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darren1983

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darren1983 last won the day on September 2 2023

darren1983 had the most liked content!

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6,909 "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in"

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About Me

  • About Me
    CATQT - you'll never understand

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  • Interests
    Everything!

Favourite Team

  • Favourite Team
    Brentford

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  1. Congrats. I know what a slog England can be. Have added you to the HoF
  2. I'm not sure I've seen this happen before. My instinct is to say release them but I'm also aware of the financial hit that could be so think best bet might be just to leave them in the B team and release then when their contracts are up? Make sure none of them play in the first team.
  3. Congrats @XaW and have been added to the HoF again
  4. Right after sulking for a week after my stupidity, and even trying to replay the 6 months I lost, it's go time again. Profile We're going back to what was my original plan for this FM
  5. Well done @TerminalPortugalyou've been added to the HoF
  6. So when shutting down after posting this on Sunday while watching the super bowl I didn't save the game and didn't have auto save on which meant I lost like 6 months of this save including the youth intake. I didn't even realise till I went to load it up last night and saw I was in December. I spent all of yesterday evening just annoyed at myself. Let this be a lesson - MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AUTO SAVE ON! I usually do but must have had it turned off. I dunno what to do now. I can't face redoing a half a season. I may try again with another team after a short break
  7. Season 2026/27 Review National League Was a strange but decent season really. Our issues last year were letting goals in so over the summer I had a tactical rethink and went from my usual 433 to a 4231 with 2 DM's sitting in front of the back to offer some extra protection. We opened the season with a 5-1 win and I thought we had cracked but in out next 5 games we lost 4-1, 5-2 and 6-1 and I quickly went back to what I know! I figured this would be a tough season with our players getting older and our young players not being ready yet and so it proved. We continued to ship goals but we also scored goals, it meant we were good enough to beat the bottom sides and keep a double digit points between us and the relegation zone but the top sides battered us. As a result I basically just speed ran through this season waiting for the youth intake but in the new year we started to play well and win games and keep clean sheets and somehow found ourselves on the edge of the playoffs. Dropped points against the sides directly above us killed the fait hopes of playoffs so for the final few games I just played the kids really and as a result we ended a very respectable 10th spot. Fact we scored 83 goals and still ended with a minus goal difference tells the story as to where our issues still lie. In the cups there was nothing to write home about as we lost in the first round in both. In the FA Cup Maidstone from our league beat us and in the FA Trophy Kiddierminster from league below beat us. Youth Intake The preview looked good and the result was pretty good. I don't think the players are as good as my coaches think but there are some good players here. My focus on youth recruitment seems to be paying off and we're not 2.5* which is good recruitment and think it'll pay off even more next season Career Overview Season League Position Junior Coaching Youth Recruitment Notes 2024/25 NVLN 2nd Fairly Basic Average Promoted via the playoffs 2025/26 VNL 11th Average Above Average Finally got first coaching badge 2026/27 VNL 10th Adequate Good Still only 1 coaching badge As you can probably tell I really did fly through this season but think next season will be a real struggle. A couple of the young players have stepped up this season which has added some nice depth but my senior players are struggling a bit now as they're really not for this level. In some good news though, the original star boy McStravick whose contract was up last summer is still here because he just stuck around on a non contract deal. Again I spent all season trying to get him to sign a new deal but he still says we're not good enough for him but I'll keep him around till either he leaves or we get better.
  8. Ooof that's brutal season mate. Glad they kept you on though. Was worried for a bit there.
  9. Season 2025/26 Review - Vanarama National League League - On paper an 11th placed finish after promotion is good. In fact it's very good, and it is but I just can't escape the feeling of "what if?" as our small squad really caught up with us in the end as we failed to win any of our final 10 games to drop right away. As you can see. I ran my players into the ground simply as our young players, especially in defence, were just not ready this season. Scoring goals wasn't an issue till the final 10 games, which is a shock as our strikers are poor, but Callum Gribbin has been the man. I play him as a Mezz on attack and he has 53 goals in 93 games. I worry he won't keep it up next season, he does take free kicks and pens (and we've had a lot of pens these 2 seasons which helps) but not sure that totally explains his form. It's our back line that is causing us issues. We had the 4th worst defence this season with 84 goals conceded, our defenders are just not good, it's that simple. Losing the only senior (at 21) GK for 6/7 weeks didn't help but in most games we needed to score 2 goals just to get a point and that's just not sustainable. FA Cup - Awful, lost to a side in the league below at the first hurdle. After last season's cup fun this was a major let down. FA Trophy - Bit better here, we won a couple games but lost to a side who were top of our league at the time (they had a worse run in than us I think and blew the title to finish 4th and then messed up at the first hurdle of playoffs) Transfers - Just the one out but we will be losing star boy Scott McStravick. When he came through in the holiday season the AI gave him his pro deal but the stupid idiots only gave him a 1 year deal