[FM24] Bringing Up Birmingham

[keeper#1]

Taking some inspiration from @danielgear and his QPR save, I've taken on a similar project but with a different club....Birmingham.  This save starts on 29 March 2024 so there are just eight matches remaining in the season with Birmingham in 20th place just two points above the drop zone  Why Birmingham?

• The club is struggling to perform in all phases on the pitch - they are averaging barely a goal per match (39 goals in 38 matches), they have allowed the second most goals thus far (55 goals in those 38 matches), and team discipline is awful (60 yellow card and three red cards to date)
• The club has no sense of budgeting and have pissed away all of the money that they made on the sale of Jude Bellingham to Dortmund.  The club currently sits 9M in the red.  The wage structure is awful.  The club has a turnover of just over 12M but are spending over 19M on wages.  The wage budget has been completely disregarded as Birmingham is spending 4M over the wage budget.  Even the wage budget is an overspend of the club's turnover.
• The only positive at the club is the club's academy which continues to churn out potential star after potential star.  The two stars that the club is going to need to build around and likely sell for a profit are 17-year old Romelle Donovan and I have my own 15-year old to add into the mix @danielgear and @_Ben_ in right back Mo Farah.

Early Squad Impressions

At first glance, the squad is old and on overpriced contracts.  Taking a deeper look into the contract situation, I've already found some players whose contract expires in June and are no longer producing in line with the wages the club is paying them.

• CF Lukas Jutkiewicz - a 35 year old center forward who has played in just one match for us this season, as a sub, but is pulling 780K in an annual salary
• GK Neil Etheridge - a 34 year old goalkeeper who has played in seven matches while pulling in 1.092M in salary this season
• GK John Ruddy - a 37 year old goalkeeper who has been our starter this season while earning 480K in salary
• CB Marc Roberts - a 33 year old center back who has played in six matches but earns 520k in salary

I'll need to bring in a new goalkeeper so I won't be lopping all of this money off the wage bill but these four players earn 2.872M in salary and only one of them is a starter.

A player whose contract is up in June and I would like to keep but not at his current salary is midfielder Ivan Sunjic.  Sunjic a solid rotational piece for us and is only 27 years old but he makes a whopping 884k this season.  I'd like to negotiate a lower salary for someone is more a rotational option than a player to build the team around.

I have four players who have contracts that expire at the end of the 2024-25 season who aren't playing a lot so I could use the combination of salary relief and transfer fees to help the bank balance.

• DM Callum Connelly - a 26 year old defensive midfielder has played in nine matches this season while making 374k.
• CF Simone Zaza - a 32 year old center forward who has played in 18 matches all off the bench and makes 311k.
• CM Greg Docherty - 27 year old midfielder has only seen game action in three matches this season while making 308k.
• CM Juninho Bacuna - probably the most valuable asset of the four - played in 27 matches scoring four goals and making 520k.

Remaining Schedule

Next post will hopefully be tonight or tomorrow AM.  If not, it won't be coming until after I return from a workcation in Caribbean.

 

[Ronaldo Beckham]

Good luck with Birmingham. I had a very fun save with them where I didn't sign anyone other then former Birmingham players. 

I even managed to bring Jude Bellingham back to the club as well.

 

[Rick87]

Absolutely appaling choice of team, but good luck all the same.😅

Edited April 26 by Rick87

[danmcconnell1]

My team! Jukey is a club legend, I don't care about his salary! Give him the final match against Norwich and I guarantee he'll bag a back post header. Chronically misunderstood but can be a real weapon even next season too!

[Ronaldo Beckham]

I got bored of my Coventry save so decided to start a new save as Birmingham. 

I managed to Marc Roberts and John Ruddy. 

I also managed to release Craig Gardner & Lukas Jutkiewicz on freebies.

I got a loan offer for Hogan which he will hopefully agree to.

The only player I can't shift is Etheridge. I can't even release him from his contract etc.

Good luck with Birmingham.

 

[_Ben_]

Hope you get relegated and those youngsters rot in the Vanarama league! That aside, nice to see the project you’ve taken on; although I can only wish that it was at a better club. 

[karanhsingh]

And here I thought it was because of Tom Brady! Good luck with this mate

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Looking forward to this. Despite a few flirtations with relegation to the third tier over the years, the thought of Birmingham actually making the drop as an outsider is quite a daunting one. A tricky challenge to overhaul this team ahead.

