dafuge's FM16 challenge

Hypanimz · December 20, 2015

Salford City - Premier League - 2030/31

Not a great season. I struggled with tactical consistancy as I tried to change things to play in a more expansive style and it back fired pretty badly. We didnt start very well and were in the bottom half for the first half of the season before a little revival midway through and we moved up into 6th position. After this I still kept changing things and we drpped massively and ended up finishing in 14th position. This was a real step backwards. I'm going to have a good think about tactics and styles and hopefully come up with an idea to stick with for next season. I also need to improve the centre backs.

League Table

Past Positions

Cups - Reached the semi final of the League Cup and lost in R5 of the FA Cup to Chelsea.

Squad - Spent £83m on new players but also sold £70m worth of players. Including my star winger and central midfielder. Kearns and Froilan were great new additions though.

Finances - Went backwards this season but still have £52m in the bank.

Key Player Profiles:

Adrian Diaz - The wonderkid is getting better and better. Hopefully we dont lose him.

Froilan - European Golden Boy winner. Signed for £14.75m which is a steal.

Michale Kearns - New winger who replaced Marchesini.

Next Season

Regain top half place

Dont mess about with tactics!

Career Overview

Season          League                      League Finish     Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17         Vanarama North              3rd               Lost playoff final  
2017/18         Vanarama North              1st               Champions
2018/19         Vanarama National           1st               Champions 
2019/20         League 2                    8th
2020/21         League 2                    8th
2021/22         League 2                    1st               Champions
2022/23         League 1                    1st               Champions
2023/24         Championship                11th
2024/25         Championship                13th
2025/26         Championship                20th              Survival on final day
2026/27         Championship                2nd               Promoted
2027/28         Premier League              15th              Survival
2028/29         Premier League              8th
2029/30         Premier League              9th
2030/31         Premier League              14th

IainWhite · December 20, 2015

This should be it for Met Police.
http://www.filedropper.com/metpolicebuxton

Any chance you still have this save? downloads been removed wanna try a new save wit Met police?

Motlhen · December 20, 2015

Sorry mate, I was so happy I got them at last that I cracked straight on without making a separate save file! Which also means I'm screwed if I get sacked or relegated from VCS!

No worries mate. Will be good to see you're progress anyway. -I might try one of the custom databases to get them.

hedger_14 · December 22, 2015

Ilkeston - Vanarama National League North – Season 2016/17

It was a season that seemed pretty comfortable until the last couple weeks. We seemed to have the title in the bag, with two comeback wins in succession to extend a late season unbeaten run to 7 games, with only one defeat in our last 17 games prior to this. With this, a 5 point lead over a resurgent Solihull Moors with 3 games in hand seemed like the trophy was all but ours. We held a 2-0 lead home to Lowestoft, which would leave just a point to seal the title, but we conceded twice in the last 6 minutes to throw away the win. Alfreton who had inflicted our biggest defeat of this season at our home ground when we went down 4-1 did the double over us with a 3-1 victory, where we looked completely out of shape while we lost our star player James Jenkins to injury early on, while Solihull Moors won both games to make their late season run even better than ours, with 1 defeat in their last 19 games, with 11 wins. With that, we were level on points going into the final matchday, with us holding a superior goal difference (+3), meaning we just had to equal Solihull Moors final day's performance.

Without James Jenkins, we were severely affected. Still with our away form, and playing a poor Tamworth side, it should have been a pretty comfortable victory. We went down early but managed to pull back level right after half time. We were desperate to find another goal as Solihull Moors had taken an early lead but as they threw away that lead and conceded twice in the space of 10 minutes, the pressure to find another goal wasn't as much and we managed to hold on for a draw to take out the league title, and win promotion to the National League.

Overall though, the season went pretty well. We struggled for consistency early on as I tweaked our tactics around but for the most part we were challenging a playoff spot for even the first half of the season. Our away form was very pleasing, only conceding 19 goals in 21 games (with 4 of those coming in our last 3 away games, and another 2 coming when I had a striker keeping after our goalie got injured in the 5th minute of the game - really need to pick up another keeper). Our attack struggled at times but our defence really took the pressure off them (6 league games we didn't score but only conceded 2 goals in those games). I'm pretty pleased with our tactical approach for the most part. Getting lots of low early crosses in seems to be working pretty well to capitalise on the poor positioning of the players at this level while our team's aerial presence is pretty ordinary.

Players wise, it was a pretty consistent all round performance. Resigning Jenkins was so important to us and very relieving after he didn't think our club could match his ambitions before securing the title. His 15 goals, 8 MoM performances and an average rating of 7.55 led the way to a number of crucial victories throughout the season. Conor Shaughnessy was excellent in the central midfield, with only 2 assists but an average rating of 7.53 in 28 matches, but he doesn't want to resign for the club unfortunately leaving a gap in the midfield. Up front, we had Harry Crawford, who didn't score many late in the season, but his 20 league goals were vital in helping us to the title. Louie Theophanous was the only forward signing I made, who added 13 goals in the 32 matches he played and will continue to fight Crawford for a spot up top, although I think adding another poacher up front will be necessary for next season. Adam Mekki led the way in assists with 17 and will stick around for another season at least.

I'm not sure what to expect next season, but I'm hoping that I can contend for a playoff spot come end of the season, or at very least a top half finish. Bringing in a better goalkeeper is my main objective in the transfer market. Sean McGinty will join us in the off-season to bolster our defence, but I think another defender and winger is necessary while another centre mid to replace Shaughnessy will be needed.

League Table:

Transfers:

Statistics:

Career Overview:

Season          League                      League Finish     Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17         Vanarama North              1st               Champions

michaeltmurrayuk · December 22, 2015

Skelmersdale – League 2 2019/20 – Season 4

(Well this season didn't take long to get through - a lack of cup replays sped things up a fair bit).

So after winning promotion to the Football League last season we were given no hope of staying in it, the bookies gave us the worst odds in the league by a long shot, with the Media also Predicting we'd finish rock bottom.

Reputation - Continues to rise as we hit 1.5 stars and actually have a better reputation than York.

Transfers - Not that much activity as our finances limited who I could bring in, our wage buget was only increased by £2K p/w to £8K p/w which was mainly eaten up by pay rises due to promotion, I also had the problem of agents wanting ~£10K each which had to come out of my transfer budget of zero, so the priority was to sign first teamers and again rely on the loan market for some squad depth - whilst League 2 also doesn't limit how many loan players you can sign it does limit you to using five in a match squad. Saleswise I let a couple of midfielders go including Dobie who's wage demands were more than he was worth, I also loaned out nearly all of last years defence.

League Cup - Not a great debut as we were easily beaten by Championship side Hull, though with it being the second game of the season I did field a weakened side, not that anyone bothered to turn up to watch the match and we only made £4K from the match

Paint Trophy - Another cup debut and another defeat as another weakened side (well as much as the rules would allow, you know the competition is in trouble if they have to make a rule to tell you to field a strong side) lost to fellow League 2 side Blackpool, however in that match we actually created more chances and scored more goals than we had in the rest of our games so far this season.

FA Cup - We started in the First Round Proper this year and just about beat National League side Sutton United with a couple of second half goals as my Striker De Girolamo ended a 15th hour goal drought. In the Second Round we entertained League One Rotherham and in a game of poor finishing we scored the only goal just before half-time when Paulinho volleyed home a corner.

In the Third Round we were drawn at home to Championship side Wigan and with the match on TV thanks to some fine defending and poor finishing on Wigans part we somehow snatched another 1-0 win with Striker Adams scoring pretty much from the second half kickoff as we catch Wigan sleeping.

For our Fourth Round debut we'd face the trip across Lancashire to face another Championship side Burnley, unfortantley that is where our adventure ended as Burnley proved too strong for us as they opened us up time and again and our inability to take our chances when they came cost us, though it did earn us another £100K but still waiting for the big money from a Premier League tie

League Two - Fine debut season as we finished right in the middle of the league, and despite a poor start we were never in any real danger of relegation, whilst fellow promoted side Northampton somehow survived despite looking like they were gone from most of the season and they were at one point one goal from going down on the last day as we again played them on the last day and this time played out a 0-0 draw, whilst York took the lead against Barnet before losing to two late goals that sent Barnet up and York down.

The season didn't start well as we lost our first two games with barely a shot at goal let alone any goals, before beating Accrington 1-0 but then lost our next two then beat Burton and lost the next two games after conceeding injury time goals in both matches.

With my attempts to make us a bit more attacking failing, I switched back to my Structured Counter-Attacking 4-1-4-1 formation with a couple of tweaks and with my new players bedding in we won the next three lifting us up the table but then failed to win any of our next six games drawing half and losting the other half and then won three of the next six taking us into the New Year and with seven wins and three draws from our next 11 games saw us climb the table and get within one point of the playoffs and with a game in-hand, however we then lost four of the next five games which saw us drop away but did in the meantime secure our place in the league with seven games to go, and with no desire to gain back-to-back promotions I gave some squad players a chance to win new contracts in our remaining games winning three including a 5-1 win over Blackpool where we came from behind to get some revenge for the Paint Trophy defeat.

Whilst we somehow had the third best Away Record in the league, shame we had the sixth worst home record.

Stat Pack - Our matches were pretty much determined by who scored first, though that is possibly because most of our matches ended 1-0 to either side.

Squad, Awards, Overview and Review

Dean Lyness continued in Goal and had a solid enough season though he is no longer rated by my staff, whilst at the end of the season I gave Oliver Byrne a run out where he did okay, but it might be time to find a new Keeper next season.

At Right Back I brought in American Marlon Fossey who'd been released by Fulham and he had a solid season. At Left Back I had a bit of competition starting the season was Chris Hussey who did ok but spent a third of his time on the Left Wing, replacing him was Welshman Cole Dasilva who'd been released by Chelsea but didn't do that great and eventually moved over to RB to cover the injured Fossey where he performed much better, but would have lost his place to new signing Cameron Borthwick-Jackson who was eventually snapped up after being released by Man Utd but had a slow start as he had to get his match fitness back I've also got to decide whether to use him as a Centre Back or a Left Back as he is equal good at either role.

At Centre Back Jeff Henderson had a solid season though he did disappear in a few games, partnering him was Irishman Kevin Toner (Villa via Leyton Orient) who did ok but also disappeared in a few games, which means I'll be on the lookout for a better option next season, providing cover was one of my loanees Craig Harvey who despite being highly rated by my staff struggled to perform but did improve as the season went on.

My Defensive Midfielder was another loanee Owen Phillips who had a good season doing the rather thankless job of protecting my defence, covering him was Spanaird Sergio Molina who did ok but hasn't really improved and doesn't look like he'll be a long term option.

In the Centre of Midfield was Portuguese Box-to-Box Midfielder Paulinho who had a good season and with Dobie gone was the fans player of the year though I wouldn't have minded him overing a bit more of a goal threat (though I could say that of my entire team), partnering him in the Support Role was Foday Nabay who proved to be a fine addition, providing cover was Botswanian Brandon Wilson who did well when called upon but I'm not sure he is going to be good enough long term, the other option I had was Jack Payne who was a solid squad player.

On the Right Wing were a couple of loanees Andy Perry who had the speed to cause problems when given space to work and Andy Devine who was reloaned from last season and whilst he didn't have Perry's pace he was better on the ball and it was basicaly a case of trying to pick the right one to field for a match.

On the Left Wing was yet another loanee Kevin Wilkinson who had a productive time down the left, providing cover was NIrishman Gary Blackledge who arrived in Jan after being released by Cliftonville and made a good start, though with him being right footed I might shift him over to the Right Wing next season.

Upfront Italian Diego De Girolamo had a disappointing season as he couldn't recreate last seasons form and is in danger of slipping down the pecking order next season, as Brandon Adams hit the ground running after joining midway through the season after being released by QPR and added a much needed goal threat to my side before an injury in March ended his season and 53% of the games he played in we won compared to only 37% for Diego and he also outscored in him with less than half as many starts and had a goal ratio of 0.85 to Diegos .20. I also snatched up a highly rated NIrishman Michael Kennedy who'd been released by Drogheda and I have a new 5star rated Striker on the way to put further pressue on Diego.

Also despite our goal scoring problems we actually won Goal of the Month twice this season with even getting two nominations in one match albeit against relegated York.

Best XI - Horribly broken this season, Phillips was my DM, with Paulinho, Payne and Nabay all playing in the CM spots, though I'd agree with the other options.

Overall XI - It's working now and see's two changes De Girolamo is named upfront with Hussey named on the Left Wing. From the other players only Lyness, Henderson and Wilson are still at the club.

Salary - Despite nearly doubling our salary we still had the lowest in the league and by quite a bit aswell.

Average Attendance - A solid showing as we increase our average to 845 (21%) which is nearly double last seasons average, though it still leaves us with the worst attendance by far and we even set a new league record low attendance and broke the record several times throughout the season, the fact that the old record was roughly our average attendance shows how low we were. Though of course our attendances we somewhat skewered by the fact that at the start of the season we used Fylde's ground and only got 580 people turning up but when we moved back to our ground we were averaging 1,000 though that would have still left us rock bottom.

One wierd thing I noticed when we moved back to our expanded ground is that each of the stands appear to be seated when only a quarter of our ground should be seated? And at the end of the season the board announced plans to further expand our ground to bring it up to league requirements which means we'll use Hilton Part next season which I think was Leigh's old ground though according to wikipedia it was knocked down back in 2009 and is now just wasteland so I wonder if we'll get more fans watching our games there?

Facilities - Our Youth Facilities increase from Basic to Poor and we get our Youth Level increased to four, so we are now ranked and will hopefully get some decent youth prospects through in the near future, though I haven't had any option to increase our Youth Recruitment yet.

Finances - Not that great as we lost money this season, the main problem being Non-Football and Other costs that both cost an extra £100K each this season, with one doubling in cost and the other tripling. Though these figures don't count the Solidarity Payment that was worth over £500K though the board did spend all that on more Youth Improvements, after they had rejected my request for our training facilities to be improved.

