TheNayr

Well I definitely angered the FM Gods with my flippant comment about winning the league in the first year because the very next game after the last update went like this: Was this the start of the slide? Am I talking to you now outside of the playoff zone losing 7 of my last 8?! Nah of course not, we're still smashing it! We are massively overperforming and long may it continue. These positive results have obviously kept us doing well in the table, leaving us looking like this. A big 10 point gap to the 6th place team keeping us well in the hunt for promotion, though there's plenty of time to go! After crashing out of the FA Cup qualifying rounds very early, the next big tournament for us was the FA Vase. Whilst the money was no-where near what the FA Cup can offer, a few wins can wrack up a few thousand pounds which is vital for us! Hmm, you'd look at that and think that's an okay run for a 9th tier team right? Wrong. Look at this disgusting game against Crook Town. Yeah, you're reading it right. By the 32nd minute they were down to 9 men and we couldn't break them down. It took us until the 74th minute to score a goal which really annoyed me. How did it take so long to break them down with a 2 man advantage?! I was very mad when they equalised that late, how the F did we let that happen?! Then to lose on penalties?! Horrendous result. If I was actually managing, them 11 players would be doing a Bleep Test until they were all sick. I have been unable to add a new CM and a new striker despite trialing and offering deals to many players. Until next time.

Because of how low down the pyramid that we're starting, I thought instead of just manually looking for staff, I'd put out job adverts to attract new members of staff that way. That has been done also to our HOYD, scout and Head Physio so our backroom has been filled out to what I want. Though they are all pretty poor if I'm being honest, however, it's to be expected! I also did this for bringing players in. Only going off of player recommendations from my staff, agents or players themselves. I've had close to 70 odd players on trial I'd say. Let's look into the team now then! I have made 10 signings since taking over. 3 loans and the rest being free agents, The 16 year old kid was the only GK at the entire club, so obviously I had to address that, though it took some time to actually get a guy in and it turns out, he's not too shabby! Obviously at this level, none of these players are going to be good, but that's the standard we find ourselves at! Gregor Shaw is tall with decent reflexes and agility. I will take that. All four of our starting defenders are new signings as you'll find for most of the starting 11 haha! Matty Holness was a loan option suggested by my HOYD and I used it, especially as Dover Athletic didn't want any wages for him, always a bonus for us. Not much to say about him, decent physically I guess. That's something, Our first CB is Reece Irwin. He started his career at Northampton. He's strong, aggressive and brave. What more do you want from a centre back?! His partner is Dominic Ogun. We are his tenth club. For this level, his physicals are very welcome, even if there isn't much else. The last new piece of this backline is ex Cardiff graduate Josh Pike. Phyiscals. That's all that matters. I am running a custom made 4-3-3 with 1 DM and 2 CMs. 2 of them are part of the 10 new players. The player who was already here is Ross Myers though he's only playing because recently Aaron King (Who was a new signing) has been struck down for 4-7 months. In the screenshot he has a bid on him by a few teams, I have offered a new deal and hopefully he'll be staying. I'd rather not be starting him, but he's all I've got. Maybe I'll look to bring someone else in. I've just offered about 5 CMs a two week trial. The guy opposite him in centre midfield started at my team, Crawley Town. Curtis Gayler. I must add, I didn't bring him in but he's pretty good! He's very well rounded and will be an important player this year. The guy sitting behind them at DM is Jamie Andrews. I'll just say, I want to upgrade him even though I've only just signed him! He doesn't look good, but he'll do for the time being. The attacking unit is a weak unit and I have a few players about to come and trial for us. With only striker in my formation, that falls to 16 year old Renny Beavon, I've trialed a few players and they either didn't want to join or wanted more than £20 a week, my maximum. Some really good finishing and work rate here. The excellent determination is nice but ultimately means nothing due to our awful facilities. All the new signings sky rocketed us up from a media prediction of 16th up to 6th which is good news for our chances of going up first time round. One downside of all these signings is the finances, we've gone from a projected end of season figure of -£28k to now -£37k. It doesn't sound too much, but at this level. It's a bit of a killer. We do need a good FA Cup run this season. Oh....well that's no good. Has the league gone any better?! WELL THAT'S MORE LIKE IT! 6 games, 6 wins and only 2 goals conceded. What an absolutely belting start to the league!!! Winning the league first year in charge?! Until next time.

