erik45

September 2025. Oof.... well, there goes both of the cup "runs". The loss against Newton Aycliffe really hurt. But we didn't deserve much from it, even if we had a goal disallowed in the 92th minute which would've taken us to a replay at home. If the cup run was horrible, it wasn't much better in the league. We won against other promoted team, but then it was downhill. xG told us being "better team" in all games but the one against Widnes, but I think xG flattered us. League table. Even after this month's results, we are in a good position. Five points above relegation and at the same points as the team in last playoff position. If we could concede less, we should be able to get a respectable position at the end of the season. Facility upgrade! The board didn't allow me to ask about youth facilities or coaching, so I went and asked them to upgrade training facilities. First they said no, but after a brief discussion they accepted so we wouldn't be left behind our rivals (which we don't have according to the club info ). Finances. I asked for the upgrade because of our strong financial position. Now I might need to wait until the next season for next upgrade, as we won't be having big bucks from the cup. Well, we have one more cup we can go try to win! The league cup starts and we face Mossley who we already beat in the first league game of the season. On top of that we have four league games. I'm really waiting for the game against Leek Town, just because I absolutely love the name! I think it is the only town I know that is named after a vegetable.

August 2025. The second season started even. better than the first one! We needed replay against Whickham, but after that it was (almost) smooth sailing from win to win. If you look at the scorers of the replay against Whickham, you might notice we got our first goal by youth intake player! Mateus Paulo 25a played so well he was awarded as Player of the Match. He's been playing in DLP (s) role. We have two players in that position already, but both of them are 35-years old, so we will need a replacement soon. I will keep a list of all the players from youth intakes to see when they made their debuts and how are they doing later on. League Table. The league table looks like this after the first month. Avro has started very well, but so have we. I'm not expecting us to be fighting for the title this season, but if we can keep the best players, we might have a chance for playoff places. Stadium expansion. ...or maybe not so much of an expansion as overall capacity has been decreased, but at least we have more seats now! Finances. We are doing so well that I will be asking some improvements as soon as I am able to ask them Next month we (might) play the matches that were postponed because of new games in cups. Mossley is in the same division as we are while Newton Aycliffe is in the one below us. Both are winnable ties, but let's not get cocky. It will be a busy month, especially if we get through in one or both cups.

New season, new league, same old FC Isle of Man! This season FC Isle of Man will make its first appearance in Northern Premier League, Division 1 West! To get us fully prepared for that, we played a closed-door friendly against U21s and five friendlies against English and Northern Irish teams. As one can see, the results were mostly very positive, although the Guernsey loss really annoyed me. Anyways, the team is ready for the new season, fully fit and in positive spirits! Expectations: Season preview tells us we should be many teams fighting for top half finish and that's also my personal aim for the year. I was about to show the board's expectations, but this interesting message popped up before the season started: Even before the first league game, the supporters are saying we failed the objective of finishing top-half. Well, they might be a bit too eager to judge, so let's play the season first and then see what happens. Fortunately, this message didn't trigger any reaction from the board, so I should be safe for now. The board is expecting mid-table finish. Transfers: There was only one transfer move, in or out, during the summer: we brought in Isle of Man born midfielder Jack Camarda on a free transfer. He actually played for us in 22/23 season, before moving to Dunston (who are on the same level as we are now). Camarda will be rotational option for BWM, DLP and RWB roles. Financially we continue on the same path. If we get good money from our cup games, I will be asking new facility/coaching improvements soon. Upcoming fixtures: We start the season same as last yer: by having pre-pre round of FA cup! Whickham are one level below us, so we should be small favourites, even if it's. an away tie. Our journey in the new league starts against teams who are also predicted in the big lump of mid-table sides. We end the month against Cheadle Town who were promoted with us last season (and are predicted to finish last... )

I'm late to the party, but you and @BML made the choices I would've made as well! I maybe could've chosen McKenzie over King as a new coach, but that just my bias towards coaches that doesn't have good coaching badges, which might be a bit unintuitive My youth only(ish) style of playing is not only about the players, but also about the staff. I prefer coaches with no badges (or national level badges) as they have more room for development.

