Scab
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Posts posted by Scab
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Warrington Rylands 2028/29 Season Review
League Table Playoffs Squad Transfers Finances
What a rollercoaster! With only 1 loss from the opening 10 matches I was optimistic about our chances, but the drop from there was sharp and come Christmas we found ourselves in a decidedly unfestive 18th. Thankfully this league is rather competitive, so as we gradually found our way back to winning ways and teams around us went through struggles of their own, we climbed... and climbed... all the way up to 3rd! I don't think I've had a more ridiculous positions graph. A season more memorable for its turns of fortune than quality, no doubt, but I won't complain with this end result!
We were in good control for most of the playoffs but I wouldn't say it was easy. We opened strong in the 2nd Leg of the Semi to overturn Birmingham's advantage from St Andrew's, but they stayed within striking distance of a comeback the rest of the game. Not ideal for my heart rate. Fleetwood took us all the way to Extra Time in the Final, a worry as their fitness looked a lot better than ours, but a tight offside call followed by a fluke-y '105+1 deflection from an effort from Dolan put us in front and from there we managed to sit back and hold on. Up we go again!
Aside from the league antics we also had good cup fortunes this year, falling only to Arsenal's U21's (after beating Burnley's) in the Papa Johns Trophy and going all the way to the FA Cup Fifth Round before falling to QPR (after besting Crystal Palace, 11th in the Premier League). Before winning promotion, that Palace match was hands down our high point of the season, battling our way to the win with two red cards, countless strategy changes, and a cool 3.3 rating for head ref Michael Oliver. I'm not sure if that's for bad reds or if Palace actually got robbed, but I'll take it!
Lots of transfers who're all pretty big improvements to the squad, but if I were to highlight a couple it'd probably be Fenton Heard, the Assists-leader in the league, and late-arrival Darko Gyabi who managed to snag the League One Goal of the Season. Thankfully everyone's happy as the board—once again—approved a training facility upgrade mere days before I was about to fail a concerningly long list of promises.
Aim for next season: Stay up? I feel like I say this every time, but we'd need a pretty special transfer window to cruise through the Championship.Season League Finish Notes 2028/29 Sky Bet League One 3rd Promoted via Playoffs 2027/28 Sky Bet League Two 1st League winners 2026/27 Vanarama National 1st League winners 2025/26 Vanarama National 2nd Lost in Playoff Final 2024/25 Vanarama National 3rd Lost in Playoff Final 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners
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Warrington Rylands 2027/28 Season Review
League Table Squad Transfers Finances
Poor end-of-season form made it tighter than it should've been, but after some final-day drama we're 1st on goal difference! I'd expected the step up to the EFL to be rough, so I'm frankly thrilled to sail on past League Two already!
Much credit must be given to Dolan, scoring a whopping 41 goals from 48 appearances and the league top goal scorer a comfortable 12 goals ahead of the nearest competitor. He hasn't had a season like this since the Vanarama North, so it really caught me by surprise. And kept an increasingly disgruntled Holland-Wilkinson on the bench. Judging by our analytics, the key actually appears to be our improved wing play delivering large numbers of crosses and square balls needing little more than simple tap-ins to be converted, but I guess still good on Dolan for consistently getting there ahead of the defenders. I'll take a 40+ goals/season poacher!
Quite a lot of changes to the starting line-up compared to last season. Blackburn didn't want to renew Jones' loan so I brought in Quansah and Maghoma as our new DC pairing, then Humphreys and Maycock as our new DM pairing - the former starting our attacks from deep while the latter gets himself forward, then finally Heard and Cooper to add some quality to our attacking midfield. McCourt and Holland-Wilkinson left in January, tired of mostly warming the bench, and I was lucky to get Maggs in last-minute on a short-term loan to avoid any squad depth issues. Successful signings all around.
Aim for next season: Survive League One. I can't imagine we're ready after back-to-back promotions.Season League Finish Notes 2027/28 Sky Bet League Two 1st League winners 2026/27 Vanarama National 1st League winners 2025/26 Vanarama National 2nd Lost in Playoff Final 2024/25 Vanarama National 3rd Lost in Playoff Final 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners
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Warrington Rylands 2026/27 Season Review
League Table Squad Transfers Finances
Up we go! Comfortable, in the end. Hit a bit of a snag in March before which we had a mere 2 losses in the league, but nothing so bad our points lead couldn't cushion it. Time to turn professional!
