dafuge's FM18 challenge

[superdad]

If you get promoted, you get promoted. You may struggle in your first Premier League season, but I reckon you can survive and build a mid-table squad at least for the season after.

[Prank Emperor]

53 minutes ago, superdad said:

If you get promoted, you get promoted. You may struggle in your first Premier League season, but I reckon you can survive and build a mid-table squad at least for the season after.

My squad is super overachieving, and I have been using a highly structured defensive tactic. I thought I would need massive defensive protection, turns out my 4-2-1-2-1 Wide DM tactic is more successful than the 4-1-2-2-1 Wide attacking tactic I used for my climb up the leagues. March first week and I am in 1st position 3 points clear off 2nd position Reading.  

Getting promoted will bring me massive transfer budgets to build a quality young team which but if I get relegated the financial burden of it will be big. However, I am playing my best squad and tactic and not trying to lose, though it is tempting to do that to stay in the championship/

[Rashidi]

So its time for a proper written update, been awake for the better part of the last 20 hours, and in another gripping run in the save. I have to thank @dafuge for one of my favourite challenges of all time. Without fail this is one that I do every season, and I have noticed that for the first time ever, I am having a really hard time. Last season I took a lower league side on FM17 with Gloucester, and we managed to do back to back promotions easily, went into the premiership, very first season, coasted to a mid table finish. Everything was so easy on FM17, things are very different on FM18. It's harder to find those players, and even harder to even get half decent ones to play for your club.

It's taken a while but hey its season 2024/25 and my manager profile looks half decent, the board started letting me go on coaching courses and  finally look half decent as a manager.

Our track record has been very good, we managed consecutive promotions that were chronicled on my Youtube channel as the Kingstonian Diaries cos I am too lazy to write. (yeah so says the git who wrote 3 books on FM). 

The club has grown too, once we entered the Premiership we had to rent Selhurst Park, which had a nice 20k capacity, the board decided to build a new stadium, yeah its not 20k it's a lot smaller. Overall though we are still a small rep club at 3 stars and are expected to struggle for another season in the top tier of English football. Our season ticket prices are really cheap, I suggest buying them to watch how we play. The thing that got my goat was the reluctance of my board to even consider improving training facilities - their rationale- they wanted to sign players. That's an issue, no one takes us seriously. 

First season in the premiership I went on a massive transfer signing spree, spent all my transfer money - 17 million and brought this lot in. Now why was FM17 easier, I could actually get better players in, that no one had heard about and I could to some extent do really well. It's my second season and I still have most of these players. A transfer kitty of 80m is useless cos most players look at us, scoff, laugh and then walk off.  I learnt one thing quickly, go after teams that get relegated. So in our second season in the premiership we spent 54million and strengthened the squad. It was more of a side-grade than an up-grade. We managed to sign some big names, this time, including Rui Patricio, at age 36 for the unheard amount of 12m. Let's put it this way, he was the only player who was interested and no one else was keen, even keepers who were transfer listed at discount prices looked away in disgust. Two big names stand out for us, a youngster who has bags of potential and a defender I had high hopes for till he broke his spine in pre-season and dashed my hopes.

The signing of Rui Patricio has proved to be inspired. We have had a horrendous start to our second season, but with Mr Patricio, I call him that in training on the pitch and with every call I make before he goes to bed, we have had a great run in the Carabao Cup. I discovered that he had a knack for shot stopping, so we developed a strategy to hold onto any kind of a stalemate and force the game to a penalty shootout. And that's where Mr Patricio gets first dibs on the female physios, he stops others from scoring. He plugs a hole in my defence. His handling is superb and he has saved the day for the club, leading us on and into a Carabao Cup semi final clash with West Brom. Something tells me that after writing this, we will get hammered there, so yeah, let me enjoy this while it lasts.

We have some major defensive issues we need to iron out, if you have watched my Kop Diaries or my Ajax Diaries you would have seen some sublime passing moves, orchestrated perfectly. With Kingstonian, we play balls over the top, we hit them on the break, we cajole, bully even send players off to the treatment tables. Yes we are brutal, you see, we can't play the ball on the ground. In fact, we are defensively so poor that 50% of all goals come from inside the penalty area. Our tackling success rate puts us 18th out of 20 teams in the league. We can't cross a ball to save our lives, we can only punt them from deep and hope for the best.

Thank god I am writing this, you see I wouldn't have noticed this had I not. 