[keeper#1]

Thanks for all of the kind words about starting this save.  I was able to finish the season before I left on holiday.  I couldn't get the post done in time before I left though.  Didn't bring the laptop with me since this trip was with the missus and she would not look kindly to me playing FM while cruising through the south eastern Caribbean (St. Kitts, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia and Barbados).  She might have left at the airport in Puerto Rico. 

Next step is to get the end of season post up and starting working on improving the club.

On 29/04/2024 at 02:47, karanhsingh said:

And here I thought it was because of Tom Brady! Good luck with this mate

I did go to Michigan at the same time as Tom Brady - I was senior and he was freshman so it's unlikely that our paths would have crossed.

[keeper#1]

Quick End of Season Update

The good news is Birmingham did the job losing just two matches in the final eight as they surged away from the relegation fight.  Park Seung-Ho led the charge with four goals.  The bad news is our defense struggled to keep a clean sheet.  Just one clean sheet in the eight matches and Huddersfield completely blew our doors off in a 4-1 match. 

Huddersfield did have a lot to play for when we faced in the second to last match of the season.  It could be argued that their 4-1 victory was what enabled them to stay up in the Championship.  Rotherham, Sheffield Wednesday and Millwall fall into League One.  Leicester and Norwich will automatically go into the Championship while Ipswich, Southampton, Middlesbrough, and Leeds will battle for the final promotion place.  We know Derby and Lincoln will join Birmingham in the Championship from League One next season.  Sheffield United has already been relegated from the Premier League and four teams (West Ham - 16th, Everton - 17th, Bournemouth - 18th, and Luton - 19th) are battling for the last two slots.

I don't expect many of the names on this year's roster on the squad next season so I'm not going to go very in-depth here.

[keeper#1]

Season 2 Update 1 - Summer Transfer Window

The summer transfer window was a busy window.  We brought in seven new players all on frees.  We completely turned over our goalkeeper room with three brand new goalkeepers.  Koen Casteels will be the number one after spending the last decade playing for Wolfsburg.  The battle will be for his deputy.  Arthur Okonkno, from the Arsenal youth academy, and Bailey Peacock-Farrell, from Burnley, are the combatants.  They could very well split time as the back-up.   With the goalkeeper position situated, we added Mattia Bani.  Bani is a solid ball-playing center back in his prime.  He gives us a great option to bring the ball out of the defense in both a two or three center back defense.  Defensive midfielder Goran Cautic was a free transfer that was arranged before I got to the club.  Cautic is on the older side but still will have some usefulness for us in a rotational role.  We lost left back Emmanuel Longeio to Aberdeen.  In his place, we brought in Souleyman Doumbia who was looking for work and we could offer him the playing time that he was looking for.  Kevin Kelsy, a target man center forward from Shakhtar, comes in on a season-long loan to help shore up our attack.

Three kids come up from the Birmingham academy.  Mohamed Farah joins the senior team at just 16 years old and will provide the club with a high-ceiling depth option at the position.  Also along the right side of the formation, 17 year old Romelle Donovan will split time with recent academy graduate George Hall at the right wing/forward position.  Godfred Boskye is a good young depth option at the center back and defensive midfielder position.

These 11 players represent almost half of the 2024-25 senior team roster so we have had quite the turnover with the squad over the summer.

[SteinkelssonFM]

A few good signings from the bargain basement. However, for me Bani is the best deal, he has a great physical profile and good in the air. He should be a great asset for you. 

[keeper#1]

Bargain hunting is going to be the name of the game for a couple of seasons.  The sellable assets need time to develop and the club is bleeding almost a million pounds per month somehow even with a reduced wage bill.  Free transfers, loans, and youth academy promotions is the way right now.

[keeper#1]

2024-25 Season Review

Lack of time to post regular updates led to lump everything about the 2024-25 season in one giant post.  On the field, it was a very good season for Birmingham as we start to put the pieces into place for a solid promotion run.