Season Review I don't know how it "took a little while to get going" when we were unbeaten in the first 14 competitive games and lost only 3 games before Christmas (compared to 6 between Christmas and end of the season). North West Counties Premier Division: Win The league table was already in a previous post, so I want to use this post to highlight our excellent cup runs. North West Counties league cup: Win FA Vase: 5th round (loss vs. Milton United are were on the same level as we.) FA Cup: 4th Qualifying Round (loss vs. Harrogate Town, who got promoted to League Two) Without the cup runs, the first improvements to our facilities and youth coaching wouldn't have happened, so let's hope we continue on the same path next season! Financially we are in a relatively strong position. As players might be asking more money for appearances, we need to be sure to balance that out somehow. Transfers in: We made surprisingly many signings, but only Parral and Pinnington had important roles in the first team (+ McKinnon, who has signed before I did). Transfers out: Before the youth intake, we had only 18 players in total at the club. Monks, Ronald and Hook were true benchwarmers, so losing them didn't affect the quality of the team, but McKinnon was important in our defence rotation. Before turning the page for the new season, we got some exciting news about our facilities! First of all, the board decided to add some seating capacity to comply with league requirements. And then the board surprised me by accepting to improve both youth category rating and junior coaching budget! Now junior coaching is at adequate level, which is more than I wished for at this point of the save. Now we just need to make sure it doesn't create too much of a financial burden for the club.

Yeah, it would've been nice to win FA Vase at some point, but I'm usually very bad at cup runs, so it was a great surprise to me even to win the league cup At least promotion gets me one step close of being able to offer proper contracts to players (but we are not there yet).

Yeah, yeah, yeah, que no pare la fiesta - don't stop the party!! We do the double! We controlled the match from start to finish and deserved the win. This was our last chance to do it as next season we have new cups to conquer! After the cup win, there was something new at our Club Info page:

We did it, we are the champions of North West Counties Premier Division! April 2025. As the results tell, we didn't do it without some troubles. After Chadderton win players might have felt too comfortable, so of course we lost the next two games. We had over 1,000 people in the last home game ready to celebrate winning the title, but things were not meant to be. As Cheadle Town won all their games in April, we needed at least a draw from the last game. 34-old showed how to make things happen as he scored a hat-trick in the last game as we cruised past Litherland who ended up in the bottom of the table. In the end there were two points separating us and Cheadle Town, who went and won the promotion playoffs. We scored loads of goals, but also conceded a lot. If we look at the xG table, it tells somewhat similar story. West Didsbury & Chorlton can count themselves very unlucky, as their xPts were better than ours, but they finished outside playoff spots. 20 out of 21 teams overperformed their xG and underperformed their xGA which is not unusual in lower divisions in Football Manager. While we were playing the last games of the season, we also got our first youth facility upgrade done. We have now even better facilities than before: basic youth facilities, woohoo! The last game of the season is a big one as we have chance to get our very first cup title!

Youth intake 2025 The most interesting day is here as we have our first youth intake! What to expect? This was the preview from December: 5-star intake but no position with players better than grade D. I really don't know how that can be five stars. These are the players we got. We have only three players over 0,5 stars, but on the other hand, quite many players with 5 or 4,5 star potential. My favorites are Mateus Paulo, Ayrton Bowes and Aaron Kelly. They don't have the best personalities and I'm not expecting any players to develop too much at this level. But even small development can make them important for the first team. Mateus Paulo will get some playing time soon, but I'm thinking to utilize him as DLP (s) as I don't use CAMs. Now that I'm looking at these "top talents" I think only Mateus Paulo has a real chance of making to the first team. But you never know, as we have so few players that one or two players leaving changes things drastically. I'm giving contracts to 15 of the 16 players. In a "normal" situation I would be stricter, but we really need bodies and many of the lower quality players are born in Isle of Man, so I want to keep them. Only Chidi Akanni is released, as his potential is so low even if he reaches it, he won't get to the first team (+ he doesn't have a good personality, but that's an issue with most of the players ).

