GrayMatter

Confirmation of European Football - Europa Conference League City beat West Ham in the FA Cup final to secure our passage into the Europa Conference League, they also won the Champions League which resulted in a £1.5m fee paid to us as a clause in the John Stones deal. We've also been enjoying sporadic payments from Spurs and Newcastle respectively for Richarlison and Anthony Gordon. This money did all seem to be tot up and given I'm an installment merchant on the transfers, we were only given £49m transfer budget. It was a bit disappointing given that I'd arranged sales of two players prior to the budget announcement. Outgoings - 2023/24 I previously mentioned about my intentions of selling Pickford and despite a massive improvement in the latter half of the season, my mind was already made up. Norwich paying us £25m up-front was a bit of a masterstroke given he'd already told us that he was considering his options at the end of his deal. We managed to squeeze £16m up-front from Fulham for Tarkowski with the rest paid in December which was good business for a player we brought in on a free - I really like him in real life but he is chronically held back by his low professionalism on the game. Maupay and Townsend were the aforementioned pre-arranged deals, I'd resigned the latter to another year extension earlier in the season to maximise what fee we could get for him. Maupay was £11m up-front and £5m in December. Previously I'd talked about rejecting a £10m bid for Gray from Lens and I was left with some regret here given that they only offered us a non-negotiable £6m but as interest was low, I thought it was best to swiftly shift him on. I was also pleased to get money up-front for Dobbin and Virginia who although both progressed while out on loan, still fell short of being in with a chance of making the match-day squad. In an alternate universe, I did consider keeping hold of Virginia as his attributes were coming along quite nicely but he's opted to play second fiddle at Hertha instead. I was flabbergasted to see Virginia's countryman Gomes actually had any loan interest to which we instantly accepted as Gomes is usually very difficult to move on with his £120k p/w wages. He'll leave on a free in the summer. The other loans are all very much developmental loans with a view to make some money in the future. Onana hadn't really progressed at Brighton which is quite a common theme so we've dropped him down a tier to start every week at Wolves. Ben Godfrey has also joined him but I've cut his name off the image as Wolves aren't paying any of his wages (yikes). Incomings - 2023/24 It was a busy summer! I had a plan in motion though, just like in the first season where I focused on a mixture of youth and experience, I had the same mantra this summer. The trusty installment payments were also capitalised on in order to actually get all of these players in. Stansfield was an interesting coup, the scouts managed to pick him up just after the first round of intakes and he had quite a nice attribute spread, since his arrival I discovered that as a centre-half, he only has 6 jumping reach. I've started to retrain him to play central-midfield as a result. He has a lot of work to do so chances are he'll be loaned out frequently once he hits 18. Tobiasz will be my keeper for cups and Europe, a very solid acquisition and now has a work-permit. Kilman, Ahmedhodzic and Pavlovic have all come in with good quality already and can actively still improve. I particularly like Kilman and Pavlovic given that they are left-footers. My options at CB are now reliably solid and won't be outdone by through balls over the top constantly like the now retired Dante. Ekdal came in to somewhat fill in that backup/rotational gap left by Dante. My biggest transfers were Neto, Fornals, Swedberg and Livramento. Neto is amazing on the game given his versatile coming off-of both flanks, while Fornals is a model citizen with the ability to play virtually anywhere in midfield. Swedberg is a personal favourite of mine and will likely be Fornals' long-term successor. Livramento came in as a deadline-day signing, we paid £20m up-front and the rest in installments. I may well have overpaid here as I've seen him go for cheaper in a second season but usually when Southampton have been relegated - it was a toss-up between him and Zabarnyi but Bournemouth priced us out of a move for the Ukrainian. I think with Livramento though we've arguably got ourselves one of the best young RBs in world football and that's a transfer fee you only need to pay once in a bluemoon, think Kyle Walker for Man City, we are set for years with him and Patterson now. Livakovic came in as our new number 1, found it quite amusing that he was happy to sign with us labelled as a 'cup goalkeeper' too. Cooper and Ruddy both arrived as further backup and to fulfill squad registration rules should we need to call upon them. Le Fee I see as a better alternative to Iwobi long-term while Thorsby essentially arrives as my Gueye replacement as the ball-winning midfielder. Pinyaev and Veloso are ones for the future but I'd imagine the former will play a lot in Europe. Galvez was already pre-arranged given his loan agreement and this was an absolute steal, I actually feel as though he'll be my starting left-back in the third season, all going well. Ait-Nouri was loaned as a bit of a reaction to Wolves taking Godfrey from us, I really like him but potentially with Garcia, Mykolenko and himself, it might be tricky to give him enough game-time. Long-term I'd like to see Galvez and Ait-Nouri as my options. You may notice that Doucoure, Iwobi and Gueye are still knocking around the club but we will be looking to shift these on - I'm in the process of re-signing Gueye onto a year extension worth half of his current weekly wage while Doucoure already agreed to that in season one. Iwobi's demands are still enormous so he may have to be moved on in January.

