TheLutterworthFox

2037 Youth Intake + Champions League Results Firstly, for the first time in the save we got past the playoff round of the Champions League!! And we did so in style against a quality Roma side. A cracking draw away before a stunning display at home! Into the Last 16 and we were drawn against Real Madrid and as expected it was a step too far. We got absolutely smashed! A good run though, our best so far in the save and a nice chunk of prize money to boot, unfortunately Holywell went out in the playoff round, losing the FC Copenhagen. Now to the youth intake, the preview has it as a 2.5* intake with the best rated position a "C". I've seen from the past intake that a "C" is pretty good so I expected at least one decent player and that's exactly what we got. It actually ends up a 3.5* intake with 1 elite talent and 1 top talent. Mike Pierce is the "elite" talent and he looks pretty good. Does he need work? Yes, but overall he looks really good and will go straight into the first team as my back-up RB. The "top" talent is another right back!! Again he look OK, good aggression and determination, I like the fact he can cross and has decent pace, my thoughts are I may retrain him as a RM or RW.

December 2036/January 2037 A solid few month with a couple of defeats towards the end, unfortunately the defeat to Larne means we can no longer do another domestic clean sweep. We did however lift the League Cup once again Steven Allan the match-winner! This lad is a legend of this save. The league is still going well, we're 7 clear of TNS with 2 games in-hand. We've also got into the playoff round of the Champions League, 13th is our highest finish in the League Phase so far in the save. Holywell, the only other Welsh team in Europe did amazingly in the Europa League to qualify for the playoff round after ending 20th in the League Phase, Some really good wins there!

September to November 2036 What an incredible few months it's been! Yes we've lost a couple in the league but just look at the Champions league games, 5 matches, 3 wins and a draw with only a single defeat to Spurs!!! This included an 8-3 win over Ajax! Just insane! The knockouts are so close in the Champions League, we're also still on for another domestic clean sweep! Now for some other pieces of news and firstly we welcome back an old face. Johnson Fernandes moved it Rangers 3 seasons ago but it didn't work out and he was released in the Summer, I couldn't leave him without a club so he rejoins us on a free transfer. We have some records news as 2025 intake star Aled Carroll breaks the record for league appearances for Barry Town! What a legend! Finally, I just want to look over if any of the loanees have done well and there's two lads smashing it at Newtown, one of our affiliate clubs Firstly is Right Winger Kirk Williams, signed from Wrexham in the Summer for £400k he has been immense for Newtown with 9 goals and 5 assists from 16 starts with an average rating of 7.53! Another Summer signing, Daniel Walsh has also been banging them in for Newtown, signed from Liverpool for £50k the Striker has only made 5 appearances but has scored 5 goals and averaged 7.43. Here's the whole list of loanees, some brilliant performances!

July/August 2036 Its been a very busy Summer!!! I was chatting to someone on Twitter earlier today and I realised I had totally neglected the "building a nation" aspect of this save. I had spent so many season concentrating on Barry that I forgot to think about the other clubs. One thing was mentioned was loaning my players to other Welsh clubs so I went mad, signed a shed load of players with the view to loaning most of them out to try and improve, firstly, the player and secondly, the club they're going to. A lot of new signings but actually only three of them will be in the first-team this season, the rest will go out on loan. Jurica Basic - Striker Ricky Dhaliwal - Full Back Dave Dean-Maher - Central Defender Like I said the rest will go out on loan, here is the full list of players heading out. Only a couple of them heading outside of Wales. As you can see a lot of players heading to my two affiliates Newtown and Pontypridd, both in the Cymru South I will report back throughout the season to see if anyone is performing well. There have also been some notable player sales. Four key players leave totalling around £10m. Bellingham asked to go, Asare and Tezgel both asked to leave after the bids came in and Oboavwoduo spent last season moaning about lack of game-time. Some big losses there but we still have enough in our first-team to dominate domestically. Time for like of Harrison, Kennedy, Warren and Morgan to step up from the academy and become the superstars they were meant to be! Result wise it's gone really really well so far. Another great start and we easily qualify for the League Phase of the Champions League. A decent set of fixtures, obviously the two English team games will be impossibly and AC Milan is a guaranteed defeat but the other, well I'm confident we can do enough to get into the knockouts The other Welsh team in Europe also did pretty well. Cardiff Met Uni didn't though as they lost in the Conference League 2nd Qualifying Round. TNS did really well but eventually lost to Sturm Graz in the final qualifying round. Holywell did amazingly, they progressed through all the qualifying round, eventually beating Swiss giants Basel in the final round to get into the Europa League proper! Incredible!

