Shrewnaldo

I think that's fine for u19 players but doesn't work for me once players are too old for that. Anyone in the B team had to be registered

Not for me. Having just been relegated to the second tier is quite different to having just been relegated to the third tier after (presumably) five(?) seasons of deterioration through the third-tier. Maybe more akin to Leeds when they were in League One and Gordon Strachan going there rather than 'Boro? Something which isn't beyond the realms. But, realistically, you're talking about at least three seasons before you're back in the top tier rather than one. I agree with the second part, mind. It does feel like an opportunity to build a legacy and a proper fallen giant

Intuitively it feels like it'd be an odd move to me. If I were to equate Allsvenskan with the Scottish Premier League, you saw Postecoglu move to Spurs. If he'd gone to Sunderland or Southampton when they were both down there, I think that would have been a very odd move. But does it make sense in terms of your game? Maybe. Do you want to build towards a club where you're then going to stay for an extended period? Like Atalanta if I'm remembering correctly? In that case, I think this would be a good move. Would you have moved to Schalke if they'd been a 2.Bundesliga club? Because you're probably only one season away from that and should surely bounce back immediately. How much are they offering you personally per week? I know it means nothing in terms of the game but I tend to look at that to gauge some realism. I went back to your original preview posts to check what you thought at the start of the save: Depends if you feel you've met the first part of this. Feels like you've nothing else to achieve in Sweden. Could you do more if you got a move to the likes of Molde or Bodø/Glimt in Norway, or perhaps København in Denmark? Perhaps not unless you feel you want to 'tick off' the other leagues?

Poor Feralpisalò (again) Do you think the drop-off as the season progressed is linked to the high intensity game and the number of sprints you highlighted? Did you have wider fatigue problems towards the end of the campaign?

I typically avoid loan deals too, concerned that I'm just throwing value away. But there are some circumstances that I think they're great - old players that wouldn't have any resale value anyway, for example. Yeah I like the look of him a lot. He was transfer listed but I couldn't afford his fee. This way I get to take a good look at him, build up a good relationship and, should we go up, hopefully be able to afford him at the end of the season

I've never seen it linked to rep - unless that's a new thing? I've always had the option available until the facilities are maxed out Yeah I think he looks decent - my only concern is the obvious lack of consistency in an 18 year old. But the bonus is that his value has already sky-rocketed so should give me some nice profit. --------------------------------------------------------- In other news, we found the genuine quality for DM with, a player I really like irl, Mario Lemina joining from Wolves for £1.7m. 30 with a Perfectionist personality and also capable of covering at right wing-back. Lovely deal. Meanwhile, we found some risk-free quality at 10 with Boca Juniors' Aarón Molinas joining on loan with an optional future fee of £5.75m come the end of the season. Molinas has an Italian passport meaning that I can assign our two non-EU slots to Mexican players per our Orlegi strategy.