Everton Years of mediocrity, years of financial mismanagement, years of despair. Trophyless since 1995, turbulent ever since. Time for change. I entered the job on June 27th with every intention of freshening up a decaying squad - wages are staggering, genuine quality is sparing, the collective is stinking. So, out went the following: Outgoings Holgate is relatively versatile but had high wages (that unfathomably increased annually). Coleman is a club icon but being a high earner sealed his fate alongside low natural fitness. Brighton opted to sign Davies after we recruited one of their transfer targets and Onana joined Davies out on loan to Brighton, Onana's low professionalism is difficult to cope with over the course of an FM season so I was looking for this loan experience to have a positive impact on his personality. We received around £17m up-front for all of the transfers, which added to our already healthy £31m transfer budget. Incomings Zakharyan came in as a personal favourite of mine with bags of potential. Haraldsson is a versatile option with a good personality, likely to be deployed across most of the attacking areas. Dante and Radamel Falcao arrived as mentors are purely as that, the latter can do a job up-front but Dante is a bit too slow to be starting regularly in the Premier League. Fran Garcia is a really solid option and draws parallels to the previously depart Lucas Digne so romantically I brought him. Nagalo directly replaces Holgate, filling in at centre-back and right-back. Alex Scott was Brighton's aforementioned target but he opted for a 6-year-stay in the blue half of Merseyside, unfortunately with a £100m release clause in his deal. Sivert Mannsverk, like Scott is very well-rounded and is a powerhouse in midfield, I see him as rotation option with Onana in the future. Baturina comes in as a creative spark in the midfield to succeed Iwobi in the long-term. Galvez is a player I've always liked but never actually developed very well so I'm looking to sign him permanently at the end of his loan spell. Robson-Kanu offers backup in wide areas whilst also possessing the 'curls ball' trait which I like spreading around my players for some additional flair. Corchia replaced Coleman on significantly less wages, while Carrico is also a pleasant mentor. Ronning was purchased with every intention of him coming back and being a starter once he has a work-permit but this may well be a couple of years away yet, sadly. I toyed with the idea of acquiring Alejandro Frances as another coverage option in defence but went for the left-footed Harvey Araujo instead as he'll later become a 'trained at club' acquisition. Josip Sutalo (not to be confused with Bosko) seems a popular option this year, I've yet to use him so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about - also better than every other defender at the club. Joao Pedro arrived as the actual Richarlison replacement which has yet to come in real life. We essentially tapped him up all summer until he handed in a transfer request on the final day of the season, not my finest hour but we got our man for a mere £5m up-front. He'sssssssss Brazilian. Friendlies We started really, really poorly. I would be doing a disservice to Crewe if I didn't state that they played us off the park, we were abysmal. I made some tactical tweaks from that game onwards and it seemed to pay dividends. I gave some younger players game-time here and out of the lot Stan Mills shined. He's really not good enough to be a Premier League starter but given Anthony Gordon's departure, I'll be using him as a squad player over the course of the season. I'm hoping for some 'easier' cup ties to accelerate his development, perhaps - all going well, at least. Fixtures - August Welcome to the Premier League, Erling Haaland. In all seriousness, we were dreadful in the opening two fixtures but resurged following a spell of me booting up 'morale manager' and criticising training and performances across the squad. Sutalo seemed to sure up the defence after a woeful debut performance against Spurs, despite not performing spectacularly himself. Controversial as an Evertonian perhaps but I'm really not mad about Pickford so I will be looking to get Dominik Livakovic at some point to replace him when my dwindled transfer and wage budget allows. Fixtures - September We showed a lot of character to peg Leeds back twice as they were flying high in the league but Pickford had to shoulder a lot of blame in the Merseyside derby, some turgid goalkeeping was displayed. At one point in the first-half Liverpool had 4 shots on target and 4 goals. I did think to myself: no side in their right mind would be watching this wanting to take him from us. He did improve against West Ham though, largely the loss was down to my gung-ho mentality in the last few minutes of the game where we ended up conceding twice from set-plays. The side are bereft of goals currently but some solace can be found in the shape of Dominic Calvert-Lewin's imminent return to fitness. Fixtures - October A month of actual good performances and consistency? Well, I never. Falcao and Haraldsson came up trumps for us this month, with the latter becoming a model citizen under the tutelage of the former. The young Icelandic midfielder has been deployed as a shadow striker and his man of the match performance against Brighton was a particular highlight, running in behind opposition defenders at will, breaking away at pace and powering home the second goal. I promised Pep Guardiola that I'd play Tomas Galvez regularly, understandably with Mykolenko and Garcia, I hadn't. He started against Wolves and duly repaid my boldness with a swift sending-off on the 12th minute, giving away a penalty in the process. What a boy. Fixtures - November I was quite disappointed to see us stall against strugglers Leicester but there was some consolation in the following fixture as Alex Scott put smiles on the faces of home supporters with the winning penalty. The summer purchase from Bristol City has largely been used as a substitute and hadn't quite impressed as I hoped up until this point. Alex Iwobi came back to bite Arsenal with a double but a 3-1 lead was pegged back as veterans Xhaka and Jorginho refused to go down without a fight. World Cup An unused Harry Kane, Tammy Abraham bagging a hat-trick and Ecuador making the final, bizarre. Future arrival Looking forward to Kacper Tobiasz's arrival next summer, a mere £1.5m outlay rising to £3.5m in installments and a few international bonuses. He's yet to secure a work-permit but I'm confident that it won't take him long to get himself in a position so that he can join up with us. I am hoping to play Pickford as much as possible to get a high fee in the summer but if there is some interest in January, I would replace him with Livakovic in a heartbeat. Similarly, I am looking to offload Yerry Mina and Demarai Gray in January. Gray has excelled from the right-hand side but I would