March 2025. We keep on winning! Losing to Ramsbottom was bit unlucky. Lower Breck has been our bogey team this season. They've been in the relegation zone for the season, but we only gained 1 point from two games against them... Anyways, good results mean that we're closer than ever of achieving promotion! We are in such a good form, that winning the league is a real possibility! This is the first month that I actually am thinking that we are the favorites now. Even though promotion is very close, some players are not happy. The four players mentioned in the message are all key players for us, so I need to keep them satisfied. I would be happy to strengthen the team, but there just aren't any good players wanting to join us. Slowly, money keeps on rolling in. We might be asking new improvements soon! Last games of the season. In April we have four league games. If we win two of them, we've guaranteed league win! After the league has ended, we have our first cup final at Highbury Stadium, home of Fleetwood town.

February 2025. Well, we can't win them all, can we? The start of the month made me question our capability to challenge for the title. Especially the 3-4 loss to Cheadle Town hurt. But after that, team decided to start playing again and three nice wins ended the month. Even after some hiccups, we are holding to our position at the top of the table. More upgrades! Financially we continue on the same positive path. As we get a new youth coaching upgrade, we might see some increase in expedintures. Next month we will have our very first youth intake...and seven games! We have a chance to gain place in the League Cup final as Prestwich Hays visit us in the semis. They're just above relegation battle, so I would consider ourselves small favourites for the game.

January 2025. Things are going well. REALLY well! We won all the games, but on top of that we are scoring crazy amounts of goals. I'm used to scoring 1-2 goals per game in FM, this is all new to me I'm really happy not just with the cup wins, but also with the win against City of Liverpool, who were just behind us in the league. Because of our excellent form, we have not only topping the league, but also created a four point gap between us and Cheadle Town! The win against Ramsbotton United guaranteed that we passed our very first vision objective! More first time successes: Manager of the Month and Player of the Month! Kiam Reddy has been an excellent poacher for us, scoring almost 30 times in all competitions. Financially we continue gaining small profit every month. All the positive news made me brave enough to ask contract extension already in January. On top of that I also asked to start my first coaching course - and surprisingly the board thought all this was a good idea! Next month the busy schedule continues with seven games: five in the league and two in the cups. The league games will probably decide if we still have the possibility to win the league as we face teams in 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 12th, and 5th.

December 2024. And there goes the unbeaten run. Against the bottom of the league... Other than that, the month was quite okay. The xG story of the first league loss of the season was quite even, but only after our red card. We were leading the game until 80th minute and drawing until 94th, but in the end we lost. We are still holding on to our second place in the league. There's seven points between us and the teams outside of playoff spots, let's keep it this way! To enhance our chances, we also made a new signing! Dean Pinnington, born on Isle of Man, will slot right in to our starting XI (as soon he learns to play CM ) I also got the preview of our youth intake. At the moment, we just need more bodies. If the bodies are for left back, midfield or attack, even better. I had my hopes up, because sometimes at this level you get crazy good intakes for no clear reason...but maybe not this time. The first facility upgrade gave a hit to our bank balance, but we are steadily keeping a positive balance. We start the new year by heading to Liverpool. We also meet two teams from our division in cups, I'm hopeful we get to continue our good cup runs!

November 2024. Good results just keep on coming! I really don't know why, because we're playing quite well, but not that well. Ramsbottom game was frustrating, because nothing, absolutely nothing happened in that game. Look at the opposition's pass map, it tells all the action you need to know... We are steadily climbing up the table. The board expects us to finish in the promotion playoff positions and so far it looks like we have a good chance of achieving that. Next month we have no cup games, but we compensate that by having six league games. Can we continue our unbeaten record in the league? (Hint: no )

October 2024. Well, the game of the season (so far) was very much deserved loss to Harrogate Town. We concede a lot of goals, but we just keep on grinding results! Big - or tall - reason for our wins has been target man Robert Jones. Top scorer, highest average rating and most POTM awards, not bad. Comparing our results to this table, the win against Cheadle Town and draw against Glossop North End might be very valuable for us at the end of the season. I forgot to screenshot the finance page this month, but maybe the next picture tells something about the club's financial situation: We have our first upgrade, let's gooooo!!! Next month we continue with 5 league games, 1 FA Vase game and also enter the North West Counties League Cup. West Didsbury & Chorlton should be the toughest test as they lead the xG table.

