Weed07

Back to Back updates to catch up on where we are at the moment. Crewe United - Season Eleven 33/34 Danske Bank Premiership Season Summary Pre-season was again quiet with no player sales, I did however have to constantly reject pitiful bids for my keeper that Linfield wanted to sign and the best player in last years youth intake was wanted by a host of top English sides but their bids were under £500k and with having millions in the bank the board won't accept offers like that so we started the season with the team that ended last year with the quadruple. This year we started in the Champions League for the first time and were drawn against the Welsh Leagues best side TNS but they weren't that good and we beat them 3-0 away and then 2-1 at home. In the second qualifying round we had Dinamo Minsk from Belarus and we narrowly beat them 2-1 at home then hammered them 4-0 away which was unexpected. FK Sarajevo from Bosnia were next we we beat them easily 3-0 at home and then 1-0 away, so far so good but we were drawn against Scottish side Rangers in the playoff to get into the group stage and they were too good for us as we lost 2-0 away and then 2-0 at home too. Defeat however didn't knock us out of Europe and we went into the Europa league stage, this is the furthest we have gotten in Europe and the first time in a league stage. The league stage drew us against FC Midtjylland who we beat 3-0 away, then Real San Sebastian where we came from 2 down to draw 2-2 at home, then Hoffenhein where we lost 3-1 away, then we had Molde who we drew 0-0 with at home, then we beat Panathinaikos 3-0 away, drew 0-0 at home to Empoli, beat Basaksehir FK 2-1 at home and ended with a 1-0 away with against Antalyaspor. Those results gave us a 13th place finish in the league phase and a playoff game against Qarabag who ended up being too good for us and we lost 2-1 away and then 3-1 at home. Overall a very good European campaign doing much better than I thought we would, I was surprised with how poor some of the teams were in the Europa league. On the domestic front, things weren't as good as we struggled with all the games we had to play and there was a lot of rotation. We started off the season with a 1-0 defeat away to our rivals Larne and then we went on an unbeaten run but it had a few draws and were playing catch up early on and we actually went unbeaten all the way to April, the same as last season we had only lost 1 game when the league split but unlike last season we were only second in the league at this point. Following the first game of the split we went top of the table and won the first 3 of the 5 post split games and looked to be heading for the title again but like last season we ended playing Larne and then Linfield. In the Larne game we lost 2-1 at home, a draw would have been enough to win the league and it was a frustrating game where Larne scored a 3rd minute penalty and then we dominated the game struggling to score, scoring goals had been a problem all season where strikers missed easy chances and this was the case in this game but we did finally get the goal we deserved in the 91st minute which would seal the title, however this is FM and it had other ideas as straight from kick off they went down and scored, it was their first highlight since the 3rd minute penalty as they done nothing in between and we lost 2-1. We could still win the league if we beat Linfield or drew against Linfield and Larne didn't win, in our game we were winning for a long time and Larne were drawing but that all changed in the last 10 minutes as Linfield got a 82nd minute equaliser and then Larne scored 3 goals. Those last couple of results meant that both us and Larne finished the season on 96 points but they had a 3 better goal difference than we did and had scored a lot more goals than we did so we finished second in the league, the third runners up in 4 years and like the previous two we done it getting a record number of points for a team not winning the league. In the cups we won the Mid Ulster and Bet McLean cups again and then ended the season in the Northern Irish cup final against Larne where we could get revenge for them winning the league but it was another frustrating FM game against them as we took the lead in the first half and dominated while my strikers missed sitters, Larne then got and scored a penalty in the 51st minute and as the game looked to be heading into extra time they got and scored their second penalty of the game in the 92nd minute, they had done nothing all game except get those penalties and I felt like we were robbed out of a third cup win. Overall a frustrating season domestically and a good season in Europe. The league table: Our youth intake preview was ok with an A rated striker but overall didn't look great: Our actual intake was again better than the preview indicated with several elite talents and a right back that looks excellent. although I'm not sure where the A rated striker went that we were supposed to be getting, we got a couple with potential but their stats don't give me much hope: We got our training facilities upgraded to max but still no options to ask for youth facilities to be upgraded, we have money in the bank but no option to spend it: Supporters Profile: Competitions: Manager Profile: Transfers, we sold another player in January for decent money selling our right back for £3m, we also got a boost from our record sale last season as he was sold on for £23m to Arsenal and we got half of that: Our record sale having now gone to Arsenal was listed as number 6 on the NxGN awards: Records and Awards: We had more movement up the rankings in Europe: Some spreadsheet data: Next season we are back in the Europa league rather than the Champions League so I would like to get into the group stage again and domestically fight for the title. I do think that we are stagnating a bit as a club, it seems like players are hitting their early 20s and progress either stops or they get worse while any player we do have that improves ends up getting sold for big money because they get unhappy and won't sign new contracts so I decide to cash in on them. We need to keep hold of our better players and hope others improve more, on the improvement of players we have the best training facilities and the best coaches we can find so I think the limit now is the quality and reputation of the league as I think that is what's stopping or slowing down improvement when they get 20+, they need to play at a higher level which means we need to be doing good in Europe to play more games and increase the leagues reputation, I think we are still a long way away from doing much in the Champions League but I can see progress.

Its been a while since I posted an update, I've not been playing as much but I have got two more seasons completed since my last update so I'll post them now. Crewe United - Season Ten 32/33 Danske Bank Premiership Season Summary Pre-season was a quiet one with no major transfers out so we started the season with the same players than finished runners up last season with a couple promoted from the youth team. We were in the Europa Conference again starting in the first qualifying round and played FC Progres Niederkorn from Luxemburg and beat them 5-0 at home and then 2-1 away to set up a second qualifying round against FC Vaduz from Lichtenstein where we drew 0-0 at home and then lost 3-2 away in extra time to end our European run early. With just domestic league to play we started off well and didn't lose a game until October and that was our only defeat going right through to April as we were dominant in the league and the cup games. When the league split after 33 games we were 2 points clear at the top having gone top after game 29 as although we weren't losing games the league was still close with Larne and Linfield not losing much either and we spent most of the season in 2nd or third but once we got top we stayed there. Things got dicey at the end though as we ended the season away to Larne then home to Linfield and despite only losing 1 game all season we lost both games against our rivals but we got lucky as Larne lost their last game too and we ended up winning the league by 1 point over Larne. That's the clubs first top division title and half the challenge completed, just the small matter of the Champions League to go although we are a long way from doing that. We also won the Mid Ulster cup, the Bet McLean cup and the Northern Irish cup wo claim all available trophies and pick up a quadruple for the first time. Our Trophy celebrations: The League Table: We sold our best player in the January Transfer window for a club record £17.5m plus 50% sell on fee, this was also a Northern Ireland record transfer. His first two seasons were ok but this season he had been excellent and will be a massive miss for the club but the money is also massive for the club. Our youth preview wasn't the best, it seems to get worse each year: Our actual Intake was much better than I expected with a few elite talents but there was one player in particular that stands out as our next star player: With plenty of money coming in from previous sales and the record sale this year there were more facility upgrades, we have the best Junior Coaching and youth recruitment and we are one stage away from the best training facilities with the board agreeing to upgrade those again which will be complete next season. Only the youth Facilities are lagging behind because we haven't had the option to ask for them to be upgraded for a while: Supporters Profile: Competitions: Transfers: Records and Awards: We are starting to see more rises in the league. nation and club coefficients as well as the clubs domestic reputation growing: Some spreadsheet data: Next season the aim is retain the league title and do well in Europe, I'm not interested in domestic cups but happy to win them if we do

