danyates8 Posted August 7 Share Posted August 7 (edited) Welcome to Lilywhite Legacy: A Tottenham Tale. I need to scratch the itch i'm developing to play some FM in the bigger and better competitions using the more elite players, its something ive not done this year mainly playing around League 1 level bringing teams through the divisions, at the moment my plans are to run this alongside the Blackburn story updating both regularly. Daniel Levy took over the Tottenham Hotspur reigns back in 2001, during that time the club have infamously only won 1 trophy - the League Cup back in 2008. Despite the lack of trophies the club have undergone a dramatic transformation both on and off the pitch. Under Levy's ownership, Spurs have transitioned from mid-table mediocrity to a consistent force within the English game, regularly competing for top 4 finishes and making notable strides in European competitions, culminating in a Champions League final appearance in 2019. Off the pitch, Levy has overseen the development of world class training facilities and the construction of a new state-of-the-art, 62,000 seat stadium which is considered one of the best in the world. Opening in 2019 the stadium is a testament to Levy's vision of elevating the clubs stature within the game and providing a state-of-the-art venue for both football and other major events. The stadium is a critical asset in the clubs financial strategy, designed to significantly increase the match day revenue and non match day revenue. The stadium is designed to not only football matches but also NFL games, music concerts and other major event providing a significant boost to yearly revenue streams. In game things haven't quite gone to plan for Spurs, they finished the 2024 season in 9th place only managing 1 win in the final 3 months of the season. Ange Postecoglou was relieved of his duties at the beginning of May with Ryan Mason coming in for his 2nd spell as interim manager to finish the final 2 games but this is where I step in, I've created a Portuguese manager called João Ferreira. During Spurs recent history they have hired managers with vast experience within the game to no avail. World class managers such as Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho have both failed rather miserably, neither being able to replicate the success of Mauricio Pochettino, who led Spurs to the Champions League final. So the approach taken by Levy now is quite different. João Ferreira, born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, is a promising football manager with strong connections to Sporting CP. Known for his tactical acumen and innovative approach, João has carved out a significant reputation within the Sporting CP academy and youth setups, despite not having managerial experience at the top level yet. João had a very successful international career for Portugal scoring 31 goals in 64 games so shouldn't have a reputation issues amongst the players despite his lack of managerial experience. The vision surrounding the club remains the same, the fans expecting an attacking, possession based brand of football alongside players being developed via the youth teams. The board vision is heavily based around increased the commercial revenue of the club, we can go along way to increasing the commercial revenue by simply regularly qualifying for the Champions League. In my eyes a trophy has to be one our our first aims, even if it's 'just' a League Cup. In the next post i'm going to assess the squad, after the unsuccessful season i'm anticipating some unhappiness within the ranks, certain players will want to play at a higher level and honestly that's fine, Spurs have some fantastic young players which i'm looking to develop over the coming years to align with the clubs visions. Edited August 7 by danyates8 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick87 Posted August 7 Share Posted August 7 Good luck with Spuds mate, lovely graphics as usual. Have you put your Blackburn save on hold? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 7 Author Share Posted August 7 4 minutes ago, Rick87 said: Good luck with Spuds mate, lovely graphics as usual. Have you put your Blackburn save on hold? The plan for now is to update both regularly. Whether that's to ambitious not quite sure yet. Thank you again for the kind words Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 7 Author Share Posted August 7 (edited) Despite their dreadful league campaign, financially Spurs are in a fantastic financial position, their overall balance sitting at £200m plus, our transfer budget is around £58 million with around 175k per week spare in the wage budget. There are a number of player contracts that are due to expire within a month and I'm happy to let them all leave, the squad currently has 35 players which is far to many. We are going to have to cut the deadwood before we have any room to manoeuvre. The current club atmosphere is actually in quite a good place considering the season they've just but I'm treating this as a pretty significant negative point, players of this calibre should be expecting far more of themselves and in my opinion it shows a lack of desire to not show unhappiness at the form they have shown. The team cohesion is also in a good place but we can point that good a good core of professionals who are the team leaders within the dressing room such as Heung-Min Son and Ben Davies, obviously managerial support is only sitting at average for the time being. In terms of non playing staff some drastic work needs to be done as the brunt of the existing team left upon our arrival. After briefly analysing the squad this is my gut feeling upon arrival of what id like to do if given the chance, I'm fully aware things don't always go to plan but I like to have a plan in place and a strategy to follow. I will be setting up the scouting for the save, trying to find the best youngsters across the world to nurture and turn a profit whilst competing in the best competitions. Ill be looking to invest heavily in a striker, Harry Kane hasn't been replaced in my opinion and that will be our absolute priority, I've got a couple of names in my mind however we're going to extensively scout everyone before we make a final decision on who to bring in. We've got conditions set by the board to stick to and we will be doing our absolute best to ensure that's the case. In the next blog ill detail any movements in and out of the club alongside any new staff members that arrive, ill get through pre-season and update the long term plans for the youth players we've got. There are a number of younger players id like to share with you in greater detail. Edited August 7 by danyates8 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leobiazzi Posted August 7 Share Posted August 7 Despite being a Brazilian as well, I don't rate Marcos Leonardo in this FM haha Every save I tried him, he does well for mid-tier clubs, but not for top ones despite having good stats. PS: Loved the graphics! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 7 Author Share Posted August 7 (edited) 3 minutes ago, leobiazzi said: Despite being a Brazilian as well, I don't rate Marcos Leonardo in this FM haha Every save I tried him, he does well for mid-tier clubs, but not for top ones despite having good stats. PS: Loved the graphics! I wish I read this comment 15 mins ago without trying to give to much away hahahaha Edited August 7 by danyates8 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leobiazzi Posted August 7 Share Posted August 7 LOL my bad Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jogo Bonito Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 I absolutely love the graphical presentation here, outstanding! I'd have liked you to sign Solanke (for realism) or Ferguson - but clearly you went to Brazil! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 8 Author Share Posted August 8 8 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said: I absolutely love the graphical presentation here, outstanding! I'd have liked you to sign Solanke (for realism) or Ferguson - but clearly you went to Brazil! Appreciate the kind words! Making the graphics has honestly been the most enjoyable part for me so far, I feel like my writing needs a lot of work however it will continue! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfieLucas Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 Being a Tottenham fan, i'll be following this thread closely. Goodluck and word of advice, spend the money you get. Because if you've got any leftover once you've finished the season, Levy will most likely take it or not add anything on. He's done that to me a few times and Soloman is actually quite effective on this FM, just saying Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 8 Author Share Posted August 8 5 minutes ago, AlfieLucas said: Being a Tottenham fan, i'll be following this thread closely. Goodluck and word of advice, spend the money you get. Because if you've got any leftover once you've finished the season, Levy will most likely take it or not add anything on. He's done that to me a few times and Soloman is actually quite effective on this FM, just saying Appreciate the advice, that's actually really useful info to know. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maw74 Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 Good luck, I will be following with interest. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 8 Author Share Posted August 8 (edited) One thing I've learnt from other saves is having our tactical style align with the coaching staffs preferred coaching styles can aid in giving you good results. This will be my top priority when recruiting new staff. It makes perfect sense - how effective can the coaching provided really be if the players are being guided by someone who specialises in a 442 shape with a cautious mentality, which doesn't align with our strategy? I believe small details like these can easily be overlooked by players without even realising it. Before we can bring in staff to align with a strategy, we need to give considerations to what our strategy will be. Ill be predominantly fitting the initial strategy around the key players that are already residing at the club who I wish to keep, there is a fantastic base of players within our ranks that we can develop any effective tactic around however one twist Ill be implementing is any player over 30 wont have a bearing on our tactical style. That's not to say players over 30 wont have a place at our club, they certainly will. At 21 years of age, Destiny Udogie, can become our first choice left back for the next decade. He already has all the attributes to be one of our star players this season. He is a supreme athlete who is gifted in both the attacking and defending departments, a fairly rare combination in a full back. We have him tied down until 2030 any any interested teams would have to stump up a serious amount of cash should they wish to sign him. I feel as an attacking full back we will get the best out of Udogie, he has the stamina to get up and down the flank all day and he is a capable dribbler. Pedro Porro I feel is a slightly different full back, I've got a 'Cancelo' role in my mind, slightly inverted putting dangerous crosses in the box with his elite crossing. His off the ball and flair should be a great combination in finding dangerous spaces and pulling off the extravagant. I'm going to use a full back with the support duty whilst having the player instructions 'sit narrower, cross more often and takes more risks', I feel the support duty is also complimented by his player traits, naturally he will run down the right with the ball and get forward as often as possible. I think the instructions chosen should give us a nice blend of tucking in and getting around the right winger. Christian Romero has the attributes to become one of the worlds very best defenders, excellent tackling, marking, heading, positioning, anticipation he has everything. At 26 years of age he is one of our team leaders and I'm counting on him to become the lynchpin of our defence. He is our undisputed #1 centre back with his long term partner not yet decided. Micky van de Ven has the physical attributes to compliment Romero's skillset however Radu Drăgușin is better defensively. Yves Bissouma is a fantastic midfielder in my opinion, his defensive contributions to the game are the in elite category yet he is just as effective with the ball. He has elite dribbling, first touch and composure so I'm leaning towards using him with the segundo volante role with an attack duty and dribble more as a player instruction. I feel he can make really dangerous runs from deep aided by his exceptional dribbling, he has the pace and stamina to get up and down the pitch and if we need to slow things down has the composure to adapt to that situation. So this is the initial shape I've come up with that I feel compliments our current crop of players. I've picked out 4 players I see as our key players before we've kicked a ball but obviously Spurs are stacked with talent, players such as James Maddison, Pape Matar Sarr and Rodrigo Bentacur can all have a huge impact in the coming season. The main idea around the tactic is to get the ball up the pitch as quickly as possible, I've given all wide players and our defensive/attacking midfielders the take more risk player instructions, this is to encourage line breaking, forwards passes. Shorter passing may seem counter-intuitive to this but I feel without this we 'could' be a little to erratic with our passing. The plan is to win the ball back as high up the pitch as possible so it requires less passes to create the chance. I feel we can use a higher defensive line and step up more due to the speed of our backline, we've got numerous players bless with extreme pace and that extends to the midfield. I feel like if things aren't going the way we expect we have team instructions we can slightly adjust to make us more robust. I'm willing to take major risk in our attacking side of the game however don't want to give up to much defensively so instructions such as 'step up more' would be removed if we become to leaky. Now we had an idea of a style we are looking to implement we were able to focus on staff recruitments. Gary McAllister is our new first team coach, excellent determined attitude and have a level of discipline I feel will benefit our current crop of coaching staff Matt Wells and Ryan Mason. Ryan does quite fit our philosophy but he is a Spurs man through and through so for added realism he will be staying. Current goalkeeping coach, Rob Burch, doesn't align with our philosophy either and he will get replaced in the long term. We're currently waiting on a work permit for talented Spanish goalkeeping coach José Luis Silva, he does fit our philosophy so will become our head goalkeeping coach so to speak. Both of our fitness coaches, John Thrower and Michael Cooper, are relatively poor and both find their jobs on the line we are just waiting to find suitable candidates. Head of Youth recruitment, Simon Davies, will also find himself on the way out of the club as we are in the process of replacing him, he is no where near good enough for the level and again, doesn't fit our philosophy. Ill be looking to continually add to our scouting department to expand our reach and give ourselves the best chances of finding gems, our current scouting coverage is actually quite poor so this will become a top priority for me over the coming seasons, though again they must fit our vision. With 35 players in the squad major heart surgery is required in the words of Ralf Rangnick, we need to get players out the door before we can bring anyone other than a striker in and its safe to say we certainly went to the operating table as the you can see from the graphic below. Some of the deals don't need explanation, flops such as Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso were always going to leave the club one way or another (Ndombele contract would of been terminated) however there were some deals that I wasn't best pleased at making, Heung-Min Son being the prime example, he is a Spurs legend after 9 seasons at the club but when Saudi Arabia came calling he had his head turned. Financially an amazing deal for the club though, crazy transfer fee for a 31 year old that could yet rise to £91M and 245k per week off the wage bill. The Richarlison deal I'm delighted with, he wouldn't of been in my first team plans which I imagine would of caused issues and to make profit on a player who was signed for £52M is impressive, another huge chunk of wages saved. Skipp is a victim of similarity, we're already blessed with a superb crop of defensive midfielders who are already better than Skipp and still have potential to grow further, I feel Skipp has reached his peak to so get £25M is good business I feel. Another £75M generated from squad player sales leaves us in a staggering financial position, armed with a serious transfer budget. We've mentioned the need for a striker but we also now need a first choice left winger as both the first choice and a back up choice have left. We've spent a staggering amount of cash, you can certainly say I'm scratching that itch! Rafa on a free transfer was already agreed before we arrived at the club and to be honest he doesn't look to bad, he looks like a great squad option for us, its a shame we haven't got a Europa League or Conference League run to look forward too. If we don't go on any sort of significant cup run we aren't going to have a very intensive season game wise and that could cause some unhappiness within our ranks. Adam Wharton comes in as our biggest deal of the window so far costing £70M although the fee is split over the next 6 years, the plan is to have Champions League football well before that so it shouldn't be an issue. Wharton is a fantastically gifted young midfielder with the ball, being England's closest thing to a 'Spanish' player. Excellent with the ball and under pressure, I believe Wharton can bring a controlling element to our game and he can play an important role for the club over the next decade. Kang-In Lee can play any role across the front line and its that versatility along with fantastic commercial benefits which attracted me to this deal. I don't think £45M is an outrageous price for a player of his calibre and reputational standing, we all know how passionate South Korean fans are with their own players. We have already received a message from the board regarding the commercial revenue Kang-In Lees signing will generate. Benjamin Šeško was one of the targets we identified as we arrived at the club to become our main striker, however I wasn't leaning towards a deal early on in pre-season, the wage demands were bordering excessive and Marcus Leonardo seemed like the better value option overall so we opted to bring him in with the idea of him becoming the man to lead the line but the situation changed upon the exits of Heung-Min Son and Richarlison. Leonardo has a perfect attribute profile to play the 'Son' role, he has excellent finishing, composure which is complimented by world class off the ball abilities so we completed the deal for Šeško too. His profile is perfect, 6'4 blessed with a quick turn of foot, he has some work to do on his technical attributes but has an impressive goal scoring record early on his career and I believe this is the perfect place for him to develop into a world class striker. Ilias Akhomach is the latest player we have brought in before the season starts, a technically gifted attacking midfielder at only 20 with minimal first team experience he is likely to be a rotation option during the first season, at £25M I feel he represents excellent value and can fall within the category of signing players to sell for a profit which is included in the club vision. There is a still a month of the transfer window left and as you can see from the squad matrix below we do have a couple more positions that could do with some reinforcements. Pre-season was an unusual one with the major transfer activity, the Euros and Copa America all happening at the same time. Due to this we had various players away at certain times so its going to take longer to build things like team cohesion and tactical familiarity. We've also got a tough start to our Premier League management career, we face Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool all in the first month. Edited August 10 by danyates8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfieLucas Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 Alot of transfers out, which to be fair is needed and i normally get rid of the same ones. Got more than i normally do for Richarlison. But on the flip side, i've gotten more for Lo Celso and Hojbjerg, so it works out in the end. Personally feel you're light in terms of strikers, but that's just me. And Sarr is a beast on this. Goodluck and hope you have a good start to the season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 6 minutes ago, AlfieLucas said: Alot of transfers out, which to be fair is needed and i normally get rid of the same ones. Got more than i normally do for Richarlison. But on the flip side, i've gotten more for Lo Celso and Hojbjerg, so it works out in the end. Personally feel you're light in terms of strikers, but that's just me. And Sarr is a beast on this. Goodluck and hope you have a good start to the season. Can't argue with any of that, I feel Leonardo could easily play in the striker role and we've got lots of talent out wide. True with Lo Celso and Hojberg, however it was the 200k saved a week that was the most important factor to me 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 Big changes for you! What are your honest predictions for the season to come? As long as you don't finish above Villa, I'm fine... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 17 minutes ago, _Ben_ said: Big changes for you! What are your honest predictions for the season to come? As long as you don't finish above Villa, I'm fine... Villa actually finished in 8th pipping Spurs to the final European spot. We are obviously in a transitional season, top 6 is the early aim as that satisfies the board and would get us back into Europe. We need our new strike force to settle quickly, the performances of Benjamin Šeško I feel will be pivotal to our success. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leobiazzi Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 Loved this last post. Hopefully Marcos Leonardo will do better under you than he ever did under my orders. These five first matches will give us a pretty good idea of what this new Tottenham is capable of. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 9 Author Share Posted August 9 38 minutes ago, leobiazzi said: Loved this last post. Hopefully Marcos Leonardo will do better under you than he ever did under my orders. These five first matches will give us a pretty good idea of what this new Tottenham is capable of. Appreciate the kinds words, I'm working through the first month now - played 3 games so far and Leonardo has been dreadful. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfieLucas Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 7 hours ago, danyates8 said: Can't argue with any of that, I feel Leonardo could easily play in the striker role and we've got lots of talent out wide. True with Lo Celso and Hojberg, however it was the 200k saved a week that was the most important factor to me Understandable. Certainly need to watch the wage budget with Tottenham as well. But Sesko will be a very important player in the future. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 10 Author Share Posted August 10 14 hours ago, AlfieLucas said: Understandable. Certainly need to watch the wage budget with Tottenham as well. But Sesko will be a very important player in the future. We've got the wage bill in a better place with the vast outgoings 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 10 Author Share Posted August 10 (edited) Our early days at Spurs have already brought about significant changes. We've made six new signings, while ten major players have departed, along with several youth players who didn’t fit our long-term vision. The coaching staff has also been strengthened with the addition of a new first-team coach and a goalkeeper coach. Pre-season went relatively well, but we’re facing a challenging start with three of last season's top seven finishers in our first month. Last season, Ange Postecoglou and Ryan Mason managed only 12 points out of a possible 42 against top-seven opposition—a record we must improve upon. The Premier League preview predicts us finishing in 7th place, with the usual suspects occupying the spots above us. If we look at last season's table, a clear 'top 4' has emerged. Spurs, notably, had an astonishing 19 draws last season, which I believe stemmed from a serious goal-scoring issue. We’ve brought in new players to address this, but we're relying on them to adapt quickly despite having little to no Premier League experience. Our first game of our tenure is against Man Utd, I've made a small graphic to mark the occasion. MAN UTD | Premier League | Old Trafford | A | 74,031 Our first fixture was a tough away fixture at Old Trafford, we came out of the blocks really sloppy and conceded a flurry of chances within the first few minutes. It took Rashford 5 minutes to get himself on the scoresheet, picking the ball on the left flank, dropping a shoulder to beat the onrushing Romero and slotting in far post for a quite sublime goal. We had no control whatsoever in the game and we were giving the ball away cheaply far to often. I lowered our tempo and pressing down a notch each, we were far to frantic when we had the ball. I've not got much experience using these particular team instructions at the highest setting so may be naïve in thinking it could be a successful combination. The game became fairly scrappy after the changes but we were beginning to look improved, chance creation still minimal but greater control of the game. Man Utd were still creating the better opportunities though and we were fortunate not to find ourselves 2-0 down on 60 mins, a fantastic double save from Guglielmo Vicario kept us in the tie. 81 mins I thought we grabbed our equaliser from a corner, Benjamin Šeško utilising his 6'4 frame to great effect rising highest and scoring an impressive header - a great start for the young Slovenian. It wasn't to be though as Man Utd came up trumps in the 94th minute to leave us devastated. Rasmus Højlund was the beneficiary of a missed interception from Micky Van de Ven and couldn't miss from 3 yards (0.9 xG). It was probably deserved on reflection but that doesn't take away the sting of conceding so late in the game. CHELSEA | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | H | 62,850 Our first home game was against our fierce rivals Chelsea, their transfer business in game is quite the opposite of real life - 3 signings in 3 available transfer windows and my gut feeling was we could get something out of this game and we managed a hard fought 1-0 victory. Benjamin Šeško found himself on the scoresheet again to make it 2 goals in 2 games so far. What really pleased me in this game were the players who achieved our highest ratings. Yves Bissouma with a standout performance, really composed with the ball both with his passing and dribbling, he completed the most dribbles on the pitch and winning 75% of his aerial duels. Promising stuff from the Malian midfielder. We were able to prevent Chelsea from mustering a single shot on target for the whole game, defensively really solid. SOUTHAMPTON | Premier League | St Mary's Stadium | A | 32,384 It was this performance that prompted me to look into some longer term changes from a tactical perspective, with the setup we've chosen we have absolutley no control in games. We are being out possessed by teams that have just been promoted, the style I want to achieve hasn't changed but the way I'm going to approach things is. I'm going to use a step by step process, removing/adjusting one logical team instruction first with the first adjustment being the tempo seeing a permanent reduction down to 'slightly higher', with our aggressive high press still in place, high defensive line and multiple player instructions to take more risks we still should see plenty of effort to play the ball forwards in a quick manner but making better choices around when to do it. We did come away with a win against Southampton, that man Benjamin Šeško again, 3 in 3 now - superb start. MILLWALL | Carabao Cup 2nd Round | The Den | A | 19,713 A tightly contested clash against Millwall in the Carabao Cup where it took a penalty shootout to secure our progression. Marcus Leonardo got his chance up top in this game after 3 less than impressive performances so far, he has really really struggled. He doesn't speak any English yet and looks a long way off being familiar with our tactical setup. I have made him available for our U21s after this game to try and get some confidence into the young Brazilian. He will be given time to settle, its not fair to make a judgement on a young man moving to a new country after just 4 games. LIVERPOOL | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 The most exciting game of the month was left until last, a game for the ages against Liverpool, who had recently appointed Roberto De Zerbi. We hadn't scored in the first half of any Premier League game yet this season but we broke that duck on the 39th minute when Dejan Kulusevski found some space on the edge of the area and rifled a low drive into the bottom corner of the net. Our attacking unit apart from Benjamin Šeško have started the season quite slow so its pleasing to see Kulusevski make an impact, we are utilising him in the middle at the moment due to James Maddison's injury problems. He suffered a hernia towards the end of preseason meaning he missed the opening fixtures then on his return to training suffered a broken collarbone in training. Liverpool grabbed this equaliser from a corner in the 63rd minute, Ibrahima Konaté rising highest at the back stick to nod past the helpless Vicario. 14 mins later we had 2 opportunities to clear from a corner which we weren't able to do and we conceded after Konaté found Diogo Jota in acres of space to rifle in and we found ourselves behind for the first time in the game, our response though was truly magnificent. We won a dangerous free kick on the edge of the box, Pedro Porro fired it against the wall and we got a good piece of fortune when the ball fell at the feet of Van de Ven and he duly obliged sticking the ball in the back of the net. We were really in the ascendancy after that and we grabbed a deserved winner 3 mins later, Brennan Johnson finding some space on the right wing and putting in an excellent cross for Kulusevski to score from 2 yards. Fantastic win which ends a decent month, our performances still have a long way to go from an attacking perspective but we look fairly sound defensively. We've now got a slightly different set up when facing top 6 teams. Mentality reduced to balanced and play out of defence with shorter passing removed. This is to encourage better control against teams we feel we should have the edge over, our other team instructions should aid in the fast transitions we're after. In our attacking setup we've changed the right back role to an inverted wingback to achieve a 2-3 build-up shape, the more defensive shape still has the fullback on support for more defensive stability. The right handed attacking role has now become a winger to provide us more width on that side, I thought having an inverted winger and segundo volante combination would encourage the inverted winger to start further out wide due to FM24s positional play features but I wasn't getting the desire effect, we were simply crowding the middle and making it easy to defend against us. We wrapped up the transfer window with 2 final transfers both adding valuable cover to roles where we were lacking depth. Maxime Estève looks to be a solid back up option and comes in for an acceptable price, he is happy to play a squad role and so should provide excellent cover for Micky Van de Ven who is establishing himself as first choice. Josh Doig again looks a really solid back up option, it was crucial we didn't lose to much quality with our back up options but just as important they were willing to accept a fringe/squad role, Doig fits that description perfectly, fringe role within the squad but looks like he will be an able deputy to Udogie. Edited August 11 by danyates8 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfieLucas Posted August 11 Share Posted August 11 Good start with a hard set of fixtures. Away games to the Big 5 are always problematic, so hopefully you can solve that issue. But it's an interesting start to say the least. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
