[FM20: The English Football League thread]

Accrington Stanley 19/20

Fancied a new fresh, challenge on FM20 after guiding my home town team, Wigan to Europe in the Premier League after 6 seasons. Plucked with Accrington Stanley due to their club size, relegation candidates and little money, plus the fact they've never been higher than League One. 

 

Transfer Business

Got to work quickly, and realised they had a decent basis to work with, especially with Clark and McConville on the flanks offering decent service. They just needed a little squad depth adding to it, and was really pleased to get the likes of Curtis Jones and Beni Baningime on loan, who were massive during the year, the latter especially. Set out all transfer window looking for a hidden gem goalkepeer and failed until a couple of days before the season started in Tomasz Kuszczak, who finally had some interest in joining, and he was colossal too. 14/15 clean sheets (IIRC) over the year. Here's how my dealings panned out:

I had to add a special note to Gary Roberts for anyone looking for a cheap but quality option for League One/League Two level first year. His legs might not be there, but my god he was brilliant as an Advanced Playmaker on the left wing, forcing McConville to the bench for most of the season, which I hadn't forseen. 7 goals, 16 assists in all competitions was unbelievable for what was an initial stop-gap loan signing until January.

 

Team/Tactics

Forgot to screenshot at the time the actual tactics screen from 19/20, but will show current side further down as it's basically the same tactic, but with a Cautious approach rather than balanced as you see there. I knew the team had the capabilities to keep the ball on the deck, so that's what I wanted to do with the tactic, and Callum Johnson and Andrew Taylor were vital cogs as wing-backs to get up and down and provide constant options. Seamus Conneely, like Roberts, is perfect to act as a deep-lying playmaker, with Baningime acting almost as a third centre back as a Half Back to allow the wing backs to wander. 

Fixtures/League Table

Started really well, and knew at least the play-offs could be possible. Christmas/New Year proved to be our downfall in the end, as injuries and fitness problems meant my squad was super thin due to having a small squad already. Luckily managed to pick some sort of form towards the end of the year. 

 

So, after all that, this happened...PROMOTED!!

That dip over Christmas/New Year really killed our automatic chances, and we were miles better than the 5th place showed, but hey ho!

Play-Offs

Drew Ipswich in the semis, which of all the teams involved, I didn't want to come up against, but our draw on the final day meant we had them. Kuszczak did his ligaments in the second to last game of the season, so it made me even less confident with Evtimov, who is erratic at best, in goal. We drew 1-1 at home despite dominating, which had me worried, but we somehow scraped through the away 2nd leg 1-0 with a Gary Roberts wonder goal...

 

Faced Blackpool in the final, got completely outplayed from minute one, but somehow Curtis Jones came up with the goods and we held out...

An unexpected promotion, with a squad not capable of competing at Championship level... Long summer ahead!

 

Accrington Stanley 20/21 

Was given a budget of 500k for transfers and £24,000 free wages to play with, which I felt with the overhaul I probably needed to do, wasn't enough. Managed to manoeuvre the transfer budget around to give me more wages to give myself half a chance.

Transfer Business

Been promoted a few times on FM, but never had the slog I did during this pre-season in trying to recruit players, or even make players consider joining. Despite the fact we were in the Championship, it was impossible to almost attract any players from the same league of any quality, and took a lot of convincing and incentives! In the end, I  wanted to try and give as many players as I could who got us promoted to be given a chance, and I was pretty happy with what we did...

Managed to retain Curtis Jones & Beni Baningime on year long loans again days after promotion, (and thankfully small wage contributions), which eased my worries slightly. The rest was hard, but Barrie McKay and Dominic Samuel coming on deadline day were just what we needed...

Just wanted to upload the above to show the struggle we're up against. Even the likes of Oxford & Bristol Rovers, who came up with me, have a massive spending prowess above me. Top is Palace on 46 million a year...

 

Tactics

Like I said, this is primarily the exact same tactic I used in League One, with a change of mentality from Balanced to caution (I realise this is set to balanced but take my word for it! ).

 

Fixtures/League Table

Had Palace away first game, who still had Zaha, Milivojevic, Cahill etc in their team so feared the worst. Almost changed it up and went 5-3-2, but wanted to see how this tactic would work at this level against better teams, but act on the counter more. Pleasantly surprised myself, as we went down 3-2 to a Zaha screamer in the last minute, which made me realise this tactic was worth sticking with. Only 14 games in, but still thought to give you an update...

To say I'm over the moon would be an understatement ha!  Took us a few games to get our eye in for our first win, but after that, we've been flying! Hope to god this squad can continue this to keep us away from the bottom three, but also away from the play offs, as we're not at all ready for that!!

 

Hope you enjoyed the read, with further updates to follow in coming days!

[Most Points Without Getting Promotion?]

Just finished my first year with Wigan. Surpassed all expectations and ended up finishing the season with 94 points and didn't get promoted by finishing 4th. Ended up getting knocked out the playoffs by Fulham 3-2 over two legs so a sad end to a brilliant season...

Just wondered if anyone had a better points tally without going up?!

[Longest Winning Run]

Started my last save with Sunderland until FM20 comes out, and I started the season with an unbelievable run of 19 straight wins, something I haven't experienced before. I've had unbeaten runs, but not straight wins. 

Just wondering what other people's records are for winning runs? and whether my record pales into significance with others ha!