2035/36 Season Review Another fantastic season, yes we lost a few games in the League but I've had real fun domestically playing some of the academy lads, just to see who is up to the job, more on them later! 32 points clear of 2nd place!!!! That's 11 titles in a row now, I think you can say we are the dominant team in Wales. The big question though was could we complete the domestic clean sweep for the first time in the save? Well the league is won, the League Cup was won earlier in the season, we just have the Challenge Cup and the Welsh Cup to go. In the Challenge Cup we faced Dunfermline and absolutely hammered them! To be honest it should've been more than 4! Another one down, now it's just the Welsh Cup to go. In the final we faced Cymru South Winners Haverfordwest, a game we really should be winning and we did just that! Relatively easy! And with that we have done it, the domestic clean sweep of all 4 trophies!! What a season, it's just a shame our Champions League run was pretty poor, our worst League Phase for a good few season with only 4 points from the 8 games, we need to improve on that next season. Now to some of the key players, once again I'm not going to speak about the usual suspects, instead I'll go through a couple of the academy lads who got some game-time this season. Firstly is defender Craig Harrison, he came through last seasons intake and has been an ever-present this campaign, 32 starts, 16 sub appearances, he's chipped in with 4 goals as well. He's only 17! I mentioned Richard Warren in a previous update, he had a brilliant first full season in the main squad with 14 goals in 22 starts. He isn't great compared to the rest of the squad but, compared to the Cymru Premier he is a top quality player! Right Back Lewis Proctor got a lot more game-time this season domestically, he is now a Thai international as well! He's been at the club since 2032 and this is the first season he's really had a chance, he's not amazing but, like Richard Warren he's more than good enough for domestic competitions. He made 19 starts, scored twice and averaged over 7. And here is the whole squad, anyone with a (Ixx) after their name is an academy player. The I stands for Intake, the number is the year they came through. The future is bright! At the end of the last season I mentioned I was worried about the finances, not the bank balance but the fact we were due to fail FFP. After numerous player sales, the Champions League money and the Winter sale of Darren Jones, it means we more than passed FFP. We do still need to keep qualifying for the Champions League proper, we are losing around £1.5m a month at the moment without the European prize money, this is due to high player wages but also due to the fact our revenue streams are awful, a small ground and therefore little gate receipts, it would also be nice to see a new TV deal come into the league, I had this in my FM23 Gibraltar save and it really helped improve every team in the League. Whether that'll happen is another story! With the finances looking good the board have given me crazy budgets for the Summer. That's a doubling of wage budget and nearly £18m to spend on transfers. We actually end the season with £38m in the bank, a £10m profit season-on-season, you can see how important those player sales (£20m) and Champions League prize money (£16.7m) is, if we didn't have that we'd have lost nearly £27m!!!!!! The new ground is massive now, we need to improve our incomings, only I can do so much. The next 12-24 months is going to be huge for this save, for the third time I've asked for a new ground, the board have agreed each time but the last two times the council blocked it. We have another 12 months before the third decision, if it fails again I will be seriously considering whether I stay at Barry or not!

2036 Youth Intake We had a preview that was interesting, an "A" rated DM but did it come to fruition? YES IT DID!!! We actually have 2 elite talents, so on paper they are rated highly, but do they look as good as their rating? Paul Wilmot - Defensive Midfield Pretty good but not World-beating, I like the Bravery and Determination but his first touch, stamina, strength and pace worries me. He needs work but he will be in and around the first-team to get some game-time and get mentored by the more experienced players. Gary Morgan - Right Wing Now I like the look of this lad, I've said it before, I always look for 4 attributes in my players, Bravery, Determination, Work Rate and Natural Fitness, he has it all! Now we need to work on his composure, anticipation and dribbling. Like Wilmot he'll be straight into the first-team squad.

December 2035/January 2036 Firstly transfer news and I have some bad news to bring you. My star CB Darren Jones has left the club. I got a massive deal for him, especially as the bids started at £1.5m! £8.5m up front, around £1.5m of addons and the big one is 50% of next sale! It's sad to see him go but he wanted the move, it'll be interesting to see how he does. With him leaving I needed to bolster the ranks, in comes 3 new players. Matias Fernandez - Central Defender - Free Transfer My replacement for Jones, top quality and all for no money Aidan Hulse - Left Back - £1m from Blackburn A really good deal for a new LB, we've only had 1 natural LB in our squad so this lad was very much needed. Tudor Mendel-Idowu - Attacking Midfield - £2m from Anderlecht A bit of experience added to the squad, a really good player who offers versatility. In other news, we have an interesting youth intake preview. It's the first time in 5 or 6 season we've had an "A" rated player, I am excited to see how good the player is, Darren Jones came through in 2033 and in the preview he was rated as "C", he was amazing so this lad could be incredible! Result-wise it's been OK, we've lost another league game but our shot at the clean sweep is well and truly on. Unfortunately our Champions League campaign has ended at the league phase, some really poor performances. The good news is Bala Town qualified for the Conference league playoff round! As I said, the domestic clean sweep is still on, we have already won one trophy as we lifted the League Cup. 1 down, 3 to go!