john1 Posted August 11 Share Posted August 11 Loving the graphics Decent start! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 11 Author Share Posted August 11 4 hours ago, AlfieLucas said: Good start with a hard set of fixtures. Away games to the Big 5 are always problematic, so hopefully you can solve that issue. But it's an interesting start to say the least. Yeah solid start really and we've got a lot of improving to do yet. Exciting future awaits I think. 2 hours ago, john1 said: Loving the graphics Decent start! Thank you for the compliments, love making the graphics. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leobiazzi Posted August 11 Share Posted August 11 Good start! Kulusevski came in clutch against Liverpool. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 11 Author Share Posted August 11 (edited) I mentioned in an earlier post that our current staffing situation is fairly poor for the level we aspire to be, our current Head of Youth development doesn't align with our tactical vision so we've been on the search for his replacement. We advertised the vacancy and in the first batch of applicants there was a standout in Dean Rastrick, as it happened he actually left Spurs in 2023. He fits our tactical vision and has a far more impressive attribute range for the role and his appoint should benefit our youth intakes over the coming years. We haven't been able to utilise the talents of James Maddison this season at all really, he has only played 24 mins for us this season so far and because of those injury issues I've played Dejan Kulusevski mainly through the middle. Kulusevski has picked up a fairly serious injury - sprained knee ligaments, that will keep him out for 7 weeks. Kang-In Lee is in line to take that spot at the moment, despite him not showing his best form yet he has fit into the squad really nicely and is seen as an influential player within the team hierarchy despite being at the club for a short amount of time. NEWCASTLE | Premier League | St James Park | 52,354 Newcastle were now being managed by supremely successful coach Antonio Conte, he took over in the back end of January and the result was a drastic uptick in form eventually resulting in a 6th place finish. They didn't hold back in the summer either spending £200M plus on 9 new players bringing in Joshua Zirkzee as their marque signing of the summer. This was sure to be a tough fixture away from home but we put in the most assured, controlled performance of the season so far however there was an element of luck as our goals game from the penalty spot and a direct free kick. 3 of the 4 players we picked out at the beginning of the season as our key players all playing an important role again. We used our more balanced approach during this game with one additional change, I focused play down both wings simply due to Conte favouring two complete wing backs with two inside forwards meaning we had plenty of space in behind the wing backs. BRIGHTON | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 Despite losing Roberto de Zerbi to Liverpool in the summer Brighton have had a good start to the season, new manager Patrick Viera getting another chance in English football. They've secured the biggest win of the season so far with a 7-3 demolition of newly promoted Burnley and look an exciting attacking team, as we're at home we went with our more aggressive approach and it worked a charm we absolutely dominated from start to finish with a quite superb performance. Our chance creation was really good it was only the finishing touch that was missing, Benjamin Šeško missed 2 guilt edged chances resulting in a low player rating for the game but in general his play was good. Marcus Leonardo got his first goal of the season in a much improved performance from the young Brazilian. A shout out to Brennan Johnson, he has made the right wing slot his own taking advantage of Dejan Kulusevski's switch inside since Maddison's injury. BLACKPOOL | Carabao Cup 3rd Round | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 26,830 I'm going to use the Carabao Cup as an opportunity for our talented youngsters to get a chance to shine, we rotated heavily with only Guglielmo Vicario retaining his place, Forster has been out with a long term injury and is yet to make an appearance this season and emergency backup keeper Alfie Whiteman doesn't fill me with confidence. James Maddison came in for his first start of the season after his injury plagued campaign so far yet he only lasted 58 minutes and had to come off with yet another injury, this time out for 3 weeks with a twisted ankle. No luck for our talented playmaker this season so far. We were actually struggling to create any meaningful chances and went behind on 67 mins however some tactical tweaks worked the oracle for us, we used our aggressive set up but reduced the mentality down to balanced to just calm things down and to aid that further I added 'work ball into box', our chance creation went through the roof as you can see from the xG match story. Brennan Johnson made the mistake which resulted in Blackpool's goal but redeemed himself 4 mins later with a fine finish, he added to his tally with a penalty a further 10 mins later. Pedro Porro sealed the deal with a fine finish from the edge of the box, I did experiment with an attacking duty with Porro when I brought him off the bench and again was rewarded with the change. LEEDS | Premier League | Elland Road | 37,645 Up to this point Leeds have struggled after their recent promotion to the Premier League, they lost their manager in the summer after Daniel Farke left for Bayer Leverkusen and newly appointed manager David Moyes has struggled to have the same impact. It was another fine performance from us to round off a very impressive month overall. Yves Bissouma was a different level this game, his powerful running style paired with technical dribbling makes him incredibly difficult to stop for the opposition, he rounded this performance off with 2 high quality goals in a resounding man of the match performance. Brennan Johnson was excellent again and is really making the right wing slot his own. Pedro Porro is having a greater effect on the game after his switch to inverted full back, I was trying to get the same outcome from a fullback role which in hindsight makes zero sense. So a really good month for us that puts us top of the table, expectations are quickly changing in my mind - top 4 is beginning to look like the target. We're starting to look far more dangerous attacking wise and defensively were imperious, 3 clean sheets on the bounce in the league. One negative for the month is the performances of Benjamin Šeško, he started the season is excellent fashion yet this month hasn't really done the business for us, I believe a goal will change his fortunes. Our form is especially pleasing given our injury record so far this season, James Maddison has been really unlucky so far this season picking up 3 injuries back to back to limit his minutes drastically. Edited August 14 by danyates8 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 12 Author Share Posted August 12 (edited) One thing I haven't done since starting the blog is analyse the youth squads in great detail, my initial focus was on getting the first team in proper order and we have done a fantastic job in a short amount of time so I feel its the right time to see what our younger players have to offer us in the future. Both the board and the fanbase expect us to develop youth players and now we're in a great position to do that. The long term ambition is to bring in a back room team that aligns with our vision, the earlier we can get our players familiar with the tactical style here at Spurs, the greater chance they have of making an impact when they eventually get given their chance and the best way of achieving that as early as possible is via our youth team coaches. Our current U21 manager, Wayne Burnett, fits in with the vision apart from his preferred tactical setup is a 4-3-3 rather than the 4-2-3-1 we employ, for now this will suffice as my plan is to bring in an assistant for him that does have the tactical knowledge of the 4-2-3-1, its taken a while to find a suitable candidate (I wanted to maintain a level of realism so avoided anybody who has links to rivals or has only had jobs in one specific region such as South America) however I feel Armand Kavaja is a good fit for us. The U21 coaching team however will have serious issues in translating the message we are trying to push, both have a cautious 4-4-2 as their preferred styles so they will both be replaced. Jermaine Defoe may survive the chop due to the legendary status he has within the club, he is also the most gifted of the coaches attribute wise. Goalkeeping and fitness coaches are less of a concern due to the specialised roles they focus on, if we're able to find suitable replacement I wouldn't be against hiring them however I wont be actively looking to replace right now, ill focus on that upon expiration of their contracts. The current situation seems to be working however as the U21 side have had just as an impressive start to the season as the senior side, 7 games with 6 wins and a draw which is even more impressive given the poor results the team endured for the majority of last season, limping their way to a 19th placed finish. This is very exciting for the future considering the improvements we can still make. It wasn't just the first team that underwent major surgery during the summer, the U21 side was overloaded with players that unfortunately weren't ever going to make the grade so we let 7 players leave on permanent deals and 2 went out on loan. I want clear pathways and with us not having any European competitions to contend with this season first team game time wouldn't be sufficient in my opinion for optimal