FM Time Machine - Staying Where I Should Have

Previous Career

So the story so far was that I managed Auckland City and then left them once I had won the O-League to manage the team I watch most in real life Crewe. After straight promotions from League Two to the Premiership I achieved a very good 3rd place finish in our first ever top flight season, this gave me legendary status at the club but then came a disappointing 13th place finish. I have never fell so far down a league as I did for these two seasons. The aim of my save was to win every continents CL trophy so when Real Madrid came knocking with a £303,000,000 transfer budget and a £4 million weekly wage budget I accepted and enjoyed spending 100's of millions, however they would not give me my wage demands of £250,000 a week so I resigned and headed for Africa. This is where I started to struggle to get into my save as Kaizer Chiefs manager I felt every time I fired the save up I was forcing myself to play rather than enjoying it. This made me think of my back up save where I was still manager of Crewe and looking forward to moving into a new stadium so I fired it up and have decided to try and make Crewe the biggest club in the world.

Ahmed Naimi

Needed some new fullbacks after the poor defensive performances of last season. Naimi was transfer listed at Liverpool so I signed him for £8.5 million and got him to take a 10k a week wage cut to join us, capable of playing both full back positions and at 26 is at his peak, not brilliant but a good solid player.

Alberto

Released by Zaragoza, young and decent-ish potential he will be a good back up for no cost and little wages.

Aytac Ustun

Might be sent on loan as he is still young and has 4 star potential, his pace is obviously his best weapon. If I can train him right I have a feel he will become a very good player.

Danny Uhl

Spent £8 million on this talented German midfielder he has 4 and a half star potential so hopefully decent training and a bit of first team football will see him slowly improve.

Sam McMahon

I always looks through the England under-21's to see what talent is around and this GK was transfer listed at Liverpool. With other club sniffing around I took a chance and signed him for £3.6 million and he has 4 and a half stars of potential. Looks likely to improve and become Englands number one at some point in the future.

Santiago Morel

I tried to sign this lad to play left back last season from Argentina but he opted for a move to Panathinaikos for £4.8 million. I was surprised to have an £8 million bid accepted and I signed him up straight way he is a class player and is already attracting interest from Inter Milan.

Some big improvements and nearly £30 million spent I have a good feeling about this upcoming season. Our only problem is our top striker and best player Luca Casolla has started to get interest from some big clubs, he has a £30 million release clause and would not sign a new contract, now he refuses to even discuss one. I am tempted to try and sell him for £25 million plus at the end of the season despite him being good no player is too big to be sold.

Welcome back to Crewe

Cheers, I couldn't resist going back.

Why are screen shots so small through photobucket?

No idea. I use imageshack.

I normally do but can only upload one image at a time on there.

All the best mate

Good decision, good luck

Good decision. look forward to seeing how you get on

Good luck with your time machine trip back to Crewe!

Yay, you've gone back in time!

Good luck carrying on with Crewe this time

Good luck mate, looking forward to this, I was reading your other thread where you took over Kaizer Chiefs and you was saying there that you wasn't enjoying it, so will definitely follow this.

Thanks guys, like I said no point playing a save that I do not enjoy. Should have the first update posted tonight.

Great start in the league with only one loss so far against Arsenal but our away form made up for that with wins at Old Trafford and Anfield with a convincing 7-0 win over Fulham sandwiched between the results. Best result for the fans was the 4-2 opening day win over rivals Stoke City in their own backyard. Despite all these good results we went out of the League Cup to Derby a the first hurdle. Luca Casolla is scoring loads of goals I just hope we can keep hold of him and can get him into contract talks at some point. It's a pity we didn't turn the 1-1 draws against Ipswich and West Brom into wins then we would have been top of the league.

Good form so far. How many seasons have Crewe been in the Premiership at this point?

Two we finished 3rd first time round and then 13th.

Are you going to go for Aston Quiggin, who in an alternate timeline went on to star for R. Madrid?

Been keeping my eye on him his contract runs out at the end of next season and he rejected a new one at Stoke. He would cost a fair bit but save to say he is a target for next season if Casolla wants to leave.

So after some good results we have managed to build a 4 point lead at the top of the table but still have some hard games left to play. Not sure what happened against West Ham as they thrashed us at our own ground. However the response from the side was excellent with us winning the next 9 league games in a row. We thrashed Peterboro in the FA Cup but then lost 1-0 in a very close game against Arsenal. I would love to win the league but I am not sure we have the talent to do so. With this in mind I raided Man United for two players who I think represent a great deal for the amount spent on them.

Kees Timmermans - Only cost £2.9 million which is surely a great price he will go straight into the first team in midfield with my favourite player Picchi.

Jonathan Watson - Cost £3.9 million and has great physical attributes also adds to the English players at the club, I would love to have a good base of English players for the team.

