[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Great stuff, @JaytheGreat

[FM21 - Athletic Club: Los Leones Roaring Back]

Never done a save in Spain. I like youth saves, I'm guessing this is the ultimate youth save.

Just a quick question, sorry if it's a silly one. Do you control the "B" and "C" team or does the AI manager control them and decide who to sell/buy etc?

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

So the hotfix has been released. Time to get back on the bike.

 

Hopefully, this will be a good sign for the upcoming season.

 

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

That's some impressive work @AbRaiN Congrats.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

1 hour ago, Stuniverse said:

Wow! That’s a baptism of fire...Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool.

It sure is. But rather play them at the start than those being the final 3 games of the season.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Just looked on my save and Phillip Cocu is the Everton manager. He's been in the role since March 10th,2021.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Derby County 2020/21 Part 4.

June 2021-August 2021.

So after a successful season, we say goodbye to a couple of staff members, Shay Given and U23 manager Pat Lyons. I hired Bobby Mimms to replace Pat Lyons as U23 manager and Lorenzo Squizzi as a replacement for Given.

 

We also said "farewell" to some players and of course wish them the best for their future plans.

 

For our first season back in the Premier League, we needed to upgrade at Goalkeeper and find a replacement for Matt Clarke in defence. I was interested in signing Clarke but Brighton just wanted more than I was prepared to pay and they weren't keen on him coming to Pride Park for 3rd year. Our scouts who had been working in the UK suggested, Jake Clarke-Salter. He played well against us in both games against Birmingham and was available for £3 million. So I pulled the trigger and signed him. Hopefully he can be as successful for us as Matt Clarke was.

There were 3 goalkeepers I was interested in, our scouts rate Ellery Balcombe extremely highly but Brentford had no interest in selling. So that left it between Angus Gunn and Freddie Woodman, Woodman was available for £1 million less than Gunn and was £10,000 a week cheaper. So I went with Woodman, for me he looks slightly better than Gunn.

 

Next up is our new wide player/striker. It won't surprise or shock anyone. This player tormented us in both games we played against him and scored in both games. Hopefully he'll be able to step it up in the Premier League and give non-Derby defenders a hard time.

One of my scouts who had spent the year in Scandinavia, highly recommended this player. So I sent our super Scout, Derek Langley to run his eye over him. Langley rated him more than our scout in Scandinavia. So I pulled the trigger on a deal for a solid CB. He's going to spend a year on loan, as he doesn't yet meet the WP requirements in our post-Brexit world. I see him as a replacement for Bielik. Bielik was impressive for us in the Championship, but coaches say that he isn't there for the big games. What makes it sweeter, is that our new man, left our bitter rivals.

We then signed another CB, there is a reason for my madness. I like to have a CB on the bench who can use both feet, so if one of my CBs gets injured or sent-off I can have a left-sided player on the left side. Our scouts feel that this guy has some ability and won't be(completely) out of his depth in the Premier League.

 

I then picked up 2 midfield prospects from Chelsea and Tottenham. Whilst they're not yet as good as Bird, Sibley and Knight they have the room to grow and be as good Bird, Sibley and Knight.

 

Then I made a signing, which I'm not starting to think may not have been a wise signing(I knew this signing was worth it, just in case it works out). Sturridge is now better as a DLF, so I've signed this guy as he can play Shadow Striker. He has some ability, but it's just a case of if I can get the system to work.

The final area that I felt needed upgrading was RB. Whilst McDonald looks like he might be a useful player for us, I don't think he's ready yet and the Board were not happy with the form of Byrne down the stretch. I did sound out Norwich regarding Max Aarons, but they wanted £63 million(his release clause) but I couldn't afford that and they weren't prepared to accept anything lower than that amount. So after looking around and not really finding anyone who I liked the look off, I went with a young RB from Man Utd on a season long loan.

 

Whilst we still had Tom Lawrence at the club, as no one made a bid for him, I managed to ship him out to Blackburn on a season long loan. Blackburn will be paying 90%(£27,000)of his wages. I also shipped out Marriott and te Wierik on season long loans and hopefully te Wierik's option will be taken up. We still have Roos at the club after he rejected some moves away from the club.

I was extremely glad that I completed my transfer dealings early in preseason, as I received this message at the end of July.