Too far? A Sporting Heritage - The Guajes of Gijón It's been a busy summer of transfer business and I suspect it isn't finished yet, but I'm already concerned that I've gone too far and ended up with an unnecessarily weakened team. Indeed, our transfer business has seen us slide down the season preview predictions from 7th to 10th... never a good sign. All of the departures are justifiable though. Bamba simply isn't good enough. Milovanovic was an odd one - having been signed IRL last summer and immediately loaned to TSC in Serbia, the latter never taking up his optional fee to make that deal permanent. I didn't fancy him and let him go to Eibar considering that we would have better and more suited 9s to rely on. Last season's primary 9, Uroš Đurđević, has moved to Czechia - I said in the last post that his £14,500p/w wages outweighed his value - so you can imagine how keen I was to sell when a 10% annual increase clause saw that rise to £16,000p/w. This is perhaps the deal that's given me most concern because, having confirmed his sale, we then missed out on the free transfer of Miguel de la Fuente. De la Fuente would have been an outstanding signing but opted to join fellow La Liga 2 side Tenerife for less money. Such is life. Christian Rivera also departed El Molinón having forced my hand somewhat. His contract was up at the end of the season and he had indicated he would "consider his options". We all know what that means so I decided to cash in while I could. The last signing was the only mistake on my part - I hadn't noticed the Diego Sánchez's minimum fee clause, a legal requirement in Spain, was so low at £800k. I had intended him to be my first choice left wing-back replacing Cote. The unexpected interest from Premier League Southampton was paired with him losing interest in signing a new deal - so I decided to de-risk the move by negotiating below his release clause but taking him back on loan for two seasons. Knowing that he wouldn't gain a UK work permit, Southampton were only too keen to oblige. Sanchez is the Guaje to be sold but at least we'll keep him for two seasons whilst I develop others. Coming in the other direction, you can clearly see the influence of the planned recruitment strategy with four arrivals from Mexico including three from affiliates. Guerrero, Eguade and Carballo will support the B-team initially - all in positions where there was no incumbent Guaje to compete with. I'd already mentioned Pelayo and Pérez in the last update but my major disappointment with this window is that I've been unable to add any further ex-Guajes. One Asturian has joined - 16-year old newgen José Mariá from affiliate Mareo Logroño but that's your lot. Instead, I've decided to take in a couple of loans whilst I develop the academy players. Rafa Marín from Real looks a solid option whilst we've exchanged one Uros for another up top with Serbian Sremčević replacing the exepensive Montenegrin Đurđević. Clearly a talented prospect, the Serbian also satisfied my board who were getting tetchy about their stated objective to "sign players under the age of 20 for the future". Sremčević and German centre-back Christian Kouam have satisfied them on this score for now. I'm afraid I made one other mistake - giving Guaje centre-back Borja Montes a new contract and only then promoting him to the first-team. I failed to notice that his new contract is below the minimum wage requirement for registration in La Liga 2, meaning that - at least for the moment - he cannot play and will likely need to return to the B-team. This triggered my loan signing of Kevin García from Mexican affiliate Santos Laguna but is also one of the areas where further recruitment may take place. Financially, I've transformed the club's fortunes over the summer and this has seen the originally transfer budget swell to ~£2.5m. Therefore, an additional centre-back shouldn't be a problem. Indeed, I'm also on the lookout for an additional 6 and 9, and genuine quality at 10. It's that spark of quality which I think we're lacking up front - responsible for our underperformance at the business end last season. The problem, though, is how far to deviate from the transfer priorities. I feel like the attacking options I have in the B-team are not good enough for La Liga 2 yet, whilst I have exhausted the opportunities for former-Guajes or other Asturian players. I'm loathe to bring in long-term options that will constrain future opportunities for the youth players and I don't want to over-spend to bring in experienced players. So I'm on the lookout for some aging players with good personalities that are willing to come to the club in their 30s and do a job for a season or two - whilst providing mentoring duties for the raft of youngsters. To that end, I also convinced the board to improve the Junior Coaching so hopefully this season's intake will come through with slightly higher CA. Meanwhile, our youth coaching facilities have been downgraded but I have no option to improve them... which feels a little odd. Regardless, I head into the season a little concerned that I've let too many players go and insufficiently replaced them with ready talent... we have five league fixtures before the window closes so there might be a mad scramble if we start poorly. ¡Siempre Sporting!

I tried that in the staff responsibilities? But it didn't work so I just ploughed through it manually. The whole B team thing seems to be quite bugged. The staff job adverts being another one that just didn't work I think because they're this odd blend of sub-team and affiliate, some stuff just doesn't work

Well my plan was to delegate the hiring of the minor staff at the B team and under-19s to my new Technical Director. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have much of a work ethic and hired precisely no-one so far. I'm going to give him until the start of the season and then step in. I'm hoping the biggest gain will come from them playing competitive fixtures - plus I fully expect that the B team will coast through the Segunda and the constantly high morale should provide another boost to development.

I was enjoying the update until this bit. How very dare you

I will make you regret this request :-D

Huge boost for the save as Sporting B are promoted into the fourth tier and therefore into the playable leagues. Really, really pleased to see this