like an upgrade in that area. Fixtures - December Already lost countless hours of sleep over the Friendly Cup Final defeat, while Jordan Pickford was off picking up a World Cup, Andy Lonergan became well versed in how to pick the ball out of his own net. Calvert-Lewin found his fitness against Sunderland with a hat-trick and opened the scoring against Crystal Palace, alas his goalscoring exploits were bettered by Wilfried Zaha who cupped his ears towards the Toffees faithful as the wantaway star secured the 3 points for the Eagles. We responded with great aplomb against Man Utd who were frivolous against our set-piece masterclass. Dwight McNeil had a field day against his former club while Joao Pedro finally made an impact from the bench, scoring twice. Outgoings Although Mina came back into the side with some half-decent performances, his inflated wages left a lot to be desired for our club coffers so we decided to let him go to Wolves. Incomings I don't think many managers can say they've signed a 55-year-old: I am one of them. I'd chased Sanderson earlier in the season as a work in progress forward, likely to spearhead the u21s for a few years before heading out on loan. Monsalve had been shortlisted as a first window target but the scouts suggested he'd be unable to get a work-permit so I allowed him to stew until January where he arrived for a small fee relative to his potential. Deadline day arrived and the FM romantic in me activated once more, David Brooks was available for £4m up-front with the rest paid on installments so I couldn't turn the Welshman down. We also arranged the future transfers of Oscar Perea from Atletico Nacional and Sam Curtis from St Patrick's Athletic. The pair will arrive in the following January due to u-18 restrictions and cost a combined £370k up-front. Both are raw in their development but have a lot of room to improve. Fixtures - January I'll gloss over the losses swiftly as we didn't deserve anything from any of those games, we are finding it tough away from home. Joao Pedro was at the double again against Forest Green and Demarai Gray put on a clinic against West Ham. Gray did attract some interest from clubs in the January window but nobody was willing to part with the fee I wanted, Lens mustered up £10m but his Premier League form (7.00 across the season) warranted a higher fee than that. I began to trial a more balanced, defensively solid tactic against the bigger sides and although it proved to be effective against Man Utd in January, we were found out against Liverpool and Chelsea. However, the necessity to rotate the lineups did have an impact on consistency and when we were restored to full-strength against Arsenal, we scraped through into the FA Cup Fifth Round. Fixtures - February Well, the Carabao Cup wasn't on the agenda as Chelsea's free-spending reigned supreme over the course of the two-legs. I was happy for Radamel Falcao who equalised on 90+3 against his former club. Brooks debuted against his former club and helped us to a 3-1 victory. He continued by helping himself to the opener against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. We then exacted revenge against Brentford who couldn't handle the wing-play of McNeil and Gray. I then decided to recoup millions in wages by fining the majority of starters after the away fixture against Tottenham, an utterly toothless display. Youth Intake - 2022/23 For a first intake, this could be the best I've ever had. He may be fickle but I think I've potentially got a world-beater in the making here with Preda. I've yet to actually develop a word-class player from the entirety of my intakes but I genuinely believe he's already got the base attributes to fulfill that for me. Towey and Heald both look handy too. As I played a 4-2-3-1, I have every intention of retraining Heald to play from the left (AMR/ST currently) so potentially the trio form a front-three in the future (Towey is a striker). Fixtures - March I genuinely believe I'd pulled off some sorcery against Liverpool in the cup despite being quite anxious at the prospect of drawing them. Don't get me wrong, we had our chances in the game and Calvert-Lewin missed a guilt-edged chance to secure victory in normal time, his misery was further compounded by missing our first penalty but former Liverpool academy man Conor Coady scored the winning penalty to send us into the Quarter Finals. Brave displays against Man City and then United did follow but Haaland is difficult to keep quiet for 90 minutes and added to his absurd league tally in 90+4. Fred broke our hearts at Old Trafford in similar fashion, netting a 90th minute winner. Two goals in two minutes from West Ham was enough to prolong our trophy drought even further as they also dispatched of Man Utd in the semis. A tough month. Fixtures - April Lots to shout about here, I'd settled on the previously mentioned 'defensively solid' setup in most of these games and it set up a nice balance between offensive prowess and defensive muscle. The pairing of Sutalo and Tarkowski at the back was seriously solid despite neither performing greatly in match ratings. I enjoyed the win at St James' the most given that Anthony Gordon opened the scoring, to which I shouted a lot of expletives and we showed a lot of great character to get back into the game and then sure up when protecting our own goal. DCL's five goals across the month helped tenfold. Fixtures - May Beating Southampton and then Villa got me a little giddy, I won't lie. I don't believe my optimism was necessarily misplaced however as we hadn't lost since early March but Leeds managed to pull-off a shock at Goodison after Falcao's early opener. I then played a young, entirely rotated side against Fulham on the last day as we couldn't improve on our league position whatsoever - had we even won our last two we'd have finished behind the side above us. I did dish out a first and only Premier League appearance to Kazuyoshi Miura who made history against Fulham. At the age of 56, he becomes not only the oldest debutant in the league but also the oldest player, surpassing Stanley Matthews' previous record by 6 years. League Table A season that surpassed expectation. We passed our 'become the best of the rest' board goal by three years and chalked up a very respectable points tally in what is an extremely competitive league. We still await our continental fate as West Ham play Man City in the FA Cup final. Wolves, Leicester and Nottm Forest going down offers me some temptation to raid their squads. I can see myself going for Max Kilman, Pedro Neto and maybe even Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolves. While Victor Kristiansen offers an alternative option at LB from Leicester and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall appeals as a long term replacement for Doucoure. Brennan Johnson is also attracting a lot of suitors. We shall see what happens, I am looking at overhauling a lot of the squad though.

