erik45

December 2034. Alright, alright, we found our rhythm! Even Christmas dinners didn't slow us down as our 2nd demolished Hyde United (and Sweetser-Hawkes 34a continued his amazing goal-scoring form with a hat-trick). It would have been a perfect month, but the goalless draw against Alfreton Town made a little dent to our record. Table. Good results = good position. Player of the Month. Our target man Dugdale 31c has been a really good form, scoring in the first three games of the month. Upcoming fixtures. Five in the league + one league cup game. Both 1st and 2nd XI will be needed. December was an excellent month, could January be at least close to the same?

Youth intake preview. A fine prospect in the attack, but other than that, this looks like a disappointing batch of youth players. I would really love to have a good CB and RB, maybe a target man as well. But as a reminder for myself: The preview is more about the positions than how good the players in those positions will be - and this still is a 5-star intake!

Sell-on clause. We have two players who we have sold for actual money. There's Stewart 31a who we sold last summer and there's Fagan 29a in the summer of 2030. Both players have a sell on clause (40 % & 50 %). Fagan 29a been starting striker for Bury for four seasons and is even the captain of the team! We don't know his current value, but previously it has been up to 2,5 m€. Bury has been promoted four times during this save and are taking steps towards a fifth promotion, I would guess his value is more likely to go up rather than down. It would be a nice boost for us if Bury end up selling him. The only problem I see is that his contract is up at the end of the next season. Fingers crossed that they sell him before that - or at least get him a new contract!

Yes, I've had the same experience. My coaching and scouting staff has always been the best in the league. I'm yet to find very good physios (and the board doesn't allow me to have sport scientists )

November 2034. 7 games, 21 goals scored! The loss against Blyth Spartans hurt, as we didn't deserve it, but I don't mind too much because the rest of the month was so, so good. The best player from last spring's intake, Sweetser-Hawkes 34a, showed that on top of his potential he already has the skills to make a difference as he scored 4 goals against St. Helens! It was also the very first time that we achieved more than 5 xG in a competitive game. Table. Even with the quite good results, we don't climb up the table. But... pointswise we are really close to the promotion places Upcoming fixtures. No cup games to disrupt our rhythm in the league, but still a busy month. We face this season's rival Wythenshawe for the fourth time!

October 2034. Excellent results in the FA Trophy... and then not-so-excellent in the league. Yes, the away games were very difficult, but I thought we could've been in a fight for draws. I would've preferred to win against Wythenshawe Town in the FA Cup, but this is a nice payback. Table. After a difficult month in the league, we slowly move towards mid-table. But I have a feeling we've faced most of the most difficult opponents of the first half of the season, so maybe things will get better. Upcoming fixtures. Another busy month as we continue in the FA Trophy + start our League Cup journey. The season before last we made it to the quarter finals, could we do better this time?

Thank you! This save has been a real training for patience. As there are close to 0 good players who want to join us this has been much more youth only style of save than I predicted. But I'm happy with the progress, especially with the facility and youth training upgrades. I haven't thought about the stadium thing, thanks for bringing that up! We have enough seats (800), but the overall capacity is too low for the National Leagues (2790 vs. 3000). Let's hope that if (and when) I get promoted, we have enough money in the bank and a wise board who are ready to expand the capacity a little bit. You've really been flying through the divisions, you've had an excellent momentum! Hopefully you stay in the PL so you can start to put money towards facility upgrades. Are you actually allowed to play PL home games at the FC Isle of Man stadium? It seems way too small for the league Good luck with the relegation fight in the PL!

September 2034. A heartbreaking exit from the cup! In the first game we were in 2-0 lead until the 86th minute. Then they scored in 87th and 88th minutes... In the replay I chose to use our 2nd XI. They defended really well until Wythenshawe got a penalty on the 85th minute. After that, an acceptable loss against Worksop Town before we found our shooting boots (and goalie gloves ). I'm happy with all but one league result. Check out these stats from the Squires Gate game: Table. Good results mean that we climb up in the table. Curzon Ashton looks like an unbeatable force in the league, but the rest of the league is very even. Finances. The cup games made this month one of the financially best months. My plan is to get a youth facility upgrade next, but it will take 1-2 seasons to have that kind of money. Upcoming fixtures. Only one home game, but we have a chance to get a revenge from Wythenshawe in the FA Trophy. We also face one of our rival-ish opponents, Trafford, and end the month against big favourites.

