Neo_Geo

That sucks, wonder when you’re going to catch a break

@Padders I feel for you, seeing those Championship positions after having been in the EPL for a number of years must sting. I must admit I am daunted by doing an English save and I doth my cap to you good sir because how you have kept the motivation for 137 seasons is incredible. I hope that Nsiala turns out to be a star, certainly if he can get his acceleration up a few notches I think you've got a cracking advanced forward there. Hopefully a few more like that tied down on long term contracts will see you push for promotion again.

@darren1983 what do you do for pre-season? Do you favour income over fitness and morale? My routine involves the following: 1 week after players return play very small reputation team (first XI 65 mins then swap the entire team) Mid-week against very small reputation team (backup XI 65 mins then swap the entire team) Repeat this process moving from very small reputation to small then to similar and I rarely go over similar. I find that this way I get the players fit and morale is maxed out ready for the first game of the season and I usually start very quickly (some of my bigger results in qualifiers in Europe I am sure comes from this)

@diegolawliet that’s harsh, time to get back on the saddle with another go

Sounds very similar, especially the last paragraph…..loan them out until their contract expires for me and if by some chance the coaches were wrong and they do develop you can always get them on a new deal. I rarely sell youth players unless they are the ones at the top of the pile that get headhunted by the bigger clubs.

I'm disappointed things like this are still in the game.... Linfield come in with an offer for Michael Burns Y8-A and he would need a lot of convincing to stay, so I start the dialogue and he starts off saying they have a stronger squad, better players etc. so I then ask what I can do to convince him to stay and this is the response: Highlighted are the trophies won in the last 2 years (it also doesn't include the SPFL Trust Trophy win), we are now the highest reputation team in Northern Ireland and were the first Northern Irish side to qualify for the league phase of the Champions League but yeah go to Linfield as we won't win any trophies. It's likely its based on the season preview where I am predicted to finish 4th while Linfield are 1st but this is just such an immersion breaker. EDIT: Here's how the rest played out: Like I said its a real immersion breaker for me as the reasons given are just nonsense.

Really nice foundation season there and beating Anderlecht as well is a really good sign!

You are right when I started the save my youth facilities were bad but now they are probably the best in the country so perhaps my approach will change slightly. The general pattern for me with this save is I establish a first choice team and then have back-up players that get rotated to keep the first choice players fit for the bigger games, When a new intake comes in I see whether anyone will be able to play a part in the first team setup, if so they get promoted regardless of age, they would then become the back-up and the back-up players would go out on loan to develop by playing week in week out, something they wouldn't get if they stayed. The reason why it happens to be 17 year olds a lot of the time is a) thats the first point at which I can loan them and b) even 12 seasons in the first choice XI is only starting to get more players who are 20 or over than those under. I tend not to go with what people have found by trying to min/max the game to see where the optimal ages are for playing time versus training or how many games to play them to get the development in the sweet spot. This is part of the fun to just manage the way I see fit. Every loan deal I make is for regular starter minimum and it usually means they go a league or two down. Here is an example of one such player, centre back Daniel Keenan Y9-A: He's now 18 but was 17 at the start of last season. He has 4.5 star potential and decent attributes for a left sided centreback. In the season prior to this he was 16 at the start of the 2034/35 season and I promoted him to the first team as back-up as I let Ryan Jones Y6-A go out on loan as well as Michael Burns Y8-A, which meant Keenan managed to get 5 starts and 12 sub appearances (10 league games). In the following season when he was able to go out on loan he got a move to Dungannon Swifts in the Premiership and had 25 starts and 3 sub appearances which is far more than he would have got had he stayed. At the same time Michael Burns Y8-A had come back from his loan spell from HW Welders in the Championship where he had 36 starts and 5 sub appearances. He came back with a higher current ability and then became the back-up and had 9 starts and 10 sub appearances. Given Burns was now at least comparable to Geoff Armstrong Y4-A who had regressed to 2.5 star potential it made sense that he became the new back up. This is generally how I approach it at the moment, but as the intakes come in and I can stockpile more players with high potential it may shift to keeping them at the club, loaning them out at 17/18 then integrating with the first team when they start to develop rather than developing them myself. What I am doing probably isn't the best way of going about it but its working for me and I'm comfortable that the players are developing well enough and I've got adequate cover to rotate as I need to.