Season 1 and lookahead A Sporting Heritage - The Guajes of Gijón An odd season, for me. It didn't feel like we were that good but, in the end, we were two points away from securing a playoff spot and, according to the underlying numbers, were probably unlucky to not be significantly more successful. Somehow Zaragoza held onto the playoff spot despite losing their last five games on the bounce. For us, losses to Espanyol and then a shocker at arch-rivals Oviedo saw us drop to 7th and out of playoff contention. Indeed, that Asturian derby match is a good example of our season in microcosm. 3 (three) catastrophic individual errors, including two own goals, gifted our greatest enemy the lead and we managed to underperform our xG by 1.45 in order to lose 4-1 despite dominating the game. But that's football. Individual matches can always go either way and these sorts of events should even themselves out over the season, right? Wrong. We underperformed our overall xG and xGA to leave us 5 places below our "expected" finish - second place bringing with it automatic promotion. And just look at Eibar and Valladolid - over-performing to the tune of 15 and 25 points respectively. But that is what you'd expect good teams to do - over-perform against the average. We, on the other hand, have performed below the average at both ends of the pitch. All told, I'm not too disappointed by another season in Liga 2. I think another second-tier campaign in which we can blood some youngsters and start to mould the squad is going to suit me fine - whilst the three clubs that are coming down from La Liga (Almería, Las Palmas and Osasuna) do not strike me as likely to dominate the league and hog the promotion spots next term. And so now I'm on to one of my favourite parts of any save - the first summer window. Referring back to the targets in my planning posts, I'd eventually like to have 60% of the first-team squad from our own academy (or trained at Mareo), whilst those players will also command 50% of the game time. For both measures, we're a bit short of that for now and so my first port of call has been to identify existing prospects within the club that could be ready for first-team football next season. The updated squad planner for 2024/25 currently looks like this: I appreciate this will be hard to read for many of you but I don't think the details are all that important to anyone but me. For a bit of context, the colours represent the following: bright orange are those of questionable talent that are subject to replacement; dull orange are those which will be promoted from the squad below; blue are new signings; and green are those that I would consider selling. Before any further recruitment, this would then boost our "trained at club" contingent in the first team to 50% - closer to my target but conscious that the number will likely drop once some of those gaps are filled over the summer. Borja Montes is one worth highlighting - having had an outstanding season in the under-19s I have decided to jump the B team and put him straight into the first team squad. Because we're still in the second-tier, I think that jump is easier to make - plus we're really short of options at the back. Montes will likely be back-up for both the right and centre DC positions - for the former he play understudy to another 6'4" defender, Pelayo having agreed a pre-contract to come in from Barca. Whilst the latter will never become 'trained at club', having come through La Masía, he was born in the Asturian town of Avilés and therefore forms part of my wider strategy. Also coming through the door will be former-guaje Pablo Pérez. Pérez left the club in 2022 to play in the Indian Super League - a move which doesn't seem to have worked out as he spent last season at Rayo Majadahonda in the Primera. 20s for Aggression, Bravery and Work Rate are going to grab anyone's eyes and I really like him as an option off the bench. Those are the only two deals I've pre-arranged and were aimed at positions I knew needed replacements - 35 year-old Argentine centre-back Carlos Izquierdoz and Mexican loanee striker Esteban Lozano both on their way out the door. They'll be joined by Romanian centre back Alex Pascanu and another Mexican, Jordan Carillo. I'd really like to keep Carillo but he had no future fee agreed and will most likely return to Santos Laguna. All-in-all, we'll see nine members of the first team squad leave: That's just under £35k a week, about 22.5% of our overall budget, leaving the club in the summer. You might wonder why Cote, playing 2700 minutes and of the Guajes, will be allowed to leave - he has been excellent but he'll be 35 at the start of next season and his physicals have already started the inevitable decline. With Diego Sanchéz picking up 1300 minutes this year and Pablo Garcia stepping up from the B team, we have two Guajes ready to pick up the reins. Speaking of the B-team, I have yet to see any indication of their status and whether or not they'll be promoted into the playable leagues. I really hope so because arranging 42 friendlies to keep them match fit has been somewhat tiresome. If they are, then there's a number of gaps in the B-team squad planner that will also need filled. For these, I've been looking to Liga MX and the affiliate deals that we have with Santos Laguna, Club América and Atlas Guadalajara. Being a second-tier club in Spain, we can't attract the best youth prospects yet, but I wanted to start the trend and reflect the Orlegi ownership of Sporting. Luis Guerrero will hopefully be the first of many. Whilst clearly not of a level for my first team, should they be promoted, Sporting B will still be in the fourth tier I'm hoping that Guerrero will be of sufficient quality to operate as a quality 6 - a slot which you'll see in the squad planner is vacant and so, importantly, he will not impede the development of any guaje. Again, for me it's about committing to the premise of the save and starting to understand how early I need to scout the Mexican players, what level of player will be willing to move to Sporting and (in an entirely imaginary sense) starting the trend of Mexican players finding a route to European football through Gijón. And for now, those signings will almost certainly have to free transfers with the board (all "never use the money of the future to resolve a problem of the present") giving me just £450k for transfers. That may be supplemented by some sales if the likes of Rubén Yañez (GK), Christian Rivera (6) or Uroš Đurđević (9) attract solid bids. All three were first team-members but combine underwhelming performances with not-being-Guajes. Đurđević was particularly frustrating - despite top-scoring with 15, he at one point went on a 12-game barren streak and barely exceeded his xG. At £14,500 a week, he's almost 10% of my entire wage budget and I feel his cost outweighs his value. To be fair, there aren't many players who I would consider 'must keeps' - wingback Guille Rosas being one of the very few. He's literally out on his own in terms of creativity from the flank and was tied down to a new deal, with a much higher minimum fee clause, in January. Other than Rosas, fellow Guajes Nacho Martín (6) and Gaspar (10) would take an awful lot of money for me to accept their departure. Everyone else has a much more reasonable price, should interest arise. And that leads me into the transfer window which, like I said, might genuinely be my favourite time of any FM save. ¡Siempre Sporting!

