Jtomsett11

Great to see the progress this season, feels like the new tactics have paid off! Enjoy your holiday!

I really enjoy every part of your analysis and save, but the squad building parts are my favourite. It's an area I've always enjoyed, but I think seeing how you go about trying to find those bargains in the less recognised academies that I can learn from as I'm great once my team are well established but rely a little on pot luck of my scouts finding good young players when I'm growing a side. Good to see you up at the top end of the table too, it seems to me you're not a million miles off challenging for the title although you've set your aspirations at top 4.

June 2026 Castilla vs Alaves + Hercules vs Deportivo We started the game on top, missing a couple of good chances as usual. Around 15 minutes I changed my view to be able to see the latest scores for Castilla vs Alaves. Wow, 3 goals in 3 minutes! Now, can we find a goal? We're dominating, but no breakthrough yet. Towards half time I make a couple of adjustments, deciding we're dominating, so I'll add the wing back overlaps and attacking wing backs coupled with supporting IFs that I've used a few times against teams who sit back a lot. No real clear cut chances before half time. I'm tempted to make some substitutes, but wait until the 62nd minute when Garner comes on to replace Val, who is looking tired, Zalazar comes on at AMC to replace Cirjan who isn't having the best game and Bravo replaces Quiles. Then, 68 minutes in, a poor ball forward by Narro is headed up in the air by a defender and Narro wins the contest and suddenly the CB is well out of position. Bravo collects the nod-down from Narro and the inside forward sprints through. A beautiful ball from Bravo sees Narro in space on the edge of the area and he bends a lovely shot around into the bottom left hand corner with his left foot. We have lift off! We go more defensive. Hercules scare us a couple of times, but then as we enter crunch-time, Mella collects a ball over the top near the byline, cuts back and finds Garner on the corner of the area. He has a lot to do, but jinxes his way across the box diagonally and then lashes home from the six-yard box. It's 2-0! Narro going off injured meant we spent the last few minutes with 10 men, but we held on. The question now, is did Castilla? Alaves would have had to score 5 to stop us going above them, and they didn't!! We're going up! I immediately wanted to check how we'd done with our new tactic compared to the downloaded one. Now, would we have gone up without the downloaded tactic, almost certainly not because of our terrible start. However, over a whole season my new tactic would have seen us promoted, and with that in mind I'm having this one! Our last 6 games have seen 5 wins as we've grown familiar with the approach and this has seen us finish second despite having only been second for 23 minutes of the entire season! It's certainly not Premier League budgets, but we'll take this!

May 2026 6 games left. Deportivo 2-0 Barcelona Atletic A solid start with a penalty; it was a bit of relief to get the second and avoid 4 draws in a row! Oviedo 2-3 Deportivo When Zalazar passed across our goal line in the first minute, past Suarez and straight to Borja Baston, I thought we were in for another tough day. We then let them in two or three times for chances they really should have scored, but it was still 1-0 at half time. We changed things in the second half, going more attacking but changing the roles of the wing backs to support and dropping the tempo slightly. This meant we were caught out slightly less and to be honest, we were brilliant. The late goal conceded made me nervous, but we held out for 2 wins in a row for the first time since I started using my own tactics again! I thought we did this last season, but perhaps it was a new objective set this season? The league has suddenly gotten interesting. Next up? We're home against Eibar. Deportivo 3-0 Eibar We're in the mood again. For 40 minutes I didn't think we'd make our dominance pay, but then we scored from a corner and sealed it in the second half through Narro and Quiles. Play-offs look pretty secure now with 4 games to go, but we're now believing we could do even better. We'll have to pick up 4 points on Alaves though as our head-to-head favours them. Leganes 1-0 Deportivo Probably should have scored, didn't and then went too offensive and left ourselves open. I should have settled for a point in hindsight! Still 3 points off as Alaves lost as well. Currently our best performer this season by average rating, Panzo also had a really low release fee clause and was happy to accept the same wages to push it up to nearly £5 million. If teams want our best players, I want them to have to pay properly for them! Deportivo 4-1 Alcorcon Our best month by far since I resumed tactical responsiblities! Villares was in the right place at the right time for the first two goals and then we let him take the penalty for his hat-trick. So we head in to the final game, knowing if we better Alaves' result we go up automatically, otherwise we're in the playoffs! We should probably both win our games...