Profile - Finally got my first coaching badge :cool: and managed my 200th game a 2-2 draw against Forest Green. Attributes wise my Mental coaching leaped up four points, with Attacking, Tactical and Knowledge increasing by 2. Tactics wise my Mentality drops from Balanced to Cautious and my Coaching style changes from Attacking to Mental.

Plans for Next Season

After a solid debut in the Football League we'll hopefully make a push for promotion next season, though I'll take not getting relegated.

The board have doubled my wage budget to £20K p/w (which is the FFP limit) so hopefully I'll be able to sign some quality players, the initial plan is to try and reloan the loanees I used this season and then try and add some quality - I've got a new Striker on the way, I'm tracking a Winger who will hopefully lower his demands rather than retire, other than that a quality Centre-Back and Full-Back and possibly a new Keeper would be nice.

State of The World

Premier League - Chelsea collect their second title ahead of City, Arsenal and Spurs make up the top four with Utd fifth and Watford 6th. At the bottom Bournemouth finally go down taking Blackburn and Sunderland with them.

Manager wise there were only three changes Bournemouth and Blackburn both fired their managers and Liverpool replaced Bielsa with Ancelotti, meanning Spurs and Chelsea have still not fired their managers.

In the Championship Charlton regain promotion to the Prem joining West Ham and Swansea, at the bottom Barnsley, Preston and Ipswich all go down.

Whilst Bolton hit rock bottom finishing bottom of the National League after going into Admin, and in the National North Macclesfield are relegated out of the playable leagues, will Bolton follow them next season?

FA Cup - Man City retain the trophy beating Blackburn.

League Cup - Derby win it for the first time with victory over Watford

Champions League - Paris beat Spurs on pens in the Final, after Spurs beat Barelona on pens, Arsenal went out in the Quarter Finals along with two of the three remaining German sides, as Leverkusen made the semi-final. City and Chelsea both went out in the First Knockout Round.

Europa League - Schalke end the English domination beating Utd in the Final which will give the Germans five Champions League sides next season.

France - No surprise as Paris make it eight in a row (five in game), the Cup is won by Saint-Etienne and the League Cup is won by Reims, which means fifth placed Nice miss out on Europe. At the bottom Nantes, Nancy and Lens all go down.

Germany - Leverkusen somehow retain the title with Bayern third, with Dortmund winning the cup.

Italy - Same as last season as Juventus claim the title, with Napoli struggling to 6th behind Sassuolo and miss out on Europe with Lazio beating them in the cup final.

Holland - Feyenoord claim the title over Twente with Heerenveen third and the silly playoff system sees 5th placed Ajax miss out on Europe to 6th placed AZ. With Twente winning the cup.

Scotland - Another title for Celtic with Rangers second, Celtic also make a clean sweep winning both of the cups.

Spain - Barcelona retain the title and do what Madrid couldn't and break the 100pts barrier with Real settling for second place, with Atletico beating Real in the Cup Final.

Euro2020 - Was won by Germany in extra-time over Belgium, with England being knocked out in the Second Round. Scotland went home without a point whilst Italy also failed to make it out of the Group Stages, with the rest of the Home Nations not even making the tournment.

Leaderboard points (FM Mode) (My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)

(points / position)

Single Game: 557,121 (119,792)

Single Season: 483,959 (112,182)

Single Season in England: 483,959 (59,035)

Single Season League 2: 46,701 (6,296)

Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)

Single Season National North: 17,771 (804)

Career Overview

[TABLE=class: cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_MsoTableLi cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ghtShading cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_m, align: center]

[TR]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Season[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]League[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Position[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Achievements (Domestic)[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Achievements

(Europe)[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Leaderboard Points

(Season / Game)

[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Euro C/E

(Place)

[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Average Attendance

(League)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]16/17[/TD]

[TD]National North[/TD]

[TD]16th[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]8,690 / 8,690[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]320 (10%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]17/18[/TD]

[TD]National North[/TD]

[TD]3rd[/TD]

[TD]Promoted - Playoff Winners[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]17,771 / 26,461[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]350 (11%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]18/19[/TD]

[TD]National League[/TD]

[TD]4th[/TD]

[TD]Promoted - Playoffs. FA Trophy Winners[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]483,959 / 510,420[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]460 (15%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]19/20[/TD]

[TD]League 2[/TD]

[TD]12th[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]46,701 / 557,121[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]845 (21%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Thebaker · December 22, 2015

Thats a solid season there michaelmurrayuk. I'm surprised you managed to sign Borthwick-Jackson, he must have a high potential.

I haven't managed to persuade the board to make any improvements yet to the facilities.

I hope you have more than 500 watching you at hilton park. I spent 11 months playing in Cambridge (just 17 miles away)this season and my attendance dropped by 600, it cost me £250K i calculated!

Mind you i reached the playoffs and faced peterborough (25 miles away), but only took 100 fans to the away match to such a important match, clearly they are a local bunch in St Neots.

michaeltmurrayuk · December 22, 2015

Thats a solid season there michaelmurrayuk. I'm surprised you managed to sign Borthwick-Jackson, he must have a high potential.
I haven't managed to persuade the board to make any improvements yet to the facilities.

I hope you have more than 500 watching you at hilton park. I spent 11 months playing in Cambridge (just 17 miles away)this season and my attendance dropped by 600, it cost me £250K i calculated!

Mind you i reached the playoffs and faced peterborough (25 miles away), but only took 100 fans to the away match to such a important match, clearly they are a local bunch in St Neots.

He's not as good as I hoped my staff reckon he has Decent League 1 Potential which is the same as my other Defender Toner, but worse than Dasilva who my staff reckon has Championship Potential.

I also finally got my board to increase our Youth Recruitment :cool: though they still won't improve our actual training facilities.

Hilton Park is about the same distance away (18 miles) but is half the distance to Fyldes ground (well depending on which direction my fans live in) so hopefully we'll have less of a drop.

And I wish I had 100 away fans, we only took 20 to the FA Trophy Semi-Final against FC United

The big decision I have to make at the moment is whether to accept an offer of £50K from Crewe for my Centre-Back Henderson and I'm not even sure why they want him as they are in the Championship and he is only just good enough for League 2 and £50K isn't going to make that much of a difference to me, however it does seem a little silly to reject it considering if we do go up I'd be releasing him on a free at the end of the season.

Dons · December 22, 2015

Grays Athletic

Season Summary 25-26

Premier League

Final Position 5th

Squad - Table - Graph - Finances - Transfers - Profile - Injuries - Season Review - Board Review - Commercial Summary - End of Season Awards

The League:

We did really well this season. We were never challenging for metal, but at the same time, we were never close to the relegation zone. Last game of the season, was in my opinion the worst game of the ones we could loose. PLaying against Newcastlle, that were in 23rd position, we had a chance to secure 5th place. But in a game, where most players apparently had gone on vacation, we lost 2-1. Luckily, Everton also lost and thus our final position was 5th. Man Utd won the league, with their first major title in 7 years. During the season, we were really blessed with not having many or long injuries, which made it possible to focus around a "key setup", also changing tactics a little and using the previously used 4-1-4-1 counter against the more challenging teams and sticking to the more conservative 4-2-4 during the rest of the games proved successful.

The Cups:

In the FA Cup, we did what board expected, by getting to the 5th round. We beat Leicester 1-0 in the 3rd round. The 4th round had us play Chelsea at home, and in a 6 goal game, we drew 3-3. The return game, we suprisingly pulled off a 4-2 win, before loosing to Liverpool 4-3 at Anfield in the 5th round.

Capital One Cup: With a few great performances, we lifted the trophy for the second time in Grays history! Entered in the 2nd round and beat Wigan 3-0 at home. Drew Man City in the 2nd round. Had seen us exit here, but we pulled off a great 2-1 win away. 3rd round we drew hardfighting minnows Preston and won 4-1 at home. In the Qtr Final, unlucky Chelsea saw us eliminating for the second time, when we won 3-2 at home. Fearing to play Tottenham in 2 games in the Semi, we drew Stoke instead. Having a really great record vs Stoke, I had a lot of confidence it would be an easy walkover, but I was mistaken. At home we only won 1-0 and a we underperformed away and were lucky to get 1-1. In the Final at Wembley, we nailed it and beat Tottenham 4-2.

The Players:

Have chosen to only sign cheap players so far, as I want the finances looking pretty in black, to minimize the risk of not geting a new stadium. The keeper is doing a great job, so not seeing a reason to use money here. The defenders are young, and sometimes making costly mistakes, but overall doing a solid job and definitely worth building on. In midfield I have a luxury problem of whom to choose. The wingers do what they are supposed to. One of the attackers is amazing and the rest are sufficient. Should I choose to spend money in any department it would be an experienced defender and another great striker.

Michel Dupuis GK - Isn't really progressing anymore, but has some great games and is really good on penalties. 11 clean sheets this season.

Moussa Kone DC - Signed for us in 2023, but didn't get a work permit until this season. He looks really promising.

Arno Schuermans DC - Bought for 3.8 mill from Club Brugge. 17 years old and can play at highest level. Amazing talent!!

Peter Jarvis WBR - Yet another Man Utd reject, bought for a mere 1.2 mill. Played amazingly as WBR after the first 10'ish games.

George Rabiu AML - Bought for 1.1mill from Zamalek, due to a release clause. Crazy stats. Didn't play as well as I had hoped his stats would let him, but have huge expectations for him. 32 games 11 goals and 4 assists. Rabiu also won European Golden Boy.

Andrew Cunningham MC - Good solid season, on this years list, due to breaking into national team.

Jaime Larrondo MC - Bought for 4.5 mill from Universidad Catálica. Having luxury problem with him and Cunningham. He has all the right stats.

Adnan Januzaj AMR/L Played for Man Utd from 2010-25 before being released and signing for us. 31 games 8 goals and 7 assists.

Erik Lamela AMR - Signed for 1.4mill from Zenit. I just had to have him. In my opinion, the best AMR in the game. 14 games, 1 goal and 7 assists.

Eirik Mjelde SC - Signed from Juventus for 7 mill. Amazing first season with 29 goals, 7 assists in 39 games.

The Club:

Things are starting to look better. We are finally getting that new stadium! It was in the planning, so a total of 3 years to get it. Board has also made consecutive improvements to facilities, and we have adequate facilities atm, with improvements coming. The finances are only in the black due to TV money, as our ****** 4170 current capacity really isn't making any impact. Board also put faith in their manager, but letting me take the coaching course to the highest level.

In other news:

I am a sucker for well known players, and Grays can proudly present this guy as new U18 assistant manager. In other news, Tottenham is the richest club in the world. Had a player use social media to complain (well played SI games) atleast he accepted his fine!

Season	League	Pos	Europe		FA Cup		Cap One	FAT/JPT
16-17	VNS	1st	None		3d Qua		None	Final
17-18	VN	11th	None		2nd Rnd		None	FAT Winners
18-19	VN	1st	None		2nd Rnd		None	2nd Rnd
19-20	L2	1st	None		5th Rnd		2nd Rnd	Runner Up
20-21	L1	8th	None		4th Rnd		2nd Rnd	Semi-Final
21-22	L1	1st	None		Semi		2nd Rnd	JPT Winner
22-23	CH	3rd	None		4th Rnd		4th Rnd	
23-24	CH	1st 	None		5th Rnd		Winner	
24-25	PRM	8th	None		4th Rnd		4th Rnd	
25-26	PRM 	5th	None		5th Rnd		Winner

michaeltmurrayuk · December 22, 2015

Well there goes the League Cup for anothere year as someone decided it would be fun to have us play on Monday after playing in the league on Saturday, on the plus side we got £10K for the game being on TV which was more money than we got last year.

We also got 1,300 people turning up for our first home game of the season which is a new record high for a normal league game, whilst Henderson turned down Crewe taking that decision out of my hands.

Mayzie · December 23, 2015

Has anyone had much luck with Ilkeston a few seasons in? How long does it take for them to get Professional status so that I'm not losing my youngsters for nothing?

I won the play offs in first season, FC United absolutely stormed the league. Now in Conference National & FC United are storming it again, while again I'm in the play off spots.

I reloaded multiple times to get myself a side fairly local to where I live (Ilkeston or Matlock) & now I'm regretting not taking on a side with a higher reputation. It's difficult to attract any players, my attendances are poor and the Chairman just flat out refuses anything I ask for on the basis that this is the highest level of football the club has ever been so he's quite happy with everything as it is! He wont even get me a senior affiliate to loan players or to bring in a bit of extra cash.

After promotion though, he's decided to build a new stadium presumably to meet league requirements as we only fill about a quarter of our current one. That has put the club in a crap situation financially (£1m loan debt) despite a nice little cup run and my great financial managment last season which saw us with a healthy £250k in the bank. The loan debt has only served as another excuse for him not to improve any facilities, which is annoying because I feel like I'm starting to build a team of good young players who aren't going to get better without the facilities in place to do so.

Now I'm in a situation where I've maxed my wages out and with the loan debt I'm in for a financially crippling season. The only thing that will save me is promotion to the Football League and something ridiculous like a draw at Old Trafford in the FA Cup.

Thebaker · December 23, 2015

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ8VQGsOTJdeYARodgcF8qd4L5fqy1CMwmDEvmUmo-_3gGelm6m-Q

Table | Squad | Transfers

Started the season well and spent a lot of the early part in the playoffs. A lot of postponements meant the team was always trying to play catch-up, at one point the team had 4 games in hand.

Goals were a problem all season although the defence has improved from last year. An inability to beat teams at the bottom meant that the automatic places were always just out of reach.

A late run of wins against the other playoff contenders put the team into 7th place with a game to go. A draw away to Oldham was enough to secure a playoff spot.

The team played Peterborough, drawing 1-1 at home in spite of being the better team. The team then nicked a 2-0 win away.

In the final the team completely dominated against Bradford winning 3-0.