Shoreham. Who the Hell are they?! One last foray into FM24 before FM25 comes out and all going well. This will hopefully last me into the new game and beyond, that's the vision anyway! So, Shoreham FC. My first actual team that I coached with. Starting with U7s for a few months then dropped down to U6s. Here were my coaching shirt and hoody. S So I have a bit of a connection to this team! The club is located in Shoreham-By-Sea which is right on the English coast. You wouldn't have guessed by the name!!! Their nickname is The Musselmen as back in the day, picking mussels is what the town was known for. Here it is on a map. About 15 minutes from Brighton down their on the coast. A census from 2021 puts it about 23.6k people living there, so we'll say over 3 years later, could be around 25k now. Shoreham play at Middle Road which has a capacity of 2,000. The file I'm using had it at 1,500 people could fit in there, so I went into the editor and changed that little detail, the only change I made. I have met the Chairman Stuart Slaney a few times, nice guy! We are starting in the Sussex County Football League which is all the way in the 9th tier. We have a long way to climb. It will be a tough challenge. As you can see from that image above, we're starting with bloody awful facilities, the worst of the worst. The pre-game editor had everything listed as 0 haha! Due to that, it rules out a youth academy challenge which I do plan on doing for my first FM25 save when I get around to it eventually. This is how our supporters are at the club. We are in 5 tournaments this year, though I don't care about the bottom two. Being this low down, the FA Cup is the most important for the money it can bring in. Speaking of money, here's how the finances look. We're expected to end the season around -£28k, though hopefully with a little FA Cup and maybe FA Vase run, we can make that a little better by the end of the year. Here is the table with every other team we'll be playing, the main goal is to avoid a relegation battle, the media currently has us finishing in 16th. This is how I'm starting. Sunday league football reputation and National B licence as I'm an FA Level Two coach for real. I won't show the squad this time as I'm going to have to do my best Harry Redknapp impression to get some new players in as I don't have much help. The staff room is a little small, though I only need to bring in a couple of faces. Let's rise with Shoreham and do some damage. Until next time.

The season opener in the Durand Cup has been and gone. And we get through the group stage with relative ease! Next up were the knockout stages were our good run continued to shine bright. Two more wins delivered us into the final where we play city rivals and defending Champions, Kolkata. Where we pull out victory and deliver the Durand Cup to Mohun Bagan for the first time in 46 years. So after the perfect start to the season, let's see the players we have at our disposal! 2 of our 6 foreign player spots are filled up in our GK area which is the worst place to have multiple of them! I decided to just let it happen this year as our backup has a year left, so he'll be gone next Summer. The best GK by a long way though is the Uruguayan Alejandro Viera. He's a really solid GK and he'll do a good job. He's been here 7 seasons and unless someone incredible comes up, he'll remain #1 for at least the next year solid. We have a strong defensive base and it's our best unit in squad. It's no coincidence that 3 of our starting 4 defenders are foreign players! Our starting RB will be American Eduardo Rodriguez who's been here for 6 years now. He's really solid with no real weakness to his game apart from the fact he's 31. So he might begin to drop a lot in quality. His natural fitness of 14 might stop that from happening though! The lone starting Indian in the backline will be Shiehk Fernandes. He's alright. Nothing spectacular but I'll look to upgrade him with another home grown player next Summer. I'll rock with him until then. His CB partner though is a lot better. Another Uruguayan and newly appointed Captain is Diego Lemos. He's been here for 6 seasons and he's very solid. Really good mentals, solid physicals. For this league, he's an incredible player and he's very important for us. The first signing I made which you're seeing is our new starting LB. He was a free agent, previously playing for CA Independiente in Panama as he's from there. He has 21 caps for the national team at 20 and I made him Vice-Captain too, Alvaro Viteri. Really, really happy with this signing. He could easily be the best LB in the league right now. He's a wicked player and will improve us no end. He actually is in the media 11 at LB so they see the vision as I do! The last person to show you of this defensive unit is someone who I know all about considering he's been capped by me 60 times. He has a ridiculous release clause by domestic clubs at £88k at Odisha and I couldn't say no to that, so my second signing here. Amit Ghosh. An important player for us at international level. An even more important player for us at the domestic level. Game changer. I've inherited a bit of a weak midfield section of players. Only 2 people worth showing off here and they'll be starting at CM for us this year. First up, James Rodriguez. Just a decent, all round guy who won't be flashy but I can see putting in some alright performances for us over the year. His partner will be my third signing who is Amar Singh. I paid Jamshedpur £200k for which is a little steep but this guy is good now and has potential to grow a little more at 20 years young. He's also played a handful of games for India. Then finally and leastly, our striking unit. Full of poor players. I could only make 1 addition, it's easily our worst unit. Ignore the potential for Jose Rana he's really not that good. Both our starting wingers are poor, which I won't show. The only redeeming factor is the striker I got in as a free agent from Al-Ettifaq in Saudi is Majed Al-Harbi. Good mentals and physicals on the bloke, he'll do for a couple of years. I did try to get a couple of Indian free agents who have played for the national team, but both signed for teams in Europe and I don't blame them! The board and fans want mid table finish, but the media think we'll do slightly better after my signings. We shall see though! Until next time.