Crewe United - Season Nine 31/32 Danske Bank Premiership Season Summary Nothing major happened in pre-season so with our 2nd place finish last season we were in the Europa Conference league qualifiers again, last season we didn't get past the first round and the furthest we've been so far is the third round so I was hoping for a better run this year and we started against Rangers FC from Andorra, an club unknown to me. We were at home for the first leg and smashed them 10-0 with 5 goals in each half to record our biggest ever win, I wasn't expecting us to be as good away but we went one better and smashed them 11-0 with 5 in the first and 6 in the second half to record my biggest ever aggregate win on any FM 21-0. We were drawn against Romanian side FC Rapid in the second qualifying round full of confidence but we lost 3-2 away but then beat them 3-1 at home to progress but we weren't as convincing as the first round. For the third round we were against Portuguese side Farense which on paper seemed to be the easiest side we have faced at this round of the competition so I was hopeful we could get into the fourth round for the first time but we fell short again as we lost the first leg at home 1-0 and although we were much better in the away leg we could only manage a 1-1 draw and were knocked out. Onto the domestic football and the season preview had us predicted to finish 5th with odds of 25/1 to win the league which isn't too bad but after two 2nd place finishes in the last 2 years I was hoping to challenge for the title this year. We got off to a poor start in the league losing 3-1 away to one of our main rivals Linfield but we are better than most other clubs and went unbeaten in league and cup games until losing 1-0 away to Glentoran at the start of October, it didn't set us back though as we then went on a massive unbeaten run of 40 games in all competitions which included 18 straight wins, we also won 14 in a row in the league with a unbeaten run of 29. all those were new club and league records. Despite the excellent league form we were only second in the league to Linfield and with 2 games left to play we played them at home, a win would take us above them as only goal difference separated us but they came for a draw and neither team created much, they took the lead before we levelled via a pen, then late in the game we got another pen to gain the win we needed but missed it and the game ended 1-1. in our last league game we were at home to Cliftonville and we needed to win by more than 4 goals to what Linfield win by or better their result. Linfield scored early and we went 2 up early on so if their score remained the same we needed to score 3 more goals so I went more attacking and we conceded before then going 3-1 and then conceded again, with 10 minutes left they were still winning 1-0 so we needed at least 4 goals to win the league so I went all out attack but it back fired and we conceded 2 late goals on counter attacks, their winner after my keeper went up for a corner and we lost 4-3, thankfully Linfield ended up winning 2-0 so our loss didn't matter but it could have been worse if we lost and they drew, I had to go for it though and our best season ended in our third runners up, our 89 points was a new record high for a team to not win the league. Although the league ended in disappointment we did have cup success collecting all 3 trophies, we retained the Mid Ulster cup winning it for the 3rd time in 4 years, we won our first Bet McLean cup and we won the Northern Irish cup for the second time, we also beat Linfield in the Northern Irish and Bet McLean cup finals which makes up a little bit for missing out on the league to them. Overall a good season, our best so far in terms of domestic cups and best ever league finish in points, broke several records and narrowly missed out on the league again, the league win won't be far away but we do look a long way off the quality in Europe. The league table: Our youth preview was the worst we've had so far, I'm not sure if thats because our player quality is better or if we need a better HOY and youth coaches, maybe both. It did say an excellent intake preview but the grades were rubbish. Our actual intake was better than the preview with 5 Elite players although only really 1 player looks good enough for the first team, a centre back which is an area where we are starting to look weak: We still have money from player sales a couple of seasons ago so the board agreed to more facility upgrades, we also had to upgrade our youth recruitment again, it was the best but for some reason went down without me being notified but it was upgraded back to max. Our Facilities and club profile: I entered the Northern Ireland Hall of Fame following our cup wins: Supporters Profile: Competitions: My Manager, i also hit the 400 game milestone: Transfers, nothing major but more players are now hitting a point where they are no longer good enough and never will be so I'm trying to thin the squad and sell or release them. I did however also sell a sell on free from our record sell as Everton aren't playing him so he might rot in their reserves so I cashed in for another £6.71m. End of year awards were good as my players won the domestic youth ones again after a year of missing out last season and my striker who got 11 goals in 6 Europe Conference games thanks to those two big wins won the young player award in that competition and was runner up for the top scorer. Awards and Records: Our reserves won their league for the 2nd time: In Europe the NI league moved up the work rankings and the co-efficient ranks, we also moved up the rankings. The move up for the Nation means from next season 2nd place in the league goes into the Europa League rather than the Conference which is good for us if we finish 2nd again: Some spreadsheet data: Next season all I want is to win the league after being runners up the last two, anything else is a bonus. I would also like to progress further in Europe but I feel we are still far away from that.

I'm doing a youth only save so all my players are newgens, I've just checked my first team squad and we have 4 with positive consistency in their pros, 1 has nothing either way and 18 have negative consistency in the cons. There could be an issue somewhere or maybe its because I'm playing in Northern Ireland and my youth products aren't always great.