There was very little cup success, the team lost 0-1 at home in ET against championship Luton. They went out in the 2nd Rd of the JPT losing 1-3 at home to L1 Leyton Orient.

In the FA Cup it needed a replay to get past Northern Premier Ilkeston. They then lost 1-3 away to L2 strugglers Blackpool.

Due to expanding Rowley park, I spent 11 months playing in Cambridge (just 17 miles away) this season and my attendance dropped by 600, it cost me £250K i calculated :eek:

Finances went down this year only kept in the black by playing in the playoff final.

The board announced that i can now scout the world.

There were few transfers in, mostly just backups. Gee was a first teamer and made a huge difference in defence. Erngaard came in mar and improved the midfield which was depleted by injury.

At the start of the season the midfield looked strong and so i let Robinson (227 apps, 14 goals)go. I also sold Larsson, the first player for a sum. He was my highest earner and had contibuted very little.

The defence was much better this year with Gee and Piroli in central defence. LB was more of a problem as i discarded Pezzi, Roland did ok when fit. My 4th choice LB played 4 games because of injuries.

RB duties were split between Walford and Osei-Tutu.

All the midfielders were in good form although Bunjaki missed 5 months through injury which nearly disrupted the 2nd half of the season until Erngaard came in.

The wingers were poor at the start of the season but really picked up by the end scoring most of my goals.

Saraiva was still a prescence even though injuries are more frequent, my coaches still think i should get rid of him :lol:

Youth product Rose is shaping up to be a good replacement.

Johnstone was very hit and miss all season but was pretty much my only striker.

Season            League             Position       FA cup     FA Trophy/ JPT   League cup    Europe       Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2016/17        Conference North        3rd       3rd Qf Rd    3rd Qf Rd       N/A          N/A          None
2017/18        Conference North        10th      3rd Qf Rd    3rd Qf Rd       N/A          N/A          None
2018/19        Conference North        10th      3rd Qf Rd    1st Rd          N/A          N/A          None
2019/20        Conference North        2nd       1st Rd       3rd Rd          N/A          N/A          Promoted
2020/21        Conference National     7th       4th Qf Rd    2nd Rd          N/A          N/A          None
2021/22        Conference National     4th       1st Rd       1st Rd          N/A          N/A          Promoted
2022/23        League2                 12th      1st Rd       1st Rd          1st Rd       N/A          None
2023/24        League2                 15th      2nd Rd       Qtr-Final       2nd Rd       N/A          None
2024/25        League2                 7th       2nd Rd       2nd Rd          1st Rd       N/A          Promoted

Thebaker · December 23, 2015

My scouts have seen a good young CB, seems he is being tracked by Porto, Benfica and Barcelona. Definitely one to keep an eye one, his wage demands are just out of my reach.

michaeltmurrayuk · December 23, 2015

Has anyone had much luck with Ilkeston a few seasons in? How long does it take for them to get Professional status so that I'm not losing my youngsters for nothing?

You generally only turn pro on gaining promotion to the Football League.

Table | Squad | Transfers

Congrats on the Promotion

Being able to scout the World seems a bit of a leap for a League One side, in previous years I've normally had to wait until reaching the Prem to be able to scout the World, though with it being all but impossible to secure Work Permits in the Football League it'll be a bit of a two edged sword as your scouts would spend time scouting people you couldn't sign.

Thebaker · December 23, 2015

Congrats on the Promotion

Being able to scout the World seems a bit of a leap for a League One side, in previous years I've normally had to wait until reaching the Prem to be able to scout the World, though with it being all but impossible to secure Work Permits in the Football League it'll be a bit of a two edged sword as your scouts would spend time scouting people you couldn't sign.

I took the opportunity to scout some countries u21's found a senegalese CB with a italian nationality. Has prem potential according to my coaches after i signed him so its not completely wasted. Most i can't sign, i also only have 6 scouts anyway

FloydRix · December 24, 2015

Four back to back promotions in a row, very happy. We played Forest in the Carling Cup and lost 3-0 so not sure how confident I feel about another promotion run. Didn't get much money to spend this year, and finances are doing really poorly (1.5m loss this season) so getting to the PL as fast as possible is still the main goal.

Our non league striker is banging in 20+ goals a season, looks to be the new Vardy!

 Season    League                       Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17   Vanarama Conference North    19th
2017/18   Vanarama Conference North    5th     Promoted through play-offs
2018/19   Vanarama National League     1st
2019/20   League 2                     1st     Fa Cup 3rd round
2020/21   League 1                     1st    JPT Qtr Final

el sid · December 24, 2015

2020/2021 - End of Season Review - Sky Bet League 2

Did well in the league, had a strong first half of the season but the playoff positions slowly drifted away and we settled in to finish 10th. Not bad for a team predicted 24th though. Had two regen strikers scoring quite a few goals (both ended with more than 20 in all competitions) so our shambolic defending didn't cost us too much. Unfortunately, one of the aforementioned strikers is leaving the club as he doesn't want to renew his contract so I've got to find someone to replace 25 goals which isn't going to be easy. Not really sure what to do defensively, we keep conceding the same kind of goals and nothing I do seems to be helping (corners, crosses, rebounds). We concede about 60% of our goals from the wings, don't think the patch has really helped

Hopefully get better defensively next season and maintain the goals. The club have also announced that they are going to expand the stadium by 2000 seats which is going to take the best part of 1 year, so I'm going to be ground sharing with Tranmere till April of the next season. Due to taking a loan to expand the stadium (which I didn't ask for since we don't fill the stadium anyway), the board have cancelled the training facilities improvements (which I had asked for) :mad:

League Table - Graph

Competitions Overview - Did pretty well to reach the finals of the FA trophy, negligible involvement in the others

Transfers - ft. an incoming transfer fee! :eek:

Finances - Was in the red most of the season, only reason we finished in the positive is the money from the league. I'm well under the wage budget, it's just that our sponsorship income is utterly awful.

Key Players

Gareth Hammett - Captain and second top scorer.

Josh Lloyd - Top scorer. Unfortunately he doesn't want to renew his contract

Jack Dunn - Backup ST/LM/CAM. Very good utility player

Jake Gallagher - Very good BBM for this level.

Liam Wakefield - Suffered a bit through injuries this season, but we seem to be better defensively when he plays so hoping he stays injury free next year.

Youth Players

Rob Godfrey - Finally a prospect! Pretty sure he's cheated his birth records somehow, no way is he 15

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Season     | League             | Position   | Cup Performance    | Achievements    |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2016/17    | Vanarama North     | 4th        | Awful              | Promotion!      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2017/18    | Vanarama National  | 20th       | Awful              | Survival!       |          
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2018/19    | Vanarama National  | 5th        | Awful              | Promotion!      |  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2019/20    | League 2           | 20th       | FA Cup 3rd rnd!    | Survival!       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2020/21    | League 2           | 10th       | FA Trophy runnerup | Stability       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nolte · December 24, 2015

Here we go! THIS IS SPARTAAAA!

G_D_K · December 24, 2015

Sutton Coldfield

Season 3 (2018/19)

Table / Position Graph / Squad/ Finances / Transfers / Manager/ Facilities / Annual Injury Report / Confidenc e / Competitions / Reputation

In season 3, my Sutton Coldfield Royals finally got to playing consistent football throughout the entire season. All aspects of the team worked to near perfection, and we took an early run up the table into the playoffs and basically parked the bus...seldom dipping out of the top 5 spots, and always challenging for the title. In the end, we fell short on goal difference, though a 7-1 goal scoring run in the final two put us close, AFC Telford remained just out of reach.

Offensively, last seasons' top goal scorer for the team, Liam Sayers, continued his goal scoring run, and, thanks to a good run in the playoffs, ended up as the leagues top goal scorer (29 league goals, 36 total goals). Unfortunately, his feat did not even earn him a look in the Player of the Year award race. Still, it was another great season for him. His striker partner, Ricketts-Hopkinson, also had another good season, with 16 (15 league) goals of his own.

Defensively, we were the best team in the league. Goalkeeper Russel managed a league high 21 clean sheets, and our 35 goals allowed on the season were tops. Centre-back Askins (40 matches, 6.97AvR) was his usual solid self, and he captained a back four that changed frequently, with full back Hatch (31 appearances, 3 goals, 14 assists, 7.24AvR) being the most stable position. I had 4 solid DCs to rotate in the second position, while 2 left-backs also rotated in throughout the season. Of course, young DM Garcia (49 matches, 6.99AvR) was also solid and ever-present, not missing a game again all season.

We did enough to secure playoffs --- rattling of the final 12 matches w/o a loss, and, from January, only suffered 3 losses for a strong second-half showing. Finally, consistency throughout the year. It helped that we managed to stay relatively healthy throughout the year, with only 2 or 3 medium-length injuries (4-5 weeks) amongst all starters.

PROMOTION/PLAYOFFS

Pretty short and sweet. A 3-0 away win at Tamworth allowed us to go to the home tie feeling good...and perhaps just a little too good, as we only managed 5 shots total in a 1-0 loss. Still, 3-1 aggregate scoreline put us through to our first ever VNN final! Sayers put himself in a position with his goal in the first match to cement his top goal-scorer on the year --- but he still had to see off the challenge of Harrogate's Issac Layne, who was tied with Sayers on goals scored.

The final was rather anti-climactic, as 1100 spectators (400 FEWER than our semi-final home leg!) showed up to watch our smothering defense keep Harrogate scoreless. Midfielder Clarke scored his first ever goal for Sutton Coldfield in the 69th minute, and Sayers cemented the win, and his top goal scorer award with a 73rd minute strike.

We'd done it! In spite of our preseason predictions (150-1 against winning the title, and predicted 20th place), we were through to the Vanarama National division!

Cup Competitions

No progress to speak of in the cups. Our best match was an FAC3QR replay vs FC United, where Sayers scored 2 goals (the second in the 72d minute to tie the match and send us into extra time). We conceded early in extra time, however, but Ricketts-Hopkinson scored a 118th minute equalizer to keep our hopes alive and send us to a penalty shootout. Unfortunately, despite saving the second penalty, we missed on both our 5th and 6th shots to lose the match and crash out a round earlier than our previous season.

The FAT wasn't any better, with a first match loss to Chester (Sayers and Ricketts-Hopkinson each picking up a goal in a 4-2 loss). No biggie -- I was more concered about maintaining form in the league by that point anyways!

Additional Details

Team of the Season

Best XI Inductees -- 2 new players have been inducted, Midfielder Reece and DC Josef Yarney (30 appearances in 1 season 6.79 AvR)

Historical Best XI

Fans Player of the Season: Beginning to wonder about this edition's FPoY calculations. Once again, Sayers didn't even crack the voting. Instead, it was MC George Dowling (2 goals, 4 assists, 7.3AvR) who won the award w/ 37%, followed by fullback Hatch (28%) and finally Ricketts-Hopkinson (22%). How the heck did Sayers not even get a mention here???

Signing of the Season: George Dowling (MC) (free)

Young Player of the Season: George Dowling (MC)

Other awards: As mentioned previously, Liam Sayers won the league's top goal scorer award. And, finally, Manager of the Year (my first!)

Top Academy Graduate

S1: Fullback Dave Clarke -- Potential to be useful in the lower leagues...perhaps he'll backup current starting fullback Hatch next season

S2: Matthew Rogers (AMC) -- looks to be a decent playmaking option already...I may have to adopt a tactic that uses an AMC and see if he can develop.

S3: Michael Mitchell (MC) -- good mental and okay physical stats to start -- if he develops he might be useful in the VN division. Time will tell.

[b][i]Team, Individual, and league records [/i][/b]
A host of records were set or broken this year: (* denotes ongoing record-bold indicates record broke current season)
[b][i]Sutton Coldfield-- Team[/i][/b]
Highest League Position -- 2nd in Vanarama North (2015/16)
[b]Highest Attendance -- 1561 (vs Altrincham, VNN playoff semi final, 11 May 2019)[/b] (previous record: 802  vs FC United, FAC2QR, 27 Sept 2017)
[b]Highest Gate Receipts -- £23.66k (vs Altrincham, VNN Playoff semi final, 11 May 2019)[/b] (previous record: £13.67K vs FC United, FAC2QR, 27 Sept 2017)
[b]Average Attendance -- 358 (2018/19)[/b] (previous high: 252--2017/18 )
Biggest Win -- 5-2 (vs FC United, 31 Dec 2016)
[b]Biggest Defeat 4-2 (vs Chester, 1 Dec 2018)[/b]
Highest Scoring Game -- 4-3 (vs North Ferriby, 20 Aug 2016)
[b]Most Games won in a Row -- 5 (20 Apr - 8 May 2019)[/b] (previous high -- 4:  28 Oct - 25 Nov 2017)
[b]Most Games without Losing -- 13 (23 Feb - 8 May 2019)[/b] (Previous high--8:  28 Oct - 23 Dec 2017 )
Most Games without Winning -- 7, (23 Aug - 20 Sept 2016)  (Previous high: )
[b]Most games without conceding -- 4 (11 - 25 Sept 2018[/b]) (Previous high -- 2:  9-13 Aug 2016 )
[b][i]Sutton Coldfield -- Individual[/i][/b]
[b]Top Goalscorer -- Liam Sayers --36 (2018/19)[/b] (previous record: Liam Sayers -- 21 (2017/18)) 
[b]Top League Goalscorer -- Liam Sayers -- 29 (2018/19)[/b] (previous record: Liam Sayers -- 19 (2017/18)
Most Goals in a match -- Aaron Knight -- 3 (20 Aug 2016 v North Ferriby) (Previous record: )
[b]Most Assists -- Jamie Hatch -- 17 (2018/19)[/b] (previous record: Jamie Hatch -- 12 (2017/18) )
[b]Highest AvR --Ben Drennan -- 7.31 (35 app) (2018/19)[/b] (previous record: Ben Drenna -- 7.20 (40 app) 2017/18)
[b]Most Player of Match awards -- Liam Sayers -- 11 (2018/19)[/b] (previous record: Liam Sayers -- 7 (2017/18)
[b]Most League goals for club -- Nathan Ricketts-Hopkinson -- 46*[/b]
[b]Most League Appearances for club -- Nathan Ricketts-Hopkinson (138*)[/b]
[b]Youngest player -- Jack Cooper (Striker), 16y227d[/b] (previous record: Dave Clarke (D(RLC)), 16y264d )
Oldest player -- Phil Trainer (DM), 35y272d (previous record: )
Youngest Goalscorer -- Dave Clarke (D(RLC)), 16y271d (previous record: Liam Sayers (Striker) 18y296d)
Oldest Goalscorer -- Anthony McNamee (AML), 32y213d (previous record: )
[b]Fastest Goal -- Nathan Ricketts-Hopkinson: 35s[/b]  (previous record: Nathan Ricketts-Hopkinson (38s)

