erik45

Season 2045/2046 preview. Last season wasn't a good one, now it's time to do some changes and get us back to the battle for the title. Board expectations. Board is as boring as always, they just expect us to avoid relegation. This is our 6th season in the National League and the worst final position we've had has been 8th. So why is the expectation relegation? Media prediction. Last season the prediction was 13th, now 12th - progress? Our odds for the title are also better than last season (15.00 vs. 21.00). Our right wing-back is considered our best player (I don't know if I agree) and our left winger (who was on loan last season) is considered the best prospect (I might agree). 1st XI. Yes, I have changed to an absolute classic formation: say hello to 4-4-2! I had my first FM24 save in Japan and I had great success with this formation. As one can see, we have quite a bit of injury worries at the start of the season, missing three players from the 1st XI. 2nd XI. This is quite strong 2nd XI compared to earlier seasons. I would like to emphasise PA even more when choosing players, but right now it is more important to get results and get promoted. Facility upgrades. Very happy with these upgrades! We had the money and as this is almost a youth only save we really need to do all the upgrades we can. Transfer out. This came totally out of nowhere! Guaranteed €900k for a player who played total of 0 minutes for us. Aswani 41c had three full seasons on loan in National South/North and lately became a Kenyan international, but still... €900k is a lot of money! This is 3 x more than the next highest transfer fee. Chesterfield play in the Championship and my guess is he'll never be a starter for them. He was ready to be one for us, but even at this level I had questions about his quality (especially about his speed). International call-ups. One new name as a player from the latest youth intake got immediately called up. Wassenaar 45d also has Dutch and English nationalities. Injuries. Three injuries in one training session and one more in the game after that... Okay, I sold one of the players after their injury, but still... Pre-season friendlies. Not too many wins, but when you look at the level of our opponents, the results look much more positive. Upcoming fixtures. New opponent alert! For the first time in a competitive game we face Preston! Let's hope our 4-4-2 system works better than the 4-2-3-1 we tried last season. If it doesn't work, I'm ready to go back to my classic narrow 4-3-3.

Season 2044/2045 review. The board is really happy and the media is talking positively about us. After being 3rd the season before and not really weakening after that, being 8th in the league is a disappointment for me. Yes, we had a totally new formation that mixed things up a bit, but we just couldn't be as good as we were in 2043/2044. Final table. In the end it was Grimsby Town who took the 2nd promotion place, a bit of a surprise to me! Bath City were in the playoffs final for a 3rd season in a row - and it was 3rd time they lost the final! We were only one win away from playoff places, but 27 points away from the top. Way too big of a gap. xPts. This tells an even sadder story. Before this season, our worst season in the National League was 7th in xPts table. Now we are 10th. It is fair to say our new tactic didn't make us play better. Best XI. This is the same as 1st XI. Nothing really stands out. Maybe our LB having only 6.74 avg rating is something to think about. Players by minutes. Our defensive players were really well available, all but 1st choice LB clocking 3000+ minutes. Players by avg rating. Only 5 players with average rating of 7.0, that's worrying. Players by goals. Only two players with 10+ goals and none with 20+. Not good enough. Gomez 39f was really efficient with his xG and young Winter 44a had a quite good G/90. Could he be our new AF/P who scores 30+ goals? Players by assists. If the lack of prolific goal scorers was a disappointment, so is this. Wingers got some assists as did our BWM Preece 42c, but the attacking midfielders didn't do well, not at all (7 & 3 assists). Professional status change. The board surprised me with their request of turning the club pro. I don't know why they needed to ask me, but I happily agreed with them! We have enough money in the bank to do this and it might elevate our player quality to a new level. On top of that, we finally get a set piece coach and some staff to sport science. New contract. Two years + two more if we get promoted. Finances. Some more sponsorship money, but we need to pay quite a bit of taxes next year because of the profits we did. My estimate is we will have ~€4-4.5m in the bank at the end of 45/46 season. We have one clause worth of €700k available at the moment, but I'm not in a rush to activate it, as the player in question is worth €6m+ and the clause is 50 %. Youth product in the ENG national team. Look at that! We have our very first youth product playing for the Three Lions! Smith 40a has been on loan at Southampton in Championship. They got promoted as 2nd in the league and Smith 40a got 6 goals in 14 appearances (10 starts). The season before he got 18 goals in 33 games for Cardiff in the Championship. I think there needs to be at least dozen better strikers for England, but I'm still very proud and happy to see him get his first cap!