After a break, it makes sense to leave Bengal after 3 seasons and that is what I've done. They have some good young players and a healthy £12m in the bank with Champions League football to look forward to for the third year in a row. My most loyal guys have followed me and like the last few times I've moved to another team, I will look to bring them with me. The most important being my right hand man, Agnelo Naik. Luckily there are two jobs available in the Super League in Mohun Bagan and SC Goa. It would be interesting to get the Mohun job because they are the third team ground sharing the 85k stadium with our previous team in Bengal! So I wouldn't have to move very far!!! And we have a new home. As to be expected, he has retired again from international football and I will leave him alone. My ass man of the last 13 years has continued his story with me. My fitness coach for the last 8 years, my HOYD for the last 12 years and set piece coach for the last 3 years are also joining. The coach who had been with me for the last 12 years wanted too much money, So our relationship ends there, at least on a club level. He is still with the Indian coaching set up. These are what the fans look like. And we'll go into the facilities of all the teams in the league, see how they're getting on! + I have 19k in wages left and with 2 foreign player spots available. I've got some work to do to improve this team. We are back and we're going to continue to cook with India. We really aren't. Losing Marbaniang is something we're really going to struggle with going forward. Our 2 current best CBs are 5'8 and 5'9 haha. Oh dear. After our pre-season and signings, we'll look through the team that we have here at our new team. Until next time.

So, I hung up my boots for this save again a little over a month ago. Since then, I have tried to get into no less than 3 different saves and none have interested me past a few days. With about 2 and a half monthsish until the beta for FM25 is released......... revive-rapper.mp4 Until next time.

Thank you for your kind words. As I've stated before, this has been the most fun and my favourite FM career I've ever had. I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm sure you will have a great time like I have done.

Accepted. Have fun friend. .

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7QbHmu14PkD_97qIeP5mtm5JqCSkFvt/view?usp=drive_link Hopefully I've done it right and that enables you to look around what World I created!

Thank you for your lovely words. It has been a lot of fun to play and out the comfort zone of Europe. I could try and do that yeah, though I have no idea. I'll have to look to how to do it and I'll let you know. I originally started the save on FM23 so it was a database from that Workshop. I can't help you there.

So, with the conclusion of the World Cup. I will be wrapping up this save, for now. I could see myself coming back here into next year's FM if I'm struggling to enjoy myself there. But for now, I am signing off. This has been the best career I've ever had on Football Manager. I love it. But I have taken it as far as I want to right now. If there's anything you wanna see/know about this save let me know. Maybe you wanna see how your personal team is doing. World 11 etc. If not, I'll see you in FM25. Until next time.

Due to England and Tunisia already playing. A win against Tunisia means we'll automatically go through to the next round. A draw means we'll have to lose to England by only 1 goal and a draw will see us a through a win against Tunisia would be ideal! Their captain is also their key player and he is OUTSTANDING! This is how we line up. I decided to skip the RMD at AMR and go with a standard Winger, bringing Pramod Kumar back into the fray. A loss and we know we're out as we're not beating England. Live look in at HT. Well...I forgot to take a shot then....much like my team. 50th minute. Yeah, bloody awful. We were meant to be controlling possession. That didn't happen. Not a single shot the entire half. I've switched tactic to 4-2-4 Gegenpress. I know, I know. But I need to see more. Well. Things got a bit hairy there, but we made it and got a point. Clearly the original tactic I planned on using is awful. So I'll be ditching that one haha! Awful showing in the first half, but we got there in the end. Changing tactic mid-game worked. Next up is England who are ranked 4th in the World. Captain is a legendary striker of this save. They are captained by this chap. And this is the current manager. They are clearly better than us, we'll go counter attacking because I think going anything else will be a death sentence. We need to try and draw or only lose by 1 goal. Any more than a 1 goal loss means we're out. And this is how we line up. HT: We are halfway there to the Second Round. Can we hold on?! GET THE F*** IN THERE! We have just held England to a bloody draw! What an incredible result! They may have peppered our goal with shots, but we were able to hold on!!!! Back to back Second Round appearances at a World Cup for us. Beautiful! Our second round opponent: Their captain is a very good LB. Their key player is a very good looking young CB. They are managed by Kasper Schmeichel. Here's how we line up. HT: We're playing well, but they are a little more clinical than us. We're still in it though!!! Oh what a bloody game! They made it 3-1 and I thought it was game over! However two quick goals pulled it back to 3-3 and I really thought we had a chance! However, after they scored their 4th, we had no answer. A shame, but what an incredible game! Until next time.