Crewe United - Season Eight 30/31 Danske Bank Premiership Season Summary Unlike last season there were no big sales of players so we went into the season with the squad that ended last season and after our 3rd place finish and winning the European playoffs we were back in Europe having missed out the previous year. We kicked off the season with our European games and were drawn against Finnish Side IFK Mariehamn who looking at them seemed like a team we could beat but we lost 3-1 away in an even game that didn't deserve a defeat and then at home we conceded an early goal and were losing 1-0 at half time. In the second half I went progressively more attacking and we scored in the 47th, 68th and then 89th to take the tie into extra time, unfortunately we conceded again in the 100th minute and couldn't get another goal we needed so although we won the home game 3-2 we lost the tie 5-4 on aggregate and our return to Europe was short lived. Ahead of the league I checked the preview and we were predicted to finish 6th with odds of 100/1 which were better than last seasons but I expected us to do better than that. We started off the league season with a poor 1-1 draw against the worst team in the league in one of those FM games where we dominated and they had 1 shot which was a direct freekick that they scored from so I wasn't too worried about the poor result as we were the much better side and our quality showed in the games to follow winning our next 7 games in the league and cups and for the rest of the calendar year we only dropped points in 3 league games with a draw and 3 defeats winning the rest and also winning all our cup games. Despite our excellent form we were only 2nd in the league going into the New Year as Larne were dominant and had beat us twice the games we played against each other with Glentoran beating us in the other defeat but only 6 points separated us which we could claw back in the second half of the season. Unfortunately while we could claw back the points we didn't manage to do it, we went unbeaten throughout January but lost again to Larne at the start of Feb and then lost back to back games for the first time all season as Cliftonville beat us, we then regained our form only losing 1 other league game, however that was our 4th league loss of the season to Larne. In the end we finished in 2nd which is our highest placed finish and our best league season but losing 4 times to Larne from 4 games against them resulted in us finishing 13 points behind them. Our 82 points would have been enough to win the league in 5 of the previous 9 seasons and Larnes points total of 95 is the most of any winners on the save so far so I'm not disappointed in only finishing 2nd. In the cups we won the Mid Ulster cup for the 3rd time in the last 4 years, looking at this cup we should really be winning it most seasons as the other teams involved aren't professional and we are the best team in it as it looks to be a regional cup so the other big NI teams aren't involved. In the cups where all the big teams are involved we lost in the Semi Final of the Bet Mclean cup to Coleraine and lost in the Quarter Finals of the Northern Irish cup to Larne who are becoming my most hated team in NI. Overall a good season, a cup win and league runners up and being a professional side now we didn't have a second half dip in form that we saw in previous years and we had a few players developing really well now they are training full time so we can only get better so long as we can keep the best players at the club. The league table: Our youth preview didn't look great with the ratings but it was still showing as an an excellent intake expected The actual intake was better than I though it was going to be with 2 players good enough for the first team squad, a back up striker and an attacking midfielder better than our current ones so can go straight into the best 11, we also had a keeper that looks promising: With the money we got selling our two best players last season we continued spending it on facilities and upgraded both the training and youth facilities a couple of times and we now have the best in Northern Ireland: Supporters Profile: Competitions: My Manager: Transfers - None in but we did sell a few to other NI clubs for small fees, the first time really selling players domestically for money. Hopefully we can start filtering those not good enough for us into other NI teams to improve them and make the league stronger, ideally long term if we produce good players that aren't good for us they can help rival clubs do well in Europe and help increase the leagues reputation which will benefit us too so seeing other clubs now wanting our cast offs is a good start. End of year awards saw my striker and centre back get into the team of the year and a midfielder that surprised me with his development and broke into the first 11 mid season came 3rd in the young player of the year. It was the first time however in 4 seasons than none of my players won either of the young player awards which was disappointing. One of my new youth intake players became the youngest ever player in the league and another became the youngest goal scorer: Some spreadsheet data: Next season I would like to get closer to 1st in the league and maybe even win it, I'm hoping Larne had a fluke season and aren't that much better than us next season. I would also like another domestic cup other than the Mid Ulster, maybe win the NI cup for the second time or our first Bet Mclean cup. In Europe I would like to progress further than the first round but I'm not sure we are good enough yet to get near the group stages but some of the later qualifying rounds would be nice if we get lucky draws.

I played a lot now since the last patch and I do believe that this version of the ME is the best version on FM23 and much improved since the patch. The more I've played the more it feels like attributes are now having more of an impact which is a good thing, before it felt like it was on rails and very predictable but I'm seeing a lot more chaos and a lot more variety in goals. Players with low jumping reach have more problems when heading, acceleration I've noticed a lot more with players having quick bursts of speed, first touch is a lot more important with players losing possession more, defenders poor positioning seems more impactful and strikers with good off the ball seem to find space easier. Pressing causes more problems, particularly when players make the wrong decision to press and leave gaps which can be exploited. Counter attacks are much better although at times it seems like the attackers move better than the defending players during the counter attack. I'm honestly not seeing any major issues now, I wasn't too happy when the patch came out as there appeared to be issues although that maybe because the game played differently to before but actually looking at the game play more and goal replays I think a lot of what I thought might be problems actually can be explained by poor/good football, players mistakes or poor/good player attributes. I wasn't really enjoying FM23 that much but since the patch its been much more enjoyable.

I never really thought about save sizes but looking I've found: FM23 - 5.05Gb FM22 - 12.6Gb FM21 - 11Gb FM20 - 27.6mb (I only played this briefly on Xbox game pass as I was enjoying my FM19 save too much to move on) FM19 - 11.1Gb FM18 - 1.22GB FM17 - 4.78Gb FM16 - 2.28Gb FM15 - 2.24Gb FM14 - 1.2Gb I have rolling 3 autosave thing set up plus I'll often save new versions of my saves as back ups, I've had too many saves corrupt over the years and my PC is old now so prone to crashes so I like to have back ups. I'm going to have to have a clean out of those as its taking up over 50Gb of space. Interestingly (or maybe not), it wasn't really until FM19 where I started having really long term saves (50+) rather than lots of smaller ones so the save files are a lot bigger in those folders.