The next day, I was informed that the deal had fallen through.

After promotion, the Board came up with these visions. Sadly they wouldn't accept any changes, so I'm stuck with them.

 

Our preseason went well, we avoided injuries and the players seemed to work out how to play the new system.

As you can see the Premier League have blessed us with 3 easy games for us to adjust to life in the Premier League.

 

Sorry for the long post, pretty boring I'm sure.

Also I have parked the save for the moment, until there's a fix for the player rating issue. No point trying to develop and sell players if the rating system isn't working properly and therefore "harming" player development and their value.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

16 minutes ago, Stuniverse said:

A great set of results in February, March and April, although you drew a few too many games in April and May.

Of all the teams to get a goalless draw against 🤣.

 

Our main issue all season long was converting chances. We had a few good chances vs Forest but just couldn't stick the ball in the net. We clinched playoff football in April and struggled to win games, maybe the players thought their job was done or I just suck at motivating.

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 Congratulations, @Scott_Gooner on your promotion. That’s a brilliant accomplishment.

Many thanks!! Thanks for introducing me to Derby with your awesome thread and passion for the Rams.

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Any transfer plans other than a new goalkeeper?

Good luck 🍀 in the Premier League!

I've already concluded my transfer business.(I will post it later on, NFL depending. I haven't played FM for a week or so). I'm actually at the start of the Premier League season and I have been given a very "nice" introduction to life in the Premier League.

I may need it. But hopefully I can manage a safe mid-table finish and a decent run in one of the Cups.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Derby County 2020/21, Part 3.

We had an excellent month, our defence was rock solid and we actually did well in converting chances we created. Kamil Jozwiak had a great month, chipped in with a few goals and some assists. The 4th goal against Wycombe was scored by Knight. The Board were unhappy with the 0-0 vs Forest. By we kept hold of the Brian Clough Trophy.

Disaster struck in the Welsh Capital, as we lost our first game in March, obviously the Cardiff players were tucked up in bed early on St. David's Day and not out late celebrating. We took the lead, but 2 minutes of madness just before HT, Cardiff scored twice. Try as we might we couldn't find a way through in the second half. The rest of the month, was normal service, defence solid and us not being able to take full advantage of all the chances we created, so three tight 1-0 victories and a nice 3-0 victory at Stoke ended the month.

April and May were interesting, Brentford had a wobble and had lost a few games and the gap between us and them was 8 points. Could we keep our recent form and close the gap? 

Sadly we couldn't. Although we went unbeaten for the rest of the games, we drew 5 of our last 7 games and Brentford rediscovered their winning form. It would have been nice if we could have taken the Title, but there's no shame in finishing 2nd. If you'd offered me that at the start of the season, I would have snapped your hand off.

In the playoffs, Bournemouth saw off Norwich in the final. The teams relegated from the Premier League were West Brom who were miles off survival, Southampton finished 19th and Leeds took the final relegation spot, after they lost on the final day and Aston Villa won.

 

Players:

League

Cup:

 

The team of the year was dominated by Brentford and Derby:

Here is our youth intake from March. There looks to be some decent prospects. Gretton may be the teams #1 of the future. He has also been called up to the England U-19 team since arriving at the club.

Next up we will prepare for our return to the Premier League, hopefully it will be a little more successful than the last time Derby appeared in the Premier League. We've been given a decent budget and hopefully, I'll be able to add some quality to the team in our quest to stay in the Premier League. My main target will be to sign a #1. Marshall who was outstanding in the Championship has now started to decline and it will be a few years(maybe) before Gretton can make a claim for the #1 jersey.

 

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

19 hours ago, Stuniverse said:

1st January 2021

Well, my Derby County end the year 2020 on a real high.

To be honest, given how inconsistent we were for the first few months of the season, I'm amazed that we are top of the league right now!

I'm starting to get far more consistency now around my formation (4-1-2-3 'The Derby Way') and the starting 11, plus the youngsters are beginning to develop into Championship players.

In fact, I'm so thrilled with how well things are going that I'm going to put even more faith in the Derby County Academy graduates for the rest of the season:

• Curtis Davies is joining Sturm Graz
• George Evans is joining Colorado Rapids
• Graeme Shinnie is joining Brentford

 

Good stuff @Stuniverse. Can you keep the form going?

