Anners

@XaW I actually rejected a bid from Udinese of all clubs for Frimpong as well! Seem to love a British player. What's his value like once the game has reset it? The amount of players that I've sold for awful values (around that £20k mark for example) is always so disheartening when you know they're worth a couple of million at least.

Previous Post: 2043/44 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish Premiership League: Made it into the playoffs, thanks to a 20 goal season from Solomon Frimpong (who for the eagle eyed amongst you can see scored just over 50% of our goals!). The playoffs this time: Thankfully no gauntlet for us to go through and for a change it was us getting a late goal! The season as a whole was somewhat curious, we started with 0 wins, 0 draws and 6 defeats before actually somewhat getting going. Cup competitions were lacking any excitement this year, going out in the Group Stage of the ViaPlay to Ayr United, who also knocked us out of the Scottish Cup at the fifth round. Really hope they don't become a bit of a thorn in my side as that's where my wife is from! Rangers actually lifted the Premiership trophy for the first time in 17 years, breaking the Hibs & Celtic dominance. Although looking at that top 4 at the end of the 2043/44 season, you wouldn't think much had changed in the league at all really! And we actually completed a clean sweep of records! Yes we did it again!! Though I usually get relegated the year after... Youth Intake: 2 years in a row I get a player of starting calibre, although this time it's quite unlucky to get one up front. Frimpong can play on the left wing, so it is a bit of an option going forward but you can't move someone who has got 128 goals in 204 league games out of the centre forward position really can you!? Once signed, he's immediately worth around £12.5m to £16.5m which to be honest, I'd be taking immediately if anyone offered! Full History: Last 5 Years:

Previous Post: 2042/43 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish Championship So I may have got a bit excited again and not taken a screenshot pre-playoffs, but I'm hoping an exception can be made again because... WE'RE IN THE PREMIERSHIP!! I'd mentioned a couple of my posts ago that the playoffs were so insanely difficult as it's literally a gauntlet. It was pretty clear after the first 13 or 14 games that barring a major collapse, we were to find ourselves there again. So essentially, I tried my best to make sure there was enough rotation, players getting more than enough rest and withdrawing them from international's they didn't need to be in (that was a particular nervous move!). I've spent the last few posts fanboying over my striker Solomon Frimpong, trying to explain just how important he is to this side. So on a related note, how did we get through the playoff gauntlet? We scored 13 goals in the playoffs over 6 games, Frimpong getting 9 of them. He achieved yet another 30 goal season overall and played less games in the regular season than previous years. His quality will be sorely needed in the Premiership as he'll most definitely be the difference in us remaining in the division for more than one year. We're losing our current midfield 3 of Runciman (DM), Ferguson (MC) and Pyper (MC). I agreed the transfers of these 3 in January, but asked for them to be done at the end of the season as I was trying to peak at the end of the season and without them, we probably wouldn't be promoted. All have 50% sell on fee clauses on their deals, but all were extremely unhappy about not being allowed to move so I took the calculated risk. On more positive news, with the promotion we've turned professional: Very curious how our younger players will do now, but if we do go down I'm a bit cautious of the board reverting the change. All players have signed new full time deals (including Frimpong to another new 5 year deal!!) and hopefully the finances from the Premiership will be enough to stabilise our Youth Setup costs. Before the youth intake though, a short round up of the cup competitions this year: Yeah we got knocked out of the ViaPlay cup to Hearts, the Scottish Cup to Motherwell and the SPFL Trust Trophy all on penalty shoot-outs. When the playoff final got to extra time, I prayed for no penalties because I'm not sure I'd still have a PC after it if we lost again. Youth Intake: Conner Sneddon went immediately into our first 11 as our best defender. Which says a lot of how top heavy I am, but my god was that an absolute blessing! Even the intake itself was hugely attack minded, but getting a starting player at the business end of the season means there'll be no complaining from me! A little look at Sneddon: I'm hoping I can get him developed properly as a ball playing defender, as I imagine a lot of my build up play will go through him. Curiously, right in the end of the season, our chairperson is looking to step aside. All of the noise is about a local investor or board member taking over, so likely nothing "exciting". I'll also be reducing the size of this round-up below moving forward before it gets a bit too big!

@WhiteCat33 Let out a loud "ughh" with that goal, dear god. Is the PC/Laptop still in the room or has it gone out the window!?

I didn't actually know this was in the game so was pleasantly surprised when I went rooting around! Lacking technically, but if I can keep getting that strength up he'll be a proper force. I'm genuinely amazed he's not wanted to leave more than anything - even now he's happy signing a new contract when he's clearly far too good for the level (. There's no minimum fee clause either that he wants, so I'm loving it. I made him captain moreso because of the leadership but at this point I'll just give the man whatever he bloody well wants!!