Promoted from the Regional Premier Division Teams:

Dorchester, Solihull Moors, Kingstonian, Aldershot, Rushall, Ilkeston

League Winners (relegated)

EPL Chelsea (Crystal Palace, Reading, West Ham)

Championship Wolves (Rotherham, Portsmouth, Bury)

League One Wigan (Burton, Carlisle, Leyton Orient, Colchester)

League Two Chesterfield (Morecambe, Doncaster)

Vanarama National Lg Woking (Lewes, Boreham Wood, Southport, Eastbourne Boro)

Vanarama North AFC Telford (Cambridge City, Nuneaton, Kidderminster)

Vanarama South Margate (Sutton Utd, Concord Rangers, Welling)

Cup Winners

English FA Cup Tottenham (v Liverpool)

Capital One Cup Chelsea (vs Liverpool) -- Repeat win for Chelsea

Jonhstone's Paint Trophy Chesterfield (vs Wycombe)

English FA Trophy Grimsby (vs Woking)

Euro Qualifcation

Champions League Group Stage: ChelseaMan City, Chelsea, Arsenal

Champions League Best Placed Playoff: Tottenham

Euro Cup Group Stage: Man United, Liverpool

Euro Cup Playoff:

Euro Cup 3rd QR: Newcastle

Euro Cup 1st QR: Stoke

Continental Achievements

Chelsea -- Eliminated from Champions League First Knockout Round (by As Monaco)

Liverpool -- Eliminated from Champions Leauge First Knockout Round (by FC Barcelona)

Everton -- Eliminated from Euro Cup Second Knockout round (by BMG)

Man Utd -- Eliminated from Euro Cup Quarter Final (By KRC Genk)

Tottenham -- Eliminated from Euro Cup Quarter Final (by Leverkusen)

Man City -- Won Champions League (against Arsenal)

Arsenal -- Eliminated from Champions League Final (vs Man City)

Extra detail: none

What's Next?

Despite our success in the previous season, I know I've got to strenghten the squad in order to survive the next year (every single player in my first team are now playing at N/S ability -- not a single one has a CA higher!) I've got a few players w/ L2+ potential -- (actually, I have 9 with VN potential, 2 w/ L2 potential, and 1 w/ L1 potential...as well as 3 who can "improve significantly)...but they're not there yet, and developing slowly due to substandard training facilities. I'll be looking to solidify the defence first and foremost --- what was a solid defense in the VN North, will likely struggle in the next division. Once the defence is solid, I'll look at the rest of the team. As with last year, I think that we're still fairly sound offensively, with at least 3 solid strikers to choose from. I also have a youngster from the last academy class that I might trot out and see if he's worth keeping long-term (15 finishing, but poor starting physical skills).

Hopefully the increase in stature will bump our rep enough (it did improve -- only 4 teams below the N/S divisions now out-rep me!) to attract some decent coaching staff...and with a bump from £5300 to £8000/wk in salary, I'll hopefully be able to convince the board to let me hire an extra coach or two as well. That might be tough...they've already decided against expanding the stadium to meet VN division requirements in this first year.

Career Overview

Season             Team             League           Position(Predicted)        Achievements
2016/17    Sutton Coldfield    Vanarama North        16(19)                  Survived!        
2017/18    Sutton Coldfield    Vanarama North        10(20)                  Solid-mid table finish
2018/19    Sutton Coldfield    Vanarama North         2(20)                  Promotion via Playoffs!, VNN Overachiever

Hypanimz · December 26, 2015

Salford City - Premier League - 2031/32

Another season completed and it was another season of inconsistency. We drew far too many matches we should have won. We actually drew 8 of our final 10 league games. If we had picked up some more point there we could have challenged for the European places. Instead we have to settle for 10th position and try to improve the squad and push onwards and upwards for next season.

League Table

Past Positions

Cups - Nothing interesting this season.

Squad - £20m Net spend as Froilan was sold to Schalke for £30m. The bulk of my spending was on a new defensive midfielder for £16m and a £26.5m centre back who was desperately needed, however I probably overspent on him. I need to improve the centre midfield and try to keep hold of my best players for a change.

Finances - Not making nearly as much money as we used to. £25m in the bank. Need to crack Europe soon.

Key Player Profiles:

Adrian Diaz - Top rated player! Now 23 and attracting attention from Liverpool. May be unable to hold onto him.

James Lutumba-Pitah - Bought last season for £10m. Hopefully can score more goals next season.

Yakubu Sambo - He is starting to shine now. Arsenal have been chasing him for a while but I need to keep hold of him.

Next Season

Challenge for Europe

Win a trophy

Career Overview

Season          League                      League Finish     Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17         Vanarama North              3rd               Lost playoff final  
2017/18         Vanarama North              1st               Champions
2018/19         Vanarama National           1st               Champions 
2019/20         League 2                    8th
2020/21         League 2                    8th
2021/22         League 2                    1st               Champions
2022/23         League 1                    1st               Champions
2023/24         Championship                11th
2024/25         Championship                13th
2025/26         Championship                20th              Survival on final day
2026/27         Championship                2nd               Promoted
2027/28         Premier League              15th              Survival
2028/29         Premier League              8th
2029/30         Premier League              9th
2030/31         Premier League              14th
2031/32         Premier League              10th

kingjericho · December 26, 2015

Taking over at Salford, with chairman... Peter Lim? Today I learned something.

IainWhite · December 27, 2015

After a failed attempt at the youth challenge iv decided to go again with a new team in this challenge!

Introducing the new Dulwich Hamlet Manager

My Profile

My Information

breum · December 27, 2015

Taking over as the Skelmersdale Manager:

Announcement

Profile

Information

Haven't done this challenge since like FM10. Should be a fun ride. I plan on using a 4-3-3 formation with 3 strikers and 3 CM's. We'll see how it goes. Last time I tried, a few years ago, I got stuck around League 1 because all my players wanted more money than I could offer, and so did anyone else I wanted to sign. Hopefully I don't hit that wall again.

FloydRix · December 27, 2015

And we are in the Premier League! With the new TV deal money is no longer a problem so looking for an overhaul of the current squad. We got off to an extremely good start in the Championship, only a few points behind 8 games won in a row Southampton who were at the top. Struggled mid season as our squad wasn't exactly good (Predicted 24th) but managed to put a good run at the end of the season.

We had the chance to finish in the top 2, but Watford scored a 91st minute equaliser against us to secure them in 1st place. Then last game of the season we were against Southampton, a win would of put us above them into 2nd but we weren't good enough. Playoffs went quite as expected, we had Sunderland in the first tie, we had beaten them in both games in the season so we got an away goal, and managed to keep them out in the home leg. Ipswich was much the same, we were the better team, disappointed it had to go penalties but I can't complain!

Next objective is to stay up and start building a title winning squad but that will take quite a few years atleast.

  Season    League                       Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17   Vanarama Conference North    19th
2017/18   Vanarama Conference North    5th     Promoted through play-offs
2018/19   Vanarama National League     1st
2019/20   League 2                     1st     Fa Cup 3rd round
2020/21   League 1                     1st    JPT Qtr Final
2021/22   Championship                 3rd    80 points, Promoted through play-offs

SuperDan! · December 27, 2015

Bit late to the challenge, but say hello to the new manager of Dulwich Hamlet!

Hypanimz · December 28, 2015

Salford City - Premier League - 2032/33

This was our best Premier League season yet. We didn't start all that well and we were in the bottom half around the mid way point before we changed tactics following a 6-0 defeat by Chelsea. After this we went unbeaten in the league for 15 matches before losing 4 on the bounce to the top 4 teams. We finished the season off beating Derby 3-0 to leapfrog them in the league and finish in 7th place. We had to wait for the FA Cup final but with Man City winning that we made it into the Euro Cup.

League Table

Past Positions

Cups - Nothing interesting this season. Again!

Squad - Yet again the bigger teams came looking at my top players and I had to let Diaz join Liverpool for £38m. I also sold Sinclair and Henry for £17m and £18m respectively. I replaced these players very well and for less money whilst also increasing my home grown quota. I now need to improve strength in depth as we had a injury crisis and really struggled at points last season.

Finances - £21.9m in the bank. Not bad after expanding the stadium again and upgrading both training and youth facilities.

Key Player Profiles:

Michael Kearns - Bought 3 seasons ago for £18.5m. Man City are chasing him so is this the next of my star players to be stolen?

James Lutumba-Pitah - Injury hit season but 18 league goals in 22 league games is brilliant.

Yakubu Sambo - Club captain is getting better and better. More of the same next season!

Next Season

Challenge for Europe

Win a trophy

Career Overview

Season          League                      League Finish     Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17         Vanarama North              3rd               Lost playoff final  
2017/18         Vanarama North              1st               Champions
2018/19         Vanarama National           1st               Champions 
2019/20         League 2                    8th
2020/21         League 2                    8th
2021/22         League 2                    1st               Champions
2022/23         League 1                    1st               Champions
2023/24         Championship                11th
2024/25         Championship                13th
2025/26         Championship                20th              Survival on final day
2026/27         Championship                2nd               Promoted
2027/28         Premier League              15th              Survival
2028/29         Premier League              8th
2029/30         Premier League              9th
2030/31         Premier League              14th
2031/32         Premier League              10th
2032/33         Premier League              7th               Qual for Euro Cup

hedger_14 · December 28, 2015

Ilkeston - Vanorama National League - 2017/18 Season

Was frustrating when my computer died while saving forcing me to play the playoff semi finals again, which I had won in extra time the first time around. I drew the first leg in the end but we made the most of our chances to win 2-0 at home and play Cheltenham in the Playoff final. We played well against a tough opposition and a stoppage time goal from a free kick ensured a 2-0 win to win promotion to the Football League.

Overall though, I was very pleased to achieve promotion, after really looking out of sorts for the first part of the season. I think at one point we had 18 points from 15 games, in 21st place but we pulled back with a great run through the middle part of the season as I got my tactics in order again, with an unbeaten 16 game streak and finishing the season with 6 consecutive wins to go from challenging a playoff spot to taking 2nd place, although the season was really closely fought with only a point or two separating 2nd-7th place for those last 8 or so matches. Our defence still remains a little leaky at times, despite a couple new additions, and an inability to take all 3 points from matches needs to be addressed as we drew 17 games all season, and in the end could have really made a title challenge if he hadn't thrown away a number of leads. Still we rarely played from behind in matches only stealing a few points after trailing so that's not too bad.

Our finances were helped by a great cup run in which we got to the 3rd round after an emphatic victory over struggling League 1 team Yeovil before drawing away to Chelsea which gave us some massive gate receipts, but our finances are still pretty bad with the loan for a new stadium, but at least our financial status has risen to Okay rather than Insecure.

James Jenkins unbelievable season took the league by storm as he won the Player of the Year award despite his 2 and a half star rating. Whether it's just the role he's playing or our coaches just don't see his true quality, 18 goals and 19 assists with 15 PoM awards and an average rating above 8 speaks for itself.

Career Summary:

Season          League                      League Finish     Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17         Vanarama North              1st               Champions
2017/18         Vanorama National           2nd               Promoted via Playoffs

Harryseaess · December 31, 2015

Salford City - Vanarama National League - 2018/19 - 12th

Season Review

A good season, the aim was survival and we achieved that comfortably. As the past positions show, we were never in any real danger of being relegated. I have a bit of a problem coming up now where a few key players are refusing to sign new contracts, so next season should be interesting.

League Table

Past Positions

Finances - Finances were steady throughout the season, still reaping the rewards from the FA Cup game v Man Utd last season.

FA Cup - Nothing special here, knocked out in the first round.

FA Trophy - Knocked out in the 3rd round, would have liked a slightly better run.

Squad - The squad did okay but improvements are required in the summer. Some of the key players were:

Tendai Matinyadze - Signed in the summer and ended up being my key man, 8 goals and 5 assists from central midfield. One problem, he is currently refusing to even talk to me about a new contract, really hope I can get him to stay.

Jordan Parkes - Another summer signing and a very good player, even if he didn't show it fully this season. I'm expecting big things next season.

James Poole - My top scorer with 16 in 46(1), not really good enough and I'd like to get in a new striker this summer.

Transfers - Still not spent anything. I've had a few players come through the academy that are currently being used in the first team, they probably won't hang around for long but they're doing an okay job at the moment.