Cyborg doing cyborg things I'm actually speechless at how truly ridiculous this is, I have never even come close to having a player break Dixie Dean's 60 league goal record before and yet Haaland almost managed it in the first season.

Fixtures - March I genuinely believe I'd pulled off some sorcery against Liverpool in the cup despite being quite anxious at the prospect of drawing them. Don't get me wrong, we had our chances in the game and Calvert-Lewin missed a guilt-edged chance to secure victory in normal time, his misery was further compounded by missing our first penalty but former Liverpool academy man Conor Coady scored the winning penalty to send us into the Quarter Finals. Brave displays against Man City and then United did follow but Haaland is difficult to keep quiet for 90 minutes and added to his absurd league tally in 90+4. Fred broke our hearts at Old Trafford in similar fashion, netting a 90th minute winner. Two goals in two minutes from West Ham was enough to prolong our trophy drought even further as they also dispatched of Man Utd in the semis. A tough month. Fixtures - April Lots to shout about here, I'd settled on the previously mentioned 'defensively solid' setup in most of these games and it set up a nice balance between offensive prowess and defensive muscle. The pairing of Sutalo and Tarkowski at the back was seriously solid despite neither performing greatly in match ratings. I enjoyed the win at St James' the most given that Anthony Gordon opened the scoring, to which I shouted a lot of expletives and we showed a lot of great character to get back into the game and then sure up when protecting our own goal. DCL's five goals across the month helped tenfold. Fixtures - May Beating Southampton and then Villa got me a little giddy, I won't lie. I don't believe my optimism was necessarily misplaced however as we hadn't lost since early March but Leeds managed to pull-off a shock at Goodison after Falcao's early opener. I then played a young, entirely rotated side against Fulham on the last day as we couldn't improve on our league position whatsoever - had we even won our last two we'd have finished behind the side above us. I did dish out a first and only Premier League appearance to Kazuyoshi Miura who made history against Fulham. At the age of 56, he becomes not only the oldest debutant in the league but also the oldest player, surpassing Stanley Matthews' previous record by 6 years. League Table A season that surpassed expectation. We passed our 'become the best of the rest' board goal by three years and chalked up a very respectable points tally in what is an extremely competitive league. We still await our continental fate as West Ham play Man City in the FA Cup final. Wolves, Leicester and Nottm Forest going down offers me some temptation to raid their squads. I can see myself going for Max Kilman, Pedro Neto and maybe even Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolves. While Victor Kristiansen offers an alternative option at LB from Leicester and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall appeals as a long term replacement for Doucoure. Brennan Johnson is also attracting a lot of suitors. We shall see what happens, I am looking at overhauling a lot of the squad though.

Fixtures - December Already lost countless hours of sleep over the Friendly Cup Final defeat, while Jordan Pickford was off picking up a World Cup, Andy Lonergan became well versed in how to pick the ball out of his own net. Calvert-Lewin found his fitness against Sunderland with a hat-trick and opened the scoring against Crystal Palace, alas his goalscoring exploits were bettered by Wilfried Zaha who cupped his ears towards the Toffees faithful as the wantaway star secured the 3 points for the Eagles. We responded with great aplomb against Man Utd who were frivolous against our set-piece masterclass. Dwight McNeil had a field day against his former club while Joao Pedro finally made an impact from the bench, scoring twice. Outgoings Although Mina came back into the side with some half-decent performances, his inflated wages left a lot to be desired for our club coffers so we decided to let him go to Wolves. Incomings I don't think many managers can say they've signed a 55-year-old: I am one of them. I'd chased Sanderson earlier in the season as a work in progress forward, likely to spearhead the u21s for a few years before heading out on loan. Monsalve had been shortlisted as a first window target but the scouts suggested he'd be unable to get a work-permit so I allowed him to stew until January where he arrived for a small fee relative to his potential. Deadline day arrived and the FM romantic in me activated once more, David Brooks was available for £4m up-front with the rest paid on installments so I couldn't turn the Welshman down. We also arranged the future transfers of Oscar Perea from Atletico Nacional and Sam Curtis from St Patrick's Athletic. The pair will arrive in the following January due to u-18 restrictions and cost a combined £370k up-front. Both are raw in their development but have a lot of room to improve. Fixtures - January I'll gloss over the losses swiftly as we didn't deserve anything from any of those games, we are finding it tough away from home. Joao Pedro was at the double again against Forest Green and Demarai Gray put on a clinic against West Ham. Gray did attract some interest from clubs in the January window but nobody was willing to part with the fee I wanted, Lens mustered up £10m but his Premier League form (7.00 across the season) warranted a higher fee than that. I began to trial a more balanced, defensively solid tactic against the bigger sides and although it proved to be effective against Man Utd in January, we were found out against Liverpool and Chelsea. However, the necessity to rotate the lineups did have an impact on consistency and when we were restored to full-strength against Arsenal, we scraped through into the FA Cup Fifth Round. Fixtures - February Well, the Carabao Cup wasn't on the agenda as Chelsea's free-spending reigned supreme over the course of the two-legs. I was happy for Radamel Falcao who equalised on 90+3 against his former club. Brooks debuted against his former club and helped us to a 3-1 victory. He continued by helping himself to the opener against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. We then exacted revenge against Brentford who couldn't handle the wing-play of McNeil and Gray. I then decided to recoup millions in wages by fining the majority of starters after the away fixture against Tottenham, an utterly toothless display. Youth Intake - 2022/23 For a first intake, this could be the best I've ever had. He may be fickle but I think I've potentially got a world-beater in the making here with Preda. I've yet to actually develop a word-class player from the entirety of my intakes but I genuinely believe he's already got the base attributes to fulfill that for me. Towey and Heald both look handy too. As I played a 4-2-3-1, I have every intention of retraining Heald to play from the left (AMR/ST currently) so potentially the trio form a front-three in the future (Towey is a striker).

