is important, even the small ones. 

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, TIR669 said:

I never knew manager personality existed. 

In love it that we all have subtle differences to the way we play the game and the screens we use. There was someone who recently found the favoured personnel screen thanks to my thread and they had never seen it before. Love it that we all learn little bits from eachother. Shows quite how much depth there is in the game. 

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, TIR669 said:

You made fair points regarding HoYD and staff - with almost zero effort from yourself, results from intakes are very good indeed. And don't get me started on how little official information exists on some game mechanics, not specifics but basics even...

I actually like that SI keep their secrets hidden. If there was a known formulae then it would kill the game and encourage the use of BOT's to game the system. The fact that we might think we know, but we don't know-know, keeps everyone on their toes. 

The blatant lies are what gets me, (like the penalty taking attribute). 

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, TIR669 said:

100k from one match meaning you should be at 40-50k per match with a 2500 average, so almost a million without any cup competitions should be minimal income from gate receipts. Nice and welcome surprise. 

I think it's too early to say what our average home gate figure will be in the league. We've played just 2 home games (Clyde 1,169 & St Mirren 2,666), and I honestly can't accurately tell you who we should expect a big attendance from or why. 

For example I looked at the Alloa game in the League Cup in pre-season and expected a big crowd, and just 1,157 turned up on a Saturday, but 5,557 turned up on a Wednesday night for Forfar. These weren't away fans. These were our fans. I don't understand it. Maybe it will become clearer as the season progresses. 

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, TIR669 said:

Hope that Irish striker goes for 2m + sell on. This year I found the market much more active - when you accept one offer, other clubs start bidding at least that much and more.

I've actually tried to sell him. Not because I want him to leave, (he has a 4 year contract I think, but certainly a 3 year deal). I really just wanted to sell him so that EL Chieftain didn't sell anyone else. I want to be in charge of who leaves and at the moment if someone's going to leave for £1M+ then I want it to be this bloke. 

The Transfer window closes in a couple of days time and we will see what happens. 

(36a) Cunningham (IRL)(F.Det)* has scored 3 goals in 4 appearances in all competitions this season. 
(37i) Morrison (Pro) *, (his understudy in the 2nd Team), has scored 3 goals in 4(4) appearances. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Sep 2041. 

Scottish Championship. The 2 away games were tough and we were comfortably beaten in both, but I have no idea how we didn't beat Partick Thistle. We absolutely smashed them! 

Challenge Cup. (SPFL Trust Trophy).

(The opposition play in N.Ireland). 

Debuts. 

Internationals. 

Transfers. 

This is an absolute disaster.  It's a real body-blow.  I think what's catching the eye of El Chieftain is the 40% profit. It could be huge on these type of deals. While I'm not happy that he's gone at all, I am at least happy that it's a striker that's gone rather than any other position. £40k is an insult though. 

Goal-scoring GK's.

Finances.