Ended up letting Smith go *cough*some Promises are buggy*cough* and reworked our tactics into a low block 4231 with two DMs and a AML-AMC-AMR line ready to make runs on the counter and feed a more mobile center forward. It worked a treat, as evident from the results, and reinvigorated Dolan who's back as our top goal scorer.
After years of trying, the board finally managed to find a parent club in Salford City. They're only one league above us so I'm guessing this will be cancelled following our promotion, but at least it got me Kargbo and McNulty in on loan for some squad depth. Salford has a couple of considerably better players loan-listed that I was hoping to approach for next season, but oh well.
Aim for next season: Survive League Two.Season League Finish Notes 2026/27 Vanarama National 1st League winners 2025/26 Vanarama National 2nd Lost in Playoff Final 2024/25 Vanarama National 3rd Lost in Playoff Final 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners
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Yikes. Poor results or not meeting a particular Club Culture requirement? That seems really harsh.
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Warrington Rylands 2025/26 Season Review
League Table Playoffs Squad Transfers Finances
A two-horse race with Southend. Which is fine and all, but falling to 2nd after sitting in 1st most of the season was distinctly unamusing. Fatigue, injuries, and suspensions eventually took their toll. Going into the last round we were still on top if only on GD. An away fixture to 23rd-placed Maidenhead gave us every chance to keep it that way, but alas we couldn't keep our cool.
Got off to a flying start in the playoffs with a convincing victory over Leyton Orient. That gave me high hopes for the final this time, but it turned into one of the tightest affairs you're likely to see. It would take until the 2nd half of extra time before the first few clear-cut chances were created, all from somewhat silly mistakes. A completely missed header from Washington let York open the scoring with a simple tap-in, quickly followed by a penalty kick after Jones kicked the ball straight into a prone opponent and had to lunge for it to cover for his mistake. While Holland-Wilkinson managed to claw one back for us, there just wasn't enough time for a proper comeback. In the VNN we stay.
In terms of the squad, our discount Zlatan is still doing a job up front but is definitely slowing down compared to last season. I pushed the wingers in my 4-1-4-1 up into more of a 4-1-2-2-1 with the aim of the AMR/AML and a CM(A) getting onto headers from Smith. Scales performed the midfield role admirably, scoring more than anyone else in the team, but I had hoped for more from Jarvis and Dolan. I think I may move away from the Target Forward approach for next season to see if we can't get more goals out of these forwards.
Accepted a too-good-to-turn-down offer for Kelly from Wigan who instantly wanted to loan him back. Fine by me. I can't seem to get him performing as I think he should so I'm frankly not heart-broken to eventually see him go. Then again if playmakers like him can't shine in my system, then maybe I should consider a tweak or two…
Aim for next season: Win the league. We're clearly capable. Just don't tell the players — they felt unduly pressured from the mere suggestion of avoiding relegation.
Season League Finish Notes 2025/26 Vanarama National 2nd Lost in Playoff Final 2024/25 Vanarama National 3rd Lost in Playoff Final 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners1 -
Warrington Rylands 2024/25 Season Review
League Table Playoffs Squad Transfers Finances
Another shaky start we had to dig ourselves out of as the season progressed. Not all the way to the top this time around, but 3rd and a ticket to the Playoff Semi will do! Started well with a narrow but deserved 2-1 win over Rochdale, a team we'd lost both ties to in the regular season, but I already had a bad feeling when our other bogey team, Yeovil Town, awaited us in the final (0-2 home, 0-3 away). Predictably, they proved too much. 0-1 in the 85th minute followed by a sending-off in the 86th sealed the deal, but at least we managed to match them for most of the game and played with good mentality throughout. That gives me confidence that this team can deal with these sort of matches — we just need a bit more quality.
Otherwise, the biggest change this season was a tactical move to an out-and-out target man. After only managing a single win in our first seven matches, conceding 2-4 goals a match while barely scoring ourselves, the old approach just had to go. I'd already noticed Dolan averaging ~20 aerial challenges /90 last season as an AF despite us playing short and low, so considering we always struggle when opponents park a Jumping+Strength monster up top, I figured trying to make something of all these loose balls forward wouldn't be the worst idea. In came Matt Smith, basically the definition of an immobile tower of a man being a nuisance up front, and, well... I'd say it worked! What he doesn't score himself he nods down for team mates to do something with. We can be a bit one-dimensional, but I can't argue with the results!
Actually managed to get decent money for Richards as multiple League One sides came for him. Money that immediately disappeared into the hole that is our mid-season finances... Would've been nice to have for replacements as I had to deal with a couple of bad long-term injuries, but what can you do. At least new CB pairing Olagunju and Washington proved solid and getting McNamara between the sticks has been a massive improvement over Appleyard. A better attacker or two to make runs around Smith is just about all I'm looking for now.
