[FM24] Locals to Legends

[Motlhen]

     Coaching Qualifications

I've completed my National A Licence and been funded to immediately continue with my Continental C Licence.

[Vakama2619]

17 hours ago, Motlhen said:

     Transfer Out

This happened very quickly. 

At the start of the season, I managed to extend most of the players I wanted to, but centre-back Elliot would not initially agree to terms. He only had one year left on contract (I was sure I had more optional extensions for him, but clearly not). With time running out, and constant interest from elsewhere, he decided to tell me he would be leaving on a free at the end of the season. As it is mid-November, that meant I had 6 weeks to find him a transfer before he could leave on a free, end of contract deal. Panicked, I offered him out for £100K, a friendly and 50% of next sale. Once that didn't work, I hired an intermediary. The intermediary could only find clubs who would bid nothing, but then out of no where Scunthorpe United came in and matched my initial offer.

 

I was delighted that a League 2 (?) club would come in with a 50% of next sale clause as this should mean he has the potential to be sold for a lot more than our initial fee, but then I looked at where Scunthorpe are in the English pyramid, and actually Elliot is taking a step down the leagues to join Scunthorpe who are currently top of tier 8?! Scunthorpe were a Championship side in 2011, and 20 years later they were relegated to the 8th tier of English football after two back-to-back relegations in the 2030's.

 

Still, the money is decent (especially for a player we'd lose for nothing at the end of the season) and has some potential to increase. I'm interested in how much an arranged friendly will be worth against a team in the tier below us, even if Scunthorpe have a higher reputation than we do, I don't imagine it'll be much.

(for added context Scunthorpe were on my favored teams for a while, swapped them out for a team in the country I live in (and because of character limits))

[Motlhen]

     Tactical Mishap

We've been playing a more attacking tactic this season. This high risk, high reward just produced this from a corner, where all of our defensive-cover players on the edge of the box ran forward as one and left us in this situation when the ball was cleared at the near post (we are in blue and attacking to the right, in case that's not immediately clear). Somehow the attackers messed this up, but we are living dangerously at the moment and it's creating very high-scoring games.

[Motlhen]

     Nov 2032

A surprisingly decent surge this season has seen us rise into the playoffs. The board are so impressed that they've already promised to sort out a new contract.

[Motlhen]

      Youth Intake Preview & New Contract

[Motlhen]

      Mid-Season Update
 

New Contract

With both Cockfosters teams in pole position and battling for top spot in their respective leagues, I've agreed to give Morgan a new contract to put an end to the speculation around his position generated from the end of last season.

 

 

Youth Intake Preview - Probably the most A's we've seen in a preview since the start of the save!

 

 

Staff In

Both clubs made an equal move for Mario Noto, and interestingly he chose to move to Cockfosters in the lower tier - possibly as they still have a higher reputation than Bush Hill? He would have made an improvement to the coaching team at either club.

 

 

Monetary Bid

A second, small monetary bid has come in for Wright. He is the best player produced by Cockfosters so far and I am tempted to move him across to Bush Hill if he keeps up his good performances.

[Motlhen]

     Dec 2032

A couple of draws mean we drop off of 2nd place by 8 points. We are in a big group of teams that have the playoffs in their sights.

 

 

     Improvement

The final youth coaching improvement has been made with Cockfosters and we now have 2x clubs with 20/20!

[Motlhen]

     Transfer Out (Almost 2!)

We had a lot of monetary bids come in this window... a lot! But nothing more than £100K for any player, which is the threshold I've set (and the chairman's is probably slightly lower) for any bid I would consider worthwhile. The only expception to that is if I don't see a future at the club for a player, and with Onuh as our starting GK, Mitchell on loan at Cockfosters as our backup GK, that meant that the last two season's number 1 Charles didn't have a place in our team. So when Ballymena accepted a deal with a 50% of next sale clause, I thought it was a decent way to sell him, plus we have the addition of the loan back to ensure we have cover until the end of this season at least.

 

The most sought-after player was Wicks. This was the highest offer we received (from Linfield), but I really don't want to lose our best player!

[Motlhen]

     Jan 2033

Despite two losses this month, we did beat our rivals Hinton and keep our place in the promotion spots, so I'm happy! We are going to have to be better than this to keep our spot by the end of the season though.

[Motlhen]

      Feb 2033

Another couple of losses, including getting spanked by Hendon when we went down to 10-men, means we have dropped out of the promotion spots. There's 8 games to play and we need to gain one point on Basingstoke in that time!

[Motlhen]

     Mar 2033

Another coaching licence in the bag and we've moved back into the playoff spots with 4 games to go, despite throwing away a lead against Oxford City.

Edited Thursday at 10:28 by Motlhen