Those incredibly hard decisions....

So a few seasons ago I got promoted to the EPL playing as a LLM for the first time. I'd taken my team ( Chester ) from the Skrill Prem to the EPL inside of eight seasons. I must admit, playing lower down had me pulling my hair out and I had to be very creative in terms of wage budget and the use of free transfers. I also got particularly fortunate going from League Two to League One and League One to The Championship in consecutive seasons. Both of those seasons saw me languishing in the relegation zone at Christmas.

I've had to change my tactics so many times to fit in with the players available. Not through injuries but having to release first choice players due to my tight control of the wage budget and their sometimes ridiculous demands. I won't go into full details but suffice to in both of those seasons, no matter what I did or tried I just continued to lose and then just after Christmas started to get a bit of form together and eventually scraped into the playoffs ( once on the last game of the season finishing sixth, and the other guaranteeing sixth in the penultimate game. )

Both times, despite the odds being massively against me, but probably more down to my team being in good form I got promoted via the playoffs. And both seasons after promotion, I lost players due to wage demands and had to work harder than I have ever had to do, utilising scouts and being creative, and often frustrated in the free transfer market. Having never managed so low down before it opened my eyes to an entirely different game. I had decided early on that at no point would I let the club run at a loss. False economies are pointless. So I had to make some painful decisions concerning players I could offer a new contract to but would ultimately break the bank. I had to let them go even though they had done such an incredible job the season before.

To cut a long story short, after I got my first seasons Premiership TV money and the board had allowed me to scout anywhere, I needed a target man or a pacey attacking right midfielder to fit in with my 4-1-4-1 custom tactic. All I had been doing so far was scouting the UK and Ireland and taking the best of a bad bunch and altering my tactic accordingly. After promotion I received three messages, no board requests, they just did it off their own back. New youth facilities, new training facilities and a new 18,000 seater stadium. A few days later I went to my scouting and saw the board now allowed me to scout anywhere, which I was very surprised at.

I had a transfer budget of £8.5m but was very conscious that the board had taken out a £27.8m loan for the new stadium. So I setup scouting in a few European countries and sat back, deciding to wait until I find out how much the monthly payments on the loan were going to affect me before I started spending. I trawled the free transfer market and signed a few squad players and a few borderline 1st team / U 21 players as prospects.

I signed some new coaches and physios and decided I wasn't going to buy any players that either cost more than a £1m or wanted more than £7,000 per week, which in the Premiership is nigh impossible. After six free transfer signings I had all of my transfer budget available but still needed a better quality targetman and a right winger. I'd already decided to put my faith in the team that got me promoted, but the weakest links were clearly those two positions, although the targetman might possibly be able to do a job if I was lucky.

After pretty much exhausting every avenue in terms of free transfers I decided I'd spend my budget on an AMR and a TM. I checked my scouts again and realised one didn't have an assignment. So I decided to send him to Asia, looking for at least 4* players. It was around the time many of the Asian countries get their newgens and experience has told me quite often one or two top quality youngsters appear. I didn't set any age limit, just the 4*. Within a few days I got my first report. I clicked on the player, five stars !

Not only 5 stars, but an AMR / ST. I clicked on him and his stats were unreal. He was playing for Al-Shabab (KSA), a Slovenian 19 year old with 4 caps, 2 goals and 12 u-21 caps,7 goals....value £850,000. 199 cm 93 kg, fast pacey, crazy high determination and work rate, he was just perfect and covered both positions. I put in a bid of £2m, rejected. £2.5m, rejected. Hmm how high do I go, I need to keep control of my budget. Next bid £3.3m, accepted. He wanted £11k a week. £4k more than what I'd decided was my limit. But he could cover both positions I was after.

He was a natural targetman who could also play as an AMR. Sod it, I'm having him no matter what. The rest is history. He was simply brilliant and single handed kept me in the Premiership in my first season. Second season and he had changed from striker to "Wonderkid." My first Wonderkid !

I'd added a few more decent quality free transfers and a couple of £2-3m signing by the start of the second season. And now the background is complete. I'm sitting 13th in the Premiership, have a lot of very promising youngsters but have only adequate training facilities, adequate junior coaching, below average youth facilities and fairly basic youth recruitment. I'd been very conscious of this, but simply hadn't had the money to upgrade them other than on a few occasions. And it's January the 1st. My wonderkid is worth £5.5m and has now been successfully retrained to a natural AMR. I'm playing him as a wide target man and he is amazing and then........Monaco coming knocking. £27m. My first thought was "**** that's so much money." Then I calmed down a little and thought about how much it would cost to replace him ( not so much the transfer fee but the wages, he was still only on £11k per week. )

So I went for a smoke. I settled on checking for cheap "stop gap" replacements until the end of the season and found a few loan prospects. I put the loan bids in and decided to negotiate the offer and if it didn't work then so be it. Monaco agreed. £28m upfront, £5m over 12 months and £5m once he reaches 10 league goals with a 40% sell on profit clause.

Still unsure, I had to decide. He is my star player by a country mile but he only had 2 years left on his contract and that was enough money to upgrade everything 2 or 3 times. So I accepted. I know I've made the right decision, I went straight to the board and they agreed to upgrade the training and youth facilities, the junior coaching and the youth recruitment. But he was perfect for my team. And the sale, despite how attached I'd grown to him, and just how much joy seeing him hold the ball up and hold players off and deliver inch perfect passes into my box to box midfielder, exactly how I'd setup and planned my tactics remains a bitter pill to swallow. We are a Championship team at best and he made us tick. Hopefully I've not gone and ruined everything. This is why I love this game.

Here he is, my not so little Slovenian friend.

Move to FM stories. Apologies. Thought I was already in there. Ta.

Epic story, that's what it's all about!