I will not be disappointed with a 6th place finish.  We got into the playoffs which I was not expecting this season - I was expecting a season where we finished somewhere in the middle of the table (12th to 16th place range).  We never had to worry about the threat of relegation.  We flirted with the automatic promotion slots.  We slipped up a little bit toward the end of season and a bit of an injury crisis at the goalkeeper and center forward positions to prevent us from pushing into the top four places.  This was a really solid season for us and one which we can, hopefully, use to as fuel to make a stronger run at the automatic promotion places in the next couple of seasons.

We had a solid showing against Hull in the playoff semifinals.  We needed to field out backup goalkeeper and Northern Ireland international Bradley Peacock-Farrell.  Farrell has been a solid deputy for us this season.  He did a great job when Koen Casteels went down with injuries during the season and he was the backbone of our cup replays against both Leicester and Everton.  We drew with Hull 1-1 on our home ground.  Hull came out strong in the first half of the second leg and held a 2-0 lead going into halftime.  We threw everything that we could at the Hull defense but could only muster one goal and fell to Hull 2-1 and 3-2 on aggregate. 

We did a great job of spreading the goalscoring around the attacking players but our primary weakness was finding a second center forward behind Jamie Donley.  Donley led the squad with 16 goals in all competitions which is a good number but we had no depth behind him.  Tyler Roberts scored five goals and youngster Bria Bateman scored only one.  Their output was matched by winter signing Alan Sonora who had six goals after signing with the club in January.  When Donley was tired or injured, our offense was in trouble.  We had no focal point for our attack.  We had to hope for something special by one of our wing forwards or central midfielders.  Strengthening the attack is something that I need to focus on in the off-season.

I spent most of the season working on a solution to our "rest defense."   In the first part of the season, we were scoring goals for fun but more often than not allowing just as many goals.  Players were pressing all over the place and, as a result, getting pulled out of position.  I switched things up from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3.  My first run at the 4-3-3 was still leaving us without a solid shape at the back as players still wanted to press or freelance on defense.  As the season wore on, I tweaked the roles just enough to give us a solid shape at the back and our defense vastly improved.  All that said, we need another true center back to solidify things in the middle.  I went with Krystian Bielik as a Libero for most of the season even though he is a natural defensive midfielder. He ranks toward the bottom of the league in tackles won as a center back but the same percentage would rank him as one of the best defensive midfielders in the league.  Mattia Bani and Dion Sanderson are both good options at the other center-back position.  I would like another solid presence back there to move Bielik into the defensive midfield position.  The right side of the back line is set with Ethan Laird and Mo Farah on the right.  The left side could use an upgrade from our current options.

Transfer Wheelings and Dealings

What fueled our rise from 18th place last season to sixth place this season?  A solid batch of signings.  All of these signings did exactly what was expected of them throughout the season.  And none of them cost the club a dime in a transfer fees.  The biggest "disappointment" came during the winter when Shakthar recalled Kevin Kelsy from loan.  That made our depth at center forward even more glaring in retrospect.  I thought Roberts and Bateman could do the job but I was proven wrong.  The biggest transfer out of the club was right winger/forward George Hall who left the club for Burnley on 10.75M with the potential to rise to 12.5M transfer fee.  We've already cashed in the games played clause.  Nobody else in the transfers out was a big loss to the first team as they were all youngsters gaining first team experience or senior/reserve team players who are blocking the player pathway for a hot academy prospect.

Class of 2024

Four players made up the Birmingham Academy Class of 2024:

RB Mo Farah (age 16) - future first teamer and should get his first cap for the Somalia National Team next season if England doesn't cap tie him soon

CF Bria Bateman (age 18) - likely rotational option for us going forward

RW/RF Romelle Donovan (age 18) - another future first teamers potentially as soon as the upcoming 2025-26 season.  Already capped to the England U19 squad

CB Godfred Boakye (age 18) - a future rotational piece at either the center back or defensive midfield positions - also capped with the England U19 squad

 

[keeper#1]

Not a bad profit for player brought in on a free.

Edited May 21 by keeper#1

[keeper#1]

2025-26 Mid-Season Update

Life and work have gotten in the way of more frequent updates but we have reached the halfway point so I feel the need to put out an update.

I've gotten to manage a lot of matches this season only to watch to watch us find a new way to draw a match.  We have almost as many draws (12) as we do wins and losses (13) in the first 25 matches.  

It doesn't matter the opposition.  It doesn't matter the formation we use or the opposition's formation, we find a way to draw.  Play well defensively - offense doesn't show up.  Offense plays well - the defense and goalkeeper find a way to give up just as many.  It's been a hard slog of matches.  