Wooow, unbeaten start for the season continues! Two draws and a win in the league is good, but even better are the wins in the cups. The win against phoenix club Macclesfield was massive, and over 3000 fans got to see it! In the league we are one of the two undefeated sides. Cheadle Town is looking dangerously effective, but we have played two games less than them. Financially we are doing goooood! Over 70,000 profit in one month is crazy for a club at this level Next month the team faces this season's biggest test so far against Harrogate Town who are on top of Vanarama.

First proper games, first proper wins! Really good start, and the first cup wins are very important for our financial balance. We got lucky to get the draw against Ilkeston, let's hope we can win the replay. League table is starting to shape. As we had so many cup games, we've already played 1-2 games less than the others. We also broke first record – although my manager had very little to do with it Next month we continue in the cups + have four league games Finances were positively affected by the first cup games, let's hope the cup runs will be long!

Sorry, I should've been more specific. You should see your team's season preview by clicking the row of your team (but not the team name as that's a link to the overview page) on league's season preview

Oh, slack is... not good You can also find manager's personality from league's season preview when you click your team. There you can also find your squad's personality! I feel that doesn't perfectly correlate with the individuals' personalities, squad personality has always been quite positive in my teams (determined, professional, very professional etc.). It would be interesting to know if slack personality negatively affects your players' personalities (or maybe even your staff's personalities as they're the ones mostly working with you, but I haven't seen staff personalities change).

Could you check what is your manager's personality? In the last longer save I had (in FM22) I checked "my personality" at the start of the season. They were: balanced for the first 4 years, fairly loyal for the next 4, next 14 years: casual 12 times, slack 2 times; and the last of the year of the save fairly loyal again. I stayed in the same team for the whole time, so loyalty is quite expected, but otherwise I couldn't understand the negative personalities I had most of the time. I was fairly successful, bringing a team from 4th level to the top division with youth only, but that success didn't (positively) affect my personality. I also follow the personalities of the players from youth intakes. My observation is that when facilities, reputation, coaching etc. gets better there will be less players with negative personality, but not more with positive. (My interpretation of positive/negative personalities is very subjective and I categorise many personalities as neutral). It would be interesting to find some correlation between manager's personality and personalities of players!

Yeah I think FA Cup run is the way to go to get some improvements done. At lower divisions maintaining a good youth setup is relatively cheap. But if/when I get promoted multiple times, the payments get bigger even if I don't do further improvements. I don't really understand how it works in FM, but this is my experience in earlier editions. Isle of Scilly is the smallest league, right? Two teams competing each other, at least seasons would just fly by!

Thanks! I'm a big fan of self-imposed restrictions. Last proper save I had was in the Nordics with players who are 190< cm tall. I won the top divisions in Norway, Sweden and Finland, but I just couldn't win Danish league I really like the idea of save with island born players. A bit similar is my idea to start save with Hammarlands IK. It is a club based in Åland in Finland, and in the save I could only use players born in Åland. The real twist comes from the fact that Hammarlands IK play in the Swedish system. The problem with starting a save with them is that they play in Div 7 (which is 9th or 10th level), and for now there's no proper league/data update for that.

Pre-Season Friendlies The club had arranged most of these before I came here (I added the one against Tranmere). Happy with the amount of goals scored, but conceding all games but one is something to think about. Upcoming I was too eager and already played pre-preliminary game of FA Cup... which we ended up winning! We have three league games and we go straight to the deep end as we travel to Padiham, who are the third favourite to win the league. After that, two Liverpool sides and a FA Cup tie against Sheffield – oldest still existing football club! 😮

Season Expectations Board and fans expect us to get to the promotion playoffs. It might be a challenging task as we found ourselves at 9th position in the season preview. The encouragement to reach the playoffs comes from the fact that we have four players in the media dream eleven: O'Connor, Moore, Thorpe & McCaffrey. McCaffrey is also bookies' favourite to be the top player in the division!

Squad & Transfers When I took over, these were all the players in the team (U21 & U18 included). We quickly needed some reinforcements, and that need was emphasised even more when Ryan Cooper, our only RB, broke his angle and is out for 4 months. The signings from July onwards were made by me. Only Louis Parral is going to play in the first XI as he is the replacement for injured Cooper in the DR slot. Now we have our first player from Overseas Territories!