Oh, and I finally got some new training facilities approved thanks to the income from the Playoff Final, and it's a good thing because this is my Promises screen. Crisis averted?
Aim for next season: Playoff spot or better. I think we can hang up here.
Season League Finish Notes 2024/25 Vanarama National 3rd Lost in Playoff Final 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners
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Warrington Rylands 2023/24 Season Review
League Table Squad Transfers Finances
'Could hardly wish for a better start! We looked shaky at first and were no better than 12th in November but found our footing over the Christmas period and seemed to carry that momentum through the rest of the season all the way to 1st. Narrow wins away to Darlington and Altrincham — our main competition at the top of the table — eventually opened a point-gap and we ended up champions on the road vs St. Albans with two games still to play!
The following home game was chosen as a fan day which apparently was a great success so fingers crossed our average attendance — currently a smidge below 600 — will see a bump.
I actually thought Rylands' starting squad was quite good, but not completely without holes and the board wanted U23 signings so a few new faces found their way in. Scales is probably the best of the bunch, but Richards, Leake, and Clarke — the only "over-age" arrival — proved to be excellent additions as well.
The main highlights, however, must be Callum Dolan and Nicky Wheeler from the original squad, the former netting 45 goals and the latter 20 assists. Brown and McCourt were also responsible for some 20-odd goal contributions each charging through the middle, so I'm quite happy to have multiple positions working well already.
Aim for next season: Establish ourselves in the National League. I just want to feel comfortable with the quality of opposition and go from there. I may also have promised some training ground improvements that we can't actually afford, so let's see how that goes down...
Season League Finish Notes 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners
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6 hours ago, OlivierL said:
They have a low reputation, nice that you got them ! i'm still trying to get rushden but their reputation is very low
Aye. Saw Rushden come up once during my reloading, so they're possible but definitely very rare.
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Giving this a whirl with Warrington Rylands.
Surprisingly, we're not predicted to finish last, albeit toward the bottom. While the club's reputation is low, they did win the North West Counties Division One South in 2019, the FA Vase in 2021, and the Northern Premier League Division One West in 2022, so the somewhat respectable odds are maybe not entirely unwarranted. It seems the management team behind all that departed just this September so at least I won't have to feel bad about replacing them!
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Mickleover F.C. 2026/27 Season Review
League Table XG Table Squad Transfers Finances
Up we go again! 🙌
I was initially concerned after a rough first couple of months but strong late-season form coupled with most top-half teams struggling to open up any significant point leads meant we were able to slowly sail up into the playoff spots. Come the final round we weren't exactly favorites for the last promotion spot but with us facing 2nd-placed Fleetwood and 3rd-placed Charlton forced to contend with early champions Portsmouth, it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility either. Seeing Pompey dominate their game was encouraging—managing our own fragile 1-0 lead rather more nerve-racking—but I could barely believe my eyes when 4th-placed Oxford also fell to two late goals from already-relegated Cambridge, finally sealing the deal: We're 2nd and promoted!
There is no way this squad is ready for the Championship so this transfer window will be an interesting one. I'm also not sure how my ultra-defensive tactical approach is going to fare seeing how defense was our problem this season. We've gone from conceding 30-something goals to over 60, and more from defensive corners than anyone else in the league. If it weren't for Will Lankshear and his nearly 30 goals scored we'd have been nowhere near the top. A Championship season of soaking pressure from even better teams may just be too much. At least without major signings, but that approach may prove rough given we've less than £2M to work with.
On the financial side of things we were looking good—until I convinced the board to spend the entire bank balance on new training facilities. I may not have requested this had I known the full cost of the project, but hey, we've gotta keep up in this area too!
Aim for next season: Survive.
Season League Finish Notes 2026/27 Sky Bet League One 2nd Promoted 2025/26 Sky Bet League Two 3rd Promoted 2024/25 Vanarama National 1st League winners, FA Trophy winners 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners 2022/23 Vanarama North 2nd Lost in Playoff Semi Final
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Mickleover F.C. 2025/26 Season Review
League Table XG Table Squad Transfers In Transfers Out Finances
In a strange repeat of last year's Vanarama National, Southend and us—the two newly promoted teams—fought it out at the top for most of the season. I thought I'd finally lost out when they took a sizable points lead going into 2026, but their form dropped massively in March-April and come the final round we had everything to play for, a situation that now included Swindon who'd shot up the table late. Unfortunately we blew it by giving away a last-minute penalty while Southend and Swindon both got their jobs done, meaning that—to no amusement among either Southend or Mickleover fans, I'm sure—the title goes to The Robins!