Career Overview

[TABLE=class: grid, width: 1000]

[TR]

[TD=align: center]Season[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Team[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Country[/TD]

[TD=align: center]League[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Position[/TD]

[TD=align: center]European[/TD]

[TD=align: center]FA Cup[/TD]

[TD=align: center]League Cup[/TD]

[TD=align: center]FA Trophy[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Achievements[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD=align: center]2016/17[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Salford City[/TD]

[TD=align: center]England[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Vanarama National League North[/TD]

[TD=align: center]8th[/TD]

[TD=align: center]N/A[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3rd Qual Round[/TD]

[TD=align: center]N/A[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3rd Round[/TD]

[TD=align: center][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD=align: center]2017/18[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Salford City[/TD]

[TD=align: center]England[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Vanarama National League North[/TD]

[TD=align: center]1st[/TD]

[TD=align: center]N/A[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3rd Round[/TD]

[TD=align: center]N/A[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3rd Qual Round[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Promotion[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD=align: center]2018/19[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Salford City[/TD]

[TD=align: center]England[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Vanarama National League[/TD]

[TD=align: center]12th[/TD]

[TD=align: center]N/A[/TD]

[TD=align: center]1st Round[/TD]

[TD=align: center]N/A[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3rd Round[/TD]

[TD=align: center][/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Next Season

Replace key players expected to leave

Challenge for playoffs

Challenge for the FA Trophy

Hypanimz · January 1, 2016

Salford City - Premier League - 2033/34

After making the European places last season I was looking forward to really pushing on this season however it didn't work out that way at all. The season started badly as in the transfer window we lost 3 of our key players from last season and brought in a combined £110m in player sales as the big teams pounced again. I brought in plenty of new very talented young players but it took them a long time to gel and with our European commitments we were struggling for the first half of the season even sitting int he relegation zone. I had a tactical rethink and started to play a possession based game and we managed to pull away from the bottom of the table and finish in a respectable 11th place. We also made the final of the FA Cup but lost on penalties to Arsenal.

League Table

Past Positions

Cups - We reached the final of the FA Cup but lost 3-1 on penalties to Arsenal. We also made it out of our group in the Euro Cup and got into the 2nd knockout round after getting through our first knockout round only to face Aston Villa who we just couldn't match and lost 5-1 on aggregate.

Squad - Another massive overhaul of players. £110m of players left with £88m of players joining. The pick of these are the young Belgium midfielders in Lenaerts and Dewulf who at only 19 years old could go on to become world class. We lost Tayfun Celik for a new club record sale of £46.5m to Bayern Munich. Last seasons top scorer James Lutumbah-Pitah struggled with injuries all season so I will look to sell him as he is very injury prone. Unfortunately some of my star players are again attracting attention from the big boys with Renzo and David Masson the main targets. Unfortunately we may lose both of these players if i receive record transfer bids.

Finances - £25.9m in the bank. Keep on doing up the facilities and stadium. Up to 21,660 seats now.

Key Player Profiles:

Michael Kearns - Kept hold of him last season and he had a great season. 26 assists! Brilliant!

Bas Dewulf - I think £14m is a steal for this guy. Hopefully can keep for years to come.

Renzo - The big boys are circling. Has a min fee of £69m. If he goes it will have to be close to this amount!

Next Season

Get back into Europe

Win a trophy

Career Overview

Season          League                      League Finish     Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17         Vanarama North              3rd               Lost playoff final  
2017/18         Vanarama North              1st               Champions
2018/19         Vanarama National           1st               Champions 
2019/20         League 2                    8th
2020/21         League 2                    8th
2021/22         League 2                    1st               Champions
2022/23         League 1                    1st               Champions
2023/24         Championship                11th
2024/25         Championship                13th
2025/26         Championship                20th              Survival on final day
2026/27         Championship                2nd               Promoted
2027/28         Premier League              15th              Survival
2028/29         Premier League              8th
2029/30         Premier League              9th
2030/31         Premier League              14th
2031/32         Premier League              10th
2032/33         Premier League              7th               Qual for Euro Cup
2033/34         Premier League              11th              FA Cup runner up

footballfan08 · January 1, 2016

I'm a fan of Downton Abbey so I couldn't pass up Grantham Town FC, nicknamed the Gingerbreads. Age is off by 6 years haha, forgot that part, but we all lie about our age

http://imgur.com/UnZE48c

jwl · January 2, 2016

Nantwich Town

National League North - 2016/2017

Hi! This is turning out to be a lot more fun than I imagined, so I thought I'd join in with the thread as well. Here's my terrible profile.

Hailing from a town near Chester, and playing on a permanently waterlogged pitch in a stadium that doesn't meet the FA's requirements (who apparently aren't that bothered because they expect us to go down again next season), my boys gave a frighteningly good account of themselves, taking and defending the top spot for most of the year.

National League North

We absolutely smashed it! Played the majority of the season with a fairly simple 4-1-2-3 DM Wide formation, and a couple of good signings to seal the deal. I don't know if being a part-time team has an effect on rest and recovery? I very rarely had to rotate people for being unfit. The lowest injury rate I've ever seen in FM too.

FA Cup & FA Trophy

We got really lucky with the draw, getting to the third round easily before drawing League 2 winners Portsmouth... who lost 0-1 to some hilariously negative football on my terrible home pitch. Then we drew Championship 2nd place Hull in the fourth round and were crushed 6-0. Oops. (Seriously fans, stop getting so upset about this! What did you expect??)

The boys also brought our first piece of silverware home in the shape of the FA Trophy. All in all (+TV revenue) we netted nearly £800k this year. Not bad!

Transfers & Players

I don't think I've played FM with anything lower than a League One side before, but I was genuinely surprised at some of the first team's stats when I joined and particularly how good some of their mental stats were.

Several new faces came in. Joe Walker has done a fantastic job as keeper, and will be sticking around for next year at least. Alex Brown was a great midfield workhorse but more importantly personality tutor, Louis Swain killed it with 18 goals this season, and if I can hold on to him then Roman Hickey may end up seeing L2/L1 football at some stage.

I've shifted my squad personality from whatever terrible thing it was originally to professional, fired the 'very ambitious' idiot who was upsetting everyone, and have three professional/resolute senior players doing the rounds on the youngsters.

General training has been drawing complaints due to poor facilities and low staff numbers, although the board did agree to work on the training facilities over the break and for me to pick up my National C licence.

Next up...

I'm either going to see if my current squad is up for working the conference, winning a play off, and then collapsing horribly in League 2, or I could hive off all the dead weight, bring new players in (possibly leaning on my parent club Crewe for this one!), and dramatically upset the balance of things. Let's see what the chairman has in mind regarding the financial situation first...

FloydRix · January 2, 2016

SEASON 2025-26 Barclays Premier League

Winner winner chicken dinner

Treble complete:

What a season it was. Predicted 6th in the League but after Chelsea falling to pieces and Arsenal never contenders, our only battle was with City for the title. Luckily they had to play in the Club World Cup so had too many fixtures in a short space of time and they were never able to recover, even with Sterling getting 46 assists a season :lol:

Out in the Carling Cup against Reading in the fourth round, disappointing as it went down to penalties but it was my 2nd XI so not surprising.

Won the FA Cup pretty comfortably. My 2nd XI beat Man United in the Semi Final so decided to give them a go in the final against Crystal Palace and they got the job done in extra time while being able to rest my players for the important game!

Champions league was certainly interesting, we got an absolutely terrible group, up against Benfica, Real Madrid and Anderlecht. First game was against Real Madrid away, I had only 2 players on the bench (rest of team was injured) and we only narrowly lost 1-0 so was really surprised. Next game was against Benfica at home, must win game but we only scrabble to a 2-2 draw. We comfortably beat Anderlecht home and away, 4-0 in each. Next game was against Real Madrid at home, smashed them 4-0, they were down to 9 men :lol: . Grab a draw against SLB and that sends us through in 2nd place!

Got AC Milan, pretty luckily as there was far stronger teams we could have got, we drew 1-1 at home, extremely disappointing, it was the 85th minute, 2 of our players get sent off and they get a penalty, so for the away game I have to bring in an entire new backline. Luckily this backline did even better as won the away game 2-0 . Next up was Bayern, they had just signed a player for 50m who was a quality player, so if we held him back I think we could of got through. Quite a close game away, finished 2-2 in the end, thought we deserved a better result but 2 away goals is not something to complain about! Managed to get an early goal in the home game and that sent us through.

Next up was City in the semi final. We had an interesting history with City. Only a few seasons ago, we were beat 9-1 at the Etihad. Yes 9-1. Revenge was on the cards, we had got the better of them the last few times we played and it continued. Tight 1-1 draw away, our home record was superb and we manage to sneak a goal and defend superbly.

In the final we were against Man United, not quite sure how they reached the final, disappointed we conceded so late into the game, the 80th minute but in the last few seconds of the game we get a winner! To think we were 1 game away from getting relegated 9 seasons ago, think that was the lift we needed!

  Season    League                       Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17   Vanarama Conference North    19th
2017/18   Vanarama Conference North    5th     Promoted through play-offs
2018/19   Vanarama National League     1st
2019/20   League 2                     1st     Fa Cup 3rd round
2020/21   League 1                     1st    JPT Qtr Final
2021/22   Championship                 3rd    80 points, Promoted through play-offs
2022/23  Premier League                14th     
2023/24  Premier League                6th    EL Qualification
2024/25  Premier League                3rd    Carling Cup Final, EL Semi Final
2025/26  Premier League                1st    PL, FA Cup & CL

Lenzar · January 2, 2016

Dorchester Town - 2018/19 Season Report - Vanarama National League

Season Overview

After last season's failure in the playoffs, I looked to strengthen the squad's weakest areas, whilst keeping the better players in an attempt to keep team chemistry going. The team responded brilliantly, not losing a game until November, before going on another unbeaten run, not losing again in the league until April. These excellent runs led to us winning the title with a few games to spare! Dorset has its Football League club! (No, Bournemouth is in Hampshire.)

As for the cups, we got as far as the FA Cup 2nd round, where we lost to League One Leyton Orient after wins over Grays and Staines. The FA Trophy saw us lose to lower league opposition in the form of Vanarama North team Lincoln, having already beaten Oxford City and Stamford.

Final League Table

Key Players

Carel Kayembe

Came in towards the end of the August window, and was the pick of my rather potent attackers. Came 2nd in the league's scoring charts.

Faiq Bolkiah

Kept on his fine run of assists from last year, but probably not good enough for League Two.

Ben Whiteman

Continued to control the centre of the park for us.

Who Won What

Premier League: Chelsea

FA Cup: Arsenal (v Derby)

La Liga: Barcelona

Copa Del Rey: Atletico (v R. Sociedad)

Bundesliga: Bayern

DFB-Pokal: Bayern (v Freiburg)

Serie A: Napoli

TIM Cup: Napoli (v Juventus)

Ligue 1: PSG

Coupe de France: Troyes (v Stade de Reims)

Eredivisie: FC Gronigen

KNVB Beker: FC Gronigen (v Ajax)

Superligaen: FC Midtjylland

DBU Pokalen: AaB (v Randers FC)

Scottish Premiership: Rangers

Scottish Cup: Hearts (v Hamilton)

Champions League: Barcelona (v PSG)

Europa League: Man Utd (v Lyon)

Best XI (Overall)

Season  Division  Position Avg. Attendance  Leaderboard Points (Pos) Notes
16-17   VNS        2nd       902               7,101 (133,749th)     Promoted via playoffs
17-18   VNL        5th        1,009             38,997 (227,347th)
18-19   VNL        1st         1,066            621,208 (146,517th) Promoted as Champions

Frillanwhatup · January 2, 2016

So after surviving the relegation battle but then getting sacked a month later after a takeover at the club with first Bognor Regis and

later the same story with Blyth Spartans, I've decided to take another chance with this fun challenge playing with Enfield Town F.C.

Enfield_Town_F.C._logo.png

With a very limited squad and resources our main objective for our first season in the Vanarama South we will focus on staying up.

2016/17 Vanarama South

After a very weak start with only 7 points in 13 games we were dead last, the only positive was that we managed to squeese ourselves through

to the third qualifying round in the FA-cup via replays and extra times in both rounds..

After that awful start we managed to get points coming in and after half the season we were mid-table and had played in the FA-cup second round

vs Luton Town (losing 2-0 at home).

However with a dip of form relegation battle was once against on the table, not much more to say from this season other then that we managed to survive

in the end via a 19:th place.

Key players

Elliot Godfrey: A Canadian midfielder brought in after the weak start, did play 28 games with a 7.18 rating scoring 2 goals in the process.

Samir Bihmoutine: Leftback who created 13 goals from his wingback posisiton. (2 goals, 11 assists and 7.08 rating.)

Claudio Vaicu: Our target-man who was involved in almost everything we created it seemed, not the best end-product though. (8 goals and 8 assist 7.03 rating)

Next season we're looking to strengthen the squad and fight for a top-half finish and a push for playoff if we're lucky!

Season  Division  Position (P)     Avg. Attendance(S-Tickets)    FA-Cup        League cup    Fa-Trophy/JPT     (Pos) Notes                                 
16-17   VNS        19th (22)    410 (59)                       2 round                             2 qlf round      Surviving Relegation/2 round Fa-Cup

michaeltmurrayuk · January 3, 2016

Skelmersdale – League 2 2020/21 – Season 5

So after a solid debut in the Football League the board were expecting another mid-table finish, with the bookies actually giving us a chance and the Media Predicting a solid bottom half finish.

Reputation - Massive improvement as we reach two stars and see ourselves in the middle of the field and are now bigger than the likes of Blackpool and Southend.

Transfers - Busy season as with our increased reputation and improved wage budget we were able to attract some quality players as I ended up pretty much replacing my entire first xi which wasn't the plan, also topped the team up with some more loans.

Saleswise I sold two of my defenders for club record £10K each (not sure where Alfreton got that kind of money from in the VNS?).

League Cup - Having knocked us out of the FA Cup last season Burnley returned to knock us out of the League Cup, though being forced to play this game on Monday after just playing on the Saturday didn't help us.

Paint Trophy - Unlucky defeat to League One Fleetwood as they took advantage of some tired legs to score three times in the last 10 minutes to knock us out.

FA Cup - In the First Round we needed a late goal to beat fellow League 2 side Wimbledon. In the Second Round we made the trip back down south to face League 1 Ipswich and we somehow found ourselves 2-0 up within 20 minutes, but we couldn't hold out and Ipswich eventually pulled it back to 2-2 sending the tie to a replay. In the Replay Ipswich took an early lead but that seemed to inspire us as two goals from my Left Winger either side of half-time gave us the victory with the winner being an overhead kick :cool: (not that I noticed at the time).

