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King Costly

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30 "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"

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    Birmingham City

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    Lierse Kempenzonen

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  1. Lierse Kempenzonen - January/February 2025 Update I think I slightly underestimated the state the club is in financially. You'd think they would have learned from past mistakes... The club is haemorrhaging money and it became very clear that I needed to try and raise some funds and lower the wage bill. The big problem with that? Only a couple of players are worth a decent amount and most players have contracts expiring at the end of the season so interested clubs would rather wait until the summer to take them for nothing. The one player I managed to sell was Daan Vekemans, the club's top scorer. It's a shame but we got a decent fee and Daan gets to test himself in the Jupiler Pro League. With the wage expenditure now only slightly below the budget, I decided to avoid the January window madness and not sign anybody. We will have to try and make do with what we've got, rely on some of the club's youngsters, and get through to the end of the season before a huge rebuild. An all or nothing start, quite literally, for us at Lierse. We experienced the usual new manager bounce which was helped by a fantastic comeback from 2-0 down against Standard Liege's youngsters in my first game (which was also the club's first game back after the winter break). The most impressive result has to be the comfortable 2-0 win at Beerschot, who were top of the table at the time. However, all good things must come to an end, and we were brought back down to Earth with a bump, losing back-to-back games by the odd goal. We played reasonably well in both but some slack defending and an absolutely atrocious/hilarious (delete as appropriate) own goal in the Knokke game meant we needed to bounce back against Dender. Four second half goals, and a 14 minute hat-trick from Aske Sampers, ensured we did. I'd rather gloss over the final result of the month as we came up short at my old club Young Reds. We were doing okay until a red card at the start of the second half swung the game away from us. Overall, a pretty decent start to life at Lierse. It hasn't been easy - the squad were very unhappy with us selling our top scorer even though I told them it would either be that or another bankruptcy on the horizon... It's a relatively small division so we've only got seven games left and it's still incredibly tight. Four points clear of relegation and the same amount adrift of the play-offs. Realistically, safety is our top priority. Now let's get there!
  2. Lierse Kempenzonen - January 2025 It's official, we're back in Belgium, taking charge of second tier side Lierse Kempenzonen. You may have known them as Lierse SK (I certainly did), but that iteration of the club went bankrupt in May 2018 whilst a certain Will Still was assistant manager after a previous spell as head coach. Lierse Kempenzonen started life as Oosterzonen in nearby Oosterwijk, but made the 30km relocation to Lier, returning to Lierse SK's Herman Vanderpoortenstadion. The 'new' Lierse was promoted by proxy to the Belgian Challenger Pro League in 2020 due to a shortage of teams following the Covid pandemic. They've stagnated a little bit since then and I take charge with them struggling near the foot of the table in January 2025. As you can see from the image above, the club is currently £1.9m in debt with insecure finances and operating well over the allocated wage budget. Getting the club stabilised in the Challenger Pro League and on an even footing will be the first thing on my to do list. At least they're not asking for much!
  3. Unemployed Update - January 2025 Well, it's been a while! Our exploits at Young Reds didn't seem to interest the football world a whole lot. The months ticked by and all we got was some interest from the National League North and South back in England. It felt like I'd be throwing that first year away if I dropped to that level so I stood firm and waited for something better (or more professional at least) to come along. We managed to get interviews from an array of countries - the Irish and Greek top divisions came calling and I was actually offered a job by AE Laris in the Greek top flight but I felt like a jump to a top division club was too much this early in my career. My patience (or lack of interest, you decide...) finally paid off in January, a good seven months since I'd said my goodbyes at Antwerp's academy. Two interviews and offers came in from the Belgian Challenger Pro League - the division I had won promotion to less than a year previously. One of those offers piqued my interest and will be the next stop on our journey. And interestingly, it's also a club (well, kind of - more on that later) that Will Still used to call home.