We have been using the 4123 DM Wide, and I thought this was the start of a beautiful system. Wrong. We have scored 13 and conceded 28. 
Our 5122 DM Wide or the Hadrian's Wall system has done a lot better : In 19 games it has scored 20 and conceded 23
 

Usually these saves are easier, you kinda find those talents easily, now not so. So its made this challenge a lot more harder and fun. So in our first season in the premiership we finished 14th, I am hoping that we finish at least 10-14th in our second season. And with nearly half the season played we are 17 points away from 5th and 2 points from the relegation zone, so it looks like I have to worry more about leaking from my ass than from getting high.

 

[Prank Emperor]

Your posts are always a fun read @Rashidi! Best of luck on your save.

[Prank Emperor]

The second half of the season was a completely different picture from the first half as we went unbeaten since 31st December winning all league matches except one which we drew. The second half of the season the team looked like genuine champions material for the league. We cliched the title with 4 matches still to play. Most likely we will come down next season but now since we are there the target is to be better than 3 teams and stay in EPL! Detailed report coming later once season is finished. @Warhawk

 

[Muggert]

 

Straight through League Two... Off to League one!

 

This is going surprisingly well...

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

On 03/11/2017 at 20:35, Sean Blinkhorn said:

My god, Thurrock must be UBER-RARE

I am giving this a go on FM touch switch. I have reloaded this what seems like an eternity and have still yet to get Thurrock!

[Sean Blinkhorn]

2 hours ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

I am giving this a go on FM touch switch. I have reloaded this what seems like an eternity and have still yet to get Thurrock!

It took me an absolute age. Something like 50-100 re-tries. And then I never saw it through to the end of the first season. 

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

12 hours ago, Sean Blinkhorn said:

It took me an absolute age. Something like 50-100 re-tries. And then I never saw it through to the end of the first season. 

You've just motivated me to persevere with this. I still haven't got them. When I do, my sub challenge is to make it past the first season 👍👍👍

 

[Prank Emperor]

 

Billericay Town F.C. 

Season Update 2022-2023

Table | Squad |  Transfers | Finances | Youth Intake | Injury Summary | Manager Profile | Affiliate Clubs

Fixtures 1 | Fixtures 2 | Fixtures 3

Board Expectations & Achieved

Sky Bet Championship: Avoid a relegation battle | Won Title

English FA Cup: Reach Fourth Round | Reached Fifth Round got knocked out by Chelsea

Carabao Cup: Reach Third Round | Reached Second Round got knocked out by West Brom

And the Billericay juggernaut continues to steamroll up the leagues, this was a season of defying expectations mine included as we were again labelled overachievers ! Preseason Promotion odds were not particularly kind to us as we were predicted to finish 17th while the media had us down for 22nd placed finish. If at the start of the season I was offered 17th place finish I would have snapped it immediately and be content. The start of season cemented my belief that we are in for a struggle this season as we won only 2 of the first 9 matches. For the first time in my history of playing football manager, I created a Highly Structured Defensive tactic 4-2-1-2-1 DM wide to shut out opposing teams and avoid defeats primarily. The idea was to at least draw every match and sneak in a few wins thereby reaching the 50+ points target which would have been enough to avoid relegation.

This turned out to be the masterstroke as we immediately turned the corner and started grinding out results as we lost only 1 match from the next 9 matches. We kept struggling to shut out the game but we still did a much better overall job. The new year brought us a new found gear which we did not have till then as we went the entire second half of the season undefeated. We also created a new championship record of 16 wins in a row as we got ourselves embedded in the playoff spots. Match by match we started clawing our way up the ladder before climbing to the summit in the final quarter of the season, once we got our hands on the top position we never relinquished it winning the title with few games to spare. Our ascent to the top was helped by Reading's worst phase of the season as they lost 7 and drew 3 matches in the first 3 months of the season. 

 

 

John English made the lone striker position his own displacing Keshi Anderson, who had problems with me when I sold club captain Macaulay Gillesphey. Keshi never got his head into the game and was eventually sold in the January transfer window.  Glen McAuley was brought in to be the primary choice striker but never made any sort of impression and was relegated to being a backup along with Manuel De Luca. However, the prolific nature of my teams in the past was missing this season as John was the lone player to get into double digits for goals.  Nathan Holland, Mitchell Van Bergen and Daniel Truslove racked up the assist with other players chipping in with the goals. Holland and Van Bergen were like snipers delivering precise balls into the box and if I could have played 2 AMRs I would have, Truslove when fit was an equally potent creator. Since the midfield sat deeper for most matches this season there was less contribution from the midfield trio, however club captain Josh Dasilva still was able to manage pretty good returns of 5 goals and 7 assist. Vitja Valencic was an integral midfield player as he formed a strong partnership with Dasilva as between the two of them they spray the ball all over the pitch and bossed the midfield often.