It is time. World Cup squad, who will be with us in China?! Savio D'Silva didn't have a good year for Jamshedpur conceding 61 in 31 averaging a 6.65 but his ability overshadows that. Though he's only our GK3. Mohit Nair wasn't much better conceding 49 in 29 averaging a 6.80 for Goa. Again, his ability commands a place in the squad though as GK2. However, our starting GK for us at Bengal and Indian #1 is Olen Fernandes who conceded 29 in 19 at 7.07. He played didn't play as much for us as he also played quite a lot for the Indian youth teams this season too! He's progressed well this season and has impressed me. Arvind Singh had a really solid year for us at Bengal averaging a 7.02 over 35 starts. He's a really solid CB...except he's 5'8. We're trying to look past that. Benchwarmer. The other backup CB also is one of ours at Bengal in Obidur Hossain who averaged a 7.00 over 25 starts. His height let's him down at 5'9. Again though, he's really solid. Syed Dutta at Navbahor in Uzbekistan averaged a 6.80 over 10 starts (They've only played 11) so he's had an okay start to the season. He's a good physical player with some good mentals too. He'd be a solid starting RB if we didn't have an amazing player there. Ajit Negi maybe shouldn't be in this squad. He only played 12 (10 starts) games for Southampton in the Premier League averaging a 6.70. However he's farrr too good to not include and is our LB2. Subhash Mallick is another Bengal player. He impressed with a 7.12 over 33 starts for me. He can also play RB as well as DM and CM which makes him valuable as well as being a decent player with some spectacular mentals. He will be on the bench. Manu Vaz is a similar player to Mallick. He had a decent season averaging a 6.89 over 27 starts for Goa. Being able to play CB, DM and CM makes him a good asset. Again, amazing Aggression and Bravery. He won't start for us. Mohan Fernandes had an incredible season with us at Bengal. He had 20 assists and 4 goals over 36 starts for us at an 7.35. He is a AML but because he can play LB and WBL. He fits in with the defenders. His speed is his main threat. He'll be a useful sub when the opposition is tired. Now, CB2 is someone who isn't amazing. His technicals let him down, but he's decent physically and mentally. We could do better, but Ishan Banerjee at Bengaluru started 33 games at 6.86. However, he's starting just because he's 6'2. That's the reason. We needed the height. Obviously CB1 is Sukhjit Marbaniang who is coming off of an incredible 54 game season for Liverpool at a 7.12. That is amazing consistency. I am so happy I was able to coax him out of retirement. Just a side note, he's averaged over a 7.00 starting at least 24 games for 9 out of 10 years in the Premier League. Incredible player. He can retire internationally after this. Now, both our starting LB and RB both play for Hertha Berlin in the Bundesliga. Mohan Singh didn't have a great year only starting 11 games out of 13 played with an average of 6.92. I would prefer to pick on form...but I can't help myself. He's the clear best LB we have and I'd be silly NOT to have him starting for us. The complete opposite can be said for Pratik Jadhav in the German capital where he started 44 games at a 7.02. He's developed into an amazing RB. Amar Singh is a young but really exciting talent who didn't have a great season for Jamshedpur who played 23 games and 15 starts at 6.72. Maybe he shouldn't be our starting DM...but I really like the look of him and think he'll do a good job for us. The final guy grouped in the defensive group is Amit Ghosh who will be one of our starting CMs. An average season at Odisha with 25 starts at a 6.74. He's an important CM for us with plenty of versatility. 57 caps at 23 shows how much I value him. The second starting CM will be Harshad Pradhan. He's had a nice season for Real Salt Lake in the MLS with 2 goals and 2 assists from 21 starts at a 7.04. He's a bit of an all rounder who can do it all except long shots. Arjun Singh had a good season at Odisha. He scored 3 goals with 7 assists through 9 starts and 13 subs at a 7.12. He's a decent AMR who's earnt his place in the squad as a bench warmer. Kamran Fernandes who's been at Dallas in the MLS has started 18 games but has disappointed with only 3 goals and 1 assist during that time. He's good enough to earn a spot, but he could've done better over the season. Pramod Kumar is a VERY lucky boy to with us, perhaps he shouldn't be due to only 1 start and 14 sub appearances with Stoke (On loan from Wolves) in the Championship at a 6.86. His ability gets him here. A player who has played really well and earnt his place in is Suhail Dasgupta who at AML scored 4 and assisted 4 through 19 starts for Incheon in South Korea's top division. He's a very solid player who will be starting at AML. We'll be having a Raumdeuter at AMR and starting there will be Nity Singh who had 22 starts and 5 goals at Bengaluru at a 6.74. Aakash Singh had a very nice year at Jamshedpur scoring 13 goals and 3 assists through 26 starts and 6 subs at a 6.96. He's older but still impressive. Mohammed Sifat is a bit of a victim as he's a natural AMC who can moonlight as a striker. We don't play an AMC but he's here. A very good year at Odisha with 15 starts, 13 goals and 3 assists with an average rating of 7.63. He is joining Oostende after the World Cup on a free. The last backup striker is Ishan Colaco who plays for us at Bengal. He averaged a 6.91 through 9 starts and 14 subs scoring 6 and assisting 1. The final guy in the squad is star man Chhangte Singh who played on loan at Monaco from Manchester United. He scored 6 goals through 13 starts at a disappointing 6.73. It doesn't matter, he's the best striker by a country mile and he was always going to be starting. It's our last World Cup (For now!). Let's do this. Until next time.