Fixtures - October A month of actual good performances and consistency? Well, I never. Falcao and Haraldsson came up trumps for us this month, with the latter becoming a model citizen under the tutelage of the former. The young Icelandic midfielder has been deployed as a shadow striker and his man of the match performance against Brighton was a particular highlight, running in behind opposition defenders at will, breaking away at pace and powering home the second goal. I promised Pep Guardiola that I'd play Tomas Galvez regularly, understandably with Mykolenko and Garcia, I hadn't. He started against Wolves and duly repaid my boldness with a swift sending-off on the 12th minute, giving away a penalty in the process. What a boy. Fixtures - November I was quite disappointed to see us stall against strugglers Leicester but there was some consolation in the following fixture as Alex Scott put smiles on the faces of home supporters with the winning penalty. The summer purchase from Bristol City has largely been used as a substitute and hadn't quite impressed as I hoped up until this point. Alex Iwobi came back to bite Arsenal with a double but a 3-1 lead was pegged back as veterans Xhaka and Jorginho refused to go down without a fight. World Cup An unused Harry Kane, Tammy Abraham bagging a hat-trick and Ecuador making the final, bizarre. Future arrival Looking forward to Kacper Tobiasz's arrival next summer, a mere £1.5m outlay rising to £3.5m in installments and a few international bonuses. He's yet to secure a work-permit but I'm confident that it won't take him long to get himself in a position so that he can join up with us. I am hoping to play Pickford as much as possible to get a high fee in the summer but if there is some interest in January, I would replace him with Livakovic in a heartbeat. Similarly, I am looking to offload Yerry Mina and Demarai Gray in January. Gray has excelled from the right-hand side but I would like an upgrade in that area.

Everton Years of mediocrity, years of financial mismanagement, years of despair. Trophyless since 1995, turbulent ever since. Time for change. I entered the job on June 27th with every intention of freshening up a decaying squad - wages are staggering, genuine quality is sparing, the collective is stinking. So, out went the following: Outgoings Holgate is relatively versatile but had high wages (that unfathomably increased annually). Coleman is a club icon but being a high earner sealed his fate alongside low natural fitness. Brighton opted to sign Davies after we recruited one of their transfer targets and Onana joined Davies out on loan to Brighton, Onana's low professionalism is difficult to cope with over the course of an FM season so I was looking for this loan experience to have a positive impact on his personality. We received around £17m up-front for all of the transfers, which added to our already healthy £31m transfer budget. Incomings Zakharyan came in as a personal favourite of mine with bags of potential. Haraldsson is a versatile option with a good personality, likely to be deployed across most of the attacking areas. Dante and Radamel Falcao arrived as mentors are purely as that, the latter can do a job up-front but Dante is a bit too slow to be starting regularly in the Premier League. Fran Garcia is a really solid option and draws parallels to the previously depart Lucas Digne so romantically I brought him. Nagalo directly replaces Holgate, filling in at centre-back and right-back. Alex Scott was Brighton's aforementioned target but he opted for a 6-year-stay in the blue half of Merseyside, unfortunately with a £100m release clause in his deal. Sivert Mannsverk, like Scott is very well-rounded and is a powerhouse in midfield, I see him as rotation option with Onana in the future. Baturina comes in as a creative spark in the midfield to succeed Iwobi in the long-term. Galvez is a player I've always liked but never actually developed very well so I'm looking to sign him permanently at the end of his loan spell. Robson-Kanu offers backup in wide areas whilst also possessing the 'curls ball' trait which I like spreading around my players for some additional flair. Corchia replaced Coleman on significantly less wages, while Carrico is also a pleasant mentor. Ronning was purchased with every intention of him coming back and being a starter once he has a work-permit but this may well be a couple of years away yet, sadly. I toyed with the idea of acquiring Alejandro Frances as another coverage option in defence but went for the left-footed Harvey Araujo instead as he'll later become a 'trained at club' acquisition. Josip Sutalo (not to be confused with Bosko) seems a popular option this year, I've yet to use him so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about - also better than every other defender at the club. Joao Pedro arrived as the actual Richarlison replacement which has yet to come in real life. We essentially tapped him up all summer until he handed in a transfer request on the final day of the season, not my finest hour but we got our man for a mere £5m up-front. He'sssssssss Brazilian. Friendlies We started really, really poorly. I would be doing a disservice to Crewe if I didn't state that they played us off the park, we were abysmal. I made some tactical tweaks from that game onwards and it seemed to pay dividends. I gave some younger players game-time here and out of the lot Stan Mills shined. He's really not good enough to be a Premier League starter but given Anthony Gordon's departure, I'll be using him as a squad player over the course of the season. I'm hoping for some 'easier' cup ties to accelerate his development, perhaps - all going well, at least. Fixtures - August Welcome to the Premier League, Erling Haaland. In all seriousness, we were dreadful in the opening two fixtures but resurged following a spell of me booting up 'morale manager' and criticising training and performances across the squad. Sutalo seemed to sure up the defence after a woeful debut performance against Spurs, despite not performing spectacularly himself. Controversial as an Evertonian perhaps but I'm really not mad about Pickford so I will be looking to get Dominik Livakovic at some point to replace him when my dwindled transfer and wage budget allows. Fixtures - September We showed a lot of character to peg Leeds back twice as they were flying high in the league but Pickford had to shoulder a lot of blame in the Merseyside derby, some turgid goalkeeping was displayed. At one point in the first-half Liverpool had 4 shots on target and 4 goals. I did think to myself: no side in their right mind would be watching this wanting to take him from us. He did improve against West Ham though, largely the loss was down to my gung-ho mentality in the last few minutes of the game where we ended up conceding twice from set-plays. The side are bereft of goals currently but some solace can be found in the shape of Dominic Calvert-Lewin's imminent return to fitness.