In player news, Will Lankshear had his big breakout season, keeping Harker on the bench and earning himself the League Two Top Goalscorer award! Not bad considering he apparently still has potential to improve. Speaking of potential, Hirschowitz is steadily improving and is now basically getting playtime as often as his fitness allows. Also saw our first decently big transfer out with Ben Nelson heading off to Bolton for an (eventual) £425K. Between that and the solidarity payment scheme the finances are looking surprisingly healthy. Nonetheless, it seems the chairman may have had enough, so fingers crossed whoever comes in next isn't looking for major change. At least not in the management department...
Aim for next season: I keep thinking we'll barely manage and we keep doing really well. Top half?
Season League Finish Notes 2025/26 Sky Bet League Two 3rd Promoted 2024/25 Vanarama National 1st League winners, FA Trophy winners 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners 2022/23 Vanarama North 2nd Lost in Playoff Semi Final
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Mickleover F.C. 2024/25 Season Review
League Table Title-Deciding Match FA Trophy Final Squad Transfers Finances
Hey, look! 99pts was enough to win the league this time!
Southend sure gave us a run for our money though; getting to the top of the table was a long grind. Ultimately a 12 game win streak starting around February let us make up ground, and the very final game of the season would fittingly be against—yes, you guessed it—Southend. They needed a win to overtake us and looked up for the task after an early penalty, but we're hard to break down and after another 83min of chasing, fighting, and scrapping for set pieces the scoreboard said 1-1. The trophy goes to Mickleover!
Speaking of set pieces, they've really been the key to this season's success. I play a very defensive 4-2-3-1 and the only reason this works is the staggering 46 goals scored from set pieces, 35 of them from corners. Add 12 penalty goals and a handful of long throws to that and, well, open play ain't exactly how we're getting things done.
As if the season needed to get any better we were also facing Notts County in the FA Trophy final. We're tied for most clean sheets in the league (22) so I knew it was going to be a tight affair, and, lo and behold, a single goal was all the 46 308 strong Wembley crowd was treated to. Fortunately that was for us, slotted home late by Harker from a driven cross from O'Rourke, and another trophy goes to Mickleover! In addition to the sporting success, the whooping £426 006 gate receipts means we're out of debt! Not a bad financial bump before turning professional.
Aim for next season: Get everyone on F/T contracts. Figure out training. Dare I say mid-table?
Season League Finish Notes 2024/25 Vanarama National 1st League winners, FA Trophy winners 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners 2022/23 Vanarama North 2nd Lost in Playoff Semi Final
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1 hour ago, ShaunG95 said:
Has anyone managed to get Radcliffe yet? I tried a lot last year to no avail.
Yes. They're fairly rare so you may need to reload for a while, but they can show up.
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Mickleover F.C. 2023/24 Season Review
League Table XG Table Squad Transfers In Transfers Out Finances
That's more like it! One point less than last season but this time it was enough. Extremely similar stats across the board, actually, despite numerous player changes, so hopefully I'm on to a nice and consistent system here.
A lot of the credit will have to go to Harker and Lloyd who were responsible for over 40 goals forward, not to mention Holmes who's thrived in the pocket between midfield and attack. I usually don't know what to do with older skillful players lacking athleticism, but he's been brilliant in this link-up role. Also retiring at the end of the season, so eh, I guess that's the end of that. I basically picked our system to fit him in, but with these results I'm hesitant to change much of anything!
One candidate for slotting right into the same role might be Riley Hirschowitz, a young Fijian from this year's youth intake who's… actually pretty good? I'm not so sure he'll improve much at our lowly facilities, but he sure looks promising. I may need to actually invest some money into better coaching staff.
Speaking of money… Ehem. Things could be better? I've been given increased budgets so maybe cash injections are coming? …Please?
Aim for next season: Stay up. Renew contracts without going (more) bankrupt.
Season League Finish Notes 2023/24 Vanarama North 1st League winners 2022/23 Vanarama North 2nd Lost in Playoff Semi Final
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Mickleover F.C. 2022/23 Season Review
League Table XG Table Playoffs Squad Transfers Finances
I guess some things just ain't meant to be.