Well the final season has certainly been exciting. What's happened since the last update?! Well, for starters I have pushed through and got toward the end of the season. Just looking at it and it's not good enough if you ask me. Too many yellows and too many reds for my liking. This season has been a bit of a poor showing and it's left the table in an interesting position. So it's 24 games played. Which means it's all for grabs in getting 1st and coming top of the pile. Let's get into it. A solid win at home to the second bottom team, as expected. And just like that, we have an exciting final day! The final youth intake has happened and well, it's really not amazing. Very much just an average youth intake. Nothing special. And like that, we finish top of the league, yet again! Now to kick on and actually be crowned Champions of India in the playoffs. The semi finals have been drawn. But before the first match... Two training facilities have gone through with no option to doing another youth facilities upgrade as of yet. Now why have I done them if this is the final season? I'm not ruling out coming back in a few months. That's all I'm saying. Well this was a fantastic start to the semi finals! A brilliant and easy win at home that could've been a lot better! Onwards to the second leg. Well that was unfortunate. We've been humbled and crash out, still not being crowned Champions of India. Until next time.

He just won Indian Player of the year for the 8th time in a row. I got cheeky and asked. WE ARE SO BACK BABY. Until next time.

The final youth intake preview has landed and it's looking to be just an average intake when March comes! I know that it's very unlikely. However, let's hope for a 5* CA player come through for the final World Cup haha! A man can dream right?! How have we started in the league? I mean, overall. A very solid start! Plenty of greens, couple of draws and an opening day loss. These good performances should have us looking good in the table. Kind of not bad. Obviously we have plenty of games in hand over the league, however. Kolkata our bitter rivals have started the league of brilliantly! Their only loss is to us though, so suck on those lemons boys! We're coming for the top soon! We all know why we have 3 games in hand, the Champions League where we went UNDEFEATED!!!!!! Yeah, not in the best way to be undefeated. 5 draws out of 6 is okay, but also a bit poor. 8 points was never going to be enough to get out of the group which was disappointing. However, not losing in the Champions League group stages is always nice. How did Mumbai get on? They also put on a good showing in their group. However, we have some exciting news! World Cup draw is upon us! It's a shame we couldn't qualify automatically in the third round to be in the second pot, but alas. We're in pot 3 and we'll face two good teams again. So, the Groups in red are where we can't get into it. Group A is looking so good, however it'll be impossible to get into it. Morocco and Norway in Group I wouldn't be horrendous. Senegal and Denmark I wouldn't turn my nose up at either. And maybe as option three, Turkey, Jamaica as I think we could maybe beat Jamaica. You just know we're not gonna get either of them haha! Let's get into it!!! I guess it's going to end in a beautiful way. Playing England, my home country and Tunisia. I think we can do something against Tunisia. I think we can get to the second round again. Until next time.

I have been a bit busy in what will be the last Summer transfer window of this save. We have a new starting GK. Long story short, the GK situation has been dire for India for the last 2/3 years. Olen Fernandes was someone who came through at Odisha and I was aware of him through being the national team manager. I decided that he was good enough to take over as Indian #1 now. I paid £215k for him so I could train him and play him every game this season in an effort to accelerate his progress and be ready to lead the national team when the World Cup came around. Though, I used him toward the back end of the World Cup qualifiers. He's really not bad at all. He's 6'2 which is a miracle for a GK from this country and he could develop into a really good GK. Hopefully we'll have some attribute growth come next Summer! There are 5 new additions to the defense. Some starters, some depth. Starting with Abdullah Fallatah. He comes in for £58k from Al-Wehda and will be a heavily used option at CB being one of our Asian foreign players. Just a solid CB who doesn't have any glaring weaknesses and he's 6'1 which always helps in the country, especially as our other CBs don't reach 6ft. Arvind Saha who was on a free from Guwahati and not someone I was aware was available. Saw him offered by his agent and snapped him up straight away. Really good mentals and solid physicals, he's an awesome player. Just ignore the 5'8 height and we're golden. Lalliansanga Colaco is someone I've had at two previous clubs. He's not amazing or I even like him especially. He's just a really solid backup/depth piece at CB with a bit of versatility. Gourav Khan I paid Bengaluru £85k for the privilege to have him. I needed some cover at RB and provides that and can play further forward if needed. He shines physically. Nothing special anywhere else, but he'll see some playing time no doubt as a benchwarmer. Mustafa Vaz is someone similar. He'll be a benchwarmer for a lot of the season as an important backup LB. Bit of a 'Meh' player but some very solid technicals on him. Only two new signings for the rest of the squad. Pratik Bose was available on a free from Rigga in Bahrain. I needed someone to provide competition at AML as we were severely lacking in that department. He's a decent little player who is solid physically. He really is little...5'3! Finally, we have a new star man. The new best player at the club according to my ass man. Andrae Baker was on an amateur deal at Portlanders in Jamaica. We didn't score enough last season...or since we've joined Bengal. I think he might be able to change that. I'm excited to see what he can do in the league and the ACL. We are heavily favoured to be atop of the pile for the third year running. We have exited the Duran Cup early again, but that's because we've rested our entire starting 11 due to our first Champions League game coming up. Our counter attacking football was working brilliantly...until they scored in the 94th minute to level it up...such a shame. Now that was a fantastic victory! I knew we could get some points from this group! We really should be 2 wins from 2. However, with our performances over the first two games. I'm a happy manager! Mumbai lost their first game 4-0 away and won the next game 3-2 at home. Hopefully they can push on! Much like I'm about to do for this season. Until next time.

Kicking off with another year of two Indian teams in the Champions League group stages due to Mumbai pulling off a great win away from home over 1 leg. I think there's a chance that us and Mumbai could both snag a few points from our groups! Crunch time has arrived for us at the World Cup. An away game first to Syria followed by a home game to Thailand. Let's lock in and do this. I mean, try and do this with our starting CBs being 5'8 and 5'9... It might not have been the prettiest of performances, but that's a huge opening win for us and will be a giant step forward to qualifying for the World Cup! Just avoid losing the next game and we're going to China! A win would've been nice, however. We have secured our place. We're going to yet another World Cup! Three in a row and our final one! Until next time.

Due to how poor the youth intake was the last season, it was imperative that we continued to make our youth network better and that has been actioned. That should ensure no more 'Poor' or 'Below average' intakes here! Back to back highest average attendance. Making big plays here in Bengal! I had planned on not doing any India news in this update as there was no need, however that has to change. I was planning on making this World Cup (Should we get to it) the end of this career for 1 reason...I could see someone retiring after and it would be a huge blow. Unlike when Naveen Wani retired we had quite a few people who could replace him... I would have Sukhjit Marbaniang as the best Indian footballer of all time. There is not a CB who is anywhere close to his level that I can call upon. The next two best CBs and probably the partnership going into the World Cup if we get there. Parveen Singh. Arvind Saha Until next time.

We were unable to win the league in the last update, however, with the Super Cup we have another chance of winning some silverware before the end of the season. Oh, crashing out in the quarters?! Well, that's the end of that chapter! How did the squad get on then? By goals. We scored more goals than last season, but it's still a little less than I would like. However, a good 1-2 punch with our two main strikers. Addo leading the way but 16 goals in 35 starts is a pretty poor return. His 10 finishing probably not helping that. I'll be honest, if I can ship him out for a decent amount, I will and get someone else in. Squad by average rating. Yeah, only two players over a 7.00 means it was a pretty poor season overall. It shows we often didn't play amazing football. A shame. Much needed changes are coming over the Summer to improve the team. I've just shown you Addo so have Mohan Fernandes! He's currently wanted by Bengaluru aka, he's going nowhere. This just proves how important Champions League is important to a team like this with a huge stadium. The far right money is last season's ticket sales and the £15m was this season. Basically doubled due to the large amounts of people watching. Very happy that we've got it again next season! We have our final two World Cup qualifying games now. A very, very comprehensive victory over Lebanon. Definitely a good morale booster toward the end of this group stage. And we wrap up the group stage with a couple of very good wins! It leaves the Group Stage looking like this. So we haven't qualified for the World Cup just yet...onto round four! Finish in the top two places and we're off to the World Cup in China. Until next time.

There has been a VERY tasty draw set up for the semi finals of the Super League playoffs as we have our arch rivals Kolkata. It helps that we won't have to travel for the 'Away' leg. It is a massive game that we have sold out. The 85k is only for special matches, I thought this might count as one but it doesn't so this is technically a sell out as this is the max we can host for normal games. This proves how much money we can make taking over 66k watching the game! Finances before. And finances after. Over £2.6m raked in from ticket sales, you love to see it. Shame we're not at a level where we're getting that every home game!! (Some expenses taken out which is why the balance isn't £2.6m more than the first balance shown!) Here's how the first leg went. What looks like a very good performance....hmmm wasn't really. We scored two lateish goals to hide an average performance. But we had a nearly 4 xG that means we must've played well?! Wrong. Two early missed penalties inflated the xG. Oh well, a win and decent 2 goal cushion onto the away leg. A poor showing to be honest. We've gotten through to the final which is great! That helps lessen the blow of a bad performance haha! The 1.23 xG was only that high because of a penalty that was MISSED again! So we've not converted the last 3 penalties that we've had. Oh well! Bengal have never even been in the final before, so hopefully we can crack on and become champions of India. The match against Kolkata almost paid for this alone! Mumbai are crowned Champions of India. Until next time.

Starting off these last 3 league games, we have Kerala who just after the last update took top spot from us! So this game is MASSIVE! They were poor. 9 shots, but not a single one on target! That enabled us to cruise to an important victory! Next up, our BITTER rivals Kolkata in a sell out in our shared stadium. Are they going to throw a spanner in the works?! Hmmm......right. Well, bitter rivals have done exactly what they wanted to this time. Damn! All we need to do on the final day is not lose and we'll secure top spot and straight into the ACL group stages! It's at home to Guwahati who are second bottom. Just don't lose. Now the good news about the youth intake was that it wasn't poor as predicted! Bad news, it still sucks haha. No-one is worth showing. Yeah. It was bad. It was awful, we couldn't finish and it was painful to watch us miss a lot of shots. Does this mean we're not finishing at the top!? Thankfully our superior goal difference ensures we finish the league stage at the top! No time to stop though, India duty awaits us! Of the two games coming up, THE most important fixture is first and we're away to Saudi Arabia. If they win here, they're basically guaranteed to automatically qualify for the World Cup and put us more than likely to the fourth round. And that's exactly what happened. As soon as we had a missed penalty in the 2nd minute I knew what kind of game it was going to be. Really bad and disappointing display. Japan next. A much better showing against them, but only a draw is a little annoying! Leaves the table looking like this. A win would've basically secured our place in the next round....that will have to wait until our last two games against Lebanon and Vietnam. Until next time.

It's the time of year for our youth intake preview. The time to maybe get excited. Are we going to be blessed with a golden generation and have another player to be excited about?! Oh....okay. Maybe not. Damn. Let's hope this is wrong and come March, it's a bit better than poor! I said I was going to switch up tactics in the last update and I did, to something really simple. And you know what? It worked, well. A nice and basic 4-4-2 wing play system and the results have been very satisfying. We are certainly scoring more goals with the wing play system providing a lot more shots every game which is awesome and exactly what I was after! We were down outside of the playoff places last time we checked the table although we had a couple of games in hand. Now we are where we want to be. Top of the table with a bit of a point advantage. Are we going to push on and get more Champions League football? Either way, we have 5 games to go and if Mumbai are able to win both games, we'll have a real battle on our hands! Speaking of which...we face them next! And they pull off a huge win against us! As you can see, we created loads using the 4-4-2 tactic, it wasn't enough this game though! They are now 1 point behind with 1 game in hand. Were they able to take advantage? They weren't! They could've put so much pressure on us and even take stop spot but they were unable to! In their previous game though, they can feel stupidly hard done by. Poor poor Mumbai. Somewhat annoyingly, I haven't had the opportunity to ask for any upgrades to our facilities and our youth football levels. All four can be upgraded, but the option hasn't been available once. Until next time.

