BML

I'm looking forward to seeing what level you are when you are able to sign your first Brazilian - they seem to be one of the most travelled nationalities so I can't imagine it will be long!

No arguments here, I'd definitely give them a leg up as the game isn't going to move them to an active league on it's own.

Do you not find that the sheer amount of friendlies you play each season contributes to injuries/fatigue of the squad later on in the year? I'd never consider starting to get players fit in January for the first competitive fixture in April. Or are these simply trialist friendlies and your actual squad are nowhere near these?

The game seems to put a lot of reputation 'stock' into the facilities of the club, we've all seen the conversation option arguing the improvement would increase rep. I'd assume that as part of the administration they had to downgrade or reduce these parts of the club (pretty sure you can still do this) which I would guess explains the larger-than-expected drop to their rep.

In my save, TNS always seem to struggle domestically when they make the Conference League Stage, so this could be your year!

Something in the back of my mind is telling me that UEFA forced countries to bin that off, as it was diluting the competitions due to some lower level teams getting in (think Millwall about 20 years ago). In UEFA's mind, it is UEFA, and UEFA alone, who is allowed to dilute such competitions! EDIT: Found it - no mention of why but I suspect my reasoning is sound!

I'm more of a Sweet man myself In all seriousness, I think I'd have gone with the Savoury lad too, not just because he's younger, with more time to develop what's needed for the role, but he has a cool name which is obviously the most important thing in a player (outside of a rare nationality).

In my current Welsh save, TNS don't react well to not qualifying for Europe - they finished 6th one year and the following season they hired Mark Hughes (yep, the actual one) and pulled off an invincible season!

Are cars in the Solomon's available in any other colour apart from white? 6 games. 6 wins. Champions League. Never let it be said you're not efficient.

Shame to lose him but, like you say, the level you're at right now it's too much to turn down. Neither of these have a loan back clause though Jimbo, or have you renegotiated one in after the screenshot?

I would; it's a large part of the save!

Think this reasoning was added this year (or maybe FM23) to prevent the situations I regularly found myself in where I could quite easily loan players in (for little cost) for several seasons in a row - something I exploited a lot in an Argentinian save when I lost players to Europe. The crossing, dribbling and fitness of the LB Bentley is exactly what I'd be looking for in my team (I play attacking WBs from the LB strata), hopefully his decent personality means he can train up the work rate and acc/pace attributes in the next few years.

Good luck with this. I've tried something similar in my Wales save a couple of times and the international players that are both willing to come in on trial and sign a contract I can afford are rarely eligible for a work permit (thanks Boris). I've had the most luck offering trials to everyone released in the Scottish Prem (they release in May) and cast-offs from Prem, Champ and NornIre in June (much as you have). It's sometimes also worth looking into the countries that full under the Brexit agreement (there's a list in game) as you'll occasionally find suitable players there - I had two Gibraltarians in my squad for the early part of my tenure in Wales, for example, with a Turks & Caicos backup 'keeper still on my books. Of course, all of this screws you up for European competitions as you need Welsh trained players, but you're not there just quite yet!

No better way to introduce India to the World Cup than getting drawn with Brazil! Good luck against the Irish.

Is Dick (32e) worth a punt at 8 grand? I remember him from earlier in the save (likely due to his name rather than ability I'll admit) and you saying you wanted to bring him back on loan a few pages back (I looked back for this) but if he's upset where he is, he could be a cheap squad player for season.

Sorry for the delay, you've probably made your choice by now, but this guy, Jay, of the three would be the one for me. Unless he gets a big stat pop from the ContPro licence he's working on, he won't make the 'best' future AssMan but he's the best Tact/WWY coach and his personality is a mostly positive one (as we've discussed before in this thread). I didn't even consider the middle guy, I just cannot bring myself to hire anyone (staff or player) who doesn't have an in-game face!