Youth intake April 2026 This is good. This is really good. Probably 6-7 players capable of playing for the first team on the first day of the intake. By the end of the month, quite a few more were rated highly. The top 4 when the intake came through are below: A great personality and pretty solid attributes for a 15 year old. A potential star? Not the best personality, but he is at least determined. He looks great, especially physically! If he didn't have 5 star potential I might not be excited about Oca, but let's see how he develops and if he lives up to his perceived potential. Another striker, this time with mentals, but with a bit of growth his physicals wouldn't be bad either. What an intake! Attribute wise, there aren't too many surprises, although Queijeiro definitely looks a better inside forward than pressing forward which I'm now using.

April 2026 Deportivo 3-0 Lugo Things worked perfectly here, with three really good, well worked team moves leading to the goals. Mella and Narro have been key this season, and with the latter's minimum release clause below £1 million and interest in him mounting I decided to renew his contract. When you consider he's scored 5 out of 12 career goals for us just this season and also consider that at one point he couldn't get in my third-division side, I think he's done brilliantly to develop and now perform on a regular basis. I love players like Narro who you could easily have sold (and I nearly did for £400k) who then go on to develop and perform way above what you expected. Deportivo 1-1 Tenerife Tenerife came, we battered them, and we still drew. What I'm pleased about it the xG, you can see that while we still have quite a few shots of low value, there were numerous decent chances and at least one sitter. If we were a little more clinical we'd have won this easily. Castilla 1-1 Deportivo When you consider the fact that the goal was a penalty, there's 2-3 other pretty decent chances (0.25xG plus) in there again! I'm potentially looking at dropping our tempo a little so we take a bit more time over things, but plenty of positives to take in that we should be winning these games. Our loanee striker is going to miss a few weeks. Mirandes 1-1 Deportivo Well, we rescued a point here. Again, Quiles missed a sitter at the start. I'm starting to think that we need a better and more clinical forward next year as Quiles is now 30. 6 games to go, 5 points clear of Oviedo who are the next eligible team to play in the play-offs. That's the aim really.

End of Feb-March 2026 The Racing game onwards was me using our new tactic. We're still playing 4-2-3-1, but it's my version of the gegenpressing tactic now, and clearly it doesn't work as well! We've won 2, drawn 2 and lost 2. However, we're playing well and we've been a little unlucky and a little lacking in clinical finishing and that can explain why perhaps we didn't pick up more than 8 points from the 6 games. Racing de Santander 1-2 Deportivo We recovered from going behind early on to score two good goals. Although our build up play was pretty good, we did rely on scoring from a re-working of a corner for our second goal. Still, a good start. Deportivo 1-1 Getafe A frustrating one as we created enough chances to win, but didn't do enough to get over the line. Rubio continued his excellent season with a really well taken goal from a brilliant through ball from Zalazar. Looking at our xG, you can see that while we had lots of low quality chances, we also had some reasonable chances that we possibly should have taken. Leganes 1-0 Deportivo Ah, the sucker punch injury-time-own-goal! Trilli deflected a shot over Suarez and I really don't feel we deserved to lose. We may not have deserved to win either, but it's a hard one to take. We're a little short on players after the Leganes game. That's our first choice AMC, LB and then backup AMR and AMR injured, while we're still down to 3 CBs. We're fine, but it's not ideal! Deportivo 2-0 Badajoz Okay, there's too many shots here being taken, but this was really positive. We created some good chances and deserved the win. Another injury followed, Val, who's been a regular fixture this year. Las Palmas 1-0 Deportivo We can't have loads of complaints here, but we were undone by one good counter attack (0.6xG) and other than that dominated the game. We're not creating enough clear cut chances and a lot of our shots are from corners or are blocked/ deflected. Food for thought. Huesca 1-1 Deportivo Another draw. We definitely should have won this game as we missed at least 3 great chances. Quiles' goal was from a very low xG shot. We're obviously not picking up loads of points, so we're not in contention for automatic promotion, but we are for the play-offs and we're still in there at the moment.

