[Shadow Manager: Learning My Lesson In Essen]

RWE!

Great club to manage!

Despite not being overly successful in the past and being buried down in the lower leagues since the early eighties I consider them to be one of the most intriguing clubs to reestablish.

Good luck, will follow here.

[[FM22] Returning Nottingham Forest to the Glory Days - Youth Academy+ Challenge]

Congrats, great to see Forest back in PL.

Now go for the impossible and try to stay up.

(I know it's not likely to happen, considering the restrictions you put upon yourself regarding recruitment, but for some reason I'm pretty optimistic and expect Nottingham to stay up.)

Will you adjust your tactics?

If so, I'm highly interested in seeing it, along with some insight into your reasoning.

Tactics ist the part of the game where I struggle the most (playing an FM 20 journeyman still and managing Glastonbury in the 12th tier currently ).

 

Anyway, good luck in further restoring Nottingham glory.

[[FM22] Returning Nottingham Forest to the Glory Days - Youth Academy+ Challenge]

Impressive season so far, especially considering that you turned the whole team upside down and probably completely killed team cohesion by all those transfers in and out.

With an exciting finish ahead, don't let the prize (a couple dozen millions of TV money, for example ) slip out of your hands.

 

Go, Forest!

[[FM22] Returning Nottingham Forest to the Glory Days - Youth Academy+ Challenge]

Will follow this one for sure.

Not a big fan of youth only challenges but you chose Forest and so I can't resist the urge to read. ;-)

 

Good luck!

[[FM22] Holy Macau Man, How am I going to promote youth here?]

Am 14.11.2021 um 23:57 schrieb Makoto Nakamura:

2023 Youth Candidates

This may just be the worst intake I've ever seen. 

That youth intake looks like those I usually get in FM 20 in Luxembourgs fifth (and fourth and third and second and most of the time even in the first ) tier.

Except that your personalities are waaaay better.

Anyway, great idea to start a youth only career in Macau, good luck with that.

Will definitely follow this one.

 

EDITH says: and now the save is dead already.

Damn. :/

 

[4-4-2 Modern - Control and Attack Space]

A little late to the party but I'd like to thank you for both an incredibly interesting and insightful read and a wonderfully working tactic.

 

And I'd like to confirm that this tactic works with weaker players, too.

I am eight seasons into an LLM-/journeyman-save (FM 20) which started in the fifth tier in Luxembourg.

Here you cannot rely on parent clubs, profitable cup runs (WINNING the major domestic cup nets a whooping 40k :D) or preseason friendlies to fix your finances.

Even in the top league there are only semiprofessional clubs, TV money in top tier is ~150k/year.

So in short you will have to rely on cheap, expendable players which in return are not blessed with great stats.

After five years of crawling up the ladder with a local "village club" (Gasperich) I got (mid-season) offered the job at FOLA Esch (oldest club in Luxembourg), which I gladly accepted.

Still though, my "star" players have stats like 7 finishing for strikers or 10 tackling for defenders

The last 18 months I spent (via hundreds of trials, playing LLM after all) assembling a team of players with at least 10 determination and at least 8 in decisions, teamwork, passing, pace, vision, concentration, natural fitness etc - the basic attributes of each and every susscessful tactic as far as my experience goes.

My Alter Ego in this save is stuck with playing 442 (and I as a player don't like Tiki Taka pass orgies, I want quick direct attacks).

So for the whole duration of this save I am tweaking 442 variants back and forth.

Direct counter with fullbacks on support, DLP (d) and BBM (s), two simple wingers (one on attack, one on support) and a pressing forward (s)/poacher combination served me well with Gasperich ... but FOLA is one of the big players in the league so I suddenly struggled with teams playing counter against me.

Nothing worked consistently (although I often won, it appeared like sheer undeserved luck often enough), so I cast around for 442 insight, FM-20-wise.

Having read your wonderfully detailed explanation I decided to give your tactic a go.

And what can I say?

It's as if my team suddenly consists of players with waaaay more talent.

I see "killer passes" and direct attacks so forceful that make me grin like an idiot, just because they are so beautiful to watch.

My back four all of a sudden work beautifully together, "two banks of four" has become a common sight.

It's simply great, overall.

I do not suddenly win everything, of course. I dropped out of the qualifiers for the European Conference League group stage just recently - but only in the fourth round (winning two ties before, against Quarabag for example :O ) and I lost against a Sporting Braga side which are so overwhelmingly strong (compared to my squad) that winning this tie would have felt like using gegenpress.

 

I rarely win with more than two goals ahead, I also am threatened with defeat against virtually all sides in Luxembourgs top tier, at least if I'm not playing attention to how the opposition approaches in every given match.

 

But (and that is a gargantuan "but"!) I have never in all my FM years seen so incredibly enjoyable football so consistently.

 

So thank you again - for the tactic, for the article, for the joy of watching my team being simply entertaining, for the idea of finally, after all those years, using a wide playmaker ...

 

... hats off to you.

I owe you one.

(And FOLA Esch ows you as well as we managed to win the double last season - one point ahead in the league and winning the cup final by a "three passes from own goalie to opposition net" counter goal in the 117th minute. )