Crewe United - Season Seven 29/30 Premiership Pre-Season At the end of last season we had an issue with a board takeover scuppering us selling our striker for £11m, well it didn't really matter as before the friendly games started Everton came in with deal worth up to £14.5M, £10.5m guaranteed with half up front and half in 2 yearly instalments, then £4m after 20 leagues games plus 40% of any profit if sold on which was a good deal and my board accepted it, although not as good as we would have got in the previous deal which was all up front money and 50% sell on. Shortly after my keeper announced that he wouldn't be signing a new contract as he wanted to play for a bigger club so because he only had 12 months left I offered him out. in previous years Linfield had been trying to sign him for up to £450k but I decided to offer him out starting at £12M because he is an England U20 world cup winner but didn't expect an offer that high, however Luton offered £10.5M with half up front and half over 2 years plus 40% profit which my board accepted. So before we started pre-season I had sold my best two players for £21M guaranteed, not an ideal start but the money is equivalent to at least 15/20 years of early round European money and will be massive for the long term future of the club. I promoted by second best keeper who was only 1.5 star ability but we did get a decent striker though last seasons intake who while not as good as the one we sold should be good enough to step up to first choice. I decided that due to the poor rated keeper that we needed to either play attacking and hope to score more than we concede or try a high possession game to keep the ball away from teams to limit their chances. We didn't qualify for Europe last season so I set up several pre-season friendly games and played an ultra possession tactic I created and it seemed to work, we dominated the games winning them all, we didn't score many but defensively were very good. Before selling our best players the season preview predicted us to finish 6th with odds of 100/1, that went down to 10th and 200/1 and then down again to 450/1 still predicted 10th as we sold each player. Season Summary I started the season off with the tactics used in the friendly games but soon found that against better teams we weren't creating enough as we drew, lost and won our opening 3 games, I wasn't really happy with the performances even in the win so I decided to change to a more attacking 4-2-3-1 high tempo possession style to see if attack would be the best form of defence to keep the ball away from our rubbish keeper and it seemed to work as we won the next 2 games but we gave away a lot of chances so I changed formation to a 4-3-3DM keeping the same instructions and we looked better that way and won 7 league games in a row. Our form continued with mostly wins into mid December, we had lost and drew some games but we were in the top 3 keeping pace with the league leaders and the striker we promoted was scoring goals, he wasn't getting the average ratings as good as the one we sold but he was consistently scoring goals as good as or even better than the other one. At the point the winter update dropped and we had a mini blip in our form dropping points in our next 3 games, there seemed to be some big chances in the match engine but I noticed a lot more goals coming from players running from deep and through balls and also my striker seemed to be isolated more so I went back to the 4-2-3-1 formation to get an attacking midfielder closer to my striker and someone capable of making the runs into box that seem to be getting goals. After that small change we continued the season in relatively good form but we weren't as good after the New Year and dropped off the pace, a couple of seasons prior we went from 1st at the New Year to 4th 10 points behind top, this time we were 2nd on goal difference at the New Year and dropped down to 3rd, 12 points behind top. Finishing 3rd is our best season yet and we qualified for the European playoffs which unlike last season we went on to win so we are back in Europe next year. Last season we had a cup final defeat 3 days before the first playoff game and our players were tired but we didn't have that problem this season so with a rested team we won both playoff games comfortably. In the cups we didn't do too bad but it was the first season in 3 where we didn't win any of them. In the Mid Ulster cup which we won the last two seasons we got knocked out in the quarter finals with a poor home defeat to Dungannon, in the Bet McLean cup we got to the semi finals where we were outclassed by Linfield and then in the Northern Irish cup we were robbed in the semi finals, I say robbed because we dominated and drew 2-2 with the game going to pens, at this point I'm not sure if it was a bug but having selected my pen takers the shootout started with the player I selected to go 4th, we then missed our 2nd pen by the person picked to go 5th and lost 5-3, for whatever reason my best players I picked in the top 3 didn't take any pens, could be a bug or maybe I messed up the selection but either way we got knocked out. Overall a good season, our best league finish and back in Europe, a cup win would have been nice but I'm happy with how it went. Also surprisingly we didn't miss our star players that we sold, our back up keeper wasn't great but the defence in front of him was and tactically we dominated most games so the keeper didn't have a lot to do which was good because more times than not when teams had shots on target he didn't save many while the striker that stepped up ended the season with an average rating much lower than the one we sold and didn't win as many man of the matches, however he scored 30 goals in 33 games with 26 in 29 league games which is more than the other striker managed to get in any of his seasons with the club so stats wise and performance wise he may not be as good but he might be a better goal scorer or maybe I've created a better tactic this year helping my striker score more as that has been an issue in past seasons. Here's the tactic we ended up playing for most of the season first as a 4-3-3DM and then as a 4-2-3-1, there's no individual instructions: The league table: Our youth preview was good, another one without any defensive midfielders though, its not as bad now we have changed our formation: Our actual intake is probably the best we've had at the club, we had one stand out player and a few promising players With getting money from selling players I have asked whenever I could to upgrade facilities and each time they have agreed. We have had the youth recruitment upgraded to the max it can be so we now have the best Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment, our youth facilities and training facilities have been upgraded a couple of times and are currently in the process of their next upgrades, we have spent nearly £4M since getting the money on upgrades, it wont be long before we can produce and develop the best players Northern Ireland can produce. The board also agreed for us to go professional which started at the end of May just before we played our European playoff games, with being able to train full time and with better training facilities I'm excited to see how much my players can improve. Club Profile Facilities: Our full line up is now all youth product players, we have a couple of OG players in the reserves out of contract, they have good personalities so I don't mind them staying if they don't cause problems but they no longer play. The screen shot shows 4-3-3 but the DM actually plays AM: The striker we sold to Everton appeared in the NxGN top 50 wonderkids at number 37 so while he isn't our player hes the first produced by the club to make the list: Supporters Profile: My manager: Competitions: At the end of season awards my centre back from the first intake who is also club captain got into the team of the year along with my deep laying playmaker, my centre back also won both the young player awards and came 3rd in the overall best player award. My striker also came 3rd in the young player of the year: Transfers, no one in but several leaving and big money coming in: Some spreadsheet data: Next season I'll again be happy with top half and qualify for Europe, however we should be able to start pushing those at the top for the title now we are professional as full time training will help players improve and it might also allow us to keep pace with the top as the last couple of times we have been at the top we have dropped away in the second half of the season as we couldn't compete with the full time clubs. Ideally the aim should be 2nd place or win the NI cup to avoid the European playoffs, with some luck and not selling more of our better players we might cut the gap to top next season.

I've played 12 games since the patch and there a few noticeable things that are different. Defenders seem to play with blinkers on, they don't see runs from deep and don't track movement in the box, we are now conceding far too many goals where a low cross comes in and my defenders have let someone run past them for a tap in or where they let someone run past them to get on the end of a through ball, they don't react as if they haven't even seen them. Goalkeepers are much worse than before, mine rarely makes saves and makes a lot more mistakes I don't know what's happened with strikers but mine have horrible ratings now unless they score and even when they score their ratings aren't great and goals have dried up, its been mentioned further up that it could be due to not winning headers and this correlates with my strikers stats as they show he rarely wins a header with most games showing as 0 or 1 won from up to 25 attempted. Also I'm playing with my striker as a poacher who should be staying forward on the shoulder of defenders and should rarely be involved in the build up according to the description but I'm finding that he comes deep often and the pass maps show him deeper than my attacking midfielder is each game, he has no traits to come deep so I'm not sure why but it could be part of why he has stopped scoring since the patch (2 in 7 compared to 13 in 12) Counter attacks seem much better since the patch as we score and concede more from them but often it seems like they are better because players have stopped tracking runners and let them run past them too easily. There is a lot more variety in the types of goals we score and concede which is much better as I was sick of seeing the same goals all the time. Long balls over the top are still too powerful and even more so with defenders not tracking runners Overall gameplay feels much better, players lose the ball more often and its more chaotic similar to beta which is good. Its an improvement to pre-patch but there's still issues which is worrying because we are possibly stuck with this now until FM24.

I've got a feeling its going to be today because I created a new tactic yesterday and for the first time on FM23 I'm actually happy with how my tactics seem to be working, therefore a patch is required to break it.

Scoring goals on FM23 has been my biggest problem. I've managed teams at every level and tried lots of different tactics and I've never had a problem creating good chances but my attackers struggle to score. I've had players with really good finishing and composure just blast the ball over when through on goal, or tamely pass it into the keepers arms or place shots wide when its easier to score. On average we have about 35% of shots on target and around 11% to 13% conversion rates. We also hit the woodwork with around 10% of our shots (which is very high compared to the premiership in real life that averages less than 3%). On my current save we are only 7 games into the season but so far we have had 32% of our shots on target and converted only 7% of those. We have 8 goals from an expected 15.03 I can't work out how to improve it as I've tried loads of tactics and can create easy chances but my players just fluff them all the time, its my biggest issue with FM23 as its happened on every save I've tried.