I would also second what @Daddy said here. I think moving forward you can roughly know that 95% of youth products will sign for x amount of money for a part time contract. In Scotland, I tend to try get most of them at £50 p/w, but for the better players it tends to go up to £100 p/w. It's more learning how the game perceives your club and what they can offer. As for the current situation... honestly I'd say it's a bit of a lost cause. Keep an eye on the players happiness (even try offer them a contract weekly), but it may be a cause of having to sell the player to get something from him. For example, I'm losing my entire midfield (I'm playing a DM with 2 MC's) at the end of the season, but because my reputation isn't high enough yet, they're going for small values. £115k combined, but all have a 50% sell on fee clause attached to make sure if they do become a good player and sold on, I'm able to get some money in to combat the lack of reputation my club has (which obviously affects the player value).

I had the thought of "should I put a screenshot in" as well! Here he is - made the Ghana 40 man World Cup Squad but didn't get picked sadly:

Previous Post: 2041/42 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish Championship League: Bit disappointed from this season - we had an extremely poor middle of the season and just couldn't pick up the points. As long as I can keep Solomon Frimpong, I think we'll keep in the top half of the table anyway. Thankfully, he's actually quite happy and signed another deal too. I've also made him captain so you might as well change our name from Tranent to Frimpong FC! We got to the fifth round of the cup again - but we didn't draw Hibs this time, but instead the other side of Edinburgh in Hearts. A 2-1 loss knocked us out at the stage we seem to be getting to every year, so it's not too disheartening. More just where we'd expect to be every year. Youth Intake: To match the very mid season, we get a very mid youth intake. Nothing much to really say here either! Little round up here - Youth Setup costs are still absolutely killing us and we need to get promoted in the next couple of years to be able to offset the costs I think. That, or selling Frimpong as his value is getting up to the £2m mark. He managed a club record 34 goals this season and is going from strength to strength, so to sell him would be to somewhat admit defeat as we're completely reliant on him. Could be some very difficult decisions ahead if we don't get promoted.

@dkouv Great to see someone else in Scotland! Getting out of the group stages of Viaplay early on in the save is fantastic - I'm constantly stuck on 7 or 8 points every season lately and it's a nightmare!

Previous Post: 2040/41 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish Championship League: Got a bit over excited in this again, but we did reach the playoffs in 4th for our first season back in the Championship. Whilst it might look like we sneaked in, we actually completely lost form which I'm actually putting down to a Gavin Laird (GK) injury. Got injured after a cup game, then we won 2 out of our next 10! Playoffs: I think I might struggle a bit with getting out of the Championship through the playoffs. Compared to League 1/2, it's practically a gauntlet and as a part time club playing Wednesday/Saturday the players are exhausted. It was actually still 2-2 against St Johnstone till the 75th minute, then they completed the victory with an 89th minute goal. I've got a really bad habit with this save of late goals in important games! Cup: Fifth round against Hibs away? Same as last year? Wanna see me do it again? A lot more dicey than last year but still as nervewracking!! Yet again, Laird's the hero (followed up his 9.3 last year with a 9.0 this year) as we knock out Hibs at what is now their home stadium with the fantastic name of "Hibernian Stadium". It was right after this game that Laird got injured, so he missed the Quarter Final as we lost to St Mirren at home. If he was fully fit I think it might have been a different story but we completely lost form around here too. Facilities: An upgrade to training! We're now Below Average for that. The youth setup costs are still spiralling now, as we're paying around £200k per month just because we're in the Championship (this is about 50% of our expenditure a year now). However, we have made a bit of a sad record as we've sold our first £1m player: It's still a decent amount of money but we're very much struggling in the goalkeeper department without him. We do still have Solomon Frimpong who actually accepted a new contract so we've got him pinned down for 3 more seasons at least. I'm hoping we're able to get one of our goalkeepers up to scratch, as Frimpong is classed as a good Premiership player, so literally everything in this team revolves around him now! Youth Intake: (Completely forgot this on first posting... oops!) John Peat (DL) goes immediately into our starting 11, never mind first team! And a Model Citizen to boot! Douglas Fordyce (AMR) will be in and around the first team, but overall it was a pretty decent intake. Very much needing a goalkeeper now though - we've been fortunate in recent years but we haven't been able to keep hold of them!