But we've played a lot of matches so I've a good chance to get our youngsters some matches and time on the field to aid in their development.  I can't call this a lost season....yet.  It has been good for the growth of the kids which will only help us down the road.  But doing a deeper dive into the individual stats, I've found that the problem may lie in one place....the goalkeeper.  Bailey Peacock-Ferrell put in a solid end of last season when he had to step into the starting job when Koen Casteels went down with an injury.  He played well enough that I thought we could perform at a similar level to last season when I got a big money offer for Casteels.  However, that has not been the case.  Peacock-Ferrell is costing us matches.

The two things that stick out are an actual save percentage (73%) compared to expected save percentage of 84%.  That's not good.  He is allowing more goals per 90 than expected while having a goal against average of 1.12.  If we have just an average goalkeeper, we turn some of those draws into wins and move up in the standings.  Another player who has underperformed his center back Mattia Bani.

Bani has been below average across all the defensive categories.  He is also reaching the point where he could be losing some of his playing time.  I feel like we have a solid defensive setup so at this point, I think it's a subset of players not the system causing our poor defensive play.  Need to do some retooling during the January transfer window to see if I can make the right signings and make a solid push for a playoff place.

[keeper#1]

End of 2025-26 Season Update - A Season Lost

The only positive that I can take from this season is we had more wins than losses and a positive goal difference.  Other than that, I can say it was a season lost.  We finished 12th while having an expected finish of 5th which would be on par with last season.  I threw everything that I could at solving the problem.  We changed formations, we brought in new players, we pressed, we backed off.  We did everything that I could think of to get us out of the funk but we couldn't do it.  Nothing worked.  Our biggest problem was conceding late goals.  I'm going to chalk that up to our youth.  I could also say...."at least we didn't get relegated like West Brom."  Just a slog of a season.

Absolutely no consistency.  The only thing that we could string together were draws.  The best match we played in the second half of the season was against Stoke.  Our worst match has to be a week later against Hull where we tied late in the second half only to concede a late goal to lose the match.  

I've got a lot of work to do this offseason.  Our best player was Yannick Eduardo who is at the club on a loan.  Everyone else on the club put up inconsistent efforts.  I'm not going to put all of blame on them.  I'm at fault as well.  I did not do a good enough job in the offseason and bringing in the right players to help the club.  I rushed to judgement with some of the signings while overestimating the abilities of some players which caused more panic buying over the winter.  This played some role in our inconsistency too.  I never found 11 players that I could rely on and build a system around the strengths of those 11 players.  It's going to be a long summer of evaluating who has a future at the club.  Which players we can build around and which players need to be sold so we can bring better players and build the club up.  We have some players in the prime of the career who could be sold and used to bring in similarly skilled but younger players.  A big summer is ahead.

The club has a laundry list of weaknesses.

I'm going to need to sell some to buy as well.  I don't think a four million pound transfer budget is going to fit all of our summer needs.

[rich ruzzian]

After the first season you've hoped to really challenge for Promotion or at least th Plays-off spots. Lets hope you and the club can bounce back from this. 

[willemvandoorn15]

I can relate to this story, this is how most of my savegames go.

[keeper#1]

2026-27 Season Update 1 - Taking the Training Wheels Off

Heading into the season, I continued to beat my head against the wall of playing "defense first" football.  Making sure our 'rest defense' was solid and hard to break down.  And it was.  However, our offense was struggling big time.  It was a continuation of last season - scratching out draws and maybe a win.  But it was painful to watch.  We had plenty of the ball but never did anything with it.  Something had to change.  I decided it was time to say - "screw it.....we are going on the attack."  We stayed in the same 4-3-3 shape but we were going to attack.  We have two 4-3-3 formations.  One to attack a four-back formation and another attacking a three-back formation.

The four-back attack involves getting the wingers out wide on the sidelines.  Stretch the field horizontally.  Pull the fullbacks out wide to mark the wingers.  Then attack the center of the pitch with our attacking central midfielder and a box-to-box midfielder.  The two wingbacks tuck in to create a back three shape with the ball playing defender while a libero pushes into the midfield strata.