growth. Game time is essential for any of our youngsters so that will be an expectation upon accepting any deals. In terms of exciting talent at the club there is an abundance of attacking talent however we have clear gaps in the midfield and defence that we will concentrate on over the next few transfer windows. Im going to briefly detail the 4 outstanding talents we have at the club below. Lucas Bergvall - Lucas Bergvall is a talented young Swedish midfielder who joined Spurs in the summer of 2024. Known for his technical skills and intelligence on the ball, Bergvall operates primarily as a central or attacking midfielder. He has a sharp footballing mind, displaying excellent vision and the ability to dictate the tempo of the game. Despite his youth, Bergvall is composed under pressure, often making mature decisions with his passing and positioning. Physically, he is above average height, with a lean and athletic build that allows him to cover a lot of ground. His agility and quick feet help him navigate tight spaces and evade challenges, he has areas of improvement to focus on such as strength and balance but at 18 years of age has plenty of time ahead of him. Though still developing, he shows promise as a well-rounded midfielder with the potential to become a key player for both club and country. Jamie Donley - The closest thing we've got to Harry Kane in my opinion, at 19 years of age looks like he will certainly have a bright future in the game. Adept in either the attacking midfield or striker roles, Donley possesses excellent ball control and dribbling ability. He is known for his vision and creativity, often finding spaces between the lines to deliver incisive passes and create scoring opportunities for his teammates. Donley is also a capable finisher, with a knack for arriving in the box at the right time and the composure to score goals which is shown in his outstanding goal scoring record for the U21s this season so far. His maturity on the pitch belies his age, making him one of the standout prospects in Tottenham's youth setup with the potential to become an influential figure in the first team in the coming years. Tyrone Dixon - The youngest of the quartet on show today, Dixon has been training with the U21s for most of this season however is still playing his games at U18 level mainly. He has a number of standout attributes at such a young age and looks to have the potential to become a real solid player for us, he has a real chance of getting there as well as he shows a really determined attitude to his training and overall outlook towards football, seems a very driven young man and I'm excited to see what the future holds for Dixon. Mikey Moore - Now for the most talked about youngster of the quartet, Mikey Moore is certainly building up a reputation early on his career as someone with immense potential. Primarily known for his pace, flair, and attacking prowess. Playing as a winger or forward, Moore is highly regarded for his ability to take on defenders with his quick dribbling and sharp changes of direction. Moore is also a creative player with a keen eye for goal, capable of producing moments of brilliance both in scoring and setting up teammates. His technical skills are well-developed for his age, with precise ball control and excellent dribbling ability. Physically, Moore is still developing but already shows signs of athleticism that complement his style of play. He’s known for his tenacity and work rate, often tracking back to help defensively when needed. His potential suggests a bright future, with the ability to become a key player for us over the coming years. We do have other players within our ranks that have the potential to go on to have successful careers. I'm wont describe them in such detail but will form a list with a clickable link to see their attributes if you desire to see them. Herbie James - Alfie Dorrington - Finlay James - Will Lankshear - Alfie Devine - Jude Soonsup-Bell - Byron Whitney With our lacklustre scouting setup for the moment I haven't got the ability to set up the scouting assignments I'm really that happy with at the moment. I've set up 3 basic assignments which compliment our current scouting teams knowledge with the long term goal of improving the quality of the staff we have available as well as our worldwide reach. Edited August 12 by danyates8 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leobiazzi Posted August 12 Share Posted August 12 Great post, again. I don't know how long you plan to play, but I've seen Will Lankshear develop well under the AI in a recent save. He was my starting striker when I became England's head coach in 2028 or 2029. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 12 Author Share Posted August 12 2 hours ago, leobiazzi said: Great post, again. I don't know how long you plan to play, but I've seen Will Lankshear develop well under the AI in a recent save. He was my starting striker when I became England's head coach in 2028 or 2029. I think Lankshear's biggest problem is Jamie Donley Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jogo Bonito Posted August 12 Share Posted August 12 5 hours ago, danyates8 said: I think Lankshear's biggest problem is Jamie Donley I saw that Donley had been used in a new position of left wing-back this summer, an interesting experiment indeed! Quite a player turnover, some I would agree with and some I was surprised to see. But who cares (joke) the graphics are incredibly good (seriously). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 12 Author Share Posted August 12 5 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said: I saw that Donley had been used in a new position of left wing-back this summer, an interesting experiment indeed! Quite a player turnover, some I would agree with and some I was surprised to see. But who cares (joke) the graphics are incredibly good (seriously). Out of everyone that's left, its Hueng-Min Son that bothers me the most however the money on offer and wages saved turned the decision into a 'no brainer'. My approach is going to be fairly open however, if anyone wants to leave that's fine by me, my plan is to have a shortlist of players for each position so we already know who we would like to bring in as replacement. Thanks for the compliments on the graphics its much appreciated. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jogo Bonito Posted August 12 Share Posted August 12 Yes, losing Son must have been a tough one and surely done with a heavy heart. A great deal financially though! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 13 Author Share Posted August 13 (edited) Similar to @adam_otbfm I don't feel like I'm progressing through the months quite quick enough, I'm still going to write up each game but I'm going to combine some months together during some of the posts in a bid to speed things up slightly, especially these early months of the Premier League season without European football alongside it - it feels like there are more international breaks than league football. After an excellent September where we're starting to put together an exciting, attacking brand of football we were rewarded for our efforts with some monthly awards for the group. Yves Bissouma deservedly winning player of the month after a quite sensational month from the Malian which also included a goal of the month award, Marcus Leonardo looks to be settling within the squad and system and picked up Young player of the Month award, its worth nothing Adam Wharton and Destiny Udogie came 2nd and 3rd respectively. Finally we got given manager of the month award, it feels slightly cheap with it being based of 3 games but its nice to recognised for our efforts. We've got 4 games each month to get through with November being significantly more difficult as we have to face Man City and Arsenal back to back. These games are going to give us the best possible indication as to where we should be levelling our expectations for the season. Spurs record against the top 6 was fairly poor last season so if we can improve our results against that type of opposition we should be in a good place overall, we are dealing with the teams we are expected to with relative ease up until this point apart from newly promoted Southampton who put a hell of a fight. CRYSTAL PALACE | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 Palace haven't had an awful start to the season, they are coming into this game with confidence after recently knocking Arsenal out of the Carabao cup and beating high flying Norwich in the league. They have some real talented players within their squad - some I've got a long term interest in (Marc Guehi) and can be very dangerous on their day however we put in a simply outstanding attacking performance to come away with a 5-0 win. Ilias Akhomach with his first start of the season for us coming away with a hat-trick, an eye opening performance that has really put him in contention to make the CAM spot his own due to Maddison's injury problems, Kulusevski's preference to play out wide and inconsistent performances from others who have played that role. Pedro Porro has really become one of our most influential players on the pitch since his change to an inverted wing back, he is far more involved in our build up play yet will still offer runs down the outside when the space allows. I've also recently changed the left hand attack role to an inverted winger rather than a inside forward, I've struggled to get a consistent impact from the inside forward roles this year, I always end up using an inverted winger as I feel it has a greater output in terms of assists/goals yet has a greater influence on the game to and links up better with the attacking full back ASTON VILLA | Premier League | Villa Park | 42,334 I find it strange how we can go from a complete attacking performance one game, creating nearly 4xG to then becoming completely impotent the next. We really struggled to break Villa down and none of our efforts on goal were on target. I'm beginning to get a little worried by Šeško's form, he scored 3 early goal in his Spurs career and did notch against Palace so these criticisms may seem harsh but apart from the goals he isn't providing much else for us, he is also picking up the trait of missing really really good chances, its still really early days for him and we mustn't forget he is only 21. Defensively we were excellent again though, I cant tell you how good it feels to have confidence in a goalkeeper, this is the first save this year where I've been happy with the performances from the GK, long may it continue. EVERTON | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 59,994 The only disappointment for me against Everton is we