[video=youtube_share;kpLiSC5irVg]

This then set up a Third Round tie against Arsenal - which for some reason was played in December, as it seems the third round date clashed with the new years fixtures so all the prem ties were moved to the midweek before or after, back to the match and as expected Arsenal dominated the match with their right back Bellerin (who's being paid £200K p/w!!!) tearing us apart all game however their finishing was awful and they needed an own goal to score, but just before half-time we somehow scored with French Midfielder Benaniba losing his marker on a free kick and scored a free header with our first attack of the match and in the second half we had the better chances but just couldn't find an unlikely winner which meant another replay which was more than I could have hoped for. However in the Replay Arsenal actually turned up and we were utterly outclassed though my players giving Bellerin the freedom of London despite my instructions killed the match in the first 10 minutes, we did eventually nulify him by getting my Left Winger to Man Mark him but by then the damage had been done and Sanchez added a third at the start of the second half to finish us off. Annoyingly we didn't even make that much money our small ground saw us earn us £35K from the home tie (we'd also just moved back home which saw our max attendance halved) and only £250K from the trip to London as the game wasn't even on TV

League 2 - It was an interesting season we were solid defensively only conceeding an impressive 35 goals (which would be a league record if the game deemed this a recordable stat) however the problems were at the other end as we just couldn't score only managing 46 goals and until the final day of the season when we scored three goals we'd scored the least in the league - it took 16 games for us to both conceed and score 10 goals.

The season started off okay but some awful form from October through to February cost us as during that peroid we only won two games from the 18 we played, though we did only lose four of them the other 12 were draws as we just couldn't score.

In the second half of the season I tweaked my tactics with the better players I had I didn't quite need to the defensive 4-1-4-1 formation so I move my Wingers from the MRL to the AMRL positions and tweaked my Striker and Midfield roles to offer some more support in attack, upped the closing down a notch and then switched over to a more Flexiable Control Mentality to push us forward and it slowly worked as we won six of the next seven games including five in a row and even scored three goals in two matches and put four past sorry Rochdale, though the game then decided to start injuring my players as they started dropping like flies and after getting to a season high of ninth and in touch of the playoffs, we again forgot how to score as we lost the next three games 1-0, however another tweak to my formation improved things as in matches we didn't completely control I switched back to Counter-Attacking but upped the Defensive Line and Closing Down a notch, this meant we stayed a bit deeper so not to get caught out when the other side attack and ensured we'd win the ball back higher up the pitch to cause more damage when we'd rediscovered our scoring boots anyway and a win over Peterborough meant with six games left we could no longer get relegated at least and were only five points from the playoffs and a draw over Mansfield and a later win over Southend got us within three points of the playoffs before a poor defeat to Hartlepool all but ended our playoff hopes as we dropped back down to midtable which was confirmed with draws against Burton and Oxford, though a second string side did finish the season on a high beating Bury 3-2 which was our highest scoring game of the season.

The Playoffs saw a crazy tie between Blackpool and Leyton Orient, Blackpool won the first leg 4-1 but lost the second leg 7-5 in extra time but a 120th minute own goal saw them go through 8-9 on agg, though they did lose the final to Hartlepool on pens.

Stat Pack - We had 10 0-0 draws followed by six 1-0 wins and defeats, though we did somehow manage three 2-2 draws.

Squad, Overview, Review and Awards

It was pretty much all change for my squad this season, in goal I brought in Italian Keeper Ettore Lagomarsini on loan from parent team Walsall, who was an impressive upgrade and was a large part of why we were so good defensively, however with Walsall getting relegated to League One it appears they want him back next season

At Right Back was American Marlon Fossey who had a solid enough season, but after getting injured lost his place to Stewart Archer who was on loan from Wolves and was initialy just a bench player before putting in some excellent performances at Right Back and I really hope Wolves renew his contract so I can reloan him next season. At Left Back was Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and whilst he did better this season didn't really impress and made by far the most mistakes in the team and eventually lost his place to Welshman Cole Dasilva but he didn't impress either and Irishman Kevin Toner ended up finishing the season as my Left Back after some good performances (he averaged 7.09 rating at left back) however he is wanting silly money to sign a new contract so I'll be looking for a new left back next season.

In the Centre of Defence I snapped up Icelander Samuel Friojonsson (Reading via Oldham) to try and add some quality to my defence however he didn't really impress and a couple of injuries cost him his place, which gave Loanee Craig Harvey a chance and he took it with some impressive performances this season and will be back next season, partnering him was his former Fulham teammate Stephen Arthurworrey who is highly rated by my staff but struggled to impress and I'm hoping for a better season from him next year, the other option I had was my Captain Jeff Henderson but he struggled to get in the side and I would have preferred he joined Crewe in the end and in his last game for the club he became our record league appearance holder (Metz is still our record scorer with 25 goals).

In Midfield Owen Phillips was loaned from Millwall yet again and had an excellent season sitting in front of the defence. In the Centre of Midfield was Nick Bacon who'd been snapped up after being released by Leicester and had an excellent season considering he was signed to provide cover but quickly became one of my better players, partnering him was Paulinho who had another solid season but lost his place in the second half of the season after I snapped up Frenchman Abdelhak Benaniba (Creteil via Sheff Utd) who is far too good for this level and whilst he didn't get any goals or assists pulled the strings with Bacon in the middle of the pitch.

On the Right Wing were more new signings first choice was the higly rated DJ Buffonge who I'd chased for nearly two years after he left Man Utd before managing to get him and whilst he started well he struggled to get back in the team in the second half of the season after suffering an injury, providing cover was Scot Paul McMullan (Celtic via Inverness) who showed glimpses of what he could do but neither made the position theirs, the other option I had was loanee Andy Devine who I'd forgotten about until injuries give him a chance and he took it with those four goals coming in his first seven appearances, though after that his performances dropped off.

On the Left Wing were more problems starting the season was NIrishman Gary Blackledge who didn't really impress and after moaning was loaned out, this gave Dave Carter a chance who I'd tracked for a few years but TNS wanted money I didn't have for him so when they released him I snapped him up and did enough for a new contract but not aswell as I hoped, so I eventually brought in Irishman Stephen McLaughlin who offered more but again none of them have really claimed the spot.

Upfront I brought in NIrish International Caolan Lavery to try and add some quality to my Strikeforce and he did okay though I expected more from him, however in the early season he was living on scraps and improved with my tactical change at the end of the season as he was both my top scorer and top assister, providing cover was Brandon Adams who did ok but never looked like dislodging Lavery, whilst Italian Diego De Girolamo had a woeful season as he just isn't good enough for this level I even tried him as a Left Winger but he didn't impress there either.

Best XI - Still abit messed up, mainly due to a lack of players cementing their places, I'd agree with the moving of Phillips and Bacon to fit in both Benaniba and Paulinho.

Salary - We were actually almost competitive this season as the board allowed me to spend ~£22K p/w which is the FFP limit.

Average Attendance - Still pretty bad as we add just under 100 new fans but our capacity drops due to Hilton Park being twice the size of our ground, with the Hilton Park averaging 862 (11%) people whilst our ground averaged 974 (25%), on the plus side Gateshead made our attendances look better though they couldn't reclaim the lowest attendance record from us. Also rather interestingly our biggest attendance of the season was our last game and our second highest was the opening game both getting just over 1,300 fans, not sure if that is an indiction of the fans displeasure about our football this season or a concidence as Blackpool and Bury are likely to be the closest sides to us, and in what is hopefully some good news since the Rochdale game in March our attendances never dipped below 1,000 so hopefully some of them will stick around next season.

Facilities - Our Youth Facilities have been increase to below Average we also got an increase to our Youth Recruitment, though training facilities still haven't been improved. And at the end of the season the board announced another expansion of our ground as they add the remaining standing area to get our ground upto league standard, which should mean the end of expansions for a while and the resulted bank loans aren't a real problem as they are only costing ~£4K p/m.

Finances - Not that great, however they don't include either this or last seasons solidarity payment which is another £500K and we also spent £600K improving our youth facilities last season so when you account for them we should actually be ok next season. Income wise our Gate Receipts increased by nearly £300K and our Season Tickets income increased ~50% to £150K, though Prize and TV Money was down nearly £200K due to the FA Cup. Expenses were mainly taken up by our wage bill doubling to £750K, bonuses also doubled to £164K, though Other expenses were halved to £100K.

Whats rather limiting us is our lack of sponsorship money the league average is £230K but we only earned £18K and that was triple last seasons amount

However one problem I might have next season is my wages are only £200 under the FFP limit and I really hope this hasn't taken account of the players I have set for release because if it does my transfer activity will be limited to loans next season.

Manager Profile - Defending Coaching shoots up four points, though Attacking is still my best area, I also seem to have got a tan sometime during the season but no increase in Reputation.

Plans for Next Season

Again make a try for promotion, though the chances of this depend on whether we remember how to score after the summer or not, the core of my team are League One rated players so I really hope we can push on next season.

Signings wise I first need to free up some of the wage budget with some better wingers and a left back the targets for next season, aswell as a Keeper if Walsall want theirs back.

And come season update time we have been made one of the favourites for promotion, so we are really going to need to find where the goal is.

State of The World

Premier League - Arsenal pip Chelsea to the title, with City and Utd making up the top four, and Liverpool, Spurs and Everton claim the Europa spots, at the bottom Charlton, Villa and Leicester all go down.

Manager wise it was another quiet season the main move was Moyes leaving Everton for Juventus and Arsenal appointing Allegri who was fired by Italy after their manager took the England job. Which means Spurs and Chelsea still haven't fired/lost their managers.

Manager wise there were only three changes Bournemouth and Blackburn both fired their managers and Liverpool replaced Bielsa with Ancelotti, meanning Spurs and Chelsea have still not fired their managers.

In the Championship Bournemouth, Hull and Bristol City all win promotion to the Prem, with Walsall, Carlisle and Crewe dropping to League One.

In the National League Ebbsfleet gain promotion to the Football League for the first time and Stockport finally returned after 10 years of non-football

Whilst Bolton very nearly drop out of the game finishing just above the relegation places in the VNN.

FA Cup - Chelsea beat Man City

League Cup - Spurs win it for the first time in game beating Palace in the final.

Champions League - Chelsea beat holders Paris, with Arsenal failing in the Quarters and Spurs and City both going out in the Knockout Round to German sides, with the three reamaing German sides all losing in the Quarter Finals.

Europa League - Real Madrid beat Marseille on pens, with Germans Hoffenheim losing in the Semi-Final after knocking out Barcelona - both Barcelona and Real failed to make it through the UCL Group Stage, Barc losing out to Dortmund and Celtic, with Real finishing behind Chelsea and AC Milan.

France - Paris's run ends as Marseille take the title by one point with Lyon third by goal difference - last day was interesting both Paris and Lyon lost whilst Marseille drew which was enough for them to claim the title, though from the pos graph Marseille lead all season so it was more a case of them nearly blowing the title instead of snatching it at the death. Though Paris did get some revenage beating Marseille in the Cup Final.

Germany - Dortmund win the title this season with Bayern struggling in fourth to make it four years since they last won the title, at the bottom Werder get relegated again after spending the entire season rock bottom. In the Cup Leverkusen beat Wolfsburg.

Italy - AC Milan claim their first in game title, with Juventus third and Sassuolo improve to fourth but miss out of the Champions League as Italy only have three places however they do win the Cup for the first time ever.

Holland - Ajax finally reclaim the title and also claim the Cup

Scotland - Celtic storm to the title winning by 21 points, they also win the League Cup but lose the FA Cup to Rangers.

Spain - Real reclaim the title with a record low 92pts though they do become the first side to score over 100 goals, they also beat city rivals to claim the FA Cup.

Leaderboard points (FM Mode) (My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)

(points / position)

Single Game: 611,796 (146,044)

Single Season: 483,959 (112,182)

Single Season in England: 483,959 (59,035)

Single Season League 2: 54,675 (6,464)

Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)

Single Season National North: 17,771 (804)

Career Overview

[TABLE=class: cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_MsoTableLi cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ghtShading m, align: center]

[TR]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Season[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]League[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Position[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Achievements (Domestic)[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Achievements

(Europe)[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Leaderboard Points

(Season / Game)

[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Euro C/E

(Place)

[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Average Attendance

(League)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]16/17[/TD]

[TD]National North[/TD]

[TD]16th[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]8,690 / 8,690[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]320 (10%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]17/18[/TD]

[TD]National North[/TD]

[TD]3rd[/TD]

[TD]Promoted - Playoff Winners[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]17,771 / 26,461[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]350 (11%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]18/19[/TD]

[TD]National League[/TD]

[TD]4th[/TD]

[TD]Promoted - Playoffs. FA Trophy Winners[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]483,959 / 510,420[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]460 (15%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]19/20

[/TD]

[TD]League 2[/TD]

[TD]12th[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]46,701 / 557,121[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]845 (21%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]20/21

[/TD]

[TD]League 2

[/TD]

[TD]11th

[/TD]

[TD]-

[/TD]

[TD]-

[/TD]

[TD]54,675 / 611,796

[/TD]

[TD]-

[/TD]

[TD]930 (20%)

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

IainWhite · January 3, 2016

So after a massive mess up and my laptop getting a virus i have lost all my previous saves. Nothing else to do but start again this time with Salford FC! Couldnt resist in the end!

el sid · January 3, 2016

2021/2022 - End of Season Review - Sky Bet League 2

An utterly brilliant season. We were promotion candidates right from the beginning and turned up the ante towards the end and finished 1st quite comfortably. We had 4 players doing the double-double (10+ assists and goals), my LM, RM, AMC and ST which was simply too much firepower for the rest of the league to handle. In late October, I was able to sign recently released Gary Gardner and Tom Adeyemi on frees and the midfield with the two of them was way too good for League 2. Expecting good things from them in League 1 as well as my assman thinks they are both good players at L1 level. Playing a slightly higher line has helped tactically and we no longer concede every time the ball goes out wide. The combination of a Shadow Striker and DLF (S) is also an amazing front two.