Don’t think about how others might perceive your posts/attempts, this is a fantastic, supportive and friendly community. I had a save with East Kilbride then lost it when I was cleaning up masses of saves from other failed attempts, I enjoyed it and hope you do too. The cinch League Two relegation is even better for survival as finishing bottom is a play-off and if you finish there it gives you 2 more games to save the save but hopefully you won’t need that this season Best of luck.

The chances of you getting Crewe United were quite high, I spent a long time re-rolling and it was always Crewe United, Belfast Celtic and Donegal Celtic……..you can see from my avatar why I chose Crewe United Beat of luck with your attempt with them…..ps Jack Sharvin was absolutely key to my early survival

DOUBLE TREBLE FOR CREWE UNITED AS THE GOOD TIMES CONTINUE TO ROLL Another league title, another 2 domestic trophies and qualification into the Champions League League Phase at the first attempt.....what a ride! Domestically we continued to set the pace and even with the chairman selling Charlie Elliot Y10-A to West Ham just as we made the Champions League League Phase (banking £12m in the process and therefore no need to sell one of our best prospects for £2.2m with no sell on!) We scored fewer than last season but did concede less and Mikie Donnolly Y8-A returned from his half year loan at Sligo Rovers to partner Knox Y4-A up top as a replacement to Elliot. It meant a slight change as Donnolly is a left footed poacher whilst Elliot was pretty much either footed advanced forward but it still worked out well for us. In the cups we nearly pulled off a quadruple but we didn't show up in the SPFL Trust Trophy Final against Raith Rovers (despite being able to field my best team we had 1 shot on target in the whole match). Mid Ulster Cup is pretty much ours now without needing to break a sweat but the national cup and league cup take a bit more effort (saying that we smashed Linfield 6-2 in the League Cup Semi Final as I had wisely rotated my squad to keep them fresh). Europe was a painful delight. Qualifying was incredible but once in the group stages we were whipping boys for the rest however we did get a point (away to PSV) and we didn't have the worst goal difference (we had -18 whilst Dinamo Batumi had -29). I don't mind the losses because at this stage its all about progression and the money has helped fund THREE youth improvements in one year! League Domestic Cups Europe Club News Youth Intake Admin Key Players Former Player Watch Next Season

There isn’t really a secret that ensures survival. I generally look for a good sized, well balanced squad , if that means I re-roll the promoted teams 20 times then so be it. In almost every successful first season I’ve had a natural goal scorer and I always seem to do with a 4-4-2 with AMR and AML, focus on wing play with few instructions and just get the ball into your forwards. The other side is of course your feelings towards the club you are managing. You may find the squad is fine and you will survive but feel no connection to the club which usually ends the save for a different reason. Also the key thing, don’t give up, never give up……just ask @Padders

FM Scout finally had the KitBasher templates so I can go back to this rather than Kit Creator, introducing Crewe United Home and Away Kit 2036/37

Congrats on the promotion 4 improvements in your first season is great going, hopefully the board continue that level of support.

Anyone else get issues with recycling of unique IDs? I keep getting 1 maybe 2 in an intake of former intake players who have retired. I removed the rows in the license file but it seems to have cached it somewhere (restarting the game with no reference to their name in the license file or the unique ID and they still have the modified name) Might have to just generate a name for them (hate using the same names as previous intakes)

Did the crosses happen to be to the back post by any chance? I concede so many goals that way to the point where it goes wide, you see the cross coming towards the back post and just say out load “goal” and sure enough it’s in.

I wasn't aware that the request postponement had a chance of not being approved... This ought to be fun! EDIT: 21 players on international duty......definitely one of the worst parts of playing a team with lots of young players. I remember this being a real pain in my last attempt in Northern Ireland

Managed to achieve the what I regarded as impossible and qualified for the Champions League League Phase and banked over £12m and the board decide to accept a £2.2m bid for my star striker (I managed to protest an earlier transfer but they didn't want to listen this time). There is an option to resign but I can't understand why the devs never put in an option to issue an ultimatum.....sell him and I go too and call their bluff. Anyway that's him off: Gutted to lose him as well as losing Graham earlier in the save who isn't getting game time, this is where I would love to point out previous players who moved away chasing their dreams and ended up getting no games season after season.