April 2045. We didn't make it easy for us to fight for the chance in the promotion playoffs. In both of the last two games we started by conceding two before we actually started playing. Two goals was too much for us and we only ended with 1 point from possible 6. Table. Win in the last game would've been enough to overtake Shrewsbury, who had a total meltdown at the end of the season. But we didn't so we stayed in the 8th position. Next season will be the 6th season in the National League, this save is progressing veeeeery slowly right now.

March 2045. Well, we got three wins and only a narrow loss against Bath City who still are in the battle for the title. Table. I forgot to take the screenshot at the turn of the month, so this is after +1 game (which we won)! There are three teams we can overtake, but it will be very difficult. Upcoming fixtures. So, only two games left. If we win both of them I'm quite certain we will be in the playoffs. But we would start form the first round (and away from home), so it would be a massive surprise to get promoted.

Youth intake 2045. A good CB prospect, but what else is there..? The first view isn't too promising, but let's take a closer look. Only four stars! Okay, this is even worse than expected. Not because of CA/PA of the players, but because of the personalities! Only one positive personality and loads of bad personalities. Also the determination of these players is ridiculously low on average. I have excellent coaching and HOYD for this level with emphasis on the personalities of the coaches, but it hasn't affected our intakes. My favourites from this intake are Bruce 45a, Wassenaar 45d and Devlin 45i, their player profiles:

March 2045. What the h*ll is this? These draws are coming to haunt us. I kind of agree with the two losses, but we were leading in all the draws, by two goals against Woking. Players are more or less happy, so it is not a club atmosphere thing. The tactic isn't that demanding that players would be really tired at the end of the games, so it's that neither. As I don't know what is the problem I'm not too eager to change things yet. Table. There is still a chance of getting to the playoffs, but I think the chances of promotion are ~5 %. Training facilities. Last month we got our youth facilities upgraded and got a 2nd upgrade approved, now we did the same thing for training facilities. Finances. We are using a lot of money right now. I want to get upgrades done (and I don't want to pay too much taxes on the profit we make this season). Upcoming fixtures. March shouldn't be as tough as January. If we win 3 or 4 games, we are still in the mix for promotion.

January 2045. If the end of the year was a struggle, same can't be said about the beginning of 2045. Not a perfect month, but still very good. Highlight of the month: 2nd XI scoring 6 past Forest Green Rovers. Table. Back to playoff positions! Youth facilities. Upgrade: done. Another upgrade: accepted! It is a very expensive upgrade, but we have the money and I'm more than ready to spend it. Finances. Still €7,7m in the bank, that's a lot of money for National League side. Upcoming fixtures. This is going to be a difficult month. Stockport lead the league, Woking and Chester are in the battle for promotion. If we do well, we have a really good chance of making it to the playoffs.

December 2044. How do we draw so many games??? The Boxing day win was excellent and after that we continued with a solid win. Maybe this is a sign of better things to come...? Yes, it has been frustrating. 6 draws... Table. This is not looking great. My gut feeling is we need to be in top 3 to get promoted (so we skip the first round of playoffs), and the gap between us and the 3rd is already 13 points. Upcoming fixtures. Usually January is much busier, but in a way I'm happy we have only the league left, no need to share focus with other competitions.

Youth intake preview. 5 star incoming, but with what kind of players? No grade A, only one B and rest of it C or worse. Hmm, I don't know how I feel about this preview, it surely doesn't excite me. This is just the preview, maybe there will be a positive surprise in the actual intake in March!

Real Sociedad are really playing the numbers game: four wins with four goals scored!

November 2044. Great start, winning two in the league and the FA Cup replay. After that... I don't know. Bath City deserved their win, but the rest of the games...both against Shrewsbury and Fleetwood we had 2 goal leads that we blew. In the cup our 2nd XI dominated Tranmere (League 2) but just couldn't find the net. Tranmere had one shot, from a penalty, and that was enough for them to go through. Table. We slip down in the table, 16 points to the top is too much to catch up. Upcoming fixtures. I don't care about the FA Trophy right now, the 2nd XI will get their chance to play there. I just really want to get our form in the league to the right track!

October 2044. The successes with the finances didn't carry on to the games. Okay, we did quite well in the cup games, but the month in the league was a flop. We had couple of really tricky fixtures, but winning only one from six is unacceptable. The 2nd XI actually played better than the 1st, gaining the only win and drawing one more. Table. Now there's a real gap between us and the top, but we are still in the promotion discussion. Finances. Stonks, we have money (check the previous post to see why)! Upcoming fixtures. FA Cup replay and a busy league schedule, let's do better than we did on October!