At the end of last season, the board decided they were going to expand the stadium to meet League 2 requirements and we had to stadium share with Tranmere which I imagine led to us getting even lesser money.

Took almost the entire season to complete the stadium expansion, we could only play 1 game (last home game of the season) in the new stadium. And we were only about 40% capacity for that game

No fans, no money, awful training/youth facilities with a 5000 capacity stadium that doesn't even fill up. No fans, no money, awful training/youth facilities with a 5000 capacity stadium that doesn't even fill up. Things can only get better.

League Table - Graph

Competitions Overview - At some point, I will take the cups seriously, I promise!

Transfers

Finances - Our biggest problem by far. Even though I am well under the wage budget, we lose a LOT of money due to having absolutely dreadful sources of income. At the end of the season, we were nearly 600k in the negative. It was only the end of season payment that made the finances look slightly better (even though it is still nearly -100k.

Key Players

Gary Gardner - What a player! Far too good for League 2 level

Kaylen Hinds - Top scorer. Misses a lot of chances but lucky for him, we created enough for him to score 27.

Gareth Hammett - Fan favorite, captain and a consistently brilliant player.

Jack Dunn - Was originally going to be my backup ST but played brilliantly as a LM and ended up as the League 2 player of the season

Jordan Stewart - My other winger, equally good

James Hurst - Constant source of assists from right back, covers a lot of ground

Youth Players

Rob Godfrey

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Season     | League             | Position   | Cup Performance    | Achievements    |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2016/17    | Vanarama North     | 4th        | Awful              | Promotion!      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2017/18    | Vanarama National  | 20th       | Awful              | Survival!       |          
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2018/19    | Vanarama National  | 5th        | Awful              | Promotion!      |  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2019/20    | League 2           | 20th       | FA Cup 3rd rnd!    | Survival!       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2020/21    | League 2           | 10th       | FA Trophy runnerup | Stability       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 2021/22    | League 2           | 1st        | Awful             | Champions!      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sean3h · January 3, 2016

After struggling with motivation in my normal saves, I've started the challenge as King's Lynn. Pic (with scary face) below. For some reason LvG doesn't like me

Home_%20My%20Profile%20Profile_zpsidaxlbzf.png

footballfan08 · January 3, 2016

Well, I finished in 21st place with Grantham and have now restarted with Matlock. http://imgur.com/Zg9Naxp

Peter G · January 3, 2016

First game with Salford in the Conference. 5-5 draw with Crawley.

thomas_e · January 4, 2016

SEASON 2025-26 Barclays Premier League
Winner winner chicken dinner

[/code]

Massive achievement, almost unreal! Big congrats!

Sherdil · January 5, 2016

Salford City - Premier League - 2033/34

After making the European places last season I was looking forward to really pushing on this season however it didn't work out that way at all. The season started badly as in the transfer window we lost 3 of our key players from last season and brought in a combined £110m in player sales as the big teams pounced again. I brought in plenty of new very talented young players but it took them a long time to gel and with our European commitments we were struggling for the first half of the season even sitting int he relegation zone. I had a tactical rethink and started to play a possession based game and we managed to pull away from the bottom of the table and finish in a respectable 11th place. We also made the final of the FA Cup but lost on penalties to Arsenal.

League Table

Past Positions

Cups - We reached the final of the FA Cup but lost 3-1 on penalties to Arsenal. We also made it out of our group in the Euro Cup and got into the 2nd knockout round after getting through our first knockout round only to face Aston Villa who we just couldn't match and lost 5-1 on aggregate.

Squad - Another massive overhaul of players. £110m of players left with £88m of players joining. The pick of these are the young Belgium midfielders in Lenaerts and Dewulf who at only 19 years old could go on to become world class. We lost Tayfun Celik for a new club record sale of £46.5m to Bayern Munich. Last seasons top scorer James Lutumbah-Pitah struggled with injuries all season so I will look to sell him as he is very injury prone. Unfortunately some of my star players are again attracting attention from the big boys with Renzo and David Masson the main targets. Unfortunately we may lose both of these players if i receive record transfer bids.

Finances - £25.9m in the bank. Keep on doing up the facilities and stadium. Up to 21,660 seats now.

Key Player Profiles:

Michael Kearns - Kept hold of him last season and he had a great season. 26 assists! Brilliant!

Bas Dewulf - I think £14m is a steal for this guy. Hopefully can keep for years to come.

Renzo - The big boys are circling. Has a min fee of £69m. If he goes it will have to be close to this amount!

Next Season

Get back into Europe

Win a trophy

Career Overview
Season          League                      League Finish     Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17         Vanarama North              3rd               Lost playoff final  
2017/18         Vanarama North              1st               Champions
2018/19         Vanarama National           1st               Champions 
2019/20         League 2                    8th
2020/21         League 2                    8th
2021/22         League 2                    1st               Champions
2022/23         League 1                    1st               Champions
2023/24         Championship                11th
2024/25         Championship                13th
2025/26         Championship                20th              Survival on final day
2026/27         Championship                2nd               Promoted
2027/28         Premier League              15th              Survival
2028/29         Premier League              8th
2029/30         Premier League              9th
2030/31         Premier League              14th
2031/32         Premier League              10th
2032/33         Premier League              7th               Qual for Euro Cup
2033/34         Premier League              11th              FA Cup runner up

Hypanimz,

Great FA Cup run! I feel you though, I cant seem to break the TOP 4 in the premier league and i've been playing around 4-5 seasons there. The talent is just overwhelming and it doesn't help that you can never recruit WORLD CLASS talent from the transfer market. Your only luck would be to find a young player who would grow to be world class and just hope to keep him long enough to win. But finding those are easier said than done. So frustrating....

Mayzie · January 5, 2016

Can't post screenshots as I'm at work but my Ilkeston save is going well, I've made a lot of progress over the Xmas break while the Mrs was at work and I was off. It will be back to the odd evening now though.

I'm now in the Championship and have a few mil in the bank due to the sale of some good young players and drawing Tottenham away in the FA Cup for two years running. I find that by signing free transfers part way through the season, you can attract better quality players on small wages. I think the players are basically about to give in being a professional footballer when I sign them, it is odd that other clubs don't offer them deals though.

My best player currently is Josh Onomah who I signed while in League One, his attributes have just been flying up. The worry is that his release clause is something like £2.5m, but then again I suppose that will be money in the bank to support persistently running at a loss. Hopefully with Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro joining the EU this season I might be able to pick out some bargains given the low reputation of their leagues. Maybe not as easy as sniffing out Irish & Welsh youngsters though.

Due to work on the stadium we're playing at Meadow Lane (Notts County, 20k capacity) for the first eight months of this season which has caused a bunch of re-arranged fixtures meaning less days rest between them. I can see it being a long slog. I'm currently about eight games in, sat 14th in the league but only three points from the relegation zone. If I finish 14th I'll be happy because most of my players have low relegation clauses on the basis that I'd probably get sacked so not care if someone buys them for cheap lol

wesleymcuk · January 5, 2016

well done on getting my local side

have tried about 30 times to get them and no luck so far

pipodeclown · January 6, 2016

So I decided to Give this a go as well, never really got into this except 1 save game with Woking in FM11, Started with Dulwich Hamlet, wish me luck!

Marchena · January 6, 2016

Colwyn Bay FC - Sky Bet League One - 2024/25

Great second season in League One. I must say I’m impressed with how easy we adapted to playing in this league. We managed to win ourself another throphy in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy as well. I’m really looking forward to next season. Being in the Championship really is something else in my opinion. It’s going to be difficult. We don’t have any money and will have to rely on free transfers and loans.

League Table

Nice big fat league win. We were first from start to end.

FA Cup

Not a great run for us.

Capital One Cup

Premier League Middlesbrough trashed us.

Johnstone's Paint Trophy

Another win! Without winning a match with more than one goal. In the final we got the vitory in the first minute of extra time.

Notable events:

Goodbye Bolton!

Bryan Watt - Another player on-loan from Everton.

We now face a new problem. Everton is also in the Championship. This means they can’t be our parent club anymore. Hopefully we’ll still be able to get a couple of good players on loan. Our economy is not great.

Career Overview

Season    League                       Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17   Vanarama North               5th         Loss in play-off finals
2017/18   Vanarama North               1st         Promotion
2018/19   Vanarama National            13th        FA Throphy winners
2019/20   Vanarama National            1st         Promotion
2020/21   Sky Bet League Two           10th         
2021/22   Sky Bet League Two           5th         Loss in play-off finals
2022/23   Sky Bet League Two           1st         Promotion
2023/24   Sky Bet League One           5th         Loss in play-off semi-finals, JPT winners
2024/25   Sky Bet League One           1st         Promotion, JPT winners

Next Season

Survive and get healthier finances.

smp20 · January 6, 2016

Im thinking about either rekindling my save with kings lynn or starting a new one with them. Not sure which yet.

Frillanwhatup · January 6, 2016

Enfield%20Town%20FC%20crest.3.jpg

The dissapointment of losing a play-off spot in the last couple of games is BIG.

After a great season where we were predicted 21:th and a board whom happily would have taken a survival as a achivement me and the players had bigger things in mind.

We managaed to be top-half of the table fighting for play-off from matchweek 1 til' the bitter end, but in the end we shot ourselves in the foot tieing 4 of the last 6 games,

which meant a dissapointing 7:th place and missed play-off.

Key players.

Adam Dewsnip: A "regen" striker who did lead the league in goals, scoring 34 (which were NINE more than number two).

Matty Taylor: An offensive midfielder that did really well for us, scoring 8 assisting 5 and an average rating of 7.27.

Rio Bryan-Edwards: The man with three first-names is and will continue to be our best defender. 7.12 average rating.

NEXT SEASON

We did strengthen the squad in a impressive way and we'll be looking for promotion next season, also I'd a love a big cup run, both for the finances and the thrill.

Season  Division   Position (P)  Avg. Attendance(S-Tickets)      FA-Cup          League cup       Fa-Trophy/JPT    (Pos) Notes
16-17   VNS        19th (22)    410 (59)                        2 round              N/a              3 qlf round     Surviving Relegation/2 round  Fa-Cup                     
17/18   VNS        7th (21)     373 (61)                        4th qlf roung    N/a              3 round         None

darren1983 · January 6, 2016

So giving this challenge another bash with, like a few people it seems, Dulwich Hamlet

darren1983 · January 7, 2016

Dulwich Hamlet - Vavanrama National League South - 2015/16

League Table - A bit unexpected, with only 1 win from our first 7 games I thought we were in for a season of struggle but then we clicked and marched up the table, helped by regular new signings (that were better then the players we had) we finished the season on a 16 match unbeaten run (in fact from the start of December we only lost 1 league game in 24) we won the league.

FA Trophy - pretty much same as the FA Cup, beat the teams from below us before losing to a team in our league, though I did rest players for this cup.

FA Cup - beat couple of teams that were in leagues below us before losing to Margate from our league.

Squad - A bit bigger then I usually like but think the rotation helped at times.

Transfers - usual high number of ins and outs at this stage.

Finances - Not bad, but could be better.

Key Players

Sonny Black - came in after Christmas and slotted straight in.

Laurent Davis-Wilson - 12 goals and 9 assists playing off the front man, not sure where this form came from but am happy to take it.

Tim Jakobsson - Young Swede was here when I took over, was a consistent performer.

Kabongo Tshimanga - young forward came in towards the end of the season after his summer release from MK Dons, his 12 goals saw us over the line.

Jow Ward - top scorer with 17 but lost his starting place to Tshimanga. Did chip in with some vital late winners in our run in though.

Career Overview

Season         League                            Position       Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16        Vanarama National League South    1st           League winners and manager of the year

Next Season

All about staying up really.

michaeltmurrayuk · January 7, 2016

Skelmersdale – League 2 2021/22 – Season 6

So after a bit of a disappointing season last season of course the board were expecting a playoff place this season, with the bookies naming us among the title contenders with the Media Predicting a fifth placed finish, so no pressure then...

Reputation - Slight increase but Blackpool and newly promoted Ebbsfleet overtake us.

Training Camp - We went on our first training camp, not that we went anywhere and it also cost us £45K which seems a waste of money.

Transfers - With no money and a need to reduce the wage budget signings were mainly loan players and a couple of cheap youngsters, with new right back Facey the only expensive outlay. Saleswise I released most of the squad players who's contracts were up and were wanting payrises or were out of favour, I also got a club record £14K for De Girolamo and eventually got Wilsons wages off the budget as neither were good enough for the football league.

Of course another thing I had to deal with on Transfer Deadline Day was a board takeover (not that I was signing anyone) with my Chief Scout Crosby stabbing me in the back With the takeover completed the new chairman announced he had big plans which seemed to just involve taking out a new loan and he eventually let me stay at the club and then started to pump small amounts of money into the club - I wonder if he is one of the underwriter tycoons?

We also completed our final Stadium Expansion to meet the league requirements (and managed to sneak an extra 40 fans in), though I still cannot see any standing area in our actual Stadium as that new stand should have been terraces not seats.

League Cup - Another year another defeat to a strong former Prem Championship side as this time Bradford claimed an easy win over my second string.

Paint Trophy - We got a bye into the Second Round North this season where we thrashed struggling Fleetwood setting a new low attendance record to set up a North Quarter Final tie against League One Notts County which was a woeful game as between us we only managed one shot on goal, thankfully the game went straight to pens and a miss by Phillips as he woefuly rolled the first pen down the middle saw us go out as County scored all of theirs including three that we straight at my Keeper

FA Cup - In the First Round a weakened side easily brushed past Stevenage to set up a Second Round tie against Leyton Orient which was in the middle of a spell where we forgot how to defend and crashed out after some awful defending and goalkeeping.