Fair point. I'm primarily on the look out for Professionalism and, recently, Determination for the personality indicators. I guess "fickle" just sounds bad intuitively rather than necessarily indicative of these attributes. His media handling is "media friendly" so not great help there wrt his Professionalism.

Missed this, apologies. Welcome to the new thread! I was thinking more that Mario bad guy, Prof Eggman? All fair. Some players just don't develop until their early 20s and some even later. I've always thought FM represented this quite well - you could pick up a high PA player who had suffered for lack of game time and, at 24 or 25, still make a really handy player out of him. The problem was always that there's too many world beaters at 17. Lovely

There were supposed to be changes this year about late developers and variable progression, so hopefully a bit more realistic. Agree that there are too many 'first-team' ready newgens but then I tend to play in leagues where newgens come through at older ages. Starting at 15 is a bit new for me. Oooooh, intrigue as to what the *'d word was. Afraid my recall of Spurs' shirts isn't that good. I basically remember the Holsten shirt per Klinsmann, the Puma one with the navy band and... that's about it

It's interesting, I don't know how much faith to put in the star ratings. My current setup suggests one and a half star rating but it flies along and I very rarely have any genuine processing time. Certainly not enough time to go and do anything else - even browsing on another screen. I've been into the Detail Level screen and it suggests that I can add full detail to "all senior competitive matches" in all 22 loaded nations without any impact to the game speed whatsoever. That just doesn't make sense. I might just experiment for a while and see what happens. Don't want to derail your thread into a discussion on detail level :-D

Yikes at that Determination. The shirt has massive van de Vaart flashbacks for me Thanks, though. I don't recall if Kane developed as well in FM10 as he did in real life?

After signing most of the intake, two additional players have been classified as "top talents". They are: Centre back Paz has a 'fickle' personality which isn't a great start and suffers from the same shocking physicals as the rest of the newgens. His Teamwork and Work Rate also suck, so I don't have much faith in him. Romanian Chiripus looks like a decent 6. 6'2", aggressive with some decent mentals and his physicals aren't absolutely awful. I'm really not sure about the Stops Play trait, but I think the Romanian has something about him. I prefer Escribano, who is listed as the intake's star graduate, but he should get me a little bit of money even if he doesn't push on into the first team.

4 games left and the race for the playoffs is on. Valladolid are 13 points clear at the top and will win the league. Zaragoza are probably favourites to take the second automatic spot but their remaining home games are tough. Espanyol have the hardest run-in but we're not far behind with the Asturian derby making that Oviedo game even tougher - and Cartagena might still be fighting for survival. I would not be upset if we didn't go up. I think we really need another season in the second tier to develop some of the youth. I've been doing some experimenting tactically - trying out two striker systems - and giving a lot of minutes to peripheral guajes so I can see who are candidates for next season. Unusually, our away form has been keeping us in the playoff spots and we've really struggled to score at home

Love little tweaks like that when they come off. What detail level do you have set for your database? I'm similarly running most leagues in Europe (but with way fewer players) but I haven't beefed up the detail level because I'm worried about how much it'll slow my game down. I'm got a really decent machine but even so... it's a risk.

Quiepo looks like he could be decent, but he's really been quite poor this season. I sent him out on loan to Cultural Leonesa and he's been average in the Primera. Leonesa might be a poor team but I'd have expected him to be way better at that level.

Maybe José Gragera? He's a holding midfielder that's pretty decent but was sold to Espanyol. He's definitely one I've got my eye on and would love to get him back to El Molinón.

Thanks all, really appreciate the feedback. I think it's safe to say that I shouldn't give up on these newgens thanks to their physicals just yet. This is he: I don't know that any of this lends itself towards specific attribute strengths or deficiencies? Perhaps the coaching style being 'tactical'? But I think that's just a reflection on his coaching attributes... I'm leaning towards this just being the way that 15 year-olds come through. Some good comments above about the natural physical development between 15 and 18, so perhaps this is just more realistic?

How have you been finding the altitude? Much impact on you or your opponents?