Crewe United - Season Six 28/29 Premiership Two updates in a row, I had a week off work so got a couple of seasons completed and finished season 6 last night. Season Summary This is our 4th season in the top flight having finished 5th, 5th and 4th I was optimistic for this season even though we did have a bit of a second half drop in form last year I was hoping for a better season than last. The season preview showed we had improved on last season as we were predicted to finish 10th with odds of 250/1 to win the league which is our best prediction to date, I'll be happy with top half and Europe again as the money from Europe is helping improve the facilities. I started the season with the same possession tactics as last season as even though our league form dropped off we still had a good season overall. We started off again with the European games and were drawn against FC Vaduz from Lichtenstein who play in the Swiss leagues and we drew 1-1 away and then beat them 2-1 at home which set up a second qualifying round against Hungarian side Ujpest where we undeservedly lost 1-0 away as their keeper got man of the match and my strikers had still forgot how to score following on from the same issues last season ended with but we didn't have that problem at home as we hammered them 5-0 taking us into the 3rd qualifying round which is the furthest we've been. Last season we got knocked out in the second round by Hearts and this year we got drawn against them again and we were again knocked out by them as we lost the away leg 5-1 but we did manage a 2-2 draw at home which was better than last season. The extra round brought in extra money and we got about £900k for our European run. Before the league season started my keeper was again rated as one of the best to win the top player award with odds of 17/2 made him 3rd favourite and my star striker was 10/1 5th favourite while also being 16/1 5th favourite to be top scorer. My keeper was also 6/1 favourite for best young player and my striker 13/2 2nd favourite so I hoped we would keep hold of both of them this year. We did have some bids for them in preseason, my striker had some low offers from big clubs in England but I was able to reject them without any issues while my keeper had bids from Linfield going up to £450k which I was able to reject, I thought my board might have accepted that much but even if they did the player said he wasn't interested in going to them so we ended the transfer window with both players still at the club. Our league season didn't get off to the best start as we lost the first game but we found some form and only lost once more up to the end of December where at this point we had done ok without being great, we weren't at the top like last season but we weren't too far behind. Our biggest problem was scoring goals as we were having the same issue we had in the second half of last season where we were dominating game and creating a lot of good chances but my players kept wasting them. I change tactics a couple of times and settled on a 4-3-3 DM formation with only one striker because only my best striker was actually scoring and whoever partnered him was poor, last season my6 second best striker got 18 but only had 2 in 12 games this year so was dropped. I though i had found a good quick passing tactic as we won 5-3 then 5-0 compared to 13 goals in the previous 7 games but it went back to struggling to score again. December was then a poor month, we had a lot of games to play which needed more rotation and I found that my back up players just aren't good enough, too many players have stagnated and aren't improving and after two narrow wins we drew 4 then lost 2 and all games had the same problems of struggling to score and as the New Year came around we had fallen away from the leading pack. After last seasons change in the new year from being good to lesser so this year not much changed and we continued with our struggles to score while having mixed results which ended in 4 defeats and a win in the last 5 following the league split and we finished the season in 5th and a long way behind the top 3 clubs. We done ok in the cups again and retained the Mid Ulster cup winning it for the second time and we got to the Northern Irish cup final for the third year in a row but lost 3-0 to Linfield which put us into the leagues European playoffs where we lost the first game against Coleraine who were the only side that we beat after the split which brought an end to a disappointing season where we have gone backwards and have missed out on qualifying for Europe. We did get another cup win but it wasn't enough to deem the season a success. The league table: We phased out the remaining original players from our best 11 and mostly played youth products: Our youth preview was another good one: Our intake wasn't as good as i hoped for, we had a stand out striker and a central midfielder that looks ok, both good enough as back up players but for the first time not one good enough to go straight into our best 11. The intake and best players: We had more facility upgrades as our youth recruitment was upgraded to Excellent. I was planning on saving my money to hope to go professional but for that we need European money or to sell players, I decided that with us missing out on Europe and in the belief that player development is stagnating I asked the board to improve the training facilities and they agreed which spent all our £750k money, we need to go pro and have better training facilities to push on I think as at the moment we aren't good enough compared to the top 3 sides who are all professional. Club profile and Facilities: My manager: Supporter Profile: Competitions: At the end of season awards and records my star striker broke his own record for best average rating, although he scored less than the previous season he performed better with a 7.72 rating. He also won both the both the Audi Belfast Ulster young player of the year and the Premiership young player of the year for the second year running. My centre back from our first intake who is now captain of the club came 3rd in the player of the year award. Transfers - no one came in but there were more leaving the club that are never going to be good enough: Heres some spreadsheet data: Next season we need to improve but I'm not sure how, without Europe I'm going to spend the summer working on tactics in friendly games and see if I can find something that works better to get my strikers scoring and we need to keep our best players at the club but I don't think thats going to be possible. I'm going to end with a bit of a rant about something that annoyed me as the season ended. On the 17th June Wolves bid £44k for my star striker which is too low to accept, I done what I often do and what the AI does and countered them with a ridiculous offer saying I wanted £15M and 50% of next fee and they countered with £11M and 50% of next fee which surprised me, I didn't really want to sell but at that price I couldn't refuse and accepted and then planned to spend it to hopefully go professional and get facilities upgraded, it looked good for the long term of the club and would speed up progression. All good, but then on the 18th June, 1 day later the club went into a transfer embargo due to a takeover and the transfer was cancelled. We've been the subject of a few takeovers over the years which all fail and then on the 22nd of June the takeover collapsed. In the space of 5 days we went from getting £11M and planning to spend it to having nothing but a unhappy player because he couldn't go to wolves. I offered him to Wolves for the same deal but they rejected it because they spent £28M on someone else after the transfer was cancelled. I think we may end up selling him next season as we won't be able to keep him for long but we might not get anywhere near that kind of deal

Crewe United - Season Five 27/28 Premiership Season Summary This was our 3rd season in the top flight having finished 5th in the previous two season and like last season we were in the Europa Conference qualifying rounds. We started the season predicted to finish in 11th with odds of 800/1 to win the league which was an improvement on last season, this season I was hoping for more of the same in the last two season, a top half finish and qualify for Europe again, its the best we can hope for at the moment. I decided this year I would change tactics and went from a direct counter attacking style to a slower possession based tactic that I've been using since FM19, its a style I like my teams to play and we are starting to get better players that might be able to play that way. We started off with our European games and were drawn against Luxemburg side FC Differdange and we beat them 2-1 away and then 4-0 at home to go a stage further than last season but that's as far as we got as we were drawn against Scottish side Hearts who beat us 5-2 away and then 2-1 at home, I didn't expect to get far but it was nice to go 1 stage further and we picked up about £600k for it. Before the league season started my keeper was rated as the 5th best to win the top player award with odds of 11/1 and he was 3rd in the best young player with odds of 8/1 so I hoped we would keep hold of him this year. My new youth striker that came though last seasons intake was also on the list for best young player in 6th with odds of 15/1 which gave me some hope for a good season if he can score the goals we need. We got off to a good start in the league as we drew away to Linfield who are one of the best teams in the league and then we had back to back 5-0 wins with my new striker scoring 6 goals in the 3 games and picking up player of the month. our good form continued as we only lost 3 games up to the new year and on 1st January we were sitting top of the table and looking good for it, my youth striker had scored 23 goals in 17 games and we were tearing teams apart. Our possession based tactic seemed to be work well as we dominated games having full control and other than the occasional blip we weren't having any problems. After the new year, something changed and we started to struggle, I know people say the AI works out your tactic which isn't true but they do adapt around this time of the season and change their approach depending on how well you do but it was if a switch had been flipped and all of a sudden my players forgot how to score, we were still dominating game and in control except my players were missing easy chances and our form dropped off, we were still winning some games but were now drawing a lot more and lost 6 games in the second half of the season and in the end we finished in 4th, 10 points behind the winner. It still was a good season but it was disappointing in the way things changed, my striker that had 23 goals in 17 didn't score another league goal in his next 15 games and it wasn't because we didn't create the chances because we were still creating them, he just couldn't hit the target, when one on one he would blast them over or put them wide and I couldn't work out what had changed because we played just as good as we were before the new year with the only difference being we couldn't finish the chance we made. We did however had some success in the domestic cups, first we won the Mid Ulster cup which seems to be a smaller cup but it was the clubs first but then after last season losing the Northern Irish Cup final this year we won it which was a good cup to win as it secures us a place in the Europa Conference qualifying again next season. So a cup double and a 4th place finish was a fantastic season, its just a shame that we dropped from being top to 4th after the new year. The league table: Our starting 11 still has 2 players in it from the start but I'm hoping to phase them out next year: Our youth preview showed another excellent intake but the grades were the worst we've had at the club but we did have a A rated defensive midfielder which is a position we haven't had many good players come though in: The preview: The actual intake was ok, our best player was a right back which was surprising as we only got a B rating in the preview but it was good because right back we still had an original club player playing there as we've never had a good enough one from the intakes so that's a position where I can now bring in a youth player. The defensive midfielder we got that I was looking forward to was ok, not good enough for the best 11 but will be a good squad player, other than those two no one else really stood out. The intake and best players: I was offered the Northern Irish job which I would have usually accepted but turned it down We had our youth recruitment upgraded to Above Average and later in the season upgraded again to Good and the board agreed to upgrade our training facilities which will be the first upgrade of those at the club. Club profile and facilities: My reserves won their league I completed my Continental Pro Badge so I'm now fully badged up: Supporter Profile: Competitions: End of season awards and records showed my new youth striker got a new league record for highest average rating of 7.68 despite his lack of scoring in the second half he was still getting good ratings. He also won both the Audi Belfast Ulster young player of the year and the Premiership young player of the year, while my def mid we got a couple of seasons back came 3rd: My striker also got called up for Northern Ireland and became their youngest ever player: Transfers, no one coming in but some players now leaving, I'm starting to find a lot of players just aren't improving and end up being released or let go for free: Heres some spreadsheet data: Next season we just want more of the same but maybe not the second half dip in form