I'm about to start a new save with the latest update, just planning out who I want to sign in season 1. On my save from the last update I'd had one or two top four finishes and a Carabao Cup win in five years, so I wasn't doing too badly. My eleven was really good though: GK: Hedl RB: Livramento/Patterson LB: Mykolenko/Garcia CB: Zabarnyi/Ahmedhodzic CB: Pavlovic/Daniliuc CM: Berge/Seiwald/Haraldasson CM: Swedberg/Wanner/Zakharyan AMR: Brooks/Bardghji AML: McNeil/Neto ST: Sesko/Beljo ST: Broja/Weiper I just ended up having a Chelsea-esque squad that was bloated though which took away some of the enjoyment as it was becoming difficult to keep all of the squad happy and tight-knit.

Great to see Coventry join you, I really thought you were building something positive with them but I can understand why an £83m kitty would be alluring. What is the budget looking like for next season?

I always find it fascinating how others manage Everton, given I do a save with them every year. Livramento might be worth looking at too given that I saw that it said Southampton were relegated when signing Lavia.

He had high potential prior to the update (could roll at a high level Premier League standard), I think he is unchanged! A goalkeeper who has had a bump in potential is Noah Atubolu who looks quite promising from Freiburg.

How on earth do you only concede 9 in an entire season?! Teach me the ways!

Started a new save from the update, managed to recruit this guy via my youth intake in the first season (applied a picture for him). Given that I am of Austrian heritage, I am very excited about this guy!

As far as I know his CA has increased but his PA is still the same - he is in the 140-170 range, varying from save to save. His CA is quite close to the low-end of that range so it does show he is highly thought of in world football.

This guy is going from strength to strength! He doesn't perform incredibly well as of yet but averaged a 6.8 over the course of his first senior season as a player in League 1. We are in the Championship now and he is tied down until 2033 due to additional optional extensions... We won League 2 comfortably (Glen Taylor carried hard with his aerial ability) and then made some shrewd business with free transfers to prepare us for League 1: Conor Masterson, Paul Kalambayi, Luke Matheson, Paul Glatzel, Yannik Luhrs, George Williams, Daniel Batty and Jonathan Leko. We also formed a partnership with Man City who gave us Tomas Galvez, Oscar Bobb and Mikki van Sas on loan without any wage contributions from us. The board were relatively generous with the transfer money they awarded to us based on some okay cup runs the season prior - we signed Jovan Milosevic (£250k up-front, £450k over 3 years and £300k after 50 league appearances) as a long-term successor to the ever-present Glen Taylor. Taylor has since departed for pastures new as I felt his wage demands were a bit astronomical given his limited qualities for a Championship season. Himself and Hector-Ingram proved to be absolute heroes and the pair shot us up to the Championship in some style. Quite frankly we run amok on the competition, Leko and Glatzel alternating on the wings with those two firing up-top was lethal. Not a bad valuation for a free transfer at the start of the current database. He'll either lead us to the Premier League eventually or move on for a big fee - his trajectory is giving me Ivan Toney vibes currently.

Peter Thomas never really developed on my save, ended up releasing him at the end of the first season. Thank you for the heads up on Hector-Ingram, I signed him on my save and he was brilliant. I recommend Glen Taylor from Spennymoor, that guy was unreal for me in League Two.

Not a full update but... This guy is saucy for a first year intake player from League Two! Makes it even sweeter that he's from an obscure nation.

Rejuvenating Rochdale Rochdale currently find themselves at the bottom of League Two. Their rivals Bury are my hometown club and given that I can no longer manage them, I thought why not refresh the dwindling Dale. Objective - Win every cup competition available to me at least once throughout the duration of the save. - Rely on youth to charge up the divisions. Brightest Prospect - Ethan Brierley Ethan has the potential to play at a high Championship to lowly Premier League level, I am hoping for a quick trajectory up the divisions in order for him to fulfill his potential quickly. I don't have any intention to sell him early on but we will see. Young Starlet Acquired - Princewill Ehibhatiomhan For ease, I will nickname him 'Prince' going forward but my scouts drew attention to him and I thought he was worth a punt. He lacks massively in balance, dribbling and off the ball, so he will be a work in progress but I am hoping to give him substantial game-time in rotation with my new striking duo... A New Number 9 - Jahmal Hector-Ingram After a trial spell, it quickly became apparently that this guy was a must have. I'm hoping he'll still be up to scratch even by the time we hit the Championship - all going well. A Meaty Man - Glen Taylor Tall, good in the air and can bag a penalty, Taylor will be excellent in League Two. Hector-Ingram and Taylor will be excellent influences on Prince, given the pair are both professional individuals. Sadly, Ian Henderson has a 6 to 8 month lay-off so his professionalism will be a miss in impacting those around him.