Thanks - this is much appreciated! I've played two months now with my own tactics and while less successful, I'm enjoying it more again. We're playing nice football still, but we don't win 6-0 for no apparent reason, which was taking the joy out of it for me.

Club developments during tactical frustration period October-Feb! While I've been having my tactical dilemmas, the club has still continued to tick along. Our training facilities were upgraded, which is great. We've also had some significant progress for our loan players. Vallejo is top of the progress charts and I've been really impressed with his growth in the last two seasons. Work to do, but he looks like he could be quite a solid keeper if he continues to grow. We also lost one of our home-grown players in January due to a buy-out clause. Bloody annoying to be honest as I didn't see the bid come in so could do nothing about it. We've signed a young player on loan, but he's injured for 4 months so we're down to 3 CB for the remainder of the season. A couple of our young players have done really well this season (downloaded tactic partially responsible?). Rubio was promoted from the U19s for this season and is doing great, while Gomez nearly went out on loan but has repaid my faith/ nobody really offered to take him on loan. Both players have signed new deals now to reflect their performances.

As you can see from my post just now, things haven't gone great and I have ended up using downloaded tactics for a while and now loathing that I made that decision! It's interesting that you got 3 at the back to work, kudos as I just couldn't get it to work! I'm going back to the drawing board slightly and creating my tactic from scratch again as I'm pretty sure I've ended up with a formation that doesn't really fit my instructions this season as a result of tinkering.

Frustrations, frustrations and tactics This iteration of FM has been a frustrating one for me at times, with my ability to play the game severely hampered by a growing family and increased working (over) commitments meaning I'm usually working at least 3 evenings a week, sometimes 4 or 5. If I then try to fit in some exercise, I'm often not touching the game for a week or two at a time. I really enjoy writing about my career, but obviously that comes at the expense of playing too. Therefore, having hit a brick wall after September's form, not enjoying the rare time I was able to spend playing, I went back to one of my old habits with FM that I haven't resorted to for quite a few years; downloading tactics. The immediate impact wasn't that obvious. We drew our first two games but with perhaps more style than we'd been playing. However, in the last two games of October, we absolutely tore Las Palmas and Huesca to shreds. Against Las Palmas we had 10 men for 70 minutes. We scored two headed goals, a free-kick and 2 worldies. The domination against Huesca was complete too. My initial feeling was one of extreme satisfaction as we went from mainly inept to scoring 10 in two games. We were still 8th and our overall record wasn't great. In November, we had mixed success. At home our downloaded tactics continued to be successful, but away we got hit on the counter and lost 2 out of 3 games. It didn''t feel like a super tactic, but boy was it fun to watch! We then sat in 10th, so again, I felt as though we weren't gaining a huge advantage, but I also didn't feel ridiculously frustrated with the game. We were still yet to win away, with 4 draws and 5 losses. December came around and we had just 2 home games to play. We duly won those, and one only just. This boosted us up to 6th, and right back in the hunt for the play-offs. However, I was starting to remember why I stopped downloading tactics. I was starting to click through games more quickly, making very few changes other than substitutes and changing wing back to full back roles when we were 2-0 or so up. It didn't feel as immersive, and it no longer really felt like my success. Despite this, I felt I deserved a break and a few wins and therefore had this debate going on in my head when playing. By the end of January, my squad had become much more familiar with our downloaded tactics and this was showing. We won two away games and beat Celta Vigo in the cup much to the delight of the fans. Our first Galacian derby and we smashed them. Yes, we went out in the next round, but we'd still done really well. The only problem is that it was still feeling quite hollow. When I think back to how brilliant winning the league felt, I realised that I wasn't feeling the same way. However, the issue of time held me back from scrapping the tactics. Was I going to have time to make something even 75% as successful? I felt not. Our form had seen us jump to third. I continued as I was for most of February. However, the wins and results became less and less important and I couldn't justify just focusing on the development of my players in my head either. I got to the third game of the month and I'd had enough. I stopped playing. I've since had some time away and have decided to continue the save, but scrapping the tactics and going back to my own, come-what-may. This is a slight challenge, as the downloaded ones use the same formation and I obviously now know that some things just work. This is where we currently sit: If I'd continued with these tactics, I'd have probably won the league or finished second. I'm anticipating that this won't happen now, but that's fine. The caveat to my decision is that if I now lose the next 10 games just to my inability to spend lots of time tinkering and analysing my tactical success, I'll be stuck in nomansland not wanting to use a downloaded tactic but also not wanting to play . Let's see what happens!

If he isn't 'unambitious' or 'low determination' as his personality, and is something decent, I'd bet on him turning out alright!

I would not be surprised at all if Alexandrou turns out to be the best of the lot. I remember with the Bulls I had the 7th best player of my intake with high current ability go on to be a £10 million striker. What's his personality like?

Saw this in the last data update and thought of your many comments regarding the inability to boost youth recruitment beyond level 19 - hopefully sorted now!

Real swings in form this season it seems, do you think that's just the nature of having such a young team? You're obviously still doing very very well, but seems like you may need your team to mature a bit before being able to challenge in this league. Definitely seems harder to do youth only on FM23 which is also more realistic.

September 2025 A good start to the month and it didn't get much better from there. Unlike last month, where we created lots but just didn't finish and really should have won 3 of the 4 games, this month we were really poor. Girona 1-1 Depor We were really lucky to come away with a point here, with LB Varela scoring a great free kick to bring us level. We seem overrun in midfield but toothless upfront. Depor 1-0 Racing de Santander We won from a brilliant through ball from Garner for Mella, but from then on it was a drab game. Yes, we held them at bay, but we really didn't create much and I'm starting to worry if I'm honest. Getafe 2-1 Depor We were outplayed in the first half, but actually took the game to them in the second half and Rubio got his first goal for us. For about 10 minutes we looked like we might win it but they scored from an offside looking situation from a cross and the one shot on target shows how much we created overall as we looked to equalise. We probably shouldn't be beating Getafe, but the manner of our recent play is concerning. We look second best to everything. Badajoz 1-0 Depor The absolute low-point as we conceded a sucker punch when mostly in control. Once they scored we went a big more gung-ho and that's when they had their chances. We really should have scored early on and then we wouldn't have been in the position where we tried to push for score and left ourselves open. There we are, down in 16th and in a precarious position. We're not really scoring and that's costing us, as defensively we're better than most teams in the league according to goals conceded. Last time we played this poorly was in season 1 when I was trying to get a 3 at the back system working. I spent a long time fiddling with tactics and eventually found a 4-2-4 that worked really well until half way through last season. My time for playing FM is very much restricted for this edition and I'm at a point where I'm considering having a look at some downloadable tactics to allow me to enjoy the evenings where I do get time to play a month of FM as at the moment it's a real struggle. I haven't used downloaded tactics for a number of editions, and always feel it takes the gloss off any achievements, but I also want to be able to enjoy playing FM which this season has not allowed for yet. Things to consider! We've got 3 home games next month, we really, really need to start picking up some points!

August 2025 Not quite the start we wanted. Ibiza 1-1 Depor What a start to the season with a 2nd minute penalty! However, we couldn't live up to it and after some really good play and an overturned second penalty we conceded late on to draw. To be honest, I think this is a decent start away from home. Depor 1-1 Granada Garner might be off the mark with a lovely finish after finding space on the edge of the area after a decent run past static defenders, but overall this is incredibly frustrating. We missed chance after chance and then that allowed Granada into the game. 1-1 feels very flat with just 2 points on the board. Alaves 2-1 Depor Alaves scored 2 goals from 0.23 xG in the first half while we toiled and missed great chances. Going ultra attacking led to a consolation goal, but again it was very frustrating as we outplayed our superior opponents and came away with nothing to show for it! Depor 3-1 Real Zaragoza Yay, we win! This was what I've been waiting for as we turn it on in the first half. Cirjan gets his first goal, as does Bravo and Narro also scored from a great through-ball. Really pleased despite a late goal conceded from a corner. So just the 5 points from 4 games which isn't great, but at least we're off the mark win-wise. September looks pretty tough to be honest, so we'll need to win the home game at the very least and probably away to Badajoz is one to target with the first team.