Can't complain about much besides the fierce competition. We play surprisingly well—especially in defense, something I normally take a long time to get right. Heck, we were 1st for a good 23 of the 46 rounds. Ultimately all I think we lack is that last bit of attacking quality, and no I don't just say that because we lost the league on goal difference, but maybe with a dozen more scored we would've been 1st and in the National League now. Just sayin'.
Naturally, we were immediately eliminated in the playoff semi final. It's okay, this only happened eight times last time around. I'm
numbused to it.Aim for next season: Spend everything on two forwards and hope for the best.
Season League Finish Notes 2022/23 Vanarama North 2nd Lost in Playoff Semi Final
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Giving this a whirl with Mickleover.
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Giving this a whirl with Atherton Collieries.
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I'd say I've spent about 7 or 8 hours reloading @Scoham. Seen Radcliffe once and Bamber Bridge twice.
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3 hours ago, Lewis89 said:
Would be great thanks. I must have reloaded for 3 hours and had no joy.
Check your PMs.
3 hours ago, Scoham said:Have you seen Atherton Colleries, Bamber Bridge or Radcliffe?
Bamber Bridge and Radcliffe, yes. Atherton Collieries, no.
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3 hours ago, Lewis89 said:
Have you had cray yet? Just wondering as i have not seen them yet in many attempts.
Can confirm that Cray can show up. Let me know if you want a savefile.
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Summary: The game crashes when trying to view the team profile of Croydon.
Description of Issue: Whether going via the search bar or the hyperlink in the Rivalries section for Cray Wanderers, the game crashes as soon as it tries to open the team profile for Croydon. I have asked two other players to try this and the game crashed right away for them as well. Deleting Preferences and Caches did not help. I suspect this will be easy to reproduce without, but I can provide crash dumps and/or dxdiag if need be.
Steps to Reproduce: Type "Croydon" into the search bar and click the match. Game crashes.
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St. Ives 2034/35 Season Review
League Table Youth Intake Squad Transfers
All right, we're not going down. Good enough for me!
Intense scheduling forced me to rotate more and Cull seized his chance. At 23 goals he's our best striker this season, ahead of even Atkins. Not a bad time to have your big breakout season! Honestly happy with most of the team considering the quality of players we're facing now. Every game feels like we're barely hanging in there.
I've been experimenting with training schedules now that we're F/T and finding it incredibly hard to nail a balance. Lighter intensity sure makes the season more manageable, but it's definitely noticeable on the progress curve. Not great long-term given what I need more than anything else right now is better players. Really hoping more youngsters can make the step up so I can keep the training intensity high and rotate without dropping so many points.
On that note, Driver and Eaton-Collins have been getting some minutes and mentoring, and I'm hoping the likes of Sambridge and Hughes can keep developing. Lots of potential in the youth teams but progress is still slow. May need to revisit that whole loaning out thing again soon...
From the youth intake, the coaches seem to agree Foley is the cream of the crop with Harris and Tring trailing closely behind. No one to get overly excited about just yet, if you ask me, but we'll see in time. For now, I suspect it's back to fending off relegation for one more season...
Season League Finish Notes 2034/35 Sky Bet League Two 16th - 2033/34 Vanarama National 1st League winners 2032/33 Vanarama National 2nd Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd 2031/32 Vanarama National 4th Lost in Playoff 1st Rnd, FA Trophy runners-up 2030/31 Vanarama National 7th Lost in Playoff 1st Rnd 2029/30 Vanarama National 15th - 2028/29 Vanarama National 10th FA Trophy runners-up 2027/28 Vanarama North 1st League winners 2026/27 Vanarama North 2nd Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd 2025/26 Vanarama North 2nd Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd 2024/25 Vanarama North 2nd Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd 2023/24 Vanarama North 5th Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd 2022/23 Vanarama North 4th Lost in Playoff 1st Rnd 2021/22 Vanarama North 9th - 2020/21 Vanarama North 15th -
5
the Official FM24 Dafuge Challenge
in Challenges, Sign-Ups & Experiments
Posted
I don't think we'll have precise reputations until the editor is out on the 6th.
The feeder league tables without in-game rep:
https://www.thenpl.co.uk/match-info/tables
https://www.isthmian.co.uk/match-info/tables
https://southern-football-league.co.uk/league-table/Southern League Premier Central/2023/2024/P/
https://southern-football-league.co.uk/league-table/Southern League Premier South/2023/2024/P/
What we can get is a rough idea of the reputations by going to Nations > England > Clubs > List and seeing where the clubs sit in the list relative to each other. The "Rep Rating" sorting is reputation, just without the exact value exposed.