League Two - A massive turnaround as my attackers turned up this season and with us scoring goals for fun (setting a new ingame record of goals scored) we claimed our first league title :cool:

We didn't start that well drawing four of our first six games winning and losing the other two, as my Counter-Attacking 4-3-3 wasn't working because everyone was just parking 10 men behind the ball against us which we struggled to break down, so I switched things around to 4-2-3-1 as we didn't need the DM and this formation allowed me to play my three best Midfielders and the plan was to switch the Striker to one of the Advanced roles which my players preferred however I still couldn't get those roles to work so went back to a Deep Lying Forward and switched the AM to a Shadow Striker (didn't at all get that idea from someone's post here) and that worked as we started to score goals for fun winning 10 of our next 13 games scoring three goals or more in nine of those games including a 6-1 win over Stevenage that was the first time we'd won by more than four goals and it only took 277 games.

The other thing I changed were my set-pieces, it seems they been messed up at some point when I was going through formations, so having actually set up my corner positioning brought about load of goals aswell - by the end of the season we scored at least 14 goals from corners double anyone elses and a lot better than the zero I think we managed last season.

This saw us fly up the table, however going into December with us within touching distance of leaders Bristol we lost any ability to defend or score as we lost 3-1 to an Oxford side who'd been reduced to 10 men after five minutes, needed a late free kick from Bacon to secure a draw against Leyton Orient (days after they'd kicked us out of the FA Cup) and then lost 3-1 to Fleetwood which saw us drop down to third behind Newport, the only good thing was Bristol had lost all three of their games so we'd actually gained a point on them.

On Boxing Day we finally rediscovered our goalscoring form as we scored three early goals against Ebbsfleet, whilst Bristol beat Newport which ended their promotion chase, then two headed goals from Benaniba gave us the win against Accrington and with Bristol losing to Blackpool we went top of the league at the half way stage, though throwing away a 2-0 lead against Peterborough allowed Leyton Orient to go top but battling wins against Wrexham and Wimbledon restored our place at the top.

Another narrow win over Forest Green extended our lead but some woeful defending in a 6-3 defeat to Cambridge undid that work and going into February injuries to key players cost us points, first we lost Striker Lavery for a month, then Left Winger Forrester broke his ankle ruling him out for the rest of the season with Midfielders Paulinho and Benaniba also being ruled out for three and two weeks each and that caused the goals to dry up as we failed to score in our next three games losing two of them 1-0 and drawing the other which allowed Leyton Orient to draw level with us but Bristol did us a favour beating them 3-0 to keep us top, so I switch back to my Counter Attacking 4-3-3 formation as we ground out two 1-0 wins including against Bristol where my Keeper Lyness saved a pen to secure the three points and give us a two point lead at the top of the table.

Then with my Attackers back we won the next three games but so did Leyton Orient, however with us losing to Newport Leyton could only draw to Bury keeping us a point ahead at the top of the table, but the good news was we had broken away from the other sides with Bristol 11 points behind in third place we were running down the games until promotion was secured, though there was some more bad news to come as Paulinho damaged his cruciate ligaments in the Newport game and would be out for 10 months which has pretty much finished him off

Next an early pen gave us a 1-0 win over Portsmouth and a 2-2 draw against Bury was a missed chance as Leyton lost increasing our lead to two points and with Portsmouth drawing to Cambridge in a postponed game we at least secured a playoff spot with six games remaining. We then extended our lead with a 1-0 win over Mansfield which was on TV as Leyton could only draw to Wrexham and this also meant we were only one point away from promotion.

And we secured Promotion in style thrashing Peterborough 5-1 as Lavery grabbed a hat-trick - our first since Metz did it in the FA Cup three and a half years ago and with Leyton losing we were seven points clear with just four games left.

And we secured the title with two 3-0 wins over Easter leaving us with two games spare that weaken sides won anyway including a 3-0 win over Ebbsfleet on the last day to deny them a playoff spot.

Even though the title had been secured the final day had plenty of drama, Leyton were already up with us but Bristol, Port Vale and Burton were all fighting for the last spot, whilst six(!) teams were fighting for the last two playoff spots, with Ebbsfleet's defeat to us knocking them out as Cambridge took their spot, whilst Port Vale denied Bristol the last automatic spot, and there was more heartbreak for a Bristol side that had lead the league for the first half of the season as Burton won the playoffs.

Stat Pack - Our most common result this season was either 1-0 or 3-0, with our improvement also down to the fact that we won nearly all our games against the bottom sides.

Squad, Overview, Review and Awards

Starting the season in Goal was new loan signing Aaron Baines who started well enough, but seemed to just implode during our bad spell as he just seemed to stop sometimes and then started letting the ball almost pass straight through him, this allowed Dean Lyness to reclaim his place in the second half of the season as he put in some fine performances and claimed the League Appearance Record, but a new Keeper is looking like a must for next season.

At Right Back I brought in Shay Facey (Man City via Burnley) who proved to be a fine player bar a shocker in the FA Cup, providing cover was American Marlon Fossey who did well when called upon. At Left Back I kept faith with Cameron Borthwick-Jackson who had a better season but still went missing in a couple of games, providing cover was Jamal Nelson who was on loan from Arsenal and he did ok but wasn't much better than Borthwick.

There were no changes at Centre-Back as Stephen Arthurworrey had a solid season and was partnered by Icelander Samuel Friojonsson who also had a strong season and even got capped by Iceland though that did cause his form to dip, but he recovered it towards the end of the season, providing cover was loanee Craig Harvey who'd rotate in when either of the other two were going through a bad patch or needed resting.

In the Centre of Midfield Nick Bacon had an excellent season and proved deadly from set-pieces with three of his goals being direct free-kicks and most of his assists coming from free-kicks or corners, partnering him was Paulinho who had a solid season before picking up what is likely to be a career ending injury, thankfully I already have his replacement having picked up Dutch Midfielder Rodney Kongolo (Man City via Hull) who I actually had for a few years in last years challenge so hopefully he'll prove just as useful this time around, and after a bit of a slow start improved as the season went on though he does seem to like picking up yellow cards. Providing cover were a couple of highly rated youngsters who spent most of the season coming off the bench to give some fresh legs in Midfield Frenchman Morgan Vincent (PSG) put in some good performances despite his limited pitch time as did Jim Fahey (Man Utd) who is likely to spend most of his time on the bench due to the fact that he can play in each of the four Midfield Roles I use.

Playing in the hole as my Shadow Striker was Frenchman Abdelhak Benaniba who was on fire getting double digits for goals and assists and setting a new Average Rating Record and retained the Fans Player of the Year Award.

On the Right Wing QPR Loanee Martin Alderton started well but struggled with the formation change and eventually left in January after moaning, next up was Scot Paul McMullan who did well enough but I didn't like his cutting in and eventually the position was taken by DJ Buffonge who made a slow start but was in fine form in the second half of the season, and finally scored his first goals for the club when for a while it looked like he'd never score - though his first was a fluke a header came back off the bar and hit the keeper on the back and was credited to him rather than going down like as an own goal.

On the Left Wing Villa Loanee Gavin Forrester was in fine form until an injury ended his season early, but luckly Irishman Stephen McLaughlin had just recovered from his injury that kept him out for the first half of the season, providing cover was Dave Carter who put in some good performances but I'm not sure if either of these two will be good enough next season so a new Left Winger is likely on the list next season.

Upfront NIrishman Caloan Lavery was in fine form with some better support he was able to either create or score the goals that lead to the title with his 23 league goals a new club record, as were his 26 overall goals this season and he also became our all time top scorer with 38 goals (not that the game bothered to tell me this, nor does it track the previous record any longer). Providing cover was Brandon Adams who had a poor season, as did about half a dozen loanees.

Team of the Year - The spine of my team dominates, with Forrester unlucky to miss out, also not sure why the Fleetwood Keeper was selected?

Best XI - Pretty much spot on for a change, though I might had swtiched the Keepers and Harvey for Arthurworry.

Overall XI - Buffonge, Bacon and Lavery all make the team.

Salary - Only Doncaster paid less than us, whilst Leyton Orient spent their way to promotion, with newly promoted Ebbsfleet seem to have got a load of money from somewhere which explained there good season.

Average Attendance - Looking better as we spent the whole season at our ground and percentage wise did better than Blackpool, though overall we were only better than Accrington, as we found an extra 350 fans this season.

Finances - Not that great, though the new board have been putting in small amounts of money - what cost us this season were Gate Receipts being £200k down and TV money also being £100K down caused by our early FA Cup exit. Expenses wise Match Day Expenses went up £100k which wiped out my wage savings. Though of course these figures again don't include the Solidarity Payment so with that we actually ended the season with a positive balance, which I had to fight to get the board to spent £200K to improve our training facilities for the first time, but after that they were happy to spend £600K on more Youth Improvements that did actually put us back in the red, I also got them to increase our Junior Coaching to Adequate but we weren't able to increase our Youth Level yet.

Scouting Knowledge - With the ability to scout the UK I have improved my scouting network mainly by bringing in coaches with knowledge of the UK I also got Anelka in pretty much for his knowledge of France which got me my two Frenchmen.

Manager Profile - Reputation increases half a star to 1.75 stars, attributes wise Defending and Tactical coaching shoot up three points, as does Player Knowledge which means English players now have nearly all their attributes revealed before I have to scout them :cool: though the board won't let me get any more coaching badges yet. I also managed my 300th game which was a 3-0 win over Rochdale and was named Manager of the Year for the second time. I was also linked with the Wigan job after they were relegated from the Championship which is I think the highest profile job I've been linked with, though I do keep on getting linked with loads of non-league jobs.

Icon - Winning the League saw me become a Skelmersdale Icon, along with Benaniba and Dobie, though by the end of the season Bacon had been upgraded to an Icon, with Lavery, Forrester and Facey all joining Paulinho on the favoured list.

Plans for Next Season

The main plan is to survive, whilst the difference in quality isn't that much, the fact that four teams go down means it is a whole lot easier to get dragged into the relegation fight.

Player wise a new Keeper and Left Winger are the priorities with a new Left Back and a Striker on the list aswell as some cover in the other positions, though the Centre of Midfield is looking fine.

On the plus side I have managed to get my key players on new contracts and have got them to take paycuts, though I have lost Borthwick-Jackson on a free to Millwall after they offered him five times the money I did, whilst Right Back Facey handed in a transfer request after a couple of Scottish sides made low ball offers for him, though a week later he changed his mind but it looks like a new RB could also be on my list

State of The World

Premier League - Chelsea reclaim the title, with Spurs a distant second, Arsenal and Liverpool make up the top four, Utd sturggle to fifth, whilst City have a poor season and are lucky to finish seventh, with Watford in sixth. At the bottom Bournemouth and Bristol City go straight back down taking West Ham with them.

Manager wise it was another quiet season Bournemouth went through two managers, City fired Low and appointed Guardiola who'd been fired by Bayern last season, whilst Southampton and Swansea swapped managers. Which means Spurs and Chelsea still haven't fired/lost their managers.

Manager wise there were only three changes Bournemouth and Blackburn both fired their managers and Liverpool replaced Bielsa with Ancelotti, meanning Spurs and Chelsea have still not fired their managers.

In the Championship Blackburn, Sunderland and Villa all go up, at the bottom Rotherham, MK Dons and Wigan will be joining me in League One next season

In the National North Bolton finish mid-table with Salford winning the league.

FA Cup - Man City beat Liverpool in the FA Cup, with Liverpool beating Championship Wolves in the League Cup.

Champions League - Paris win it for the third time in game beating Leverkusen in the final. All four English sides made it to the Quarter Finals where the Manchester clubs lost to the Germans and Cheslea beat Arsenal before losing to Paris.

Europa League - Spurs restored some English pride with their third trophy beating Bayern in the final.

France - Paris reclaim the title, with Nice winning the Cup and Monaco winning the League Cup.

Germany - Leverkusen reclaim the title from Dortmund, with Bayern third, in the Cup HSV break Leverkusen and Dortmunds domination.

Italy - Juventus reclaim the title and make it a dobule with the Cup.

Holland - Ajax retain the title but lose the Cup on pens to Utrecht.

Scotland - Rangers end 10 years of Celtic domination, as Dundee Utd win the Cup and Celtic at least claim the League Cup.

Spain - Real retain the title, with Barcelona struggling to fourth behind Athletic and Valencia, with Athletic claiming the cup over Racing.

World Cup 2022 - Is being hosted by Canada, with England the only home nation present going on to beat Argentina in the Final, whilst Gabon make their World Cup debut.

Leaderboard points (FM Mode) (My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)

(points / position)

Single Game: 1,239,412 (105,688)

Single Season: 627,616 (139,619)

Single Season in England: 627,616 (74,872)

Single Season League 2: 627,616 (1,524)

Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)

Single Season National North: 17,771 (804)

Career Overview

[TABLE=class: cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_ cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_MsoTableLi cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_cms_table_ghtShading cms_table_m, align: center]

[TR]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Season[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]League[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Position[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Achievements (Domestic)[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Achievements

(Europe)[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Leaderboard Points

(Season / Game)

[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Euro C/E

(Place)

[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #007ACC, align: center]Average Attendance

(League)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]16/17[/TD]

[TD]National North[/TD]

[TD]16th[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]8,690 / 8,690[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]320 (10%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]17/18[/TD]

[TD]National North[/TD]

[TD]3rd[/TD]

[TD]Promoted - Playoff Winners[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]17,771 / 26,461[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]350 (11%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]18/19[/TD]

[TD]National League[/TD]

[TD]4th[/TD]

[TD]Promoted - Playoffs. FA Trophy Winners[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]483,959 / 510,420[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]460 (15%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]19/20[/TD]

[TD]League 2[/TD]

[TD]12th[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]46,701 / 557,121[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]845 (21%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]20/21[/TD]

[TD]League 2[/TD]

[TD]11th[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]54,675 / 611,796[/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]930 (20%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]21/22[/TD]

[TD]League 2[/TD]

[TD]1st[/TD]

[TD]Promoted - Champions!!![/TD]

[TD]-[/TD]

[TD]627,616 / 1,239,412[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD]1,275 (27%)[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

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dafuge's FM16 challenge

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