didn't have a full stadium to witness another great performance, I find is astonishing given our current form that we aren't filling the stadium during a weekend home fixture. In terms of performance we again were really good. Wharton scoring his first goal for the club and Marcus Leonardo with a man of the match performance from out wide on the left, he is playing really well in that position and is contributing with goals and assists now. We did concede our first goal in 5 league games but we cant be disappointed with that, our defensive record is superb so far this season. LUTON | Carabao Cup | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 39,273 Now for the best individual performance of the save so far, Jamie Donley take a bow. 5 goals for the young forward in a quite simply remarkable performance, 6 shots 5 goals from a 1.6xG expected. Insane display of finishing. Luton are no mugs either, they are going well in the Championship, we rotated as much as we could but it was still far to much for them. We are now adding goals to our performances which should leave us in good stead. The next run of fixtures is a lot tougher though so after those we should get a clearer idea of our expectations. ARSENAL | Premier League | Emirates Stadium | 60,704 In typical fashion our most frustrating game of the season comes against our bitter rivals, Arsenal. In what was a tight game sprinkled with top quality chances for both teams it was Arsenals better finishing that won them the game. Ramsdale receiving the man of the match award after multiple, top quality saves including a penalty. It's really frustrating to lose in this fashion especially against our bitter rivals but we can take some solace in the fact that we are performing well against the top opposition. We just need to improve our finishing in the high pressure moments. Marcus Leonardo really struggled in this particular game and its becoming clear to me he isn't a number 9. MAN CITY | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 Last years champions up next, Man City, the only unbeaten team left so far and again we come away frustrated this time because of our inability to close out the win, again its our failure to deal with the high pressure moment that leads us to not getting the result we want. Overall I cant be to disappointed though because at half time it looked like we weren't even going to create a chance however a tactical switch to 4-3-3 at half time benefitted us greatly, we looked to match Man City in midfield and our 2nd half performance was far better, its pleasing to know we can completely switch set ups and still perform to a high level. Jamie Donley is really starting to become a key player in the team, we are using him as a complete forward to compliment his attributes, he is well adept at finding and exploiting space and has the vision as well as passing ability to bring our other dangerous attackers into play but his goal scoring ability cannot be understated, another 2 top quality goals today against the best team in the land. Perhaps we already had our best striker already at the club. If we're being truly honest the brunt of our new signings haven't hit the ground running, they are all struggling with consistency however will be given time to settle in, its not fair to place big expectations on young players, moving to a new country whilst having a limited understanding of the language. Marcus Leonardo has performed to the highest level out of the players who have arrived from abroad, Adam Wharton however has performed excellent. FULHAM | Premier League | Craven Cottage | 29,700 Now after two disapointing results but decent performances against some of the leagues better opposition, I felt Fulham provided a challenge would could deal with yet again we came away disappointed and rather lucky if I'm being honest. We were desperatley poor in attack only having 1 shot on target, Marcus Leonardo again failing to inspire from the striker role. Fulham created the better chances and a lot more of them yet were unable to truly punish us. Ilias Akhomach is our best performing new signing, at least from foreign shores, he has a knack for a goal and his ability to perform to a high level across a variety of roles is impressive. BURNLEY | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 I haven't been to happy with our recent attacking performances, maybe I'm being harsh especially with us playing some top opposition this month but after some careful thought I've decided to employ a few changes, you can see more detail in the graphic below as to why I made the decision but its safe to say it worked. 5-0 against Burnley, our chance creation excellent, some of our play was at the elite level and Kulusevski with an individual performance for the ages. Edited August 14 by danyates8 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leobiazzi Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 Tough draw to Fulham, but these happen all the time in the Prem--especially after a loss and draw against big rivals. But you're doing well in the league despite these results in November. Also, by looking at Marcos Leonardo/Seskö performances as No. 9, I can imagine how much better your team would be with Harry Kane LOL Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 13 Author Share Posted August 13 (edited) 19 minutes ago, leobiazzi said: Tough draw to Fulham, but these happen all the time in the Prem--especially after a loss and draw against big rivals. But you're doing well in the league despite these results in November. Also, by looking at Marcos Leonardo/Seskö performances as No. 9, I can imagine how much better your team would be with Harry Kane LOL Oh how I wish we still had Kane, id imagine we would be top of the league if we did, in fact anyone from this graphic would do Edited August 13 by danyates8 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maw74 Posted August 13 Share Posted August 13 Maybe you can get Kane back one day. I did lol Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 13 Author Share Posted August 13 2 hours ago, Maw74 said: Maybe you can get Kane back one day. I did lol Maybe if the wages aren't silly, not sure we've got the players to compliment his style we'd need more runners in behind and only Marcus Leonardo could do that right now and he can't finish his dinner 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 14 Author Share Posted August 14 (edited) In terms our our aims this season, December would have a important bearing on the final result, its our busiest month of the season so far with 7 games and they come against opposition where I believe we can take all 3 points. 2 fixtures against Chelsea stick out as the difficult ties but they are struggling with consistency this season and out of all the top sides - they are the most beatable. Jamie Donley has been rewarded for his fine form last month, earning the young player of the month award for November. We had our first intake preview and its safe to say its awful, I've not got a full understanding on the most important factors to ensure high quality, consistent youth intakes. I know facilities and HoY are important however I'm of the belief that once you hire a new HoY it takes a few in-game years to bear fruit. Anyone with a deeper understanding with any hints or tips? We are making slight improvements in the games against the top 6 opposition, the early season victory against Liverpool still sticks out in my mind but we had won a big one away from home yet but that situation changed with the final league game of the year where we pummelled Chelsea. 7-0 aggregate against Chelsea during December, amazing results against our rivals. WOLVES | Premier League | Molineux | 28,378 2nd game since our slight tactical tweak and another quite simply sublime attacking performance. It took a set piece to grab the lead through centre back Drăgușin however we then took complete control of the game and never looked like letting the lead slip. It took us until the latter stages of the 2nd half to grab our deserved 2nd goal however even then we didn't let our foot off the gas and still pushed forward which resulted in Destiny Udogie notching his first goal of the campaign. Excellent performance away from home. BOURNEMOUTH | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 57,197 Despite our excellent form overall this season, we seem unable to convince the fans to fill out the stadium against what you would call the leagues lower opposition. Maybe its due to the reputation fall suffered after failing to qualify for any European competition last season but it gives us a short term target to achieve, improve the quality of the football until we can convince our fans to turn up in their maximum numbers. In terms of the fixture its another impressive performance, we seem to have 'unlocked' our CAM with the slight tweaks, the impact that particular position has had on the last 3 games is noticeable. Far more involved in the game, increased output in terms of assists and goals, its only early days but the signs are promising. BRENTFORD | Premier League | Brentford Community Stadium | 17,250 Now for one of those frustrating games, overall we were the better team but couldn't find the quality to put Brentford to the sword, it actually took a 94th minute equaliser to come away with a point. A special moment for Kang-In Lee who scored his first goal for the club, he has really struggled to adapt to England so far but hopefully this will give him the confidence to kick on for us. The same cannot be said for Ilias Akhomach however, the young Spaniard has settled into North London really well, he is currently in excellent form and is becoming one of the first names on the team sheet. Not what I expected when we signed him, I expected a slower introduction to the first team but he has really taken his chance when give the opportunity. CHELSEA | Carabao Cup | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 Chelsea went with a full strength line up which makes the end result even more pleasing, we annihilated them. Defensively we were excellent and we were clinical in front of goal, the CAM position again having a huge impact on the game. James Maddison has been really good for us after he found full fitness, he has been hampered with niggling injuries for the first couple of months of the campaign but has shown a high level of form since his return. I've now got a clearer picture in my mind of our first choice 11 and Maddison is included within that. NORWICH | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 57,880 Norwich are the surprise of the season so far. Everyone knows how difficult it is for a newly promoted team to survive in the Premier