Clause buyout. Hello €15,26m, welcome home! When I saw the opportunity to get this amount of money for a clause that doesn't guarantee us anything I immediately decided to activate it. Yes, down the line there could've been possibility to gain much more, but that is very uncertain. Money in the current situation has much more value than some potential future money. So, now we have crazy amount of money on our bank account: over €16 million! What to do with it? Spend as much as we can, of course! Training facilities. Upgrade approved, nice! Youth facilities. Upgrade approved, nice! Or I actually asked to move up a youth level, as there was no option for youth facility upgrade, but youth level move seemed to be the way to go. What's even better, is that finishing the upgrades take just 3-4 months which leaves the door open for another batch of upgrades. I think I will try to do it, but that won't be decided until February. I also want to leave money for turning pro, but that's not an issue right now as we have ~€12m in the bank.

Yeah, I agree selling the clause: guaranteed €15m now has much more worth for the club than uncertain ~0-60 millions somewhere in the future.

September 2044. We are scoring enough goals and not conceding that much, very nice. This would've been an amazing month, but the 2nd XI just wasn't strong enough against a good Morecambe side. Table. We climb up all the way to the third spot! I'm happy to see that none of the teams are running away at the top. Young player of the month. Our players are good and they are young = Finances. This screenshot shows a bit more than the usual one about finances. You see the transfer clause part there. I wonder which of the clauses that is... ...it is the 50 % profit clause on the best player our academy has ever produced, Nicky Smith 40a! His transfer value has moved around €50-120m and his media description is wonderkid, so there's a possibility his next transfer will be a major one. But there's no guarantee that he will ever transfer or that the fee will be that high. So do I take guaranteed €15m now OR do I gamble on the clause and wait for another one to n years for a bigger number? The 15m would cover for the next 4-6 facility upgrades and would allow us to turn pro. I just feel the money now is much more valuable than it would be somewhere in the unknown future. I'm yet to activate the clause, but I am VERY tempted. He is a really good player, but it looks like he's staying with the ManU U21s this season, which can't be good for his value. Upcoming fixtures. It is cup time! And the schedule gets a lot busier. Couple of really difficult games in the middle, this month will be a real test for us - and especially for our 2nd XI.

July & August 2044. A rough wake up call in the first game of the season. I heavily doubted if it was a good decision to change the tactic and formation during the summer. But after the shock start we started play better. Our attack is not the most efficient, but look at the number of goals conceded in August: 0 Table. A solid starts considering how much we changed things during the pre-season. Finances. These keep on being solid. Transfer saga...-ish. Our best player (or at least the one with the most CA stars) has made a lot of noises about leaving the club. He even missed two training sessions as a protest, that has never happened in this save! I negotiated a deal with Bristol Rovers that included: €105k + 20 % sell on + friendly + loan back. I accepted it, stalled the deal and in the end declined it as I felt we just didn't have any quality in that position if we lose McGeechan 39e. I was surprised he wasn't angrier than he was, as he was happy to continue with us while waiting an offer of €170k to happen. This is a lesson for me to toughen up when dealing with players who want to leave Upcoming fixtures. A very basic month, with the 2nd XI getting their first game in the midweek fixture against Morecambe.

Season 2044/2045 preview. Once again, it is the start at the National League. I would've hoped to get past this level already, but I always knew it was going to be tricky to get one of the two places for promotion. Board expectations. How can the board be so unambitious?? We've been in the promotion fight every year in this league, but they still just expect avoiding relegation. Well, I won't be losing my job because of bad performances, the low bar guarantees that! Also, how can they be disappointed with developing players using the club's youth system? There are total of two players in the club who are not our youth products. The average age of the first team is just above 21. Media predictions. Media is more positive towards us than our own board. The predicted position is the same as last year, but the odds are a bit better. It is interesting to see that all the promoted and the relegated sides are predicted to finish so low. I think we have quite balanced team right now, maybe the midfield could need some reinforcement. I agree with media that McGeechan 39e is our best player and it is interesting to see Yeboah 43a as the hot prospect. He's a winger, and we haven't used those earlier, but that is about to change! 1st XI. Big changes! For now, I have ditched the narrow 4-3-3 for this 4-2-3-1 system. I needed a change to keep the save interesting and I thought maybe the players needed too. We have so many players who were shoehorned to play out of their natural positions and this new system fixes that problem. There's still one player playing in an unfamiliar position, Dingwall 39d, but that's just because I think he will become a great attacking midfielder. The most excited I'm of course about the use of wingers. We've had many decent prospects, but so far they've become either strikers or box-to-box midfielders. There are multiple new players in the 1st XI, winger Johnston 39b maybe being the most interesting player. He's had 4 seasons out on loan already, so he should be more than ready for us. 2nd XI. Assembling the 2nd XI was a bit trickier than before mainly because we don't have many DMs and our quality in the attack is a bit low. A lot of potential in this team, with four more experienced players. Transfer #1. He had been our 1st and 2nd choice keeper for six seasons, but I still felt like he was too unreliable to actually be an option I would be happy with. I think he will play a total of 0 games in Luton, but I'm happy for him as he can make a lot more money there than here. Transfer #2. This one is a bit more controversial as Joyce 37f has bee really solid for the last two seasons. But as I changed our formation, we are not going to need that many central midfielders. He's already 22 years old, so there won't be much more development to happen. Injury. The Gibraltarian striker Wellens got injured in the very last pre-season friendly and will be out for the most of the season. He was going to have a big role, but let's what kind of player he is when he gets back. Youth leagues. The benefits of moving up a youth level! For the first time ever, we are joining a U21 league! On top of that, we will play in a better U18s division, nice! Reputation. We are now one of the mid-table sides when it comes to reputation. Pre-season. Some losses against bigger teams, but four games without conceding and couple of big wins, maybe the new formation works...? Upcoming fixtures. The season starts away to Grimsby. The new 4-2-3-1 formation hasn't been in the training for long, so there might be some hiccups early in the season.