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Derby County, 2020/21 Season: Part 2.

November 1st, 2020- January 31st, 2021.

Our League form at the start of November was good, QPR and Barnsley both left Pride Park with nothing. Next up was a tricky game against Bristol City, were outplayed them and should have been out of sight, but as a weakness as been, we're creating chances but just can't put them away and they manged to take one of their chances. We left it very late against Middlesbrough and the score makes it look like a comfortable win. Our final League game in November, was a "shock" home defeat to Wycombe. We created around 18 chances and 16 on target but just couldn't put the ball in the back of the net, Wycombe has 2 chances and in the 75th minute scored. (I believe the Wycombe game, is the type of game that makes people say the game is against the human player).

In December, we had a little slump. Against Coventry we were once again wasteful and our defence had the game off too. We followed that with a 2-1 defeat to 10 man Millwall, with ex-Ram, Mason Bennett bagging the winner. We then followed that with another trip to London, and the league leaders dismantled us with ease, it could have been 5 or 6. After the Brentford game, I called a team meeting and it seemed to work, as we remembered how to win.

I should have seen the result against Sheff Wednesday coming. They are marooned in 24th and we're in second, after 34 seconds, Bielik gave away a penalty. Wednesday score with their next attack and we were 2 down after 15 minutes. Waghorn pulled one back, but in the pursuit of an equaliser Wednesday hit us on the break to make it 3-1. We then managed to find some form for the rest of the month, but needed a Rooney wonder freekick to pick up a point against Bristol City.

So at the end of January, we find ourselves 2nd in the table, but Brentford have a rather handy lead(I guess it shows how random FM can be, in the first save I started, after 9 games Brentford only had 4 points and were 21st).

Our FA Cup run was short and sweet, we drew the holders and lost convincingly.

 

Players used: The Media, always seem to mention the amount of players I've used.

Injuries have been pretty light, although from the end of November to the start of January, a couple of players missed time due to a virus.

Youth intake: Pleasingly mentions a GK who might be useful.

 

Transfers:

I've signed two players, one from the trialist game, Aidan Barlow, our scouts seemed to think he might be a useful player. 

The second signing I made, was a striker with family links to Derby. With Whittaker going through a barren patch, and not being overly impressed with Kazim or Waghorn, our scouts brought to my attention, Daniel Sturridge(for whatever reason, I'd thought he'd retired). He signed a 3 year deal, the last year may be an issue and for £25,000 a week.

On the other side, we got rid of a few players. With Curtis Davies we have to pay £3,500 a week until June 2021. Wasn't an issue as he wasn't playing for the first team and I get to save £25,000 a week in wages. Wisdom was also sold, there was some interest from MLS teams and getting rid of his £23,000 was a priority. Holmes also attracted interest from MLS teams and after rejecting contract offers from a couple of teams, he eventually found a deal he was looking for. Some of the youngsters in the u23s/18s went out on loan.

During December, an issue developed between myself and Tom Lawrence, his training was poor, I informed him of this and he kicked off, I tried to sell him in January and there were a few teams interested in him, but no bids were received. Lawrence currently finds himself in the u23s and hopefully out of the Club in the summer.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

21 minutes ago, JaytheGreat said:

Thank you! It looks like you'll be right behind me if your team keeps playing the way they are.

Hopefully! But we’re not creating a lot of chances per game, just ‘lucky’ that we are giving up even fewer chances per game. I’m sure my defence will have a stretch where opponents shots hit the back of our net, left, right and centre. 

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Congrats on the promotion @JaytheGreat

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

3 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

That's a good start, although am surprised you aren't using Jozwiak more.

He was unavailable for me until the middle of September and had picked up a few minor injuries, been out with blisters twice for around 5 days a time. Had played the first 2 games in November for me and has been pretty, pretty good. So he’ll get an extended run in the starting XI going forward.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Derby County: Take 2!!

Sorry in advance, as this might be a long post.

House Rules:

First transfer window off.

Only sign players that are found by my Scouts.

Started the season with certain players unavailable, until the date they joined Derby IRL.