League, Norwich aren't surviving they are thriving. Riding high in 7th place up to this point they seem to have a a nice blend of experience and quality within their ranks. Josh Sargent their striker is having a fantastic season, he is outscoring our strikers but lets be honest, that's not to difficult up to this point. They really did provide us with a stern test too but we had enough quality to secure ourselves the result, Jamie Donley with the goal to secure us all 3 points, the youngster is really making a big impression on me so far this season, he may well be our #1 striker sooner rather than later. WEST HAM | Premier League | London Stadium | 62,500 One advantage of playing games in quick succession is it doesn't take long for players to get another chance to shine. This time it was the turn of Šeško to take the spotlight, he has struggled slightly since his big move from RB Leipzig, these are his 6th and 7th goals of the season but he is picking up a reputation for the chances his misses rather than the ones he scores, we've seen strikers arrive from the Bundesliga struggle before so to see Šeško take centre stage and become a match winner for us is very pleasing. The Premier League is arguably the most difficult league in the world and a return of 7 goals in 16 games isn't that bad whilst he is adapting to the division. Overall another strong, comfortable performance. CHELSEA | Premier League | Stamford Bridge | 41,837 This month was a case of saving the best until last. Our away record against the big 6 is pretty poor however this performance was nothing short of amazing. Again it was a case of superior finishing that won us the game but defensively we were excellent again. Our ability to keep going for the full 90 is becoming evident, we're picking up the great habit of scoring late in games and that's a solid trait to have within a team. Jamie Donley picked up a knock during the game but James Maddison rewarded us with a man of the match performance in his place. One downside of running an aggressive system is the effort required to achieve your goals is relentless and a side effect of this is an increased number of injuries and that's something we're beginning to experience. Minor muscle injuries can become commonplace and if we aren't careful things can quickly get out of control, to mitigate this during the next 3 months I will reduce our team training workload from the double intensity currently set to a more normal schedule. We're hoping to be in Europe next year too so we will have to consider our squad rotations even more carefully. Sometimes we suffer injuries due to bad luck and unfortunately Pape Matar Sarr falls into that category, he will miss the next 4/6 months after suffering a broken leg whilst tackling in training. We are moving into January now and because of Sarr's injury I will look into bringing someone in for cover. I'm not entirely sure of the approach I'm going to take yet in terms of the level of player we will bring in, for example do we sign a younger player with lower playing expectations for cover or someone who can come in and do the job for us right now, to make things slightly more complicated Rodrigo Bentacur's form is becoming a concern, he hasn't performed all season and my gut feeling tells me he hasn't fully settled into England. Guglielmo Vicario is starting to gain some interest from Saudi Arabia, I've been delighted with Vicario so far this season and I've not said that about many goalkeepers on FM24, I will look into offering him a new contract but wont be held to ransom. One thing I've tended to do over the years on FM is running a fairly stringent wage bill, something which aligns with the realism of this save fairly well mainly because of who owns the club, Daniel Levy! Edited August 14 by danyates8 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leobiazzi Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 Very good results in what is the hardest month of a Premier League manager! Based on my own experience, I've seen the new HoY take a couple of seasons to "activate", but I've also sern a new HoY find great players in the first youth intake of the save. Maybe you were just unlucky? Maybe it's because there are a lot of other good clubs in London? Anyway, I think @Jimbokav1971 can answer your questions about youth intake. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 14 Author Share Posted August 14 5 hours ago, leobiazzi said: Very good results in what is the hardest month of a Premier League manager! Based on my own experience, I've seen the new HoY take a couple of seasons to "activate", but I've also sern a new HoY find great players in the first youth intake of the save. Maybe you were just unlucky? Maybe it's because there are a lot of other good clubs in London? Anyway, I think @Jimbokav1971 can answer your questions about youth intake. Thanks, yeah we are on a strong run right now, we've really unlocked the potential of the CAM with the tactical tweak it seems. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 14 Author Share Posted August 14 (edited) Sneak peak into a system I've created to recognise how our staff fit within our system based around their preferred mentality, formation and pressing style. Ill be conducting a full review into all squads once the staff contract situation at the end of the season becomes clear Edited August 14 by danyates8 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
john1 Posted August 15 Share Posted August 15 Superb month! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 15 Author Share Posted August 15 Yeah we are playing well right now Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlfieLucas Posted August 15 Share Posted August 15 Glad to see you doing so well, excellent December. Bossing Chelsea as well, always pleasing to see. Keep it up! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 15 Author Share Posted August 15 Despite our stellar form in December, we still didn't do enough to secure manager of the month award, we've had to settle for 2nd place behind Zinedine Zidane of Man Utd. They have improved drastically under the stewardship of Zidane. Joining at the back end of last January, he enjoyed a fine start to his Utd career but it fizzled out to end last season to finish 7th. This season however they have been a different beast, their form during December is quite astonishing, played 9 games in total winning them all, 8 of which were in the Premier League. We can only concentrate on ourselves though and up to now we are doing a a real good, the squad is in a good place performing well and in terms of long term potential we've got a long way to go yet. Our new signings have performed okay for the most part, Ilias Akhomach being the stand out so far, quite ironic considering I saw him as a player for the future upon arrival. One thing we are struggling with though is injuries, we have had a consistent stream of them for the most part of the season but October and December were particularly bad months. Our medical team on paper should have the attributes to deal with things but we aren't getting the desired results so I'm thinking of applying the same rules to the medical team that I do with our coaching staff. If we can find people who fit the philosophy that may help mitigate the drastic injury lists we are currently dealing with. With Pape Matar Sarr being out for 4-6 months, I've targeted a replacement and we've managed to secure a good deal for the club in the shape of, Tommy Doyle. He comes in as a fringe player, on a good contract and increases our quota of English players, that's something id like to do more of given the opportunity. We don't need many fringe players throughout the squad but Doyle seems perfect as he can cover a variety of roles and fits within the club vision. He is only 23 so in the long term we can make money on him as well as we managed to snag him for £6.5M which is a snip in todays market. In some more positive news we've been able to convince goalkeeper, Guglielmo Vicario, to sign a new deal. He has had a 40k p/w pay rise and is now considered an important player but he fully deserves it, I've mentioned previously - goalkeepers on FM24 give me the jitters. Vicario has been outstanding for us on the whole and I've got full confidence in him being our #1 for a long time. We do have an issue arising with Brennan Johnson however, he wants a new deal but his expectations are far to great, he is looking for 150k p/w with an important role within the squad. I cant promise the latter and the pay expectations are silly, that sort of money will be for important squad members not rotation options. One thing id like to note before I detail the games is a little sign of our rapid progress. Spurs finished on 49 points last season, a shocking total and its a total we have surpassed after only 24 games. A sure sign we are heading in the right direction. Some title race is developing too! So I think Januarys results are a great indicator of our level, best of the rest. At home we give as good as we get without getting over the line but away from home we haven't quite got enough in our locker yet to topple the top teams. Liverpool caused us real issues and they are for sure a level above us. MAN UTD | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 A combination of poor finishing and poor defending led us to todays result, if we were slightly better in either department we would of won but it wasn't to be. Brennan Johnson missing a fantastic 0.3 xG opportunity in the last minute but he could only scuff the shot wide. He wasn't the only one guilty of missing good opportunities but his was the best chance of the ones we did miss. Pedro Porro made a pretty horrific individual error giving the ball away cheaply for Man Utds 2nd goal. It does seem to be errors that are catching us out at this level. PRESTON | FA Cup third round | Deepdale | 23,404 A comfortable 2-0 victory against Preston in the FA cup, we dominated from start to finish and didn't allow Preston to muster a single shot. Extreme dominance, the score line could of been far more comfortable though had Brennan Johnson dispatched one of the TWO penalties he missed. He has really lost his shooting boots it seem, going further to convince me I'm correct in not offering him the 150k p/w he thinks he warrants. MAN CITY | Carabao Cup semi-final 1st leg | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 We seem to have gotten to the semi finals of the Carabao cup without much fuss at all and Spurs first trophy since 2008 is now in sight but we ended up coming away from the 1st leg tie thinking 'what could of been?' We created the better chances but we were denied by the woodwork 3 times. We did