A team close to my heart Good luck, not that you need it.

You have my permission to destroy Arsenal at any opportunity

A team close to my heart Good luck, not that you need it.

Good to see a Crewe fan here, I go to all their home matches and consider them my second team behind Sunderland although I probably know more about Crewe than Sunderland now lol.

You have my permission to destroy Arsenal at any opportunity

Haha, doubt that will happen they are too good.

We finished 4 point behind Man City despite leading the league for a while at one, however the main aim was to get into the Champions League places and that was achieved. The loss against Bolton put Man City only one point behind us then back to back losses against Man United who completely thrashed us and Arsenal who also dominated the match saw us effectively put out of the title race. Another loss against West Ham who seem to be our bogey team put 2nd place in danger but we held on and claimed a 2nd place finish.

I played all sorts of formations over the season a flat 4-3-3, 4-5-1 with AMR and AML, a 4-4-2, a 4-3-3 with three DMC's but settled on this formation for the last 10-15 games of the season. Our problem is we rely heavily on Casolla who recently signed a new contract with a high release clause. Watson was a great signing with a goal a game and I was thinking of selling Jay Rodriguez who is now 31 but I think I will give him another season based on how well he did this year. Picchi was brilliant in midfield but seems to pick up a few injuries here and there and I am expecting more from Timmermans next season. We still concede a few too many goals for my liking despite excellent performances from the CB's.

A big aim for me next season is to make an impact in the domestic cup competitions. Some people do not regard these as important especially the league cup but in real life being a fan of teams like Crewe and Sunderland whose potential to win a trophy is not high I would like to win one of these in FM.

We were due to move to the newly build awesomely title Crewe stadium on the 21st of September 2021, I was shocked to see a news item stating we have now moved into the new stadium a year early this is despite the board room screen showing it has not yet finished being built. I have also asked for the board to invest in a few areas and they did so we are now building better training and youth facilities as well as investing more money into the junoir coaching, this is hoping going to pay off in the long run and help me build something meaningful for Crewe. I have also hired several more scouts to scout each region of the world in an effort to increase the clubs knowledge of players aged 16-20 that would cost a couple of million or less.

I identified Kurt Zouma as a potential target to improve my defence he is a physical beast of a player and one I signed at Real Madrid, he is in his prime and playing for St. Etienne he was worth £4.6 million so I bid £7.5 million then £10 million then out of nowhere Chelsea go and bid £46 million a price tag I cannot compete with unless I put the financial security of the club at risk with big monthly payments so I pull out. Next I go for Aston Quiggin of Stoke City a very good striker and at 23 years old approaching his peak, I get a big offer accepted of £26 million but then Man United come in. I have set myself a wage limit of £65,000 a week and Quiggin is on £21,500 at Stoke but he signs for Man United on £73,000 and wouldn't even talk to us.

I have been given a transfer budget of £18 million and a wage budget of £800k a week but we are spending around £500k at the moment. A CB is my top target for the season as well as a right back, as long as I keep Casolla which looks likely for the first time in my career there will be no attacking talent signed.

Apparently other teams have realized that you sign quality players and are poaching them from you! That's some crazy spending they have going on.

That's not a large budget for challenging for the PL with.

I took the easy option of top half finish could have got about £28 million for title challenge but I wanted to spend the money on improving the facilities instead.

Good to see a Crewe fan here, I go to all their home matches and consider them my second team behind Sunderland although I probably know more about Crewe than Sunderland now lol

I'm actually a Leyton Orient fan, but I'm managing Crewe in my current save and really enjoying it. Plus I love their focus on developing youff.

Just seen your thread will give it a read, if I had known it was Crewe I would have started reading it a lot earlier. I have one striker who is 6 foot 8 and made his debut in League Two at the age of 16 now he is a starter at 22 years old in the Premiership. Not had any youth come through worth keeping for a few years now, hopefully improving the facilities a bit will help with that as I'd love to promote more academy lads to the first team.

I've found much the same thing. I have two strikers who have risen with me from BSP to Championship. Every youth intake has had at least one who can go straight into the first XI, which is amazing for a lower league team really.

I had a few that easily stepped up from League Two all the way to the Championship but a few really struggled in the EPL.

That's my best youth to come through, developed well as we progressed through the leagues. Not brilliant but good physical attributes as well as finishing, determination and work rate make him pretty good. Performing well in the CL group stages as well.

Can't imagine defenders like playing against him - good finishing, jumping, determination etc, looks ideal. If the heading was a bit higher he'd be the perfect target man.

What amused me was in the lower leagues he played at AML cutting inside, not sure I have ever seen a 6 foot 8 winger lol.

He scores quite a few headers his jumping and strength mean he wins plenty in the air I'm just trying to improve his off the ball by 2 or 3 point if it's possible.

Did you play much over the weekend?

Yeah about half way through the next season-ish, why?