@Libertine13 I got lucky with a good keeper who had saved us in loads of games, we won't be able to keep hold of him much longer as Leeds are now interested so we may struggle when he goes. I've also got a good centre back and now a good striker (who will probably be sold soon as West Ham, Fulham and Leicester keeping bidding low amounts for him) plus a few decent players but a lot of them aren't great. These are my best players with 3 star ability or higher: The rest of my players are ok, some have potential but not great stats and others have a couple of decent stats but probably won't improve much. If we start losing our best players we are going to struggle and some are getting unhappy and want to move to bigger clubs. Tactically in our first two seasons I played a counter attacking style and defended deep which helped concede less but we relied heavily on our keeper

Crewe United - Season Four 26/27 Premiership Season Summary Last season was our first in the Premiership after 2 promotions and we over achieved to finish 5th, this season we were again predicted to finish bottom with odds of 1000/1 to win the league but as long as we kept our best players and in particular our keeper I expected us to do ok. Our keeper was also rated as 2nd to be the top young player which was nice to see. I did find an annoying bug at the start of the season which I'm not too happy with, its not a game breaking bug but its one that for some reason has given all the youth players we have in the first team random teams showing up in their career history screen, they all have the same teams showing. Its been raised already on the bugs forum and SI have said they are looking into it but for a youth only save I want my players to only show as being at this club only and not showing them galivanting across Mexico and the USA as you can see in the screenshot below. After finishing 5th last season and winning the European playoffs the club had its first venture into Europe and we went into the first qualifying round for the Europa Conference league and were drawn against AFC UTA Arad from Romania, a club I'd never heard of but they had a better reputation than us and players on a few thousand a week so I expected them to be better than us and they were but not by as much as i thought. We lost the first leg at home 1-0 but they only scored via a penalty and then in the away leg we only lost 2-1 which I didn't think was too bad, I hadn't expected us to progress anywhere in Europe yet as its too early but it was good to pick up some money and we got around £300K for it which was quickly put to good use as my board agreed to upgrade our youth facilities which is the first time on the save to get those upgraded. Domestically we had another decent season as we matched last year with a 5th placed finish and winning the European playoffs again, the season overall wasn't as good as the previous as we lost more games and conceded more goals but we also won more games as we only drew 4 times but still ended up with 4 points less than the previous season. i kept the direct counter attacking tactics that got us this far but found it didn't work as well as in previous season as we were either good or bad, there were no average games and we seemed to be better away from home where the tactic worked better. No complaints though as we still over achieved and we managed to keep our best players. In the cups we usually do nothing but this year we got all the way to the Northern Irish cup final where we took an early lead but ended up losing 3-2 to Glentoran, a win would have put us into Europe so thankfully we still got there via the playoffs but it would have been better doing it winning the cup. In the other cups we got knocked out fairly early on. The league table: Our starting 11 is now made up mostly of youth players with only 2 players that started at the club still playing: Our youth preview was again good and for the first time it showed we were getting a defensive midfielder who i was hoping would be good. Youth Preview: Unfortunately although we did get a defensive midfielder it was one that would go into the first team and may never as he was rated 11th from the 16 players we got. Overall the youth intake was great in terms of having lots of good players but we did get 1 awesome striker who was our 2nd 5 star current ability player we've had in the intake, our junior coaching is now excellent which may be helping. I believe that this striker will be one that we will struggle to keep hold of but may be a cash cow for us later on if we can get a good sell on fee for him when he eventually leaves to a bigger club. The youth intake: Our best youth player from this intake: At the end of the season my centre back from the first intake we had came 3rd in the young player of the year: My keeper also won an award but not with our club, he was called up the the England squad for the Under 20 world cup which England won and he picked up the u20 World Cup golden glove award: The board kept allowing me to do coaching badges and I'm now up to Continental A and they were again generous to allow some more upgrades, I mentioned earlier we had the youth facilities upgraded with the European money so those are now basic which still isn't much but its a start and they also agreed to upgrade junior coaching again which will go to Exceptional which I think is the best they can be. My manager: Club profile and Facilities: Transfers - We started seeing some youth players leave the club on loan as they need to play first team football but also some now getting released as they will never be good enough Heres some spreadsheet data: Next season I'm happy with more of the same, we just need to keep finishing top half and trying to get into Europe as it'll be the European money that will advance the club as we need to keep improving facilities.