Best players from FC Isle of Man academy...so far. I have now played 20 full seasons and I decided it would be interesting to look at how are best youth products are doing. I have listed here all the players who have played in the EFL (or foreign leagues similar to similar quality). For me, this is motivation to continue the save as I have progressed quite a bit slower than I thought. I haven't been able to create real momentum to get e.g. back-to-back promotions at any point, but I'm still satisfied with the save so far. Piet 27f was one of the first to move to EFL - and play there! He wasn't a sure starter for us, so I was surprised how decent career he had. Now in his homeland Denmark. Bailey 28f was snatched by Portsmouth for free and it took some time for him to get proper minutes. Still, over 300 games in League 1 and 2 is quite good! Fagan 29a was the first player I felt had some star quality. Not in a way he would play in the PL, but that he had skillset that could carry him to have a successful career. Almost 600 league games and 250 goal contributions, that is a notable career! He was also the first player we sold. We had 50 % sell-on clause on him and I had really high hopes we could gain a million or two from his next transfer, but in the end he decided to leave for free after 9 seasons with Bury. Spooner 29f was important part of our team in the early 30s, but then he decided to leave us for Hyde United. Then a move to Ireland and before Leeds United snatched him to play as a back-up. He even has 6 Premier League games! Parillon 30e - another keeper! It seems that goalkeeping coaching is really working in the academy as we have had so many fine prospects. Parillon 30e made an interesting choice of taking a step down to Punjab United. I remember they paid him very high wages for that level. After that he's been climbing up the league pyramid and now is starting keeper in MK Dons at League 1! Lewis 34a's transfer had the largest fee received for us at the time. He's yet to play full season at a higher level, but 30+ games a season in League 1 is not too shabby! Green 35b was one our better players at the time but I still felt we could afford to lose him as he didn't contribute that much from CM (a) position. League 1 and Irish Premier Division, nice! Wilson 36b - a player I considered as our first proper centre back. He's had an okay career in Burton so far. They got relegated, so it will be interesting to see if he will stay with them in the League 2. We have 50 % profit clause, let's hope it gets activated at some point! Dyer 37a is another CM (a) position player who was good, but not as good I felt his attributes suggested. After leaving us for Marine in League 1, he has practically no goal contributions?! Broe 39a - for a change a CM (a) player who I really liked. I was sad to see him leave, but I understand why he wanted to leave when Wrexham (not owned by movie stars anymore) came knocking. He is a starting player, but still surplus to requirements..? I would be happy see him sold for the estimated value, as we have 50 % sell-on clause! Smith 40a - our first proper wonderkid! Before looking at this screenshot I hadn't noticed he actually has the wonderkid media description, yeehaw! I was a bit skeptical he chose Man United as the next step, as it would be easy to get lost in the youth teams. But they have loaned him out and the latest loan to Cardiff has been a real success - 18 goals in Championship! His estimated value has been somewhere between €50m-€120m and we have 50 % profit clause...this is one specific reason why the save is still motivating! There are even more players in higher divisions, but I have only showcased the ones who actually have a proper role in their team. Let's hope in the future the EFL players are all ours (as we will get promoted some day, surely we have to manage to do it eventually )!