Pre-season August 2025 A really positive pre-season to be honest as we beat some decent sides and go close with Newcastle. We've got quite a tough start, and I'm not really sure where we should be aiming. My head says play-offs would be a realistic aim. The bookies reckon 9th and the board and team want mid-table. The good news is that we've got a really healthy bank balance to help us on the way, and we also had a training upgrade approved which will please new signing Williams as I promised him that when he joined!

July 2025 new signings Lots of new faces, perhaps too many. Our first team probably looks like this now: And our second string like this, with the exception of Villares who is out injured and will replace Camilo as backup when he's fit, with Val given some game time to start. Santamaria is the other player hanging around, he's suddenly very unhappy that we sold Mella despite his minimum fee release clause being met... New faces In Klaesson we bring in a competent backup who doesn't have too many weaknesses at this level. Could Panzo be better at defending? Yes, absolutely, but I also like his physicals and we struggled with that last season, so in he comes. I needed a new LB and I'm very happy with Williams, who could also play on the wing if needed. He's also only 21 and on very little money, bonus. I've gone physical over technical with my defenders but Hoever is someone I think can do a great job and he's also very versatile. He should offer more going forward than Blas did. I wanted a better CM and paid actual money for Garner but with the agreement that Everton would pay £8.5k a week of his wages. He's way better than anything we already had and I think he'll do well once he's picked up the language. Another player who I think will do really well; he can pass the ball, he's got the decision making ability and flair to pull off the unexpected and he's physical enough to win some battles. Low wages and a 3 year contract, yes I'm very happy with his signing. Potentially an odd signing seeing as Quiles has done so well and Lavin is a young prospect, but I made the decision that Lavin would benefit from regular game time on loan and therefore wanted to bring in someone to compete with Quiles. We missed out on lots of permanent transfers so when I found Bravo available I thought it was worth spending some of the Mella income on him. Not a new signing, but I thought it worth showing you Rubio who I expect to give lots of game time to this year. I really like him and with a bit more development think he'll turn into a really good player for us. He progressed so much on loan last year so we want to give him 15-20 starts this year if we can. That's quite a lot of signings, and a lot of players leaving on loan (Lavin was last to leave on loan after a couple of league games). I really hope the new side gels quickly and our young players develop as they've got a lot of potential, but I just didn't feel I'd play many of them this year.