When we attack the three-back shape, we turn the wingers into inside forwards so they cut inside to occupy the outside center backs and create three 1v1 battles.  We want to prevent the three center backs to overwhelm the lone central striker.  We keep the attacking central midfielder in an attempt to create a 4v3 situation in the middle.  The wingbacks also change their role.  Instead of inverted fullbacks, we turn them into attacking fullbacks so the opposing wingbacks are occupied and can't tuck inside to help the three center backs create a 4v5 situation.  I didn't make them attacking wingbacks so they did not get too far forward and leave the wings exposed.

As you can see by the results, we have turned our season around and playing with style.

 

Second best offense and third best defense has moved us into the playoff positions and we are, at times, in the hunt for one of the automatic promotion places.

The board have finally opened the checkbook and turn us into a buying club to make a push for automatic promotion.  I'm looking to upgrade the central midfield since that where, I believe, we are the thinnest.

[keeper#1]

Poor fiscal management has cost Sheffield Wednesday in their battle for promotion.  I'm choosing to look at it as one fewer club that we have to worry about in our quest for promotion.

Wednesday goes from 57 to 45 points.  We move up one place to 4th place.

 

[sherwinriga]

I'm surprised that you made a save for Birmingham City because that's where Neil Etheridge used to play there, though, he was released IRL for free transfer. I'll be following your journey there because I'll be fascinated if you're going to help Birmingham City coming out on top to the Premier League!

By the way, how's Neil Etheridge doing? Will you plan on signing another Filipino footballer? I have been following the PMNFT because Neil was there!

Good luck in Birmingham City!

[keeper#1]

2026-27 Season Update 2 - It's Been A Long Time Coming

For the first time since the 2010-11 season, Birmingham will be playing Premier League football.  The club had to qualify via the playoff.  Leandro Soria was the hero of the playoff.  He scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory over Bristol City in the first leg of the semifinals.  He added a second playoff goal in the 2-0 second leg victory.  Yannick Eduardo, the Championship's leading goalscorer, was held goal-less in the playoffs so Soria's goals were very much needed.  We went down early in the final against Derby County.  I was a little worried since we drew and lost against them in the two matchups this season.  In the second half, we responded.  Right forward, Salomon Rodriquez, leveled the match and just two minutes later, defensive midfielder, Yannik Engelhart, struck from outside the box and the ball found it's way into the back of the next and we held a 2-1 lead.  That lead was all we needed as the defense held firm and Birmingham won the richest match in football!

Fitting that the top three teams in the league will be the teams going up into the Premier League next season.  A late dip in defensive form caused Crystal Palace to sneak past us into the second automatic promotion place.  Southampton was the class of the league all season and ran away with the league title.  Coventry was the biggest club to go down into League One.  They will be joined by Lincoln City and Preston.  Leeds and Derby County will be among the favorites for next season's title.  Coming down from the Premier League will be Hull, Middlesborough and Bournemouth.

If I had to give out a Player of the Year award, it would have to go midfielder Romario Baro.  He was in top form all season in a box-to-box role.  He was second on the team with 14 goals while adding nine assists.  Defensively, he was one of our best tackles (89%) and surprisingly strong in the air (61%).  A great player for us.  Eduardo led the team in the goals (24) for the second straight season.  Mattia Bani had one last season in the sun for us and was vastly improved over last season's effort.  If we spending next season in the Championship, I would re-sign him for the right price.  However, I can't have him on an inflated salary taking up a rotation spot next season.  Ideally, I would promote Harrison Parker into a starting role next season.  Same with Mo Farah and Jarrod Winkle.  Both have potential to be great players but both players aren't ready for a starting role on a Premier League team.  I'd like to see if I can bring back Trevan Sanusi on loan again next season.  He played great when we shifted to primarily the "Pressure vs. Back 3" tactic for the second half of the season and is an upgrade from Tamas Kiss.  

Tactically, I'd like to see if I start working in a two-striker formation next season.  There were times when Eduardo went cold where it was hard for us to find goals.  I'll have a decent amount of money to spend in the transfer budget to bring in new players while exploring my traditional route of bringing in players whose contract has expired.  It's going to be another busy summer offseason for us.

Award Tour

Edited June 11 by keeper#1

[TheJanitor]

Congrats on getting promoted!

I think using a 442 with the same backline setup as your 433 that turns into a 3142 might be an interesting idea.