Crewe United - Season Three 25/26 Premiership Season Summary After back to back promotions I expected our first season in the top flight to be hard and while it was much harder it wasn't the struggle I thought it would be. The pre-season preview had us predicted to finish bottom as expected with odds of 1000/1. The only positive going into the season was our youth keeper was 12/1 6th best to win best young player and was also called up to the England u19 squad which shows how good a prospect we have and I doubt we will keep hold of him for long. Our form was all over the place never really having a good or bad run in the first half of the season, we had a good January unbeaten winning 5 and drawing 3 which was our best period but that followed our worst with 7 defeats and a draw throughout February and March but we managed to get into the top half for the league split where we lost 3 then won the last 2 giving us a good 5th placed finish and then we went and won the European playoffs to gain a place in next seasons Europa Conference league, we were around mid table all season never looking in danger of relegation but it could have gone either way for a top or bottom half finish. We did nothing in the cups as we got no further than the quarter finals in any cup competition. Overall a very good season, the top 3 were far ahead of the rest but there wasn't much in the rest of the league and we only had 4 points more than 9th when the league split. I think we had our 5 star ability youth keeper that came through last season to thank for a lot of our points as he kept 14 clean sheets and kept us in lots of games, without him I think we would have struggled as our strikers didn't score many. The league table: I kept the same tactic as the last two seasons playing a direct counter attacking style and it worked ok in this league too, quite a few of our points we won came in games where we weren't the best side but soaked up pressure and countered and we seemed to play better away from home using that style than we did at home. We managed to incorporate more youth players into the first team and the side that played most had 8 of them in the best 11. I tried giving the striker that got us the goals the last two years a chance but he proved not good enough at this level so a youth player ended up taking his place. We had 3 players from the first intake, 4 from the second and then the keeper from the third. Our starting line up: Our youth preview was another good one, however there yet again we had no defensive midfielders predicted, considering we play with two and our head of youth favours them in his formation I expected we would have got some but maybe we need to wait a few years for our new HOY to bring his players though. We did get a new one at the end of last season, he was a former player who I talked to and said he would make a good hoy and he agreed then retired, his stats looked good for us so I signed him as he had 20 working with youth, 17 determination and a style of player and formation that suited us, hopefully with a few qualifications he can improve his JA and JP which were only 5 and 6. Our intake preview: Our actual intake was also good, no 5 star ability players like last season but a good mix with a left back rated better than any we currently have and a central/attacking midfielder who looks good enough to convert to a defensive mid in the segundo volante role I play. There's a few others that may break into the first team but no stand outs, some have good personalities and potential but I'm starting to see previous youth intake players that I thought might come good aren't improving and with each subsequent intake the older ones potential gets rated lower and I may start looking to release or sell some I had high hopes for and I'm now disappointed with. The intake and good players: The board were also generous again this season, I got my continental C badge and then the continental B, we had the ground expanded by 500 capacity and we got our junior coaching upgraded to Excellent and Youth Recruitment to Average. My manager stats/profile: Club info: I think in my last couple of updates I forgot to put in the transfers so I'll show them all here showing no one signed, we have started loaning players out and got an affiliate, although the affiliate isn't in a league so I may cancel it if we can get a team in one of the lower leagues so they play league games: Some spreadsheet data: Here's the supporters profile: Overall a better than expected season, next year I will be happy with the same, a top half finish and European qualification which I think depends on keeping our best players especially our keeper whom without I think we would have been fighting for relegation.

Crewe United - Season Two 24/25 Championship Season Summary We won the league last season easily and at the start of this season although we were in a higher division I fancied our chances of back to back promotions even though the season preview predicted us to finish bottom of the league. I had kept all players from last season and gave them all part time contracts and I decided to use my best 3 youth intake players in the starting 11 with a few more bulking out the squad. We started the season with 4 wins with my new youth striker scoring in each of them as last seasons form continued. We weren't quite as consistent this season as last and went on a mixed run of games but no team around us were much better and for the whole season we battled with Annagh United for 1st never dropping below second and after a run of being second mid season we went back top and stayed there and in the end we won the league by 8 points to get our second promotion in 2 seasons. It was as I expected, I've managed in these leagues on previous saves and the bottom leagues are relatively easy to win. We done nothing of note in the cups as I played back up players to concentrate on promotion. The league table: I kept the same tactic as last season playing a direct counter attacking style and it worked again, with the poor quality of players in these leagues lumping it forward seems to be the way to go. Our best 11 consisted of 3 youth players from the first intake, a right winger, a centre back and a striker all turning into key players for us. Our starting line up: Our youth preview was another good one, however there was again no defensive midfielders predicted: Our actual intake was better than I expected with one coming through with 5 star ability, only the second time thats ever happened in any FM save I've done, of course the stars are relative to the team but this player looks amazing: Overall I was very happy with the intake, 2 players that will improve the first team squad and the best one will be a massive boost to the team. The board also agreed to upgrade junior coaching twice and youth recruitment twice which will help bring better intakes through and the board paid for me to twice complete coaching badges so a good season off the pitch too. Also at the end of the season the board announced they would be increasing the stadium capacity by 500 to 2000. Club info: Manager Stats: Some spreadsheet data: Next season I don't know what to expect as I'm not sure how big the step up will be, I know there will be 3 or 4 top quality teams in the division but I don't know if the rest will be that much better than those in the division we just won, the aim will be to survive relegation and bed more youth players into the first team and I will probably ignore the cups again and prioritise the league.

Looking at the stats on that link, Liverpool have had 274 shots and hit the woodwork 12 times which is 4.01% of their shots. Newcastle have the highest % hitting the woodwork with 12 of their 299 shots with a 4.38%. If I add all the teams shots up there have been 4673 shots of which 123 have hit the woodwork which gives an overall 2.63% of shots hitting the woodwork. In comparison, in my save after 35 league games we have had 485 shots or which we have hit the woodwork 50 times which is 10.31% of our shots, seems to be very high. This isn't a one off either as every season when I check its usually around 9% or 10%. It was similar on FM22 too.

In all my saves so far whenever I've checked the stats I have between 9% and 10% of my shots hitting the woodwork. In my current season its 9.14%, last season I think it was 9.7% when i checked. To me, i feel like we hit the woodwork too often, I've tried looking online to find real life stats for what % hit the woodwork but I can't find anything so not sure if its true to real life or not but it feels high.

The only teams i managed to get were Crewe United or Belfast Celtic. I saved mid April sometime i think it was to get them to change as the bottom division played their last games at the end of April. I tried about 10/15 times before deciding on Crewe of those two teams, i was hoping for a different one but it was only ever those two.

Crewe United - Season One 23/24 Premier Intermediate League Season Summary Starting at Crewe United in Northern Ireland was a pleasant experience compared to starting in England as we had 38 players at the club, a lot of them we old but some looked really good for the league so i offered everyone non contract terms to ensure we had a chance for them to stay as i know the first season the challenge can be hard if you don't have a lot of players. We did lose 9 players during pre-season to other clubs but none of them were the important players i wanted to keep. The season preview predicted us to finish 5th with odds of 7/2 to win the league and with the squad we had i expected to be challenging for the title. We started off the season with a win going top of the table and thats how it stayed until the end as we never moved from top place and comfortably won the league gaining promotion. we didn't lose our first league game until mid December and only lost 3 league games in total. We also had a good cup run in the Northern Irish cup getting to the semi final, we were lucky with drawing teams either in our league or non league then got thumped 5-1 in the semi against the first top division side we played. I tried a tactic i don't usually do going for a direct counter attack approach and created my own version and it seem to work really well in this league, i figured due to the low quality of players hoofing it forward as quick as possible might lead to a few goals and thats what happened as we finished with 73 goals in 27 games. The Tactic: The league table: The youth preview was a good one, although no defensive midfielders were predicted which was a worry as we play with 2 of them: The actual intake was a good one with 2 players looking ready for the first team and went straight into the side for the remaining 5 games: Overall i was happy with the youth players, 2 definite starters, a striker that could become a starter and there are also several that will make good squad players next year. The board wouldn't agree to upgrade any facilities, the junior coaching isn't too bad but the rest is rubbish. The board did allow me to undertake my first coaching badge which was good. My manager stats: Heres some spreadsheet data for the club, competitions and manager: Next Season we will be able to offer part time contracts rather than just non contract terms so I will be hoping to tie down all the original players i want to keep as i think most of those will be good enough for the Championship and along with the new youth players i'm hoping for another good season and aim for back to back promotions which i think is doable as the bottom couple of NI Leagues don't have the best quality players, our biggest hurdles will come in the top division.