  4. Young Reds - April/May 2024 Update We went into the last six games in a pretty relaxed mood. The gap to fourth meant that all but for an almighty collapse, we would get promoted and the form of leaders KSK Heist showed no signs of letting up. Our poor defending continued, especially at home, and we slumped to two disappointing defeats in front of our home supporters. However, despite those two blips, we were confirmed as promoted after the Olympic Charleroi match. That meant we could go into our trip to Heist with plenty of freedom... We went into the game with a five point deficit and nothing to lose. We played brilliantly, humbling the leaders 2-0 and in all honesty, it could have been three of four. That closed the gap to two points which meant we would need to win our final game and hope Heist slipped up away at Sint-Eloois-Winkel Sport. We handled our end of the bargain, comfortably dispatching KVV Thes Sport at home, and news fed through to the huge (well...) crowd of 623 that despite a late Heist penalty they have only managed to draw 2-2 at Sint-Eloois-Winkel Sport! Quite a turnaround from that first month where I was predicting mid-table obscurity. Despite the matchday squad rules for U23 sides, there's no doubt that the players we could feature from the first team tended to make the difference more often than not. It's interesting to see most of the other youth sides near the bottom of the table so maybe the AI just doesn't manage the use of first teamers that well. The fans (they're there somewhere, promise) celebrating with us during our lap of honour. I've enjoyed my time at the club and it has allowed me to play around with tactics and style of play a little which is exactly what I wanted. However, playing FM and not signing players is just... weird. For that reason, I am moving on. First impressions are that my reputation hasn't quite increased as much as I thought/hoped. I may have to wait until the start of the next season for some clubs to get desperate and take a look at me. Only time will tell where our adventure takes us next!
  5. Young Reds - January/February/March 2024 Update A good start to 2024 after a disappointing defeat to KVK Tienen was followed up by a dodgy February. Our defensive frailties continued and at one stage, we managed to conceded penalties in five consecutive matches. When the goals dried up at the other end, it led to a few poor results. However, we were still creating chances so I was confident that the run wouldn't last too long and I was proven right. As we moved into March, we found our shooting boots again, picking up three wins. It should have been four but for two awful pieces of defending against bottom club Louvière. If this team is anything to go by, Antwerp better invest in some defenders for the future! The top three have a bit of a cushion now with six games to go and but for some late season drama, I would expect Heist, ourselves and Knokke to win promotion to the second tier. There are no playoffs here, just the top three going straight up! Young wing-back Kobe Corbanie has been our standout player recently, racking up the assists with some great attacking play down the right-hand side. He has already made a couple of appearances for the first team which I'm not surprised by. Some other good news is that the board have finally given in and allowed me to study for the National B License. It should come in handy when searching for my next job!
  6. Young Reds - November/December 2023 Update We seem to be quite a roll! I'm not sure if it's a case of my players learning the style and becoming more comfortable with it or me underestimating their quality - perhaps a bit of both! It's quite obvious now that the strength of the team is at the top of the pitch and we've shown that by scoring loads of goals (well, if you take out the goalless draw that is!). The defence isn't as strong but we've been so dominant in most of the games that we've been able to hide their deficiencies quite well. The pick of the results has to be the home demolition of leaders KSK Heist - we made them look very average. We only had three games in December before the Winter break due to one match being postponed due to international callups and the other for a waterlogged pitch. We look forward to the new year with plenty of confidence which we'll need as we return with a trip to KVV Thes Sport. The top four or five are beginning to break away and the battle for the drop looks like it'll go down the wire as well. Even RAAL La Louvière picked up their first win! Unfortunately, our best player from last month Abderrahman Amal got injured for quite a while. Midfielder, both defensive and attacking, is a relatively strong area for us and Mathéo Parmentier has helped pull the strings from a deeper position at DM.
  7. Young Reds - October 2023 Update The absence of any red is pleasing. We look very good with the ball and we've got to be pleased with 13 goals in four games even if it could have been a few more. This was definitely a slightly easier run of fixtures for us but they're not always easy games so I was glad to see us pick up the points. The only game we struggled in was the trip to KVK Tienen who are up there with us near the top. Some really sloppy defending from set pieces saw us go 3-1 down but we clawed it back to grab a point. If you look beyond KSK Heist at the top and RAAL La Louvière at the bottom, there really isn't much separating everyone else. Even though we're second, we're only four points off 14th! I can see this being a very up and down (quite literally) season for us. Our player of the month has to be Abderrahman Amal. The Moroccan midfielder scored four times from attacking midfield.
  8. What a great job you did at Brackley - I wonder if they'll be able to survive in League One with what will presumably be a very small budget for that level. Blackburn is a good move - quite the jump in club size!
  9. Couple of amazing games in the play-offs! Let's hope you don't have to worry about them next season and go up as champions. Having just one automatic promotion space really is a killer in the National Leagues!
  10. Great read so far - loving that I have two Liechtenstein careers to read through on here! Hopefully you can stay up this season and build from there, you've left Vaduz behind very quickly!
  11. It would seem my complaints regarding van Bommel and his understanding of the Nationale 1 matchday rules were taken seriously... I don't suppose the first team want to promote from within, do they?! A pretty shocking start to the season for the reigning Belgian champions!