and, despite me asking at least 50 times this season, he doesn't think we're good enough for him. Ungrateful little git Finances - Really really good, over 1m in the bank and have had a couple upgrades in the Junior Recruitment this season. I'm trying something new with this team and focusing on recruitment first and pairing that with HOYD with good professionalism (which is why I'm about to be on my 2rd HOYD in 3 seasons as I now have one that is Resolute and plays my formation) in order to boost my intakes. No idea if it'll work but it's fun to try. Youth Intake - The preview was good and it turned out to be a decent one I think Joshua Kelly 26A - a striker! I like the look of him and he's already come off the bench twice in the league Jorge Drinkwater 26B - another striker and what a name. I actually think he'll be better as a Mezz in my team than a striker Terell Thomas 26C - a good looking left winger Jonathan Ennis 26D - a left back, an area we have struggled so nice to get one through Career Overview Season League Position Junior Coaching Youth Recruitment Notes 2024/25 NVLN 2nd Fairly Basic Average Promoted via the playoffs 2025/26 VNL 11th Average Above Average Finally got first coaching badge
  10. Season 2024/25 Review FC United of Manchester - National League North League - A crazy first season in charge for us. I knew we were good enough to up around the playoffs but would need luck to do much more and I usually start the firsts season a little slow as I try and work out the best 11 but this season we started on fire. We won our first 9 games of the season and were flying but Scunthorpe were right behind us with 8 wins a draw. It was clear who the big dogs in this league were. However from here things started to go a bit up and down. This is due to us just settling down to a more natural level along with a few injuries and honestly me trying something new with my training. From November to around the middle of Jan we dropped like a stone, from top down to around 7th and in danger of blowing the season. It was around this time I made changes from my training. In previous save I was getting some good results by focusing on weaknesses of the player rather than doing my usual of having them train in the role I want them to play. I think the reason my training worked elsewhere and not here is because of the facilities. Here we train twice a week and have crappy facilities so development is going to be tougher. A couple weeks after changing our training levels improved and so did our results, to such an extent we went undefeated in the final 13 games to finish 2nd. This meant playoffs and in the semis we faced a Scarborough side we did the double over and a 2-0 win put us in the final with a Spennymoor side we won and lost to in the league. A crazy final which saw us cruising to promotion at 2-0 up with 4 mins to go only to throw it away to draw 2-2. Right into extra we went 3-2 up before a double from them left us 4-3 down at the break. A goal from star boy Steve McStravick 6 mins before the end meant it was 4-4 and pens. Mcstravick missed our first as we scored the other 4. Our keeper Marshall actually saved their first 2 which meant we won 4-3 and were up! If you look at the past graph you can pretty much see where I made my changes to training. FA Cup - We had a great run in this knocking out sides from National League, League Two and League One before Bournemouth of the Premier League beat us in the 4th round. Annoyingly they are a small side so only around 8k turned up so didn't get the monster pay out we'd have got against a top side. We still made decent money from the run though FA Trophy - Not great, our loss came during our poor form and with a small squad already suffering from one cup run I wasn't too upset in getting knocked out when we did Transfers - None in but the one out hurt. Pawel was easily our best RB but was on a non-contract and wouldn't talk about a new deal despite me asking him every 2 or 3 days for 6 months but instead he went back to Poland. We were lucky to have held him for as long as we did. Finances - The cup run generated just over 600k I think and I used that money to invest in upgrades to youth recruitment, Junior coaching and even got a training facilities upgrade meaning we now have a fair chunk less now Youth Intake - I was pretty slack with this, first waiting a while to take a shot of the preview as I was so disappointed in it and then for some reason my PC didn't save the screen shot on the day they came through so had to take one after the season had ended. It was OK I guess. nothing great hence why I've been less than quick to capture it all Ryan O'Kane 25A - Northern Irish right back, he's fine I guess. Will add some depth to the area which we need Aeon Halstead 25B - wide player, not the quickest but not slow, bit of height on him though which I like Jack Jefferys 25C - the highest rated player by my coaches but not sure I see it, a smallish CB who can't header isn't ideal That was all I tagged but I thought I'd offer an update on the lad that generated last season - Steve McStravick. Started the season on the bench and I was using him late on in games but as our season started to fall apart I threw him in as our box to box option and he excelled. 9 goals in the 2nd half of the season with 2 in the play off final. He's been great. Doesn't turn 17 till the summer and has League sides looking at him already. Career Overview Season League Position Junior Coaching Youth Recruitment Notes 2024/25 NVLN 2nd Fairly Basic Average Promoted via the playoffs
  11. So I'm back. Again. In England. Again. At FC United. Again Profile Club profile as we start We actually got quite lucky with a youth player that came through during the holiday season. Think this lad could be around for the first few years easily: I did actually aim for a different club in Kingstonian but I did get them in my second reload but then realised I messed up the game database so had to redo the holiday season and after like 6 hours they never came up once so I went back to a side I know fairly well and I do like the idea of having proper rivals when/if we get up to the top flight.
  12. They're fine to use as you wish. Anything that happened before you took over is out of your control. We've seen they were arranged before you took over so it's fine.
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