Attribute analysis July 2025 I've decoupled this from the squad planner as it keeps resetting and I was spending more time doing that than was necessary. It's a really good idea, but a poorly implemented feature that seems to lose your U19s from the list and add every trialee to all the positions they could possibly play. I have also done my summer shopping prior to doing the attribute analysis, so you'll see some new names that I'll introduce after. Goalkeeper Suarez made great progress last season and is well worthy of the number 1 spot. In the long term, Angueira and Vallejo could be good options; both will go out on loan this season to develop while Klaesson is a new signing for the backup spot. LB Still using the IWB, Varela is 29 so no longer improving, but Williams is the newcomer who I hope will still improve. Barcia showed good development in this role towards the end of last year, while I don't have huge hopes for any of the other youngsters; Azzaoui is small (jumping 7) and slow (pace 7) which doesn't really show promise for full back or centre back roles. RB Trilli hasn't really improved which is a shame, but he's the most effective RB despite not being the best attribute wise. New signing Hoever is a familiar name and is very physical, something Trilli also has and I wanted consistency in our back line in terms of height. CBs The top list is ball playing defenders, the bottom just plain CBs. Trilli has developed in terms of these attributes, as has Barcia so that's pleasing. Panzo is the new-boy who replaces Sanchez who was too small for my liking. BWM Val improved slightly, but is still well behind Villares in terms of attributes. Padilla grew quite a bit last year as did Yusuf but I'll probably send both out on loan to get more game time. RPM Another familiar name, Garner joins and is by far our best CM. Yusuf is the one improving quite a bit, although he's the determination 5 unambitious bloke so we'll probably loan him out once he's done some position retraining (he's much better at AMC I've found out from doing this analysis) as game time is the only thing that will help him develop. Gomez didn't grow at all last year so that's disappointing, but look at what Hector Rubio did out on loan! 8 point progression is really good! I think he'll be getting game time this year. Padilla and Jimenez will head out on loan after solid development and some first team exposure as we've seen what that does to players with the right personalities. Crespo will also go out on loan as he regresses last year. AMC The reason I want to retain Yusuf is clear here! If we can retrain him then send him out on loan to play as an AMC he could become quite useful despite his personality. He's only 17 after all. Cirjan is a new signing on a free from Arsenal and increases our quality immediately. Rubio wasn't rated in this position before as we didn't have it on the spreadsheet, so he looks like he's stalled but he hasn't. AMR/L The top list is IF, the bottom list is Winger. Mella is back on loan and becomes our first player to hit the magic 80 mark. Rubio and Yusuf's development is clear again here. Ares and Gomez haven't improved much so I may not invest much more time in them due to limited output last season. Striker Bravo comes in to compete with Quiles upfront. Kevin improved a lot on loan, but he still can't really run and that's not great in a 1 striker formation. Diez played a few games for us, but will go out on loan, as may Carlos to aid their development. Until our B team is in a league we're not sending players there and lots of these youngsters are 18 or 17 and ready for game time.

Mella sale July 2025 Mella is definitely our best player, and when the board accepted an offer for £6 million from Wolfsburg, I offered him out for £8 million, plus a friendly and 50% next sale, which Newcastle agreed. They also then offered to loan him back to us which is great. This is what he looked like on the day he sold. I'm unsure if he'll make it big, but he could net us some decent money in the future and £8 million now sees our bank balance rise to: On the back of this, I immediately requested a few things, and mostly didn't get them, but did get a youth recruitment increase and an increase in coaches.

Signings and transfers update July 2025 I've really messed up with striker transfers in this game. Rodrigo was brilliant last season, but we lost him on a free as I forgot his contract was up for renewal. Mraz joined this year on a stupid promise I'd never fulfill and left, while Tolaj was signed on a free and also left due to unhappiness. While I've profited from the latter two, it made me want to consider my record on signings overall. 2022-23 Tono - success - has now just retired from football after playing really well for us for 2 years. Martinez - failed loan spell Rodrigo - success but failure in terms of me not renewing his contract Varela - success, still with us. 2023-34 Blas - limited success - has been a useful option De la Fuente - success and then was sold in same season for £1.6 million release clause Sene - failure 2024/25 Saenz - success so far Camilo - failure so far Mraz - failure, but will gain £1.3million Tolaj - failure, but did gain £925k Summary That makes me feel slightly better. However, I'm clearly struggling to find a striker to eclipse Quiles who has been our main player in all 3 seasons with Santamaria doing well in 2023/24. We also haven't improved the central midfield yet at all, whereas CB, RB and LB we've had reasonable success.