Apologies for the double post, but there is definitely something weird with Youth Setup costs, in Scotland anyway. Green highlighted parts with arrows are when I've been in the Championship, with the 35-36 and 39-40 season being spent in League One. I've had a very small rep boost this time (from 1.5 to 2.0 stars), which would explain the costs being £200k here rather than like before with £140k, but other than that there has been no change apart from in division. There's no initial season costs with League One, but there is with the Championship but I've no idea why.

Previous Post: 2039/40 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish League One League: This screenshot below shows what happened most of this season: I know we're 9 points off top, but we really should have won this league. We lost so many stupid games through the season we should have won and only just managed to get in the playoffs. Although I do guess attention may have been directed somewhere else.... Anyway, a bit on that later. The playoffs! We're back in the Championship! A fairly comfortable playoff run - we should have beat Partick Thistle but a late equaliser meant we needed to win away and we did just that. Another Solomon Frimpong goal putting us through there and he helped himself to a double in the away leg to Montrose, putting us back in the 2nd tier at the first attempt. Cup: Now here's the actual juicy bit of the season! We finally went on a proper cup run!! And managed to absolutely FM Hibs, who have taken over Rangers in the top 2 of Scotland and have been in the top 2 for 11 consecutive seasons. Speaking of Rangers, they actually approached me for their job, so I got a look at their expections - them only wanting to avoid automatic relegation shows how far they've fallen! Anyway, our 2 shocks: I genuinely do not know how we managed to beat Hibs - Laird had a 9.3 rating in goal and you can pretty much see why! I don't think I had any nerves left, especially after the disallowed goal in the 87th. We followed it up with a fairly deserved win over Ross County (still in the Premiership). Whilst the game against Hibs was a smash and grab, this one I felt we were always on top and thanks to a big stroke of luck by virtue of a 94th minute own goal, we managed to get into the Semi Final. We were actually without Solomon Frimpong for the Ross County game, but you can see in our 4-3 defeat to Dundee in the Semi Final (Oh so close....) just how much of a difference he was and is in any game that we're involved in now. Youth Intake: A pretty below average intake for us here, although the potential is now a bit more accurate as I've got 2 players classed as Leading Championship players being 4.5 stars so we're able to see a bit more accurately now! Cairns and Ferguson (both MC) will hopefully fit quite nicely into midfield eventually, but other than that it's a fairly quiet one. Team Round Up: Every few years or so I'll do this as I'm concentrating more on results than the intakes! Cup hero Gavin Laird (GK) is between the sticks for us and has very quietly become one of our best players. He was only supposed to be a leading League 2 potential player, but since he's got the starting spot he's just got better and better. Has made me think a little about the other players I've potentially missed in my own intakes! Jamie Shand anchors our defence and whilst he's not the quickest, his mentals certainly make up for it. Has played in nearly every game for 6 seasons and is a pretty decent League 1 level player. Jamie Gormal sits inbetween the defense and midfield and patrols the park pretty well. Was another quite like Laird in that his ability has shot up quite significantly and I'm quite excited to see what he can turn into. Our central midfield pairing was featured last time (albeit 1 of them in a different position), but they've been so stable for us there. Here's 20 year old and 28 year old Bailey McKay - who I think will likely take a step back into central defence in the next couple of years. Beside him, here's 16 year old and 24 year old Harry Stewart, who whilst he's unambitious, has actually improved massively. Wasn't intending to play him in the centre of midfield, but he tended to stay there, especially as we've got another decent enough left attacking midfielder. Gerry Winton, my cult hero so far in this save, is still around. Isn't putting in the same kind of performances as previously, but is still decent enough to start for us on the right wing. Finally up front, the current Tranent main man Solomon Frimpong. He does have a couple years left on his contract, so it's likely I'll try sell him as he doesn't want to renew. Has 52 goals in 84 appearances since coming through for us a couple of years ago, and whilst he "only" picked up 26 goals for us this season, he missed 11 league games which shows just how reliant we were on him and was probably the reason we didn't go up automatically. Facilities: Just a little final bit here - we have managed to get ourselves a training facility upgrade thanks to the cup run - costing us just under £1m so hopefully we can get our players ability up a bit more as we have been hampered a little bit by it. We might have the youth setup, but we don't have anything past this which is what is limiting us.

Previous Post: 2038/39 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish League One League: We actually should have finished comfortably inside the playoffs, but we had a very uncharacteristically poor end to the season, picking up 1 win in the last 5, including to both Queen's Park and Forfar which meant we finish slap bang in the middle of the table. I'm pretty disappointed with this season as we've actually managed to keep all the players, with our midfield and striker all being quite good League 1 standard. We're struggling for that next step though, moving up 1 division technically in 15 seasons is a bit of a slog, but we aren't going backwards at least. Just forwards. Veeeeery slowly. Youth Intake: Bit of an average intake here - nice bit of centre midfield depth here though. Not actually that much to add here - Frimpong had a very solid season, but due to international games he probably played far too much and was too tired towards the end of the year.