September to November 2035 A really good few months Domestically we're smashing it, we did lose our first league game in 41 to Cardiff Met Uni but overall it's been really pleasing as I've played some of the academy players. The only blip really has been the Champions League, we lost to Rangers and drew Brugges, so far we've only won one game and that's not going to be good enough to get to the knockouts. I mentioned before I'd been giving the kids a chance and one of those has been Striker Richard Warren, he's played 8 league games and grabbed 8 goals, really good!

July/August 2035 Its been a Summer of stability, the thought of a new job never came about as nothing came available but actually, after an hour or so of thinking, I decided to stay. I also decided to sell a load of players, mainly as bids came in and I had to say yes, all sold for a profit, some important player but with us losing so much per month I needed to sell them to help with FFP, even though I knew, if we qualified for the Champions League money wouldn't matter. Midfielders Richardson, William and Kato all leave, Kato sold for a small loss in the initial fee but he wanted to leave, we also let star RB Brook, LB Budrys and GK Pahor leave. Brook is the big loss but he asked to leave last Summer and I managed to keep him about for another year. So the plan with signings this Summer was to keep transfer fees down and I did exactly that. Stefan Simko - Right Back - $425k from Chelsea A young, highly rated right back joins from one of Englands big boys. He needs some work on his technicals but I think he could be a star. Justin Oboavwoduo - Winger - Free Transfer He popped up on a scouting recommendation and I had to snap him up Juan Carlos Cardozo - Central Defender - Free from Nacional Another scouting recommendation, another top quality, young player. Solomon Asare - Defensive Midfield - Free from Hibernian Another really decent looking player at no cost. Rocco Vata - Winger - Free from Stoke A player I've signing on FM before, he can play out wide or up front and offers good backup options in both positions. Paul Roberts - Attacking Midfield - Free from Everton One for the future, he has really good attributes to play as the man in behind the striker. I may send him out on loan this season. Nariaki Aiba - Goalkeeper - £850k from FC TOkyo The most expensive signing of the Summer, again he is young and is a look towards the future. So just over £1m spent, £10m brought in, the finances are looking really healthy now and we now no longer failing FFP, we are projected to lose a lot of money each month, that's due to wages but also to the fact our revenue streams are just rubbish! Now to the results, this season we entered the Champions League in the 2nd qualifying round but once again eased our way into the League Phase for another season. A really good start! A bit like last season really, there are 3 or 4 games there that we have a chance of winning. The good news though is, for the first time in the save, we have two teams joining us in the League Phase of a European competition as TNS qualified for the Europa League and Bala Town got into the Conference League, this is huge for the co-efficient!

2034/35 End of Season Another season down, our 10th league title in a row and eventually we end with the invincible season!! A brilliant end to the season and just look at that goal difference!!! +99!!!! Player-wise I could easily go through the same players as every season, Allan ended as top scorer, Waters most assists, Brook player of the year but it's getting a bit repetitive, so let's look at two players, both whom came through the academy, who are doing an amazing job. Firstly is superstar CB Darren Jones, what a season he's had, a staple in the first XI, constantly performing and also bagged a few goals. This lad has everything in his locker to take him to then top, the big question is, will that be here? Secondly is Aled Carroll, now 26, he's been a consistent performer since breaking into the side in 2025. He is now only 35 appearances short of the club record for most league appearance! He isn't rated very highly but he is a massive player and always performs to the best of his ability. And here is the whole squad. As you can see there are a lot of academy players in the squad, some not rated very highly but that's because our best player are so good, most can do a job in the first XI if and when required. Now we come to the finances and we end with a load of money in the bank. Just over £28m in the bank, a £9m profit this season, helped by £31m of prize money from our Champions League run, you can see how important that is to the finances and it's needed more than ever because, once again, the local council have rejected our new ground application. I'm not going to lie this is absolutely gutting and is making me wonder why I'm bothering staying here, if we can't increase our ground capacity we cannot bring money in, we need to improve our revenue streams and this is more prevalent now more than ever because, we're failing FFP for European Competitions. By around £3m, now I can look to sell players which will help it out but the idea is to keep improving the squad, not decimating it!!! I really don't know what to do, if we can't increase the revenue streams coming into the club then we cannot improve, if we cannot improve then the other clubs in the league can't improve as I can't help them increase their finances, something I've not been able to do over the past few season because I chucked loads of money at other players and, also, if I sign players from other Welsh clubs good enough to be in my first team squad then I take away those clubs best players and that doesn't help either. The ground is so needed and currently I cannot see a time where it will actually happen, this is a killer for what I'm trying to do and is making me want to resign from Barry and look to take over another Welsh side and try and build them up, the big issue so far in this save is Barry are the only team qualifying for European League Phases, no one else has done bar Cardiff Met Uni 3 seasons ago. because of this the Welsh co-efficient has dropped 4 places, meaning we only get that 5th European spot for a single season before it goes back down to 4 spots. Maybe it's time to leave and try and help another club progress in Europe, Barry are set now, they should have enough in them to qualify for a League Phase of a European competition without me in charge, will I miss the club? Hell yes but the ground issue has taken all motivation I had and maybe a change is needed to keep the save fresh. Thoughts?