A good start to the season, my aim is to try and put as many points between us and 5th place as I can. I know the team might be capable of challenging to top 2 teams but I want to establish us as a team that constantly qualifies for the Champions League. Arsenal are looking pretty good so far and almost became the first team to beat us at our new ground but we managed to hold on. Disappointed that the only loss we have was against Stoke City who are our main rivals. Casolla started the season well with 8 goals in 2 matches but he tends to score in streaks then go missing for a couple of matches. I am glad that Lee Campbell is scoring a few goals, it's always nice to see an academy lad playing well especially one who has represented us in all four leagues. Timmermans and Picchi form a great partnership in midfield but as good as Picchi is he still seems a little injury prone at times.

Bit boring in the transfer market for this season with only defensive players signed.

Akyur Yildiz

This guy was the top signing costing £11.5 million from Champions League winners Galatasary. He is a decent age and can hopefully help out at the back because at times we are poor defensively. I was a little bit surprised that he decided to leave the CL winner and sign for us as we are still a pretty small club but I guess that's the lure of the Premiership.

Carmine Stendardo

I really wanted to bring in another fullback and after sending my scouts around Italy they came back with this youngster who they rated at 4 and a half stars of potential. He was listed for only £5 million so I signed him up and hope I can turn him into a superstar.

Robert Thomson

Signed from Celtic for £2.5 million he was one of the players that had all the required attributes I wanted to play at CB. Will be a decent back up and rotational player.

I will need to go into the transfer market for one or two players in January as we only have a 22 man squad which really needs fleshing out a bit to cope with all the games.

Galatasaray won a UEFA Champions League? Never thought I'd see that.

Impressive.

Good start to the league so far. Distance between you and 5th is growing.

That Yildiz has some great physical stats, im sure he'll prove to be a great signing.

Good start to the league so far. Distance between you and 5th is growing.

Cheers, that's the main aim for this season.

That Yildiz has some great physical stats, im sure he'll prove to be a great signing.

I'm pretty confident he will be a good signing.

We are still in the race for the top but I am only concerned with the gap between us and Chelsea/Liverpool. The loss to Man United was a poor performance all round and we deserved to loss by more however the rest is positive. We drew with Man City but we did not score any of the goal as they managed to put away two own goals to give us a share of the points. The main talking point has to be Jonathan Watson who failed to score at all in his first 6 starts but suddenly went mental 7 goals against Spurs 6 of them coming in the first half were followed by 4 consecutive hat tricks then a brace. I have never seen someone score so many goals before at the point in time he had a last 5 match rating of 9.68 with 19 goals, crazy stuff. We have been scoring a lot of goals and not been bad on the conceded part either.

Martin Caviglia

I thought we needed some creativity in midfield and at one point we had a lot of injuries and had only 2 players on the bench. Caviglia was transfer listed at Sevilla 18 months after they had paid £13 million for him I got him for £7.5 million.

Sonny McKimm

I tried to get this lad on loan from Man City at the start of the season but he wouldn't agree terms with us, we had to offer a future fee of £22 million. A few months later he is still listed for loan after turning down several loan offerers so I bid for him and managed to settle on a fee of £12.5 million. He is a wonderkid so I signed him up and I hope to have a very good player now to team with Yildim at the back for the foreseeable future.

After beating Fulham 4-3 in extra time FM conspired against me and by "luck" I was drawn against the other team I support in real life. A cracking match unfolded they pulled back to 2-2 with a late goal and went ahead at the start of extra time I had a feeling we were out but we came back to draw level within a few minutes. Then came an awful penalty shoot out with both teams taking poor penalties but Sunderland eventually going through by scoring their 8th penalty and us missing ours. We also played 10 minutes of the extra time with 8 men having used all our substitutes.

I thought our group might be tricky in the Champions League but we breezed it PSG were a lot poorer than I expected them to be rolling over for us twice, with them out of the way and an away win against Valencia we qualified very easily. Once again FM has conspired against me and drawn me against the team I managed in the alternate version of this career a team I cannot see us beating but who knows?

The dstance between you and 1st place is still close. Possible upset?

We play Arsenal at the end of March, could be a very important game.

Good luck for the Madrid games

Good luck against Madrid.

Cheers lads.

Not a bad result away from home considering how many shots they had they didn't really create too much and only scored when an injured 33 year old Benzema scored his first goal of the season by lobbing my GK from 40 yards.

Just wondering who you guys think will finish the season as top scorer, all the following players are pretty close in their goal return and all three play together if they are all fit and ready.

Casolla is first up with 27 goals so far in 30 matches and is probably the best player out of the three.

Watson is the current leader but 19 of his goals came over only 5 matches.

Campbell is the outsider and probably slightly worse than the others but he still has a good goal return, with him being a youth product I would love to see him end as top scorer.