grab the lead with 20 mins left but were unable to hold on with City equalising 10 mins later. Heart breaking stuff to leave us with a difficult task of now getting a result at the Etihad. SOUTHAMPTON | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 54,710 So we ended up doing a small experiment during this game, we had no fit natural right back so we decided to employed a libero to step into midfield as our 2/3rd man. It worked really well, Romero had a great game and so did Drăgușin who stepped in as the inverted full back. this gives us another potential combination we can employ to give us the desired shape. Šeško had a very good performance however he is slightly inconsistent although I'm very hopeful he can iron that out as he settles into life in England. LIVERPOOL | Premier League | Anfield | 61,276 This is the fixture that gives us the best indication of where we currently are as a team. We were always in the game but lacked the clinical edge to punish Liverpool whereas they created 2 quality chances and scored them both. Despite the loss I'm coming away pleased, we learn the most from these type of fixtures, we know we can compete against these top team but more context is needed - we aren't in Europe so our fixture schedule is significantly less demanding than the other top sides so how will we cope with the extra workload? In our favour, we are a newly assembled team with lots of newcomers to the country and we have 13 members of the first team squad that are 23 or below so we've also got lots of room to develop and improve. Champions League football will also be critical in attracting the talent that can actually improve our squad. DERBY | FA Cup 4th round | Pride Park | 32,944 Another Championship team in a cup competition and another dominant performance. I've been really pleased with our cup performances, its a credit to the players who don't play as regularly but step in and give us solid performances. Maxime Estève and Josh Doig are both fringe players for us, yet when called upon they play really well. Into the 5th round now and we are chugging along nicely in another cup competition. Can we win a trophy in our first season? The back end of the season is in sight and we are ticking along at a nice rate however, again, we've picked up a few injuries and we are heading into February without our first choice goalkeeper, centre back and left back. The contract situation with Brennan Johnson is causing a slight issue, he has a few players in agreement with him, no one with an influential standing within the squad but nevertheless he has some support. Radu Drăgușin has also told us he is after a new deal, he wants around 110k p/w which is on the steep side, I've not agreed to that yet as I still believe there's room for negotiation but he is likely to get offered a deal eventually. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 18 Author Share Posted August 18 (edited) We head into February with a few injuries problems as mentioned in the previous post with the biggest concerns around Guglielmo Vicario and Micky Van de Ven with both set to miss around 2/3 weeks, the centre back situation is pretty delicate at the minute as Radu Drăgușin, our main rotation option is currently unhappy due the contract situation, he wants an unreasonable pay rise and I'm holding firm although I'm more than willing to negotiate. We are now aided by the return of young Ashley Phillips from his loan spell at WBA. In terms of opposition we have 4 winnable games in the Premier League alongside our massive 2nd leg of the Carabao Cup semi final against Man City, that tie is balanced on a knife-edge after the first leg with the scores currently level at 1-1, a huge month for our season and unfortunately it didn't go to plan. As you can see from the graphic we've struggled immensely this month, with one saving grace being we were able to get to the Carabao Cup final. I've removed that particular result from the graphic and will go into detail below. I'm really disappointed with how this month has gone overall, given the end of last month we were 4 points behind the league leaders with a game in hand we are now 14 points behind with the game still in hand, its safe to say we are well out of the title race - not that I ever really considered we were in a title race! BRIGHTON | Premier League | Amex Stadium | 31,479 I have to hold my hands up and admit fault for the result today, I decided to give young Ashley Phillips his debut it backfired with the youngster making a pretty horrendous mistake costing us a goal. Fraser Forster was also displaying his rustiness as he was at fault for another one of Brighton's goals. That's back to back defeats for the first time this season and recent years shows that will be pretty costly to any title aspirations. Top 4 is now the target. MAN CITY | Carabao Cup semi-final 2nd leg | Etihad Stadium | 53,400 Now for our luckiest result of the save so far, we were comprehensively outplayed from minute one yet managed to sneak a win with the last kick of the game, totally undeserved from the performance we put in but at the end of the day its the result that matters. We have made a final in our first season at the club and we will face Brighton who we have already lost to this month. Guglielmo Vicario put in a performance for the ages despite only returning to training the day prior to this game. LEEDS | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 59,865 If Benjamin Šeško can find a clinical edge I really do believe he can become one of the worlds best strikers however his finishing today was nothing short of embarrassing. He got himself into a fantastic position within the 6 yard box facing the goal yet his effort went out for a throw in! It wasn't the only great chance the young Slovenian had yet he left his shooting boots at home. That makes it 3 in a row without a win in the league and only 1 win in 5. CRYSTAL PALACE | Premier League | Selhurst Park | 25,486 Another game where poor finishing has cost us the points, we got off to a good start through young striker Jamie Donley however weren't able to capitalise on any of the other chances we created. We did employ a 4-3-3 in hopes to spark a better attacking performance but it didn't go in our favour, in hindsight this was probably a poor decision, James Maddison struggled to impress from a deeper position and both of our wingers failed to impress. Frustratingly Palace created 2 half decent chances but were able to convert them both showing the clinical edge that we were lacking. We are still picking up niggling injuries here and there and fatigue may now be becoming an issue due to our all action style. ASTON VILLA | Premier League | The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 59,676 Our poor form continues but there were at least some positives from this one, we showed heart and desire and came from behind twice to come away with a draw which is a fair result. That does make it 5 games without a win in the league and we now find ourselves in a fight to make 4th place. Obviously I'm really disappointed with our drastic drop off in form but in reality we were overachieving in the first half of the season, it does give me great confidence for the coming seasons though because we're still only at the beginning of the project and have lots of room for growth throughout the squad. Now its time for the biggest fixture of our season so far, we've done really well to get to the final knocking out Man City and Chelsea along the way, Brighton provided the opposition for the final. We come into the final in terrible form with confidence levels shot, there are murmurs of discontent within the squad however I'm sure that is only media waffle as I've personally had no complaint from any players yet, there has been a drop in morale but that's to be expected during a poor run, I don't expect players to be happy when they are losing! Gutted, we came into the game low on confidence and it showed, we have now had a few occasions recently where we have taken the lead but have been unable to capitalise on the momentum we build. We grabbed our goal at the perfect time - right at the end of the first half. If we could of rode out the initial 15 mins of the 2nd half the result could of been different but to be fair to Brighton they came out with serious intentions, another game where we picked up another injury too. We are now in a position where we are looking to save our season, its crazy how fast your fortunes can change. STOKE | FA Cup 5th round | The Bet365 Stadium | 30,560 3 days after our final disappointment we travelled to Stoke in the FA cup, more of the same performance wise however we were able to sneak through on penalties. I think we've burnt ourselves out physically and emotionally over the last few weeks, we have really crumbled. We have struggled to deal with injuries which has led to certain positions having a lack of rotation issues which can then lead to fatigue issues with the players that are fit, its a fairly vicious roundabout. We don't have effective striking back up if Benjamin Šeško isn't firing, Marcus Leonardo just isn't someone we can rely on at all - he has really underwhelmed with his performances so far this season and I'm running out of confidence in his ability to turn things around however that's probably just frustration of our recent poor form. Kang-In Lee is another who has failed to convince however these are young players moving to the toughest league in the world so it would be unfair to dismiss them within 1 season, they are both still young and have scope to improve. So one thing we have done is retain our 'Spursy' tag, losing a cup final and throwing away any faint hopes of a title charge, we now find ourselves in a race for 4th place and will need to improve our form quickly to make sure we don't throw that away too. Edited August 19 by danyates8 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcussy Posted August 19 Share Posted August 19 Enjoying this - great writing style. Matter of time before you turn things around I'm sure. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyates8 Posted August 19 Author Share Posted August 19 9 minutes ago, Marcussy said: Enjoying this - great writing style. Matter of time before you turn things around I'm sure. Thanks for the kind words, annoying we lost our cup final however these things happen I suppose. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted August 19 Share Posted August 19 Cool looking graphics and nice detail on the matches, squad building and even coaching staff. What tool are you using to create the graphical stuff? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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