Season 2043/2044 review. Another season that can be put in to one word: almost. If I put in to two words: almost, again. It has been frustrating two seasons, but I still feel motivated to continue. As long as we can keep the players I want to keep, we are going to be in the promotion battle next season. Table. One more win and we would've had much better chance of getting promoted. Early on in the season we were even challenging for the title, but two teams were better than us, no question about it. I was quite certain we will be third, but we blew it in the last five games. Bowers & Pitsea had an amazing end of the season to leapfrog us - and going all the way to the promotion! Actually the last month wasn't the worst, we were struggling the most when we had our 1st choice GK injured for 8 weeks. xPts table. 2nd most expected points, but 4th position. Look at how much points Bath City and Bowers & Pitsea gained even when they underperformed their xG! Best XI. 1st XI but the advanced forward is replaced by 2nd choice target man. I need to fix how the advanced forward position works. Player awards. Lowndes 40k is POTY for 2nd time in a row and the Young player of the season for the third time. The target man position is more or less broken when it comes to average ratings. Dingwall 39d had the most assists and goals, but wasn't the best player...? Players by minutes. 3,000 minutes for the 1st XI, 1,500 minutes for the 2nd XI - quite good balance? Montgomery 39c would've had the most minutes, but he was injured for 2 months. Players with 7.0< average rating. 10 players with rating starting with seven. No real surprises here, but it is concerning our supposed main attacking threat is not here (the player(s) in AF position). Players by goals. Two out of the attacking three get "enough" goals that I'm happy. But the advanced forward doesn't: Gomez 39f, Robertson 37l and Wellens had total of 24 goals in 59 games. That's not enough! The problem is not that they are bad at finishing but that they just don't get enough chances. Their combined xG is 25,41, so they underperformed it by "only" 1,41. Players by assists. I would like our full backs to get a few more assists, but other than that, I'm quite happy with the numbers. Youth level upgrade. This was started already a year ago, but we finally got approved to move on the next youth level. I don't know how it actually affects us, but I guess it should bring something positive to youth player development. Finances. Even with the rising wage (weekly costs from €9,5k to €17k in a season ) and youth setup (monthly costs from €80k to €95k) costs we made some profit! I took this opportunity to sell the clause as Rother 35a is yet to play a game for QPR, and he's been at the club for four years. Most appearances in the history of FC Isle of Man, a loyal warrior leaves us to join a team in the 1st division of Ghanaian football. Adams 30c was never amazing, but always consistently good enough. 430 league games for us, thank you Samuel!

FA Trophy final. . . . . Missed penalty: check Winning by xG, but losing the game: check Opponent scoring 5 goals with just above 1.0 xG: check What a memorable way to end the season!

Playoff semi final: Two missed penalties and a 94th minute winner for the opponent. How is this amount of self-destruction even possible?! If I would allow myself to replay even one match in FM, this would've been the one. FA Trophy final. The season ain't over, we still have our first cup final in 19 years, when we won the North West Counties League Cup. In the final we are facing Sheppey United, who play in the league below us, so we should be clear favourites. Everything can happen in a one-off game, just like the previous game brutally showed us. Let's hope this time will be different and we get a positive end to the season!

Yes, Corinthian-Casuals were level above everyone else in the end, they deserved the title and the promotion. Just yesterday I saw Twitter account Forgotten Football Clubs promoting their article about the club I knew a bit about the history of Corinthians FC and nothing about the Casuals FC, I thought the article was definitely worth a read: https://forgottenfootballclubs.com/2024/09/02/corinthian-casuals-fc/ Good luck with the start of your FM24 journey!

1st playoff round. We really needed to fight for it, but in the end we got there with an extra time goal! First step towards promotion: done. Playoff semis. Only four days between the previous game, and we face a side who haven't had to play at all...away from home. They are the favourites, but if we keep our calm and make smart decisions, we will get our chances.

March & April 2044. I was pressing space bar so fast I forgot to take screenshots at the end of March. March was really good (Corinthian-Casuals somehow scored 3 goals with ~0.8 xG), but then we totally choked in April. What happened, I don't know... Table. The April choke was a disaster as we slipped from the 3rd position at the very last round. This means we start the playoffs from the very beginning and we need a good amount of luck on top of skill to get promoted. Playoff 1st round. We will face Wigan. We should be favourites, but after the disaster month, I don't know anymore. I already feel defeated, I hope the team doesn't

Youth intake 2044. Proper striker prospect, yes! Many of the better prospect seem to be wingers, a position we don't use. The first view looked better than this. Many "bad" personalities, how can there be so many unambitious players? If I can't mentor them to get a better personality, these players won't develop properly. What I like about this intake is the massive striker (who isn't good in the air ) and the amount of players with over 1 star in current ability. Here is my top 3: