FM15: Derby County FC – The WeAreDerby Rams

Derby County Football Club is an English football club based in Derby. Notable for being one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888, it is one of only ten clubs to have competed in every season of the English football league system and, in 2009, was ranked 137th in the top 200 European football teams of the 20th century by International Federation of Football History and Statistics.

Derby County F.C. was founded in 1884, by William Morley, as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club; it has spent all but four seasons in the top two divisions of English football. The club's competitive peak came in the 1970s when they were twice English League Champions and competed in major European competitions on four separate occasions, reaching the European Cup semi-finals, as well as winning several minor trophies. Additionally, the club was a strong force in the interwar years and won the 1945–46 FA Cup.

The club adopted its now traditional black and white club colours in the 1890s and appropriated its club nickname The Rams, a tribute to its links with the First Regiment of Derby Militia, which took a ram as its mascot and the song "The Derby Ram" as its regimental song, at the same time. Home games are played at the iPro Stadium, located in Pride Park, Derby, where the club moved in 1997. Staring of July 2014, the club plays in the Sky Bet Championship league and are managed by you.

You will inherit these poor financial problems:

Don’t expect to be able to immediately get approved for upgraded facilities, junior coaching, affiliates, or youth recruitment. Transfer budget is 3.86mil and payroll is 25mil annually, which seems to be on par or maybe even better than the average team in this league.

Here is the main prospect for The Rams:

The rest of the senior roster is respectable. Don’t expect the roster to easily win you the promotion. Without any transfers, you will have to rely on your tactics and tactical adjustments before/during matches in order to get to the premier league.

The philosophies that I want to be judged on:

- Sign Players from Chairman/Club nation

- Develop players using the club’s youth system

The challenge for me in this save is to develop my own talent through my youth intake without signing foreign talent. Also I would like to see American talent prosper, so I will be looking to bring in any American who can get a work permit and develop them to have impact on the USA national team squad. Here is my base formation:

The weakness with the original squad is the DL position. Also the starter GK is injured at the start of this save, so will need to loan in a temp keeper.

I guess you can say that Derby is AMEEERRRICAN MADE

Will Hughes is amazing, sold him to Arsenal for £25m after a few years in one of my older saves.

Will Hughes is amazing, sold him to Arsenal for £25m after a few years in one of my older saves.

I didn't know Hughes before life with Derby, but now I'm a fan. I sure hope he plays just as well IRL.

I guess you can say that Derby is AMEEERRRICAN MADE

Indeed

Update 1st season (part 1 of 3):

League - I'm now sitting 1st in the league table, with the next six team within 8 points from me. There is little room to mess up, so I have to play every game carefully. At the least, I need to draw. I'm playing the Wolves next (2nd in the league and 2 points under me). My last save was with the Wolves, so I'm well aware what their players are capable of, especially Bako and Dicko.

Capital One - I'm happy to have made it to the 4th round (board minimum expectation was to get to 3rd round). I beat Chesterfield, Shef Wed, and CRYSTAL PALACE 1-0 with my CWB striking the winning goal at 90+1 minutes.

FA - has not started yet

Team - I still have all my original players. The only additions are players (loaned from my new parent club Liverpool). I have a little over 3mil in transfer budget, but I need to save that money for when I really need it for purchasing tutors. My finances are still in the red and it gets worse every month. I had the same problem with the Wolves until I got promoted, so I think it will be the same with Derby. Until then, I can't upgrade anything or ask for a link with affiliates.

Staff - I hired my staff based solely on their personalities and gave them all short 1-2 year contracts. Many of the staff I really want do not want to sign with Derby yet. I hired a lot of 3-4 star coaches with resolute personalities because that is the kind of personality I'm looking for in my regens. My HoYD, Assman, and General Manager also have resolute personalities. I'm limited to 6 scouts, so I signed 6 scouts who have multiple full foreign national knowledge. One of them have full knowledge of at least 5 nations!

Plans - In order to build a successful youth system, I really need to rely on tutors. I am still planning not to bring in foreign talent, but I may have to resort to bringing in foreign tutor because tutoring is the most important thing I can do for my youth intake. At the next transfer window, I'll be looking to see if there any available good tutors transfer listed. I've subscribed the big clubs in the PL, like MU, Arsenal, and Chelsea in order to poach any released or transfer listed players that may make good tutors. Until then I'll continue to fight for the top 2 stops in the league table.

Ive seen Will Hughes a few times when he's played against Leeds. He's incredible, how he controls the game at such a young age is something that I haven't seen since Fabian Delph.

Update 1st season (part 2 of 3):

League - I'm still 1st in the league table, but this time I'm comfortably leading the group. I'm at an injury crisis right now with half of my starters injured (non longer than 6 weeks though), so I've been playing more defensively hoping to draw games. Just 11 more games until the season ends.

Capital One - After a miracle goal to beat Crystal Palace, I lost to Hull next game 2-0 in the 4th round. I met board expectation by reaching the 4th round.

FA - I just lost to Aston Villa in the 6th round. They were far superior and dominated the whole game, so there is a lot of work to be done for Derby. I met board expectation by reaching the 4th round.

Team - Finances are still plummeting. The board injected some funds to help offset costs, which helped some. I sold one of the original players for 1 mil. I also resigned some good tutors on the team, such as 35 yr old John Eustace. I hope he keeps playing for a few more years because he has invaluable professionalism and ambition hidden traits. My first youth intake was successful because I got one regen with 5 star potential I'll turn him into my left inside forward and will need to start tutoring ASAP. The rest are 2-3 star PA, but will keep an eye on their development.

Plans - Season is almost over. The value of my players has risen dramatically due to being in 1st place and strong likelihood of winning the promotion. I'm ready to sell many current players this upcoming offseason because I don't see a way for many of them to help me stay afloat the relegation zone and this is the best time to sell them (learned this the hard way with my former team). Hull will probably let Paul McShane (backup CB) contract expire at the end of the season, so I'm going to snatch him up as another good tutor. He is my only target so far. I can't seem to find more good tutors who are capable of of starting in the premiere league. The board also will not let me scout outside of Europe. This scouting restriction will probably be lifted next season, so I'll start scouting MLS for American regens once that happens.

I've started a Derby game now and only played two games but won them both. Beat Rotherham 1-0 at Pride Park before dismantling Sheffield Wednesday 4-0 at Hillsborough. Felt the defence needed improving so signed Onyewu on a free transfer and also brought in Vermilj from Manchester United for £250k, finances are pretty bad though so didn't want to spend a serious amount of money. I'd say getting promoted to the Prem is a must just so we can get some much needed money into the coffers.

Struggled to come up with a formation at first, settled on a 4-3-3 in the end with Hughes as an advanced play-maker in an effort to get the best out of our young midfielder.

just started my yearly game with the super rams

first window

won championship with 8 games still to play

Good now you can start selling players for money and buy better players

yep. the one player i dont wanna sell though keeps telling he wants to go to chelsea ( hughes )

Sold Hughes for 8.5m in January window. Wasn't playing well in my 4 4 2 formation. Signed roberto from barca and babacar from Fiorentina

Sold Hughes for 8.5m in January window. Wasn't playing well in my 4 4 2 formation. Signed roberto from barca and babacar from Fiorentina

Big mistake there mate. That man will be a star in this game.

results like this make it all worth it

Who's your first choice striker now fatlad?

danny ings, signed him on a free ( well had to pay 2.8 compo but worth it )

However that arsenal match i played ince up front due to ings injury

hughes gone for 30 million ( cant be doing with unhappy players all the time ) replaced him with deli ali. will use the money on a good left back cus need 1

Hey,

Nice team that they have! I like alot the philosophy. See Hoyt and O'shea from USA they are very good in 2 years.

Going to start a new game with this team.

Any suggestion?

Big mistake there mate. That man will be a star in this game.

Wanted to play 442 and he didn't fit.. Having the same problem with Roberto though. Always getting 6.3-6.8 ratings.

Finished 4th in first season. Lost in the final of playoffs to Norwich aet. Hammered Forrest 5-0 in semi though

Currently top after 8 games in 2nd season. Bought Jack Whatmough from Portsmouth great has ball playing CB

Got Aaron Doran RM from Inverness in first season. He just keeps getting better.

Hammered Forrest 5-0 in semi though

It's always nice to give florist a good hiding

No budget? Thats really a problem to me.

cant remember what my budget was, around 5 million or somethin like that. raised around 35m in sales though, and was given about 20 million of that to spend. i must add that i downloaded an unofficial update before i started this game, so not sure if my bank balance was edited or not beforehand, id imagine not though.

Started with Derby just now:

Going ok, Looking to play free flowing possession based counter attacking football.

3 competitive games in, won 3 conceding none.

IN

Stuart Armstrong £1 million (add ons take it to £1.75 million)

Gary Mackay Stevens £700k

Starting now after the update. Excited.

Just sold babacar to Liverpool for 23.5m. Only 3.5m upfront though. Played 45 games and scored 36 goals.

Recently started playing with Derby.

Transfer Window 14/15:

Had a great first season and have to say I was delighted with both my signings. Was beasting for the majority of the season but tailed off and had some very poor results. Was 16 points clear of Wolves at one point. Crazy. Anyhow we got the job done Look how close it ended up:

Transfer Window 15/16:

Kondogbia!! For £2m. What are Monaco on? Never thought I'd get him. Thought a bigger club would be in for him but miraculously no one wanted him at all and he accepted and offer of £45k/pw plus incentives from me. Ecstatic with the deal, especially since the board only gave me £5.5m to spend. Originally had my heart set on signing Daniel Amartey...

So far in my first EPL campaign I've been doing really well. Sitting 12th on the 31st of Jan. 9 points clear of relegation, with 1/2 games in hand over most teams below me. On course to meet all the boards expectations. Expected 4th round in FA Cup, currently in the 5th round vs Swansea. Expected 3rd round in Captial One Cup, got a date with West Ham in the final. Delighted.

PS. Mason Bennett ripping it up for anyone else? 17 in 22 starts (6 sub apps). Labelled the 'next Michael Owen', but I checked and his PA is only 128. Don't understand that at all. Ah well, as long as he keeps banging them in Also, if you're looking a GK, Hrádecký has been immense.

Stevenleharve nice job.

It's possible to share the tactics and TI?

You are using Mason where?

Stevenleharve nice job.

It's possible to share the tactics and TI?

You are using Mason where?

Tactics:

Normally Richards, Keogh and Pieters play not Shotton, Buxton and Warnock. The midfield three usually consists of Kondogbia (BWM-S), Hughes (AP-S) and Hendrick (BBM-S) over what you see above. Just got Alli on loan so got shot of Thorne. He was on £19k/pw, can't be having that

Team Instructions:

I just alternate between, 'Control' and 'Counter' depending who I am playing. I also add 'Get Stuck In' against big 4 level teams.

Here's Bennett's attributes at the moment:

I didn't play him in the first team at all in the first season either. I just put him on a training regime, with focus on the poacher role and put him in the Under 18's. I couldn't afford to buy a ST as back-up for Martin when coming up so I promoted Bennett. Gave him a start in a Capital One Cup game and he scored a hat-trick. Haven't looked back since. Martin can't get a look in.

Hi all, Just got it confirmed that Derby are going to the Premier League. Budget 10 million wages 80k to play with. Hoping this will rise when the TV money comes through as i still have 2 games left to play.

My current team- 41221 or 4321

GK Grant, Roos

RB Christie, Vermijl

CB Keogh, Shotton(permanent transfer), O Brien, Buxton, Barker, Whitbread

LB Garbutt(LOAN want a Permanent transfer), Forsyth

CM Hughes, Bryson, Hendrick, Coqeulin, Mascerall (LOAN), Thorne

RW Russel,Ibe (LOAN)

LW Grealish(LOAN), Eagles

ST Martin ,Keane (LOAN), Regen (Huge potential)

Confirmed in's:

Ryan Shotton 1m (If this can be cancelled i may consider it.)

Michael Keane 1.1m

Luka Jovic 600k JAN TRANSFER

Gary Mackay Steven FREE

E Goldaniga FREE

N Leali FREE

H Tariq (With a work permit back from his loan.)

F Sorenson FREE

Being released is Barker(would like to keep to tutor players but needs to drop wages massively or coach.), Whitbread some youth players.

Willing to sell Buxton, O Brien, Roos & Eagles one or 2 of Christie, Vermijl, Forsyth depending on replacements to help raise some funds determined to keep Hughes as he is the heartbeat of my team!

What I am looking for

LW Starter-

RW Starter- Andrija Zivkovic (Pricey)

RB Starter-Micah Richards (FREE TRANSFER), Peter Ankersen, Kierian Trippier

LB Starter-(hoping for Garbutt but some backup options would be good.), E Insua

I will be looking to loan a couple of players if possible in but got to the right player & a decent price!

Will have a look through the relegated teams once its being decided at the moment it could be any of Southampton, Villa, Burnley, Sunderland, Palace, Swansea- Tottenham & West Ham could get dragged in potentially but highly unlikely.

Any help from you would be greatly appreciated!

Up the Rams!

Being completely shafted by the board minimum expectation of mid table finish with a 350k p/w wage budget and 1.8 m in transfers! Potentially going to have to sell some players to raise funds but i have only got 20% of transfer revenue available so probably won't do!

Bloody typical. Bennett had 17 in 22 starts (6 sub apps) then as if by fate, immediately after my praise, goes on a drought. Ended the season 19 goals. That said, a great start. Sad though as it cost me some serious form. Ended up finish 14th, got knocked out in the Quarter Final of the FA Cup against Man Utd and beat by a relegation battling West Ham 3-0 in the Capital One Cup Final.

That said, not a bad first season in the EPL by any means at all.

Transfer Window 16/17:

Got £20m to spend. Really want Abdul Baba for LB position but Masuaku will have to do. Baba wasn't interested and Augsburg asked for £64m, pfft!! Had a £5.5m bid accepted for Lucas Romero, and he accepted my contract offer of £71k/pw. Then PSG came in...

HAHA, how do you compete with that! Anyway, I wanted a marquee signing so thought **** it, RVP should be good for a season or two. Had to pay £2.9m in a signing on fee though. Boke. Also didn't realise Centurion needed a WP when I completed the deal, so off to Hoffenheim he goes. Signed Coman on loan, and extended the loans of McGeady and Alli for another season as well

Thanks for the suggestions but could not get any of them.

Ended up signing-

LB Insua 2.5m, Garbutt LOAN would like to get on a permanent deal but no future fee in the loan. 16.25k a month

RB P Ankersen 2.5m (Low release clause for champions league teams.)

RW J Campbell LOAN 50% of wages, A Zivkovic 3.8

CB Regen (3.5* gold 4.5* black) 575k

Sold-

C Eagles 5.75

K Freeman FREE (50% next transfer)

M O'Brien 1

J Buxton 1.3

M Vermijl 1.5

Need to get the board to raise up my transfer revenue available percentage from 20% in the winter I am going to sell Forsyth, one of russell or martin depending on offer/who performs better during the season with Jovic coming in Jan won't need the cover. Shotton 15k p/w will also be sold as i have plenty of centre back cover with Keogh, Sorenson, Goldangia, Keane and my regen who i want to start blooding early into first team football. Grant could also potentially go if a decent offer comes in for him and cheap replacement can be found.

Coqeulin has being promised a new deal in the summer as well as Swansea came sniffing around him.

@NavyWolf87 its so rubbish how tight they are isn't it. I was realistically hoping for battle bravely against relegation. I think the loan debt they have as a club somewhat restricts the budget as 156k a month comes out but that ends in 30/06/2017 so hoping that can be money spent on the squad. Halliovic would be decent does he play out on the wing? I have no wiggle room in the budget what so ever left 4k p/w on wages 180k in transfer budget. Got a pretty decent set of staff in though which is good & managed to get them to expand the stadium, improve the training facilities so not all bad but was hhoping for some money to play with.

How my squad looks now-

GK- Leali, Grant

RB- Ankerson, Christie

CB- Keogh, Sorenson, Shotton, Goldaniga, Keogh, Regen.

LB- Garbutt, Insua (JAN), Forsyth

CM- Hughes, Hendrick, Coqeulin, Bryson, Thorne

LW- Tariq, Mackay Steven

RW- Zivkovic, Campbell

ST- Martin, Russell, Jovic(JAN), Bennett.

@NavyWolf87 Interesting i play one up top Martin got 20+ last season but one game would hit 3 then the next would be 2 or 3 games after. I'm hoping Jovic can come in and hit the ground running as he develops really well according to reports on various forums. Just finished my last pre season game against AFC Mansfield walked it 5-0 first league game in 2 days @ Old Trafford, Liverpool (H), Everton (A), West Brom (A), Villa (H). Literally cacking my pants as this "mid table finish" is slightly worrying to me!

4-1 loss @ Old trafford with Bryson injured returning in 4 days, Hendrick 6 days and now Hughes out for 2 and a half weeks my premier league start hasn't gone to well! Makes my formation somewhat difficult to play with as I play 41221 or 4321

@NavyWolf maxed my domestic loans with Campbell and Garbutt trying to get de guzman (ex swansea player) just going to have him incase of emergencies as i have not being overly impressed with thorne keeps giving the ball away far to easily with passing options available!

Just managed to squeeze out some more wage budget from the board on deadline day De Guzman deal feel through not enough funds & tried to someone from Palermo now to spend this money wisely! They raised my wage limit from 320k p/w to 520k p/w shifted the budget to 394k p/w which gives me around 6 million to play with. Right well deadline day passed but i do now have 75% of transfer revenue available to me which gives me loads more wiggle room. Deadline day anti climaxed i had a bid accepted for Balanta would of had to of loaned him back to River for 4 months as he was injured and wouldn't of passed the medical but his agent had locked in his fee and way way over what i could offer. So im going to risk it in Janurary and try and shift Shotton and Keogh as they are both on high wages and sign him as he will be be epic for me. Did also try to get Roberto Pereyra but wanted 60k and bonuses that were astronomical & also Cleverly similair situation. This is turning into a very interesting save if i can keep my job till Christmas then we should be ok as we get loads of depth in Jan! Fingers crossed.

Balanta signed at the end of the season in England it was the only way I was 100% certain I could guarantee he would come to Derby it would of being a risk me leaving it till Janurary in the hope of signing him and a big club came in for him they would of blown me out of the water. Keogh will be now sold in the summer but Shotton is gone in Janurary

Just sold Bennett to Chelsea for 22m upfront, in 3rd season.

Just sold Bennett to Chelsea for 22m upfront, in 3rd season.

Can you post a screenshot of him? I'm just curious to see how he developed for you as I'm also in the third season.

Wow impressive currently on loan for me at Bradford second season.

Can you post a screenshot of him? I'm just curious to see how he developed for you as I'm also in the third season.

Sure, will when get home from work.

Yeah for me Bennett was a promising youngster in 3rd/4th seasons he had scored goals in league one while on loan. He must need a manager who believes in him and gives him game time.

Good work 20+mill upfront he must of banged the goals in for you?

He was great! Was on loan at Bradford for 6 months at the start, but from the first jan I played him as a complete foward. Can't remember his goals that season. But my second season in the championship he scored 30+ goal and assisted about 15.

So continuing on from where I last left off, I had a poor run in the cups. Met Man City away twice in both the Capital One Cup Third Round and FA Cup Fourth Round. Put to the sword on both occasions. Pretty gutting to get such tough draws right off the bat like that. All that was left was to secure as high a finish as possible from that point on.

We were middling in at around 10th/11th up until January. RVP, Martin and Bennett may as well have been fighting in Iraq for all I care. Luckily I was able to get RVP shipped out to Spartak Moscow and get his £100k/pw (including app bonuses etc) off the books. That left me some room to manoeuvre. I decided I needed a ST to come in and score some bloody goals. Bony was listed for £4.6m and at 27 had to be worth a punt. I also needed a first team replacement for Keogh as he was declining rapidly. Ginter was listed for £1.9m so couldn't pass that up. Ginter hit the ground running while Bony was a bit hit or miss as he hadn't played much football at all for Man City.

We battled well at the end of the season getting a few important wins in the last stretch of the season against Arsenal, Liverpool and an in-form Newcastle(3rd at the time) to finish 9th.

All in all was quite happy to be nowhere near the relegation mix this time around and set up a nice platform for the future. At the end of the season board gave me £39m to spend and announced a stadium expansion Perfect time for a major overhaul I thought.

Transfer Window 17/18:

I had a deal all but wrapped up for Silvan Widmer so I let Richards go for a pretty nice £12m. Unfortunately Spurs came in and offered him £140k/pw. Not to worry, Flanagan wanted out at Burnley and I got him cheaply. Wanted more money for Hughes but the little **** wouldn't sign a contract extension and with a year left to run I thought £20m was pretty damn good. Never really performed that well. 6.90/7.00's. Besides, I extended Alli and Coman's loan deals and Thiago accepted my contract offer of £120k/pw so I thought screw it. Amankwaa was the one who I didn't really want to sell, but despite having his best season he'd reached his potential and an offer of £15m up front with £12m in add-ons over 12 months I couldn't refuse. This gave me a monstrous budget to work with and I went all out. Zouma and Traore were both expensive but I'm hoping they can propel me to that next level.

Enjoying this save!

Got a Rams save going.

First season finished top of the Championship with a record haul of 109 points. Also did amazingly in the cups, semis of the Capital One losing to Liverpool. Incredibly got to the final of the FA Cup, losing to fellow Champ club Watford (they also went up, finishing 2nd).

Signed two players before the season got underway, GK Richard O'Donnell for back up duties and M/AM LC Anthony Wordsworth as a back up midfielder.

In January I picked up Spanish DM/MC Osmar on a free to improve my DM position, he's turned out to be great.

Tom Ince was phenomenal providing goals and assists (18 & 18). Chris Martin hit 30 goals and was in double figures for assists. Ward was also excellent in rotation with Lingard. Jeff Hendricks surprised me, forcing Bryson to the bench.

Moving into the PL I got Ince & Lingard on permanent deals (£11m & £5m). Picked up Ciro Immobile for a bargain £3m. Also added Patrick van Aangolt for £3m, Mike van de Hoorn for £700k and Nicola Leali for free.

This is how my team lines up for the PL season:

GK/D: Leali/Grant

DR(FB/S): Christie/Shotton

DCR (CB/D): Albentosa/van de Hoorn

DCL (CB/D): Keogh/Buxton

DL (WB/A) : van Aanholt/Forsyth

DM (HB) : Osmar/Thorne

MCR (AP/A) : Hughes/Onomah (loan)

MCL (B2B) : Hendricks/Bryson

AMR (W/A) : Lingard/Ward

AML (IF/S) : Ince/ Russell

ST (CF/S) : Immobile/Martin/Bennett

Keeping Hughes is gonna be hard. Big clubs are sniffing around and he's looking to move.

Loving this save.

Finished my 1st season in the PL in 7th place. Got to the semis of the FA Cup again, took a beating from Liverpool but still happy to get that far.

Tom Ince & Will Hughes were the standout players, both making their England debuts & going to the Euros. Ince topped our scoring charts with 22 while Hughes was chief assister with 12 despite spending 6 weeks out injured. Lingard was also excellent. Immobile took a while to settle but finished the season strong. Albentosa & Keogh were excellent at the back, both being selected in the PFA team of the year. They were ably flanked by Christie & van Aanholt. Nicola Leali had a good season in goal.

We've qualified for the UEFA Cup but I face a battle to keep Ince, Hughes, Lingard, Immobile & van Aanholt.

Let's see how much money the board give me to spend.

edgar . Is this because of the connection with your wife?

edgar . Is this because of the connection with your wife?

Yeah. Sorry. Plus I've been to see them a few times with my father in law and Will Hughes is really special.

Hey,

I'm at Febuary in the 1st season and having trouble to get out of the Insecure Finances. Having the same problems?

Already have the wage controled (spending 1,5 of 2,0) and bought some players but still have money... Any investment was made and I would like to keep Hughes...

Any suggestion? (sell Hughes?)