My save with Nantwich has been going well, half way through my third season we are top of the Conference North, have integrated some youth players who are doing well and we have a big pay day with an away trip to Anfield in the FA Cup third round. However, this may sound strange but i'm just not feeling it, i think its because at the start of FM23 i was going to avoid English football and do a build a nation save so i've decided to start over with a combined youth only/build a nation save and seeing as Northern Ireland hasn't been completed as a youth only as far as i can see i'm going there. I'm now the manager of Crewe United, i reloaded saves several times but could only get either Crewe United or Belfast Celtic and of the two Crewe started with the bigger squad so i picked them, also i can try and make Crewe United as the Crewe known for producing youth players instead of the English one. I may go back to my other save but for now my main focus is on Northern Ireland with Crewe United.

Nantwich Town - Season Two 24/25 Conference North Completed my second season with Nantwich and although it wasn't a great season it was less stressful that the first. It was nice going into the season with a full squad with plenty of cover having extended contracts to those who started at the club except one striker that was unhappy that i released plus a full batch of youth players including several that i promoted into the first team squad. We started the season with mostly the same team as the previous year with only a center back from the youth intake in the starting 11 and i thought we were playing well however we drew 7 and lost 1 of our opening games and by October we had only lost 1 game but had drawn 77% of our games so while we had less defeats than the teams at the top we were hovering just above the relegation places and that kind of form continued up to the new year ending December with 6 defeats, 4 wins and 10 draws in the league while in the FA Cup we got to the 2nd round but in each round we drew away from home then needed a home win in the replays to get through until we played League One side Shrewsbury in the second round and drew at home 3-3 having taken the lead 3 times and then lost away 3-0 which was gutting as we would have had an away trip to Middlesbrough in the third round which would have been a nice pay day, unfortunately the cup run to the 2nd round didn't bring that much money. Around the same time as losing in the FA Cup we also lost in the FA Trophy in the 3rd round. In Decemeber we got the youth intake preview and it was all A ratings for every position which was nice: As the New Year started we were 8 points behind the playoffs and 7 ahead of relegation, i figured the season could go either way, often in FM the second half can be worse than the first and last season we had a better second half but not this season as our form dropped off and those draws started turning into defeats rather than wins and we found ourselves closer to the drop than anything else but we never looked like being in danger even though we dropped to 20th a few times and got within 3 points of the relegation places i was never worried as we were playing ok and picking up some wins. When we got the you intake we still weren't safe from relegation so i was hoping for a couple of players that might step up into the first team straight away and we got a decent intake with 4 players i felt stood out as potential for the first team: The intake: The stand outs to me were: Overall the intake looks good for us, we had 1 player that had 2.5 star potential and looked rubbish so i didn't give them a contract but the rest were 4 to 5 star potential. After the youth players came in we had 4 games left to play in the league and while those games were mixed we secured survival with 2 games left to play and ended the season in 17th place which i was happy with, as we ended up 13 points ahead of the relegation places. So a minor improvement on last season gaining 3 places but the best thing was we integrated a few of last seasons youth players into the first team squad, we started with only 1 and ended with 3 regulars. The centre back that started the first game played most games and was nominated for player of the year, we brought in a striker and changed formation to 2 up front and he scored 25 goals with 20 in the league, a right winger found a place in the squad getting 3 goals and 9 assists in 27 games, while there were also 4 others getting some game time. Here are the best of our season 1 youth intake that ended as first team players: My best 11 for the season including the 3 season 1 youth players: I gained 2 more qualifcations during the season so now have my contintental C badge and i managed my 100th game during the season, here are my stats for 100 games: Heres the league table and position graph: My board rejected all asks to improve facilities, junior coaching and youth recruitment so no improvements there and actually we show as having worse junior coaching, not sure why but at the start they showed as adequate junior coaching but now shows as fairly basic, having looked back as the original save when i started using my current skin it shows as adequate but rated 5/20 and it still shows as 5/20 but as fairly basic which is correct so it must have been showing the incorrect wording previously so thankfully they haven't got worse, they just don't look as good as i thought they were. Supporters profile: Heres some spreadsheet stats i've kept: Next season i've got most of the same team as this year still under contract but there are a few fringe players that were originally at the club leaving because i don't to keep them when i've got youth players that can take their places. I'm hoping to integrate a few more youth players into the first 11 and with a bit of luck we might be able to push for mid table if we can turn some draws into wins.

Nantwich Town - Season One 23/24 Conference North Managed to get through my first season and it was a difficult one. We started with a decent sized squad and learning from past mistakes on FM22 i offered contracts to everyone i could so we didn't lose players but it still happened, a couple of players retired, some wouldn't agree contracts, two agreed contracts but couldn't get work permits and left, one agreed a contract but then left to a club not in the leagues for less money and by the time the season started we had 16 players at the club making rotation impossible. The season preview predicted us to finish bottom with odds of 600/1 to win the league. Based on the lack of quality in the squad i tried playing defensive but that didn't work, i tried counter attacking, then possession but nothing could get results and we had 1 win in the first 10 games and i knew it would be a long season. Everytime i thought i had a tactic i was happy with and picked up a win we would go on another poor run. We lost in the FA Cup 3rd qualifying round and the FA Trophy second round and when we hit December we were rock bottom of the league with 3 wins but only 7 points from the safety positions so we weren't adrift yet but the board arranged a meeting with me and gave me a month to sort it out or i would be sacked. We got the youth intake preview which looked ok but i wasn't sure if i would be at the club to see them join. Youth Preview: Needing to do something to turn the season around i decided to change tactics and go with the default Gegenpress tactics that the forums often say is overpowered, usually i prefer to create my own based on the players i have but desperate times and all that and i think that was the best decision i made as we managed to pick up a win and 3 draws during the month the board gave me and they were happy with that and didn't sack me, we still had a long way to go to get closer to safety but we were starting to hit some form and won 4 out of 5 games during February which got us off the bottom and back into the fight for survival and then our form was hit and miss but we were picking up points and looking much better. I was still at the club for the youth intake which was something i had been looking forward to just for depth in the squad rather than getting good players because we desperately need rotation options. The intake: The current ability of the intake wasn't great and none looked like they would go into the best 11 but some looked good enough as rotation options. The stand outs to me were: Overall the intake was ok, around 7 look like they will be capable of being in and around the first team next season, mostly as cover and rotation options. After the intake the rest of the season was very inconsistent but we still picked up points and were moving between safety and relegation and at one point hit 18th which was the highest we'd been all season but we were never safe and it went to the last game of the season where we beat the bottom side at home and survived finishing 20th, 3 points above relegation. It was a hard year and it was only really after the new year when we started picking up the points, usually its the other way around but i think perhaps teams started seeing us as an easy win and attacked more which might have helped us. The league table: League Positions throughout the year: I got two qualifications so my stats now show as: Unfortunately my board wouldn't upgrade any junior coaching, youth recruitment or facilities as we have no money, i'm going to need a good cup run i think as they seem like a stubborn board. Heres some spreadsheet stats i've kept Next season, i think if we can play like we did the second half of the season with the addition of the youth players giving better rotaion options then hopefully we won't spend most of the year struggling again but i think we will still be in a relegation fight.

Got the first season youth intake preview and it looks good but the first season usually is and my current players are rubbish so it won't be hard to produce better. The main problem we have is that I might not last long enough to see them join the club as i've been given a month to please the board as we are bottom of the league, 7 points from safety positions.