  12. Young Reds - August & September 2023 Update A very hit and miss start to the season. Our performances have been better than the score lines suggest but we've been very profligate in front of goal and extremely generous at the other end. The only game we really struggled in is the 2-0 home defeat to OHL U23s - they played us off the park and it should have been four of five. We looked stronger as September went on and but for some calamitous defending at the end of the Olympic Charleroi game (which saw us throw away a 2-0 lead...), we'd be three games unbeaten. We've played the top two already so hopefully with a few 'easier' games coming up, we can start to creep up the table and make sure we're comfortably away from the relegation places. Antwerp first team manager Mark van Bommel doesn't seem to quite understand the strict selection rules we have to follow and regularly sends me four or five quality players he'd like to see get minutes. The issue? They're all over 23 so can't play! Following on from my initial post about trying different systems in this save, I've tried to finally get a three/five at the back working - something I've never successfully managed on FM. The early signs are good - we play some lovely stuff but the poor defenders are exposed at times. There's definitely a base from which to build from as we progress through the season and look forward to our next job where we can bring in our own players.
  13. It's a challenge I've always considered doing but just never got round to it. I just love a good underdog story and managed Vaduz in an old FM. I always find teams playing in other countries really interesting as well.
  14. Young Reds (Royal Antwerp U23) After a couple of interviews, the first offer I had came from Belgium. My last experience managing in Belgium came in FM14 at Kortrijk - a spell I really enjoyed. This job is slightly further down the Belgian footballing ranks, seeing us start in the Nationale 1 division, the third tier. The League rules are quiet complex as it looks like the Belgian structure is changing slightly at the end of the current season, going to a more geographical system so relegations especially this year are not straight forward at all. It is explained pretty well here. I'll be totally honest, as the club is called Young Reds on FM, I had no idea this was in fact the U23 team of Royal Antwerp - oops! I decided to stick with the job as it will give me time to focus on tactics and style rather than worrying about transfers. Our squad will fluctuate as players are dropped into the squad from the first team and promoted from us into the senior team. It's quite a different start to most of my journeyman careers which always seem to kick off in the National League North or South so this is a surprising but welcome change to that. The matchday selection rules are quite strict with only one player 23 or older allowed in the squad - this is the same for all U23 teams in the division - so we won't be benefiting from big names coming down from the first team. There is a handful of U23 teams with traditional teams making up the rest of the 18-team division. We're predicted 16th so we can expect a tough season ahead. The squad is absolutely huge and will change on a game-by-game basis but the strongest side we can put out (within the selection constraints) is above. There are a couple of standout players but most of the squad are run of the mill youngsters. Judging from the rest of the teams in the division, I think we are about average but we'll soon see if that's true!
  15. You may remember me (you almost certainly won't!) from previous Career Update threads such as FM14's Dave Duncan's Tour of Obscurity, FM17's The Seagulls are trying to nick my chips again or FM19's On the move again? That'll be Costly Welcome... This has probably been the longest FM hiatus of my life. Since FM19, I have barely touched Football Manager apart from a very brief fling with FM21 before trying out FM Mobile over the last couple of years. Whilst the FM Mobile games are good in their own right, I'd got to the stage where I craved a bit more detail and, honestly, pain. The Mobile games are just too easy and perhaps you can call me a masochist because I do like the struggle that comes with a proper FM career. So, I'm back in the room and FM24 has a lot of new (well new to me) things for me to get to grips with but what better way to do that than with a good old journeyman. I struggle with one club saves and I'm hoping this journeyman will take me to some countries, or at least leagues, that I haven't managed in before. Setup... I will be starting unemployed, as always, with Sunday League reputation and a National C Licence (which I hold IRL). We have loaded a large database with the lowest playable league in the following nations: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland. That gives us a player count of just under 100,000 - surely we can find a few decent ones?! As the save evolves, I will look at adding/removing some countries to further expand our horizons. We'll start with Europe and see how we get on! Plans... There are no grand plans for this save - I'll be learning on the job with FM24 as it looks like there's plenty of new features to get to grips with. I'd like to experiment with some different tactics and playing styles and veer away from my trusty 4-2-3-1. I'm normally quite a conservative manager so I'd like to buck that trend a little bit and get my teams playing some good stuff whilst still trying to being defensively solid (of course). Now you're probably asking why I've used a Will Still pun (not a good one...) in the thread title and to be honest, it's a very tenuous link. Like Still, I grew up on Championship Manager/Football Manager, have English parents, don't have the necessary coaching badges to be managing top-flight footballers and I'm starting my managerial career in... Belgium.
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