This guy gets my vote. You've already highlighted the worst coach so I'll ignore him. I'd actually be tempted to keep the 899 GK coach James Candlish over the Temperamental Jedi, despite the worse attributes - if keeping one coach I'd always prioritise the more well-rounded. If he's your set piece coach, the £15 p/w AssMan should stay as that's excellent value despite his personality.

They're not as bad as I was expecting, maybe the 'wages inflation' is more on the playing side of things other than staff? Based on my own observations, when players stick at a club for a long time they tend to have overly inflated wages and I'm sure that this also translated to staff, something that was mostly evident when moving to a new club, especially at an elite level. Continental Pro is the top level of qualification, so he's got some room to grow. I really don't like the idea of paying a single staff member that much above everyone else unless he is clearly incredible and/or he's a MC or MP personality. but that might just be that I'm tight on staff wages and will happily haggle with them all over £10 p/w. I'm not sure the benefit of having two AssMans, surely the second is just an expensive coach considering AssMans generally command a higher wage? It's a shame your Fitness Coach isn't available for the chop, unless he's 15+ for fitness he'd be on the next train out of town.

Good work making obvious improvements to the country, I love stories and saves like this! In-game, Fickle isn't actually a terrible personality. @Jimbokav1971 explains way far better than I could in his thread: https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/580821-fm24-tulach-bòide-scotland-tier-13/?do=findComment&comment=14288990 "Ambition is guaranteed to be 16-20 and although Det is less than 17 and Pro is less than 18, you can sort of cut off the low levels of both of these ranges because they would fall into another category most of the time if they did. Fickle is so close to being a "good" personality that in my book it actually is. The label or name or title or whatever it's been given is just a really poor choice. From a Youth Only point of view the Low Loyalty and High Amb is a problem in terms of keeping the player at the club, but from a Youth Development point of view if you can use the MH style to give an insight into his Pro levels, (and you already know the Det), then it;s really quite easy to see what might be a really good personality. The word "Fickle" is bad. The personality "Fickle" is good."

I'd always assumed (rightly or wrongly, but it makes sense on available evidence in my saves) that attendance is based off a formula that mostly takes into account: - Rep. of opponent. - Rep. of your team. - Rep. of competition/importance of game. - Your form. - Ticket price. - In-game rivalry. With other things like weather, day/time, TV etc. as minor things. This is much more evident when you have a large percentage of 'fair weather' fans, leading to some of the wild swings you are seeing in your attendances in the new stadium. I'm not in-game to check right now, but the teams that are giving you the higher attendances would appear (in my mind at least) to be of a higher rep/quality than the teams that are not and may explain why you're seeing what you are. On a second point, and to go back a couple of pages to your staffing and lack of involvement, I have always found that leaving the AI in charge of staffing/contracts leads to people on hugely inflated contracts for no real reason (yearly increases and increases in wages every renewal) which, for a club in your financial situation can be a killer. If you were taking an active involvement in staffing you are quite likely to easily find [better/more suitable] staff on a much lower wage, saving you money without the need to trim your squad even further. Of course, if the AI in charge of your staffing is still bringing in everyone on amateur contracts, you can ignore me!

Instead of NC can you not offer P/T contracts? Might be slightly more costly in the long-term but it at least gives you some protection. For those on NC, whenever they get an offer from elsewhere I've had a good rate of retention by offering them a new deal at the same time, even if it's basically a copy of what they are on now.

Begins with P and rhymes with MISS. It was this lovely number and received the above nickname from Spurs fans as soon as it was announced:

Such a great shirt. Even more so when you consider we were wearing the yellow bodily fluid shirt the season previously!

Gah, that Filipino is disappointing in a so near, yet so far kinda way. Ticks a lot of boxes (fun nationality, great personality & in a position of need) but you can't play a 9st 5'9'' centre half at any decent level, in my opinion. I'm not in front of the game right now, but I'd be looking in the 'Training' or 'AssMan Reports' section for the 'missing' columns in your 'view'.

'mon the Humbugs! I picked your series up from the club tweets, KUTGW!