I agree. It’s making me want to give Crewe United’s kits a makeover, it has been 10 seasons of the same kit after all!

LEAGUE AND CUP TREBLE WINNERS CREWE ARE RED HOT In my last update I had stated I wanted to push Linfield and probably not be too concerned with Europe but this squad of heroes managed to pull off a league and cup treble as well as making the Knock Out Play Offs of the Europa League (2nd place qualified for Europa League qualifiers rather than the Conference). This was in no way a fluke as we became an attacking powerhouse smashing records right, left and centre! 126 goals scored in the league with Sam Knox Y4-A bagging a jaw dropping 68 goals in 56 starts and 10 sub appearances. Newcomer Charlie Elliot Y10-A scored 39 goals in 48 starts and 12 sub appearances whilst Tim Leacock Y5-A still managed to net 25 goals in 34 starts and 6 sub appearances. Our goals against still bothers me but with goal scoring abilities like that the league was in the bag and a hugely impressive 16 point gap with Linfield to add the cherry on top. McMurray Y9-A is attracting interest from England and was annoyed with me when on his 18th birthday I extended his contract by 2 years I can't see me being able to hold onto him when his contract expires in 3 years time and the same goes for Charlie Elliot Y10-A who already doesn't want to talk (so he'll be stuck on his £80 p/w contract for the next 2 seasons and again I will reward him with his 2 year extension on his 18th birthday! As a nation Northern Ireland are really starting to improve with all of the metrics I am recording improving and the nation club coefficient moved up to 20th meaning the league winners now go into the 2nd round of qualifying for the Champions League. League Domestic Cups Europe Club News Youth Intake Admin Former Player Watch Next Season

I loved my Chiasso save, hopefully you like Switzerland as much (also hope that the 2nd tier payments for playing homegrown players is still a thing as that helps massively) Good luck

Just played Armagh City (Tier 3) in a cup double header......I genuinely feel sorry for them A real trouncing of a team has been coming for a while now with my last largest win being 7-0 a few years back. FYI Knox Y4-A is now on 56 goals in 43 starts and 6 sub appearances.....the guy is literal fire right now (and Linfield offered me £180k for him in January to which he was not interested anyway ) Here's his attributes and stats:

Never used that feature, may try that out cheers

EURO ADVENTURE AND CLOSE TITLE RACE IN SEASON 10 A highly enjoyable season to manage as Crewe United made it into the Europa Conference League group stage and then managing to gain enough points to qualify for the Knock Out Play Offs and domestically pushed Linfield to the very last game but ultimately fell short. This is now the 4th season in a row that we have finished second (and Cliftonville third) but it is also the closest we have come to winning it and the most points accumulated. For much of the season we were actually top but Linfield had at one point 4 games in hand due to their crazy schedule (As an example if I had won every game this season we would have played 75 games and ended the season in early May). In the head to head matches against Linfield we just weren't good enough and whilst Linfield did drop a number of points this year we didn't beat them and only managed 2 draws and 2 defeats. We didn't do that well in the cups due to the fixture congestion in the first half of the season. I purposely fielded an incredibly weakened side in the SPFL Trust Trophy to go out at the round of entry once again and in the Clearer Water Cup second round it was a trip to Windsor Park to play Linfield who once again beat us. The Mid Ulster cup was retained fairly comfortably and we did make the League Cup Final (Bet McLean Cup) but lost to.......yup you've guessed it, Linfield. Finances are going really strongly after the European run and from a national perspective everything is on an upward trajectory at the moment so I am really pleased with the save and for 10 seasons in I think I have some really strong foundations in place to at least achieve the first part of the challenge by winning the Premiership, quite when that will be will depend on how good or bad my intakes have really been up until now (seeing some really good development from a few players this year), how good my intakes will be in the future and of course whether Linfield can keep their strong squad together. League Domestic Cups Europe Club News Youth Intake Admin Former Player Watch Next Season

Ask the Scotland manager Steve Clarke, that's the next logical step for him after last night