August 2034. Well, this is just a very boring start to the season. We won what we deserved to win, but we should've gotten a point against Silsden. Table. I want to get closer to the promotion playoffs. As we've played only three games so far, no need to worry (yet). Upcoming fixtures. Our cup starts against Wythenshawe Town who are in the same division with us. They've started the league strongly with 2 wins and a draw, so this is not the easiest game. After that, so many league games that there will be chances for both the 1st and the 2nd XI.

Thread update. As this has been the first save I've been posting about to this forum, I made two targets for myself when I started the thread. The first target was that I get three full pages of posts. As I'm a person who starts things and never finishes them, I needed some achievable target for the amount of posts. Now I'm almost at the end of the fourth page. First target: achieved The second target was to get at least 3,000 views to my thread. I achieved this target earlier this week. I had no idea how many people would actually be interested to see a forum newcomer to learn how to make an interesting story, but I'm happy to see that some people are still reading this! Second target: achieved I'm planning to continue posting as long as this save feels enjoyable to me. At the moment I really, really enjoy this save, so I'm not expecting to stop posting anytime soon. Thank you for the views and comments so far, they really mean a lot to me! <3

Season 2034/2035 preview. This is the 11th season of me being in charge of the team. We've achieved two promotions. To be honest, I expected more when I started the save but I love how challenging this has been! I've been lucky with the board as they haven't had any unrealistic expectations in the competitions. Fingers crossed it will stay that way as we just got a new chairman through voting! New contract. I was feeling self-confident, so my first interaction with the new chairman was to ask a new contract for me. The board was happy to give me one. My salary hasn't gone up once in this save, but again I got two year deal with option for one more if promoted. Facility upgrade completed. This is going to be the last upgrade for a while, but I'm happy that we've gotten such good academy settings at this point of the save. Reputation update. Even if we have one of the highest average attendances in the league, our reputation is one of the lowest in the league. Better reputation should help us get better players from youth intakes (and it would make it easier to lure new players to the team, as it is almost impossible right now), but otherwise I'm not too interested in this topic. Friendlies. Two losses (one against our rich rival Stalybridge), one draw and 8 wins, that's a nice record from friendlies. My favourite results weere the win against Edinburgh City (they're in League 2 in Scotland) and draw against Notts County (League 2). There was also our first testimonial, for our centre back Moore, who has made the most appearances for the club. He was the backbone of our defence for several seasons, so I think he really deserved this testimonial. He's never been very good, but sometimes it is enough to get to the starting XI that you have more experience than others. Board expectations. Cup expectations are as ambiguous as they can be, but in the league we have a clear target: avoid relegation. I think that underestimates our team. My minimum expectation is top-half. I think our ceiling is somewhere between 3rd and 5th. It won't be a disaster if we don't make it to the playoffs this season, but I would be a bit disappointed. Top goalscorer odds. I think this is the first time our striker has been in this list, at least this high. Last season Adigun 32a scored 13 goals in the league and the top scorer got 26 goals. So he needs to double his tally to be in the contest for the golden boot! I don't think it's impossible, but he's yet to be that consistent to get to those numbers. Media predictions. During the pre-season our odds were all over the place. At one point we were as high as 5th in the odds table, and at some point we were as low as 16th. Our odds at 34.00 are better than ever in this league, so that's tells something about our progress. Curzon Ashton are clear favourites, and almost as clear 2nd favourites are Winterton Rangers. They are the only teams with wage budget of over 1m€, rest have 450k€ or less (we are just above 100k€). The journalists have identified our GK Parillon 30e as our best player - and I agree. He's so good that he's actually pushing other players' star ratings down. I think the best player is usually spot on, but the hot prospect can be anyone with 5 star potential ability. This time it's Clarke 34b. He can play anywhere in the middle and has nice base attributes, but I just don't know 1) where to play him and 2) if his personality will hinder all the progress. Starting XIs. 1st XI pictured above, 2nd XI below. 1st XI will play during the weekends, 2nd XI during weekdays. I made some changes to the starting lineups. Lennon 32f, Codling 32j, and Hayward 32k got promoted to this level. They all spent the previous season on loan and I got the feeling they have something to offer for the first team now. Our midfield is not the strongest and for some reason midfield players haven't been progressing too much - I hope this changes soon. We rely on our quality attacking trio and our star goalie. If they deliver results consistently, we have a good chance of getting close to promotion spots. The achilles heel of the team is the central defence, I hope they take it seriously when I instruct them to take fewer risks. The 2nd XI is selected purely on potential ability and vibes. Goalie is the same, but that's just because I loaned out our 2nd best goalkeeper. My highest expectations are on Lewys Lewis 34d (love the name!), Sweetser-Hawkes 34a and McMenemy 31f, who's been on loan for the last two seasons. Parillon 30e and Adigun 32a are the stars of our show and their profiles are already in this post, but I wanted to show a couple of more. Dugdale 31c has been fans' player of the year two times in a row and fans' young player of the year three times! Last season he got 14G+8A in the league and I hope he can continue on that path. I also have high hopes on Gould 33i who's been getting better and better. He has an important role as WBL as he's basically in charge of that side alone. Upcoming fixtures. We start our season relatively late as our first league game is in mid-August. Three games, all should be winnable, but I guess there will be some surprises for us