Previous Post: 2037/38 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish Championship League: Not entirely sure how I ended up here. Was about 12-15 points off Hamilton with about 10 games left I think? I've always tended to have very strong end of seasons, usually directly after the intake. I'm presuming that's connected! Into the playoffs we go: 95th minute goal relegates us! I'd have been incredibly shocked if we managed to keep ourselves in the Championship, so I'm not too disappointed to still get relegated. Youth Intake: Gavin Laird (GK) immediately goes in as our number 1. Laurie Andrews (DC) goes not quite straight in as centre back, but will very quickly get that position most likely. Daniel Calder (MC) will probably go into the first team quite easily as we've got a weakness in the centre of midfield. Solomon Frimpong (AML) will actually go in as our first choice striker most likely, as I'm surprised his best position is classed as AML here. Probably the most fruitful intake we've had for a long time! As much as the financial situation looks bad (thanking you Youth Setup costs....), we actually got a takeover (only a promotion from within), so the finances look better, but now it's consolidated into loans so a lot healthier.

@BustaRaymes Absolutely love the name Smethwick Rangers. I'm not entirely sure why @WhiteCat33 Just want to give a thanks for the training semi pro players tip you gave. Never thought of only training players as certain roles to improve those attributes but it's making a hell of a difference already!

Previous Post: 2036/37 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish Championship League: Staying up with 28 points? We absolutely take those. I also pick up another record to join our League One record: Honestly, not quite sure what happened with the bottom 3 - Queen of the South were absolutely awful all season and picked up half of their wins in the last 5 games. Montrose only picked up 9 points since mid-November. I doubt we'll get this lucky next year, so I'm presuming we won't get a third year in the Championship. Youth Intake: A solid striker in John Mackay, with a couple of others being good squad depth again. Finances: To expand a little on a post I made earlier, my youth setup costs have increased dramatically and I do not know why. We've had no change in status, no reputation boost. This is the expenditure I've got from the year gone and the huge outlay in the first 3 months of the season: The white bar being the youth setup - I don't know if it's an extra cost for being in a top 2 league or something, but whatever it is it's causing some pretty severe financial issues now.

Nope! Still sat at 1.5 stars for reputation, classed as Regional (it looks to switch to National when you hit 2 and a bit stars, but it's not that). I've got a backup save from March 2036 that I've been comparing to and there's zero change.

Nope, no change in status there. Last season was £182,090 in total. This season I'm already at £592,994. Unless I'm about to get about 10 wonderkids but it's been consistent throughout in terms of costs till now.

Bit of a youth setup costs query. Since our promotion to the Championship, our costs have skyrocketed and I'm not entirely sure why. We've had no upgrades, but you can see as per the picture below just how substantial the increase is. Literally the only difference has been going from Scottish League 1 to Scottish Championship. It does seem to have stopped in October with no expenditure, but that took me completely off guard.

Previous Post: 2035/36 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish League 1 League: Um. So that happened. May have completely forgot to take a screenshot before the playoffs started, but the fact I was even there was quite unbelievable. We managed to turn over Championship side Raith Rovers in the Semi Final, then take out Cove Rangers in the final and now we're in the Championship! Somewhat hilariously, we actually did the whole "let's have 2 seasons in 1" thing again, but the opposite way round. We struggled a bit in the first half, but were still only 7 points off the remaining playoff place (2nd to 4th go playoffs). The 2nd half of the season we just kept.... winning. I didn't dare touch anything with tactics as we were just straight up dominating teams. We even lost Graeme Wilson in the January transfer window to Hearts, who I actually thought was the reason we were doing quite well in mid-table. Alas, he was apparently holding us back! A very big shout out again to Gerry Winton who I still don't quite understand as to how he's my best player. You'll see below in the round up, he had the most goals, most assists and topped the average rating. He did play a bit in the 33/34 season, but not enough games for me to note him down. If I did, you'd be able to see he's averaging about a 7.26 over the last 3 league campaigns (88 games in total). He did also get Player of the Season in League 1, so the game also clearly loves him! Youth Intake: An interesting one here. We've managed to get a starter (to replace the departed Mark Shearer) at left back in Allen Morrison, as well as a couple of others who will likely be in and around the first team. There's not too much to shout about with this intake, but it does give us a bit more depth thankfully. Financially, we're starting to feel the strain of the Junior Coaching & Youth Recruitment. We're not losing huge amounts of money, so it isn't horrible yet. The promotion is clearly going to help, but because we're still part time, we can't attract decent transfer fees for players yet. If Graeme Wilson can go and get sold to someone decent, we've got a 50% sell on fee clause there so that would be quite nice!