July 27th, 2020:

All the staff that were with Derby at the start of the game, have currently remained in their roles. I added Paul McGuinness as my Assistant Manager, Anthony Colbert was added as a coach and some additional scouts were added: Derek Langley, Kevin Reeves, Russell Hullett. The roles of Recruitment and Performance analysts were also filled and some U-23 and U-18 coaches were added.

For preseason, I left the friendlies that were already in place and added games against BMG and RB Salzburg. With a few older players unavailable, this gave me the chance to look at some of the younger players at the club, especially those who play on the wing.During preseason, we got some nice results, but were hammered by RB Salzburg, although we did create chances but were extremely wasteful!

 

The EFL Cup match vs Shrewsbury was our first competitive game and sadly it did not go to plan! Shrewsbury only had 1 chance in the game and took it, we created chances and were sloppy, Whittaker managed to finally take one and the game went to penalties.

 

The Championship season started on a great note for us, with a 3-0 win vs Reading and some of the young wide players at the club were involved in the first few games as the senior players were still unavailable. A.Brown scored a wonder goal vs Luton to tie it up vs Luton. The game against Blackburn were were Armstronged!! We managed to keep him quiet for most of the game, but he escaped us twice and made us pay twice. The first time he caught a napping Wisdom at RB out and crossed for Downing to make it 1-1. Then in the 90th minute he burst through the centre of our defence, which parted like the Red Sea and he smashed home a powerful drive from just inside the 18 yard box.

We have been pretty tough at the back and look solid, although we have given up goals in the 90th minute vs Blackburn and Watford. The Norwich goal was also late in the game, so maybe an issue with concentration in the squad or poor tactics from me and wasteful finishing from the players.

But we find ourselves 2nd in the table but a few points behind Brentford.

Morgan Whittaker has been on fire and hopefully we've found our striker for the future.

Out wide, we got some solid showings from Stretton, Hector-Ingram and some useful cameos from A.Brown and Wilson. Now we've got Waghorn and Lawrence back and they've taken the starting roles, but Stretton and Hector-Ingram are coming on from the bench and hopefully will be able to replace Lawrence and Waghorn in the starting XI soon. 

The midfield has been solid with Rooney, Shinnie, Bird, Sibley and Knight alternating in the 3 roles. Shinnie thus far has been the stand out.

In defence, Marshall has been outstanding and the centre back pairing of Clarke and te Wierik have been solid. Although Bielik is now back and may challenge te Wierik for the right-sided CB. At fullback, Byrne has nailed down RB and Buchanan is starting at LB.

We haven't had any major injuries, just the standard day to day stuff, hopefully that will be the extent of out injuries. But with our squad almost at full strength, just Ibe remains unavailable at present, we probably have some depth available to myself should we pick up a couple of injuries.

Players used thus far:

Going forward, I'm hopeful we can remain tough at the back and take more of the chances we're creating, as we have been pretty wasteful up until this point. Although if you'd said I'd be second with 1 defeat after 9 games, I'd have taken it.

Next update will be at the end of January(in game, natch!).

If you have any feedback regarding this post, the layout or any other information you'd like me to include, then let me know.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Congratulations @karanhsingh .  

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

@Stuniverse What are the odds, we'd get the same team and same result? Whittaker scored for us in normal time and Cummings scored for Shrewsbury, we then lost 4-2 on pens and that was after Roos saved their first penalty.

@karanhsingh Congrats on  the Top 3 Finish. Good luck in the Cup Final.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

54 minutes ago, Stuniverse said:

Ouch!

Good luck 🍀

I think the day I'd made the changes in the editor, I spent the day at work, doing a bunch of stuff for 2021 and maybe I was secretly hoping it was 2021, to end this annus horribilis. 

Just lost on pens to Shrewsbury in the 1st round of the EFL cup. Outplayed them, they had 1 chance in normal time and took it, we created a a fair few chances and could only score 1. But I know this is going to be a fun/rewarding/pulling hair out save! 

How's your save coming along?

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

33 minutes ago, Stuniverse said:

I must update this thread with my current Derby save over the weekend. We’re doing the same kind of save, @Scott_Gooner, based on our changes using the pre-game Editor (as discussed on page 1 of this thread) and I’m probably a month on from where you’re at in your last update.

I'd say you're probably ahead of me. With great skill and (lack of)attention to detail, I'd somehow managed to set the "bans" to end in 2021.