End of season 2024/25 review It's been a while since I've been able to play, but I have been able to reflect on the season and the things I've done well and not so well so far. Final standings Sporting Gijon beat Girona to go up over the two-legged play-off final. We finish 6th, which is disappointing compared to the midway point, but is our highest finish for a number of years as you have to go back to 2018-19 to see Deportivo finishing 6th in La Liga 2. Therefore, in that context, it's a great season. Our increase in season tickets is excellent, as is our increased commercial income due to our promotion: Player performance I've played around with various stats views and in the end settled on a slight adjustment of the one I was already using. Goalkeepers Unfortunately, Mackay retired days before the play-offs and so I didn't retain his records for this year beyond his goals scored. Interestingly, Mackay scored 2 from 2 penalties in just 6 games, whereas Suarez missed 4 of his 7 penalties to have a 42.86% success rate. Not brilliant! In terms of goalkeeping performance, Suarez is a little worrying, conceding 0.13 goals extra per game than expected. When I look at league averages, he conceded almost 4 goals more than he should have and is also one of the worst with his expected saves vs. saves ratio. However, bar a couple of horrendous performances, I've actually been quite pleased with what I've seen from him. We've conceded too many, but he's 22 and has only this season had football experience at this level. Defenders I've tried to split my views into defensive and offensive key stats with separators to make life easier for me. My shorter CBs (Barcia and Sanchez) are definitely better at pressing and worse at heading. Saenz stands out for me in being better at winning headers and intercepting, while also being decent at tackling and blocks. In fact, for blocks in the league he's top. Lapena's key tackles also ranks him 8th in the league. However, we can't get past the fact we conceded quite a few goals this season and we need to improve in this area. Our LBs (Varela and Tono and sometimes Barcia) and RBs (Trilli and Blas) played very different roles this year, but apart from progressive passes being higher for our wing back RBs, you can't really tell the difference between the pairs. Trilli is 10th for open play key passes this year in the league and is also very high for high intensity sprints, while his 5 assists are more than the other 3 combined. Varela also contributed 2 goals while Barcia got 3 from IWB towards the end of the season, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this role develops next year. Midfield You might be able to argue we had too many players for 2 positions... I don't think anyone has really done that well this year. Olabe has 7 assists but Camilo had more key passes and yet we barely played him towards the end of the season as he wasn't very reliable defensively (although his figures here don't look too bad). I think what I may be considering looking at this is that I should have given Camilo more of a chance in the RPM role, especially when considering his progressive passes. Attacking midfield Mella stands out, indeed he's top of expected assists in the league with 8, he got 9 and scored 4 as well. Narro definitely did better than Zalazar on the right wing as an inside forward, his 5 assists and 3 goals all coming later on in the campaign. Ares and Gomez... I'm just not sure about either, yet technically they've done no worse than the others. However, as the going got tough, their performances definitely got worse. Room for improvement here. Strikers Tolaj was the other striker we had, but I've let him go. Quiles stands out significantly, with 19 goals from 11 xG and a conversion rate way higher than the others. Once Mraz was unhappy he missed a load of chances, and Santamaria certainly hasn't covered himself in glory since earning a new £11k a week contract at the end of last year. Lavin is still 16, so 6 goals is great and he put in some superb performances in the cup. We're overstocked in this department now we're moving to a 4-2-3-1, but I'm not sure I want Quiles, Santamaria and Lavin as my only options with Mraz set to leave. Santamaria isn't really suited to a 4-2-3-1 and he's also on £11k a week, but he's got a great personality and is mentoring some younger players. It's interesting that Val gets into the team of the season despite me not favouring him that often. No complaints here, Barcia's brilliant goal from 25 yards also my favourite of the season.

A tough start to the campaign, but I'm confident you'll stay up as the youngsters get experience at this level under their belt!

Play-offs June 2025 Coruna 1-3 Girona ] Infuriatingly I'd forgotten to load our new set pieces up to my adjusted tactic for home games and it came back to bite as the first conceded corner in months comes in the most important game. We equalised, but then just missed all our decent chances and they took theirs. Girona 0-1 Coruna The 5th minute red card gave us some real hope, which grew after Varela scored a brilliant free kick, but to be honest we just couldn't break them down and we let them have way too much possession. This 4231 seems to struggle when a team wants to just sit back as it lets them keep the ball endlessly and means we then can't build anything meaningful. Girona themselves would then lose to Sporting Gijon in the two-legged final. So, we're in La Liga 2 for next season as well, which all things considered is absolutely fine! 6th place in our first season at this level after promotion, we have to take that overall despite the excellent first half of the season.