I haven't mentioned Wales for a while as, well to be honest, there's been nothing to report as we haven't done that well......... But this has just happened!!!! 20-0 away from home!

2035 Youth Intake It's happened again! I really can't understand these intakes, the preview was 1.5*, rubbish, with the best player rated at a B, everything else was D or E, this is what's just come through....... A 2.5* average intake but there are two top talents and one of them highly rated!!!! WOW WOW WOW! Another incredible central defender! Alongside Darren Jones, who came through the intake two seasons ago we have a central defensive partnership to last years!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!! 6 foot 7 inches tall at 15 years old!!!! WOW, this lad is something else, does he need work? Yes, but stick him up front and lump it to him, I may have to switch to two up top!!!

Champions League Playoff Round And as expected we lost! We are doing so well that I kinda expected to give them a better game, it just shows you how far we've still got to go! I feel like I'm a little stuck at the moment, I can't really improve the team anymore than it currently is, not unless we get a huge influx of cash to go out and spend £10m+ on players, something which I don't really want to do, or we get an increased reputation which means better players want to join us who I can look to sign on frees or pre-contracts. I'm really hoping the new ground goes through at the end of the season, that should give us a bump up in money at least but I'm sceptical it will happen after the last ground got cancelled by the council. Not long to find out though!

Champions League and Player Sale News I forgot to mention in my previous post we lost one of our key players close to deadline day. Winger Simonetti, signed two seasons ago for £1.5m leaves to join Celtic for £3.5m up front with £875k of addons. A good deal but it's a huge loss and I had no time to bring a new player in, time for one of the kids to step up! We've also had the playoff draw for the Champions League and we have one of the tougher draws. Atletico Madrid will be a hard game, I'll be shocked if we get through it. Finally, it only took one more game but the league title has been won for 10th time in a row, we did it by beating TNS 4-0 away from home! Nice!

November 2034 to January 2035 It's been a really good few months at the club, in the league we're absolutely smashing it as expected, we stupidly got knocked out of the Challenge Cup by Dundee United which was annoying, in the League Cup we managed another final win, beating Cwmbran Celtic with relative ease. Summer signing Rhys Williams with the goals. In the Champions League it's gone really well, yes we lost to Porto and Arsenal but wins over Sporting, Zurich and Benfica mean we qualified for the playoff round, 4 wins from 8 games is a fantastic return, especially against teams so much better than us. We haven't had the draw yet for the next round but will report back when we do. With the domestic clean sweep gone it's now time to concentrate on ending the league season unbeaten and we are well on the way to that! 9 games to go, the title is all but wrapped up already!

September/October 2034 Overall a really good few month, the one big disappointment is we went out of the Welsh Cup, so the clean sweep is over way too early! In the Champions League we did managed one win but lost the other two, as expected.

Í haven't made any custom changes. It's the base vanilla database. The only thing Ive added are face and logo packs and a skin. As for the actual save there have been no custom changes whatsoever