They really have gotten their groove on as they won their third title and promotion in a row. The tycoon bought the club in 2026, then it was couple of seasons of spending money without success. In 2031/2032 it seemed everything clicked for them and now they are in Vanarama National with 5th highest budget in that league. As you can see from the screenshot above, their hot prospect is a former player of ours. Stewart 31a was beginning his last year of the contract so I knew if I want to profit from him (from sell-on clause, as I knew his value is very low atm), I need to do it over the summer. There was team in League 2 (maybe Mansfield?) who made an offer, but the board rejected it as it was too low. I didn't care what we get now but what we could profit from the sell-on clause, but I couldn't argue that to the board. We sold Stewart 31a for 1,1k€ to Stalybridge. Even though he's listed as "fringe player" he started the first game of the new season. I hope Stalybridge doesn't continue climbing the league ladders, at least not yet, as I hope to reinstate the rivalry as soon as possible!

Season 2033/2034 review. My 10th season in charge of the team and third time in a row with the highest ever finish! The board is extremely happy, I'm quite happy, so the overall level of happiness is high! Best eleven 2033/2034. This is the first time all the players in the seasonal best XI are youth products! xG & xPts. This season we were lucky with our points, but it barely helped us when looking at the final position in the table. When looking at the xG and xGA, we delivered what the numbers suggested. Season tracking. We were a little better than last season, so there has been progress. In the cups it feels like we just don't have much to give, but it is more about the fact we mostly play our 2nd XI in cup competitions. Player stat tracking. Dugdale 31c was our top scorer, top assister, top average rater, top player Moore and Reddy continued to keep their positions as the record appearance maker and record goal scorer. They will keep those positions for at least couple of seasons, but I don't expect them to play much games. Both have been unhappy with their playing time and it is possible they will leave the team (but it is their decision). Players by played minutes. Parillon 30e played in all of the games and in all of them, full 90s. Why I'm desperate to keep him is not just about his ability but also about his personality. There's "per" in his name meaning perfectionist. At the beginning of this season he was "only" fairly professional. If we could keep him, he would be the perfect tutor for all the keepers to come. From the stats you can also see, that the 1st XI played 37 games and there were five outfield players who played in all of them. I like to keep same players in the XI but this might be too static, even for me Finances. We are back on track of gaining profits. What is funny is the next screenshot: why would we want a transfer budget of over 750k€?!

April 2034. No, no, no. This is not how I wanted to end the season. The first two games were really tricky, but what really grinds my gears was the the AFC Fylde game. We were better in everything, but they scored three goals from 0.95 xG (which is not impossible, just irritating). Table. The end for the season was a bit sad, but we need to look at the positives: we were 9th on our second season in this league. Our wage budget is the lowest of the league and we haven't signed anyone during this or previous season. So, when looking at the big picture, we are doing really well! Last season we were 15th, this season 9th...next season 3rd?

March 2034. It was looking like an amazing month... until Darlington, who are in the relegation battle, absolutely smashed us. What's even worse is the fact that it was a very even affair, our goalie just couldn't catch anything and got a rating of 5.4 We are yet to win Darlington in the league and I don't know if we get a new chance as they still look like relegation-bound team. Table. We have all the chances of making it to the playoffs! We won't win them if we get there, but it's nice to have goals Upcoming fixtures. Last month of the season. I think we need 8+ points to make it to the playoffs. Can we make it? The Stockton Town game is the only one I consider somewhat easy, but no team is impossible to win. I think our chances are somewhere of 20-30 % of getting to the playoffs.