But I am sold on a long term save with Derby, so I've restarted and this time corrected the "bans" to end at the correct dates in 2020, currently in-game I'm at September 1st, 2020.  It was a pain in the backside, as we'd started alright in the league 3 wins(which included a thunderbolt from #39 to win the Brian Clough Trophy), 3 draws and 2 defeats and made it to the 3rd round of the EFL cup, where we lost 5-2 to Man City, but had meet the boards demand of making the third round, which is all I was bothered about.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

36 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

I have one who came through but will likely never be more than an able back-up.

Maybe the next youth intake will provide you with the homegrown #1.  Also congrats on your progress 😀

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

@karanhsingh are you still waiting for a decent GK to arrive? 

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

1 hour ago, karanhsingh said:

Those friendlies must have helped with the morale!

 

You’d like to think so and it did look promising when we beat Carlisle 3-0 in the EFL Cup, unfortunately we didn’t take that form into the league as Reading beat us 1-0 in the first league match.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

35 minutes ago, Stuniverse said:

That will certainly make your Derby save more realistic to what actually happened in real life and also more challenging.

That’s a lot of friendlies, @Scott_Gooner but also an impressive set of results, particularly against the League One sides, Newcastle and Ajax.

Who’s been scoring all the goals for you?

Derby’s big problem in real-life, and I’m finding on my save, is a shortage of goals due to a lack of natural strikers with senior experience.

Good luck 🍀 now the competitive action is about to kick-off...

It is a lot of fixtures, but in the first preseason I play a lot of games to get to know the players and the players only play 45 minutes a game and if I have enough fit bodies they don't play back to back games. In the second season I won't play that many friendlies.  

The main source of goals came from Whittaker with 13 , Stretton got 5 (but there were a 2 penalties in that total, I also noticed after he scored a hat-trick it said something along the lines of Stretton has scored the perfect hat-trick, one with his head and one with each foot, which was a nice touch). Hector-Ingram and A.Brown chipped in with a couple and Matt Clarke scored a hat-trick vs Barrowash. But I'll admit that Whittaker's and the others totals were inflated due to goals against the weaker teams, although Whittaker did bag both against Ajax.

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

Firstly: I used the editor to make players unavailable and club morale to 1 that @Stuniverse posted on page 1.

Secondly: I play with the first transfer window off.

Now let the fun begin....

I hired some staff to fill the vacancies at the club and signed Paul McGuinness as my Assistant Manager. Then I selected some teams to play preseason games against, I normally pick some local teams for the first few games, so the players can score some easy wins, and then finish preseason with some harder games. We did run up a few cricket scores in the early games, then had some harder games to end preseason.

For these games, I played some guys from the u23's and u19s: A) Lack of available first teamers and B) To see which youngsters might be able to offer us some options in the short term as well as the long term, hopefully! I was impressed with Tyree Wilson, although he is a little raw at present.

So preseason has come to an end and we're starting to get players back and luckily didn't lose any players to injury during preseason!

The scouts at the clubs were sent on general missions in the UK and Scandinavia, to look for players between the ages of 15-23. Whilst I want to primarily use players from the academy, we might on some occasions need to look outside of Moor Farm.

 

Edit: The formations I've been using in preseason have been a 4-3-3DM and a 4-2-3-1. Still haven't decided yet, which one will be the main tactic, but if I don't know what I'm going to play, then the opposition won't have a clue either.

 

 

 

[[FM21] Derby County - Why manage the Rams? / How are you getting on?]

5 hours ago, Stuniverse said:

Well that plan certainly makes things harder. On my save, I’m only up to Championship game 2 so I’ll update here when I get a bit further in, I had 15 players unavailable for the season opening Carabao Cup tie either through injuries set in FM21, injuries picked up in friendlies, players away on international duty, and the players I made unavailable in the pre-game Editor until the date they actually signed for Derby in real life.

How are you getting on with your save, @Scott_Gooner?

Almost finished preseason. Been playing the the games on full match, so I can look at how the players are playing in their roles. Also playing a lot of the U-23s and U-18s as there are a few guys from the first team who are unavailable. Added some staff to bolster the ranks. Hopefully I’ll be able to start the season this evening and start the long march to the promised land!!