July/August 2034 It's been another busy Summer, I've really tried to bring in players who will improve the side, I've once again had to sell before I can buy, just because of the European squad registration rules. Some first-teamers have gone, Gee, Read and Williams all played a lot last year but I felt I could bring in better players to replace them. Ben Nelson - Central Defender - £6m from Swansea A big fee but a brilliant player who will massively improve our defence. Emre Tezgel - Striker - Free from Raith Rovers A player I've had in other saves, at this level he'll bang in goals for fun. Oliver Sturrock - Central Midfield - Free from Wolves A young midfielder, with that finishing he could probably play up front but my plan is to play him as a Mezzala or an AM. Genki Kato - Defensive Midfield - £6m from Rangers He doesn't look happy about being here but I certainly am, a top drawer DM, who can also play CB, this lad should take our midfield to a new level. Rhys Williams - Central Midfield - Free from Cardiff Another midfielder, I didn't massively need him but he helps with the HG rule. Giovannia Teresi - Left Wing - £1.5m from Leicester We only really have Waters as a natural LW so I needed another option and Teresi is a big upgrade. Some really good deals, £14m spent as well, our biggest Summer spend in the save so far. Some big news to give you is that Wales have moved up to 15th in the co-efficient rankings and that means, from next season we gain a 5th European spot, 2 of those in the Champions League, massive! Now to results, don't ask me how but we somehow bypassed nearly all the Champions League qualifiers, it said we'd enter at round 2, we actually entered in the playoff round (round 4)!! I have no idea how! Slavia Prague were our opponents and we eased past them to qualify for the league for a 5th straight season. It's also started as expected domestically with loads of goals. These are our Champions League fixtures, there are 3 or 4 winnable games there, I'd be unhappy if we didn't claim a playoff spot. Unfortunately no other Welsh team joins us in the European competitions League Phases, Connah's Quay got the closest in the Conference League, losing to Rapid Wien in the final qualifying round.

So I've managed to think of a way around it and that's to go back to mid-June and remove the English leagues, it doesn't stop the same thing happening to Wales at any point but I'm hoping it's a one-off. Maybe I'll try and re-add the English leagues back next season as I kinda like seeing how things go in England. But for now I'll carry on and see what happens, it just means I've lost about 7 weeks of game-time

So there seems to be a bug in my game, it's now August 2034 and there have been no new fixtures generated for the English leagues, the Welsh league are OK but I'm worried how this will affect European fixtures if the game can't work out which English teams to pick next season, also will it happen to the Welsh Leagues? I've raised a big on the forum and hopefully it can get sorted, until then the save is on hold, a good time to be honest as on Wednesday I go away for 10 days!

2033/34 Season Review Another title in the bag but I have to admit, I expected more this season. Only one trophy, I fully expected to win everything domestically this season and bar the League Cup we didn't even come close, we also failed to get out of the League Phase of the Champions League for the first time in three seasons. In the League we dominated but we ended two points behind out tally from last season. So a good season but it could've been lots better! But with the Winter signings I have hope next season we can win everything domestically and we can end the league season unbeaten, only time will tell I guess! Financially we've also lost quite a bit this season, yes we did spend £13m on players but even with the Champions League money we have still lost just under £10m this season, that was always going to happen though, transfers were needed and we will always lose money with the small ground and low attendances. We do have just under £10m to spend this Summer and a load of wages to spend, transfer-wise though it will be one-in-one-out as we have max'ed out our registration for the Champions League, homegrown players are needed as well. Player-wise there have been so many good performances this season. Matthew Brook wins the player of the season for the second straight season, the right back has been brilliant once again but he wants to leave and I don't expect him to be here next season. Steven Allan ends as the clubs top scorer once again, he is slowly declining though and I will look to replace him this Summer if they right player comes about. Chris Waters ends with the most assists, this lad is absolutely amazing and a key part of the side. Finally, a quick word on Darren Jones, the superstar player who came through last seasons intake, I've spent the season rejecting rubbish bids from Englands elite and he doesn't seem too fussed in leaving at the moment, I expect that to change but I need a big fee for him, so far the biggest bid has been £350k but that's been mainly in add-ons, etc. 8 goals in 38 games as well, a brilliant first full season and he's still only 16!!! Now we look forward to another season, can we make it 10 league titles in a row? I bloody hope so, next season we're winning everything domestically, I will make sure of it! Squad improvements are needed though but I need to remove players first. Things continue to improve season on season, we are now up to 16th in the co-efficient rankings, I think next season we go up to 15th and that means an extra Champions League spot, meaning 4 teams in Europe instead of 5

February/March 2034 Another league title!! That's 9 in a row, really pleasing but in this run of games it's had massive disappointments! Our shot at an unbeaten season is over at game 28! So annoying! We also lost on penalties to TNS in the Welsh Cup quarters, this means we end the season with one trophy. And that's the season over, nothing else to play for! Finally, we've had the latest youth intake, it was forecast to be a "poor" intake, it ends up being better than that, nothing like the intake of last season but we have three top talents. And here they are.... I am really excited by Richard Warren, he needs some work but could end up being a decent backup striker.

Very!

Thanks you so much for your kind words. It's nice to know someone is following along!! He is an absolute superstar, the big issue is trying to keep hold of him!!