Haha! I put him down to that so he didn't whinge when I rotated, it does work a treat. I also got that type of fee for Doucoure because he played a lot in the first season, I did exploit the newly promoted sides on the fees as soon as the transfer window opened. Pickford ended up leaving Middlesbrough on a free at the end of the season and went to Norwich who stayed up.

2023/24 Overview Clear progress shown, we were unlucky not to win the league to be fair given how many goals we scored but it wasn't to be in the end. 2023/24 Summer Incomings Tino Livramento for £22.5m (£25.5m) Pedro Neto for £39m Anel Ahmedhodzic for £10m (£11m) - P/Ex Williot Swedberg for £24.5m (release clause) Nelson Weiper for £26m (£27m) Niklas Hedl for £10.5m Sergey Pinyaev for £8m Armando Broja for £56m (£64m) Strahinja Pavlovic for £12.5m (£16m) Adam Karabec for £6m (£6.5m) Flavius Daniliuc for £13m (£16m) Roman Zobnin for free Romeo Lavia for £13.5m (£21.5m) Dion Drena Beljo for £6.75m Eddie Nketiah for £4.6m Chris Popov for £10m (£14m) Tomas Galvez for £10m (£12.5m) James Ward-Prowse for £15m (£18m) - P/Ex Alejandro Garnacho on loan for £1.2m Broja was pre-arranged during his loan spell, a hefty fee but he was ridiculous good last season so I thought it'd be rude not to secure the signature of someone who is homegrown too. The fees look massive overall but largely these were funded on installments and will harm the finances of the club in the long-term alongside the stadium repayments but I'm hoping success on the pitch helps to negate any financial struggle. *U21 foreign players signed 2023/24 Summer Outgoings Neal Maupay to Aston Villa for £725k (terrible deal) James Tarkowski to Watford for £4.6m Jordan Pickford to Middlesbrough for £21.5m Abdoulaye Doucoure to Norwich for £20.5m Reece Welch to Sheffield United - P/Ex Ellis Simms to Coventry for £300k Lewis Dobbin to Wolves for £10m Moise Kean to Juventus for £24m Niels Nkounkou to Udinese for free Lewis Gibson to Bristol City for free Nathan Broadhead to Portsmouth for £300k Andre Gomes to Wolves for £1m Dominic Calvert-Lewin to Man City for £89m (all up-front) Idrissa Gueye to Brighton for £6m Andre Onana to Southampton on loan for £300k Alex Iwobi to Southampton on loan for £875k Jean-Philippe Gbamin to Crystal Palace on loan for £850k (£2.6m future fee) So much deadwood was moved on and wages were saved here, ultimately that was the goal as some of these players were on ridiculous wages. Calvert-Lewin allowed us to fund a lot of our business and as much as I really like him on FM, he was grumbling over a move for most of the summer window so I decided to move him on. Beljo came in as a direct replacement and attribute-wise, there wasn't much in it despite speed overall which I began to work on straight away for the towering Croat. 2023/24 Winter Incomings Faustino Anjorin for £1.6m Roony Bardghji for £7m (£9m) Paul Wanner for £40m (£50m) Ahmetcan Kaplan for £12m (£13m) *U21 foreign players signed I adore Roony and Wanner on the game so their transfers were no-brainers whatsoever. Both will become home-grown at the club which is a massive bonus too. 2023/24 Winter Outgoings Dele Alli to Fulham for £15m There was no way I was paying £10m after 10 appearances for Alli and although he'd had a great season in Turkey with Besiktas and improved quite a lot, it was time to go. EFL Cup Man City got their revenge for last year's final. The start eleven was largely disappointing and front-three of Haaland, Leao and Foden proved too hot to handle. FA Cup A premature exit that displeased the board. Europa League We had a really good run to the semi-finals but Benjamin Sesko exists and happened, he was a real problem in both games. He is my top target for next season alongside Josko Gvardiol who was instrumental in both games too. I'm doubtful I'll land both but we'll see. I think my financial freedom will only allow for one of them. Nelson Weiper's Performances in 2023/24 I was really impressed with the big German, he started the majority of games and clutched up in quite a few big games. Another signing who will become home-grown and lead the line for years to come. Armando Broja's Performances in 2023/24 He's absurd, he really is. As you can see I didn't start him that much, mostly because I'm trying to have an impact on his personality via mentoring with Falcao and some other more professional players. Even so, as a substitute, his pace and power was a constant threat to tiring defenders. Armando Broja's Attribute Profile in 2024/25 Just look how good this guy is now... He's giving me Erling Haaland-vibes.

Central defender wise I'd look at Malick Thiaw or Anel Ahmedhodzic. Both are accessible and have ceilings, as well as being consistent performers. DM spot, I'd perhaps look at Nicolas Seiwald (providing he hasn't moved), maybe even Lewis Cook or Manu Kone or Joao Gomes from Flamengo. As you said though, Onana can certainly play in that role.