@WhiteCat33 Thanks for putting that here - I've been playing around with it this morning! Is it possible to add an "ideal 11" or something like that? Taking a bit of a proper look, I'm curious if the effect of being a part time club means priority is given to mental attributes over physical. I've got a couple of players with extremely good mentals, but very poor physicals.

Previous Post: 2034/35 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish League 2 League: We've done it!! We're finally back into League One! We don't half make it difficult for ourselves... This actually came down to the last game, where we played Forfar at home in what was essentially a playoff to see who would get promoted. A lovely 4-1 win means we don't have to mess around with the playoffs this year as we return to League One after 7 years away. We are sadly losing a couple of players, but we have managed to keep Jacob Connell in the GK position. The 2 we're losing this summer are Mark Shearer, who if he had any physical attributes would probably be an extremely sought after player by European clubs, and Josh Strachan, who I think will likely be getting regular starts in the Premiership for Kilmarnock soon. Some slight interest in the ViaPlay cup this year, as we managed to progress to the 2nd round and have Hibs make the short trip to Tranent. It took them a 75th minute winner to get past us and considering that they seem to have replaced Rangers as the 2nd biggest team in Scotland (and have won a couple titles in 29/30 and 30/31), I'll be quite content with that exit. Youth Intake: For the first time for a few years, this was actually quite disappointing! John Sinclair (DC) will likely get a shot in the first team as we're lacking a little bit of depth at centre back, but other than that it was fairly average. The Youth Setup we're running is starting to take it's toll a little bit, but I am hoping with the promotion we'll be able to start making a bit of money again. It's not a huge loss, but it's a noticeable one for the first time this save. I will share Gerry WInton's stats here - I'm not entirely sure why he popped off so much this year but I'm certainly not complaining. He's got a bit of pace about him, but isn't close to being one of my better players.

Previous Post: 2032/33 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish League 2 League: You might think I'm excited not to get about 46 points this year, but we've thrown away a 10 point lead at the 18 game mark to finish 2nd and into the playoffs. I was almost tempted to screenshot and post going "wonder how we'll mess it up from here"... ugh! How the playoffs went: An absolute no show in the first leg meant we had a mountain to climb for the second. Sadly, we couldn't get the third goal despite being 2-0 in the 46th minute. Hugely, hugely frustrating season this one and we really needed to get up as we've got Premiership and Championship clubs putting in offers for the likes of Connell (GK), Shearer (DL) and Strachan (SC) who I can't imagine I'll keep hold of much longer, especially in League 2. Youth Intake: Now, this isn't something I've actually seen before. On the intake, it had Wilson down as a Model Citizen, but once signed changed to Fairly Determined. Clearly a good prospect with good mentals, but not as good as I first thought. Ferguson as a back up goalkeeper is badly needed especially if Connell leaves. We have had to sell Mateo Großkreutz to Dundee United for nothing, but with a 50% sell on clause. Who then 6 months later sold him to Premiership side Motherwell for a whopping £1.8k. And is now worth in the region of £2.4m to £4.8m. I don't think I've had such a frustrating save for a long time.

Previous Post: 2032/33 Season Report Club: Tranent FC (Scotland) League: Scottish League 2 League: To say we're a mid table League 2 side is an understatement. Just to understand what it's been like since the relegation from League 1, here's the finishing positions I've had since starting the save: Basically, we'll just get about 46 points every year apart from the odd season - it's actually quite boring on the field! It's also incredibly repetitive. Again, we've had the tale of 2 seasons. First 18 games, 30 points, top 3 in the league. Second 18 games, we pick up 15 points, bottom of the league. I'm clearly missing something on FM this year as this has happened in too many seasons for it to be a coincidence now. We did manage a little bit of a cup run this year, getting to the 5th Round for the first time for the club, but lost to Championship side Falkirk 3-0 in a bit of a damp squib! Youth Intake: The exciting bit! We're at the point where we're getting a starting first team player every year, and this was no different. Apologies for the screenshot, I may have completely forgotten to take a screenshot of the actual intake.. Jacob Connell (GK) will go right in as my number 1. Professional personality as well, so he might be between the sticks for a while! We've also got another good striker in Mateo Großkreutz, so we're definitely not lacking there anymore. Overall..... not a lot happened this year.

A bit like what Brentmeister said - I just kept saying something to do with youth products, but it does tend to go away after a little bit.