Youth intake 2034. Another golden generation (as all the intakes so far). The high CA + PA players are mostly playing wide positions. But multiple players who already have 2 star CA When looking them more closely, this is not the most impressing intake. Two best players have bad personality combined with low level of Determination. My favourites are Harris 34c, Lewis 34d and Mahon 34g. You can find their and top 3 prospects profiles below this list. Youth intake tracking. As expected, we are not delivering that many high level talents as we used to. That is down to the fact that our current 1st team players are better than the ones before them. Also, all the English players from the intakes so far have been from the Isle of Man. I don't know how much that restricts what kind of English talents we can get. In the light of key attributes, this is the worst intake for 7 years. As we had a youth recruitment upgrade and we are getting a youth facility upgrade as well, we will be fine. This is just one intake. And in the big picture: nine players with 5 star PA, who am I to complain?

February 2034. Okay, this is not the form for a side that dreams of sneaking in to promotion playoffs. When looking at the xG, these were all very even games. But the results... are something different One thing I've noticed is we've conceded way too many penalties and long shot goals. Two very different goal scoring scenarios, but same outcome... Table. We are still in a good position for a side that was supposed to battle for relegation. I would like us to be in the promotion spots, but 9th is not bad either. Facility upgrade. We've been saving money for a while now and it's time for a new facility upgrade! Finances. The facility upgrade was expensive, but as our finances have been for a positive track for years, I think we can take this dent. Upcoming fixtures. If we want to battle for promotion, we need to win games. In March we have a proper chance for that as we have four home games!

January 2034. New year, unbeatable side - what's not to like?! We are playing well and have just the amount of luck that we don't lose games at the moment. Emley game was total dominance and after that we had four evenly contested games where we could win only against Winterton Rangers. Table. Suddenly we are in the promotion spots! It is very, very even top half in the league and I will be happy if we still get just top half finish. Signing (but not for us). Former player of ours, Murphy 27d was available for free after Grimsby Town released him during the season. He was not interested to join us, which I understand as he had been playing solid minutes in League 2. What I don't understand is 1) why did Grimsby release him and 2) how Trafford sign him???? They play in the same division as us, they battle for the same positions and we could've offered the same kind of wage as they did. Finances. It looks like our newest facility upgrade didn't affect our finances too much (but maybe it happens gradually?). I will be asking for youth facility upgrade as soon as it becomes available. Upcoming fixtures. Usually I just run through Februaries as I'm just waiting for the youth intake. This time might be different as we are surprisingly close to getting to the promotion playoffs.

December 2033. Darlington got 9 points from their first 16 games - and somehow totally demolished us. After that we understood the task: we need points. I'm very happy with the rest of the month, the win against almost-rivals Trafford being the one that warmed my heart the most. Against Stockton Walcott 31k scored one of the goal of the season contenders. This is the first time in this save I've seen our player scoring with a bicycle kick! Table. A solid month of 3 wins, 2 draws and a loss sees us climb to the 8th position. Youth intake preview. We just got our latest improvement, but I don't know if it starts to affect intakes so soon. Our best players are a GK and a RB, so I don't know how I feel about this intake. Maybe it's good to have more good players for those positions as I think the star players are not ready to renew their contracts. Upcoming fixtures. We start the new year against Emley AFC who we won 5-2 in the reverse fixture. Let's hope we get a similar result from this game.

November 2033. Tough start, relieving end of the month. Based on the numbers, it would've been fair for us to win the games against Warrington and Worksop, but on the other hand, we were lucky to win Belper Town and Gainsborough. In the big picture, this month looks very much like I feel we are doing. Inconsistent performances, but our base level is better than before. Table. Now we are very much in the middle of the table, but my feeling is we are closer to going up some positions than down. Facility improvement. As the board was not ready for an upgrade for youth facilities, I asked for upgrade for youth recruitment. Now we need to wait and see how much this affects our monthly expenses. Upcoming fixtures. Another busy month, with some tricky fixtures. I always enjoy facing Trafford who are becoming somewhat of a rival for us (or for me at least).

October 2033. A rare month as we had time for a friendly during the season. Our FA Trophy run ended on 3rd qualifying round, which is fine to me (but not the board). Good wins against Wythenshawe and Alfreton and then a tight contest against Bamber Bridge who are top of the table. Table. Two wins and a loss is an okay month in the league and it means we are solidly in top-half. Potential transfer clause. Fagan 29a is still the only player we have sold for actual money (25k€ in summer 2030). We have an amazing 50 % clause! When Bury bought him they were in Vanarama North. Now they're fighting for the title in League 2. What's even better is that Fagan 29a is now a starting striker. There's yet to be any interest for him but a young player who's scoring 10+ goals a season is something that will be noticed by bigger teams. As long as it is not a free transfer, we will get a nice boost to our finances. Upcoming fixtures. A busy month of six games. We face again Bamber Bridge, this time in the league cup where our 2nd XI will play. I hope we crawl closer to the promotion spots, even though I think we are not yet ready to actually battle for promotion.