Cheers mate, big win indeed! I got around £50m at a point in time where the bank balance was looking quite healthy too due to outgoings.

2022/23 Overview We did rather well considering this was our start to proceedings... The Man Utd fixture was particularly embarrassing, I will let you suss that out by looking at the following screenshot: Say no more. As you will see, Falcao scored in this game, he's a favourite of mine to sign given his model citizen personality. 2022/23 Summer Incomings Arsen Zakharyan for £13m Illia Zabarnyi for £13m (£14.5m) Adamo Nagalo for £2.7m (£4.2m) Hal Robson-Kanu for free Sander Berge for £12m (£12.5m) Hakon Arnar Haraldsson for £5m (£6m) Daniel Carrico for free Sebastian Corchia for £650k (£1.2m) Radamel Falcao for £500k (£650k) Octavian Popescu for £2.3m (£3.3m) - loaned back to FCSB to gain a work permit Gabrijel Rukavina for £3m (£3.9m) Fran Garcia for £8.5m Jack Walton for £300k - P/Ex Armando Broja on loan for £1.3m I just want to caveat by saying that aside from Zakharyan and Garcia, all players were signed with lower fees up front, the initial fees before those in brackets are totaled with installments considered. For instance, I only paid £4.5m up-front for Zabarnyi with increases to £13m over the course of three year annual payments. I understand that without this context people would jump to conclusions about potentially cooking the books! Broja was a deadline day loan and I have categorically never seen him develop very well on FM so I decided to take a punt on him given that DCL is out injured. *U21 foreign players signed 2022/23 Summer Outgoings Asmir Begovic to Leicester for £3.8m Anthony Gordon to Leeds for £21m Tom Davies to Crystal Palace for £9m Seamus Coleman to Celtic for £1m Demarai Gray to Socchi for £5m Salomon Rondon to Dynamo Moscow for £1.3m Charlie Whitaker to Norwich for £700k Andy Lonergan to Barnsley - P/Ex I sell all players for money up-front, this effectively allows me to deal in installments on the transfers in. We brought in around £42m here on players that I had no intention of playing. Gordon would have been a starter (Iwobi works as a AMR, however) but I have too much of an affinity with Zakharyan to not trigger his £13m release clause - his ceiling is much higher than Gordon's too. I needed to sell Gordon in order to afford that up-front fee. Rukavina, Popescu and Haraldsson are also versatile players and can play on either flank. 2022/23 Winter Incomings David Brooks for £26m (£30.5m) Nicolas Seiwald for £24m (£27.5m) Tim Ronning for £1m (£1.5m) - loaned back to IF Elfsborg to gain a work permit I probably overpaid for Brooks but I feel he's a great buy as an inside-forward and contributes to the home-grown quota. Seiwald I don't believe I've ever had before but his attributes are incredible as a box-to-box midfielder. Sadly, he has a £48m release clause so I'm hoping that isn't activated anytime soon. 2022/23 Winter Outgoings Mason Holgate to West Ham for £12.75m Yerry Mina to Southampton for £2m Andros Townsend to Udinese for £5m Same principle as the summer outgoings, sold all of these for money up-front to supplement my January transfers. I still had around £20m of money left in the transfer kitty at the end of the window given my wheeling and dealing on installments. EFL Cup DCL was outrageous in this game, absolutely unplayable. Our run-in to the final was: Cardiff (H), West Brom (A), Forest Green (H), Brentford (H) and Hull City in the semi-final. Those somewhat easier fixtures didn't build any complacency though as we usurped a Haaland-less Man City. DCL's Performances in 2022/23 Elite clubs sniffing around him, it may well be time to do an 'Everton' and sell our prized asset.. All will be revealed on the next update. Armando Broja's Performances in 2022/23 I had quite a strong rotation policy, initially I started with a 4231 and Falcao, Broja and later DCL were rotated heavily. However, from January I created a 424 with a false-nine and advanced forward which improved our fortunes. Broja was potent playing either role despite his horrendous passing as his height and pace, much like DCL was a constant threat to opposition. Without spoiling too much for my second season, Broja has improved massively and even I'm surprised by how rapidly he has developed considering he tends to stagnate while at Chelsea.

Leicester always give you £3.8m for Begovic. If you offer Tom Davies out for £9m, Crystal Palace will give you that much for him too. You can get £1m for Coleman from Celtic too. Aside from that, you have to get a few days into July but Sochi have given me £5m for Gray on a couple of occasions and because I bought a player from Dynamo Moscow - they gave me £1.3m for Rondon. Aside from that I also sold Anthony Gordon for £21m to Leeds but I'd imagine the vast majority of Evertonians would want to keep him!

Welcome to the FM23 Everton thread Supporting Everton much of my existence has brought a roller coaster of emotions: from the steady-eddy times under David Moyes to the turbulent dross that has succeeded the consistent Scot. As an Evertonian under 30 years of age, naturally, the aim of any save is to win a trophy. With 9 Premier League titles and 5 FA Cup victories, Everton are still considered one of the more successful sides in England. The red side of Merseyside is currently leaving the blue side in their wake, Everton are currently in a long-term relationship with mediocrity and under achievement. Looking ahead, Premier League survival an absolute necessity in order to fulfill the long-awaited move to a new setting, the Bramley-Moore Dock stadium. You have a £2m transfer budget at your disposal with a trimmed squad that is still rich with high earners and a plethora of injuries to key players. What's not to love? Key Players Hot Prospects