Straight back into World Cup qualifying now and we kick it off with an away trip to Japan! AND WE ABSOLUTELY DOMINATED THEM! A fantastic win away where we were always in charge! What a brilliant, brilliant win away at a tricky opponent! Now we have a home game against Lebanon who I am expecting a win against. It could've been a lot better. I was getting worried that we were going to throw away 2 points by not pushing through and getting the first goal. Luckily, we did and we walk away from home with a comfortable win (In the end!). We've made a fantastic start to this third round of qualifying. That first win against Saudi Arabia was vital and they are obviously going to be our chief threat in automatically going through to the World Cup. The away game against them is going to be so important. We can't afford to lose against them. Though, that's not for a bit. But wait, there's more! Poor, poor, poor. So very poor. A massive blow to our automatic qualification chances. A much better performance and much more along the lines of what I now expect from this team. There are 4 games left to play. We've nearly guaranteed a place in the next round at least. Going through to the World Cup without playing any more games is the target though! Enough about the national team though, how have we gotten on domestically?! Hmm, very much a mixed bag. The main thing you'll see is, every game bar 1 we've only scored 1 goal. Evidently the new tactic I've come up with, is very boring haha! I think I'm gonna scrap it and come up with something that fits with our team. How's the table looking? It is so very tight at the top. If we're able to perform well with our games in hand, we'll find ourselves at the top of the table. What's happened on the continental stage though?! We had 3 points after the first 2 games. Yeah....not that great. Very frustratingly the 3-3 away we were 0-3 up at HT. They scored in the 60th, 62nd and 64th minute to bring it back to a draw. I was very annoyed and obviously threw the bottle at the end of the game. Goa giving a good showing of themselves in the group stages was nice to see. They performed better than us! To make it a little better for us, Al-Fateh who topped our group are leading the Saudi Arabian league, have won it the last 6 times. They are a very good team and have 6 players who earn more a week than our entire wage spend! Whilst we didn't give a good showing of ourselves on the bigger stage, we currently are up over £5m profit this season. Large ticket sales from the Champions League has helped this. Until next time.

I have been a busy, busy boy in this Summer transfer window, revolutionizing this team. One new face in the GK department. Joseph Owusu remains our #1 but I think I'll be replacing him next year. And then I needed a new third GK and he had to be Indian so we purchased Balaji Singh from Goa for £50k. He's just a third choice GK. Nothing special. 4 ew singings for the defensive area of the squad. First up, a guy who was on an amateur contract despite having 12 caps for Montenegro at his team Titograd in Montenegro. So I offered him a deal and he decided to come and join us. I suppose going from earning nothing to nearly £10k a week would do that haha! I got in Igor Jankovic to play at CB. Being 6'4 we needed his height especially as we're in the Champions League, we were severely lacking a tall guy at the back and he fits that bill. Plus, he's just a solid player overall. Mohammed Tudu was brought in just because he can play both LB and RB. Plus he's Indian which helps. On a free from Kerala. He'll just be a fringe player/bench warmer at the most. Varun Ali is a guy who we had for 1 year year at Odisha before leaving and we got him on a free from there. I needed quality at DM and he fits that bill. A good, dependable good who I know will put up some good performances for us. The last new defender I paid £190k for from Wehdat In Jordan. He walks straight into the first team. Majed Al-Amri has the mentals and a couple of technicals as well as great versatility. He will see most of the game time at LB though! The final 2 new signings come in at midfield. Our AMR department was seriously lacking and that's where the £82k man Swapan Rodrigues from Guwahati comes in. His physicals are his standout features...they are actually good enough to propel him to the top of our AMR rankings. We are quite poor at that position! Another free signing for the last new guy. Mark Chukwudi from Enugu Rangers in Nigeria. Now then. I have changed tactics from our wonder year last year in an effort to make us better as stupid as it sounds and this guy looks like he should be playing AMR and I agree...yet I have plans to have him playing at DM as a roaming playmaker. He's a natural RP at CM so I'm just pushing him back a little. It could blow up in a my face. It's a risk I am willing to take. The keen eyed of you, will have noticed we now have 8 foreign players in the squad when the maximum is 6. Yes. I have tried all Summer to offload 2 foreign players and they both have attracted 0 attention. I've even tried to offload them for nothing, literally offered them out for £0 and nothing. Saidi Badru. Mohamed Coulibaly. They aren't bad players. They're good. However. I got better foreign players at more important positions. So we're stuck paying their wages and we won't be using them. Well, they're in the Champions League squad because there's no limits to the registration squad. It's no more than 6 foreign players (Including 1 Asian) in the match day squad compared to 4 in the league. so they'll be available for thar competition only. These new signings have had an impact already. Favourites to retain the league!? I wouldn't have guessed that. I guess they like the new additions to the team! How have we started the season with Bengal then? The curtain raiser for the season, the Durand Cup. We were going well, though apart from the first 2 games, the next 4 we used our second 11 so I'm not too disappointed to lose in the semi finals. We have however, played two Champions League games, the first two in club history which is awesome! First game, at home to Al-Sadd of Qatar. And a perfect start! My 4-3-3 with 2DMs and a CM Tiki-Taka style coming in clutch with a really solid win! 3 shots out of 11 on target is a bit poor, but we'll look past it. We had just over 38.5k in to see the game which led to this. Which is excellent! Before the game we had £7.8m in the account. We were next away to Al-Wahda from the U.A.E. We were poor. Not much else to say. Leaves the early table looking like this. We've gotta be better away. Unfortunately you'll also see that Goa have lost both of their games. Until next time.