September 2033. This was such a tricky month. We were so close of winning against Halifax on their ground. We were leading 3-1 in the 84th minute, but they scored on 85th and 92nd... In the replay Halifax deserved to win against our 2nd XI. In the league we haven't been at our best. We got what we deserved and we were actually very lucky to get a point against Witton Albion who just battered us. Table. If looking at our position in the league, we are where I want us to be. But...our form is bad and we are just missing something in our attack. I won't be making changes yet, but if this form continues, I might need to. New record. The replay against Halifax made us little bit richer. Facility upgrade. Our training facilities are no longer basic, they are now... *drum roll* ... below average! I've been also asking for youth facility upgrades, but as we about 600k€ in the bank I think we can't afford further upgrades yet. I thought this was just funny! Person named Unwin talking about relegation, that is fitting! Upcoming fixtures. As one can see, I already played the FA Trophy game...and lost. The board was not happy at all, let's hope it doesn't affect their overall happiness. In the league we should get back to our winning ways. Bamber Bridge and Radcliffe games will be tough, but maybe we can find a good momentum before those games?

August 2033. A very nice start to the season. Six points in the league and win in the cup. I have a feeling Emley AFC don't like as an opponent, we gave them a proper beating both in the league and in the cup. I was delighted to win Trafford away from home, they've been a very difficult opponent for us in the past. The only loss came against King's Lynn Town in a very even game. Table. It's early days, but so far so good. I'm after a top-half finish and this is a good start. Upcoming fixtures. The highlight of the month will be the game against Halifax Town. I don't think we have too much of a chance of winning it, but it is not totally impossible. At least we will get some money from the tie.

Season preview. This is my 10th season with FC Isle of Man and 2nd season in the Northern Premier League Premier Division. We had quite a bit of problems of getting out of the previous division, I hope we can be more efficient this time. Things have become so much easier as we've been able to offer part-time contracts to our players. I don't think this is the season for promotion, but we could be close the season after this one. Season tracking. I wanted to show this just to show some of the tracking I do. I don't know if there's any logic to anyone else but me. But about this season: our odds are much better than last season, but I think it's mostly because this season there's no superior favourite to win the league (although there is one team with 1.40 odds). Facility tracking. We haven't had any upgrades for five seasons, but that's about to change in a month or two as the training facility upgrade is completed. If we keep the nice and steady cash flow going on, I will be pushing for youth facility upgrade. Manager tracking. I started this tracking in a save many FM editions ago just because I don't understand how managers' skills develop and change. I started with no badges and practically with no skills. Now I have Continental A licence and in my opinion my stats are very good for this level. What I don't understand is why my tactical style is Wing Play? I don't use wingers or wide midfielders. I have only one proper player on the wing, the left wing back. Then I have a mezzala and a right full-back, who can be counted as players doing some "wing play". Pre-season friendlies. We dominated all the teams who were expected to be weaker than us and had good battles against sides who are about as good (Guernsey) or better than us (Bradford, Clyde, Exeter). 1st XI played the weekend games and 2nd XI the Tuesday games. This is the first season that both 1st and 2nd XI is made 100 % out of our academy players. There might be some players who are not youth products getting minutes from the bench. There aren't quality players available (who would be interested to join us) from Crowd Dependencies or British Overseas Territories at the moment, so we are very close of being a "youth only" team. Media predictions. We are expected to finish 20th which is in line with the board expectations of trying to avoid relegation. I would be very disappointed with that, I want us to finish top-half! Our wage budget is the lowest in the league, but we have so much talent and potential that I firmly believe we can be much better than last season (15th). Media thinks our key player is Stewart 31a (I more or less agree), but how it is possible that Armstrong 30d is our hottest prospect?! He's personality is low determination and he hasn't showed any signs of actualy development. He will get his chances in the 1st XI, but he needs to deliver to keep his place. Upcoming fixtures. We start the season facing a new opponent: Emley AFC. I think we are the favourites in this one. Then two games that should be much, much trickier. Six points and win the cup is what I'm after.

Thanks! Most of the players have youth contract (as they are still so young) and then about 10 players have a part-time contract and about as many have non-contract. Of those non-contract players, only one has an important role in the team (Scott 27c). I tried to offer him a new contract, but he asked 675 € per week, he's not that good. So contract situation is really good! I had a small issue with our starting right back Stewart 31a. I triggered his +1 year contract extension and he got mad about it. He was unhappy for a couple of months but now he's gotten over it