My decision to sell last seasons defensive rock was more than justified with the fantastic performance of my young defensive line. The central pairing of Ricardo Fati and Stephen Duffin had 450 interceptions between the two of them, while my full backs Francisco Amaral and Axel Campeol despite being more of support players still tracked back and provided fantastic coverage racking up 240 interceptions between the two. And even if anyone got past the strong line-up they still had to deal with my German goalie Marian Prinz who has been the safest hand I ever had for Billericay as he kept most clean sheets and conceded the least at 19 and 29 respectively. His exploits had Stuttgart interested as they kept sniffing at him and bid a massive €5 million in January, I stalled on the bid but was unable to get in any a replacement, in the end, rejecting the bid. Last season goalkeeper Paisa was meant to provide cover to Prinz, however, with both goalkeepers getting injured early into the season forced me to bring Eugenio Lamanna, who did not make any sort of impact and Paisa was loaned out in January.

 

 

Stephen Duffin has to be the find of my Billericay career as the €6,000 transfer fee more than a million times paid over as he formed a strong partnership in central defence and even getting into the championship team of the year. Mitchell Van Bergen, Marian Prinz and Vitja Valencic were picked up on free and they became an integral part of the team. The senior affiliate partnership with Manchester United paid rich dividends as loanees John English and Cyril Olive were fantastic additions. Last season stars Godfried Frimpong and Macaulay Gillesphey were shipped off for big amounts with Frimpong becoming my first multi-million sale. The squad was not happy with either sale with Gillesphey's sale disturbed last season star striker Keshi Anderson who imploded and was shipped off in January. 

The big two sales allowed us to open our purses and get our first million euro player Manuel De Luca, who is a striker primarily but was bought as a backup for the Attacking left Winger position. He has yet to justify his price but has shown flashes of his ability and might still pay me back his fee. 

Emir Murati picked up on free in summer transfer window went on to make 2(2) appearances yet for some reason Blackburn saw enough to splash massive money on him in January. His €3.7 Million transfer fee allowed us to splurge more as we spent €1.5 million on youth winger with an eye on the future. We continued to spend money on future players with hopefully good potential youth discovered by the scouts.

 

 

Nathan Holland was rightly awarded the Sky Bet Championship Player of the Year award as well as the Fans' Player of the Season. Holland has been a consistent performer for the club and lead the assists chart for the league until he was trumped in the final matches. He beat the midfield duo of Vitja Valencic and Josh Dasilva, Valencic being the Signing of the Season. The Sky Bet Championship Manager of the Year was awarded to yours truly and this season it felt more than deserved as unlike past season it was not a cakewalk.

 

 

We were not so great in the Carabao cup was we underperformed, however, the English FA Cup was a different story as the giant-killing overachieving Billericay team of yore stepped forward as we reached the fifth round. On the way to fifth round 3-0 defeat at Chelsea, we defeated fellow championship teams Charlton and Leeds 2-1 and 2-0 respectively. The away match at Stamford Bridge was televised bringing us a nice income of nearly 275k euros. 

 

 

The promotion to the English Premier League brought us necessary stadium expansion which will be completed next season end bringing out seating capacity to 12,500 the minimum for the league. We move the 26,297 seater Selhurst Park stadium next season which will help us bring more match day income. The board also announced improvements to the Training Facilities as well as the Youth Facilities. The Data Analysis Facilities was improved 4 times in the past season.

 

Our smart chairman again provided with a massive cash injection days after the audit and hence not getting hit by tax! Compared to our earlier seasons we were better financially as our transfer outgoings of nearly €7 million and good cup runs again did give us a good cash injection. The transfer sales kept the club afloat for most of the season with the finances dropping into the red at the end of the season before the cash injuction pushed the balance to over 10 million euros.

 

Top Goalscorers: John English (19) | Daniel Truslove (7)

Most Assists: Nathan Holland (17) | Mitchell Van Bergen (12) | Daniel Truslove (10)

Retirements at the club: Eugenio Lamanna

 

Other News

Manchester United, Real Madrid, Baye 04 Leverkusen, Inter Milan, Paris Saint Germain, Celtic, Feyenoord win the respective titles.

Manager favourite Reading FC were hot favourites to be the champions and by the 15th match of the season was top of the table which they held onto till displaced by Billericay in the final run in of the season eventually finishing 2nd.

 

Next Season

With the plan to build for the future and stabilise this past season, 10 future potential youths are coming in with the aim to grow them in next few years to provide a stable core for EPL. However, with the promotion, we will need to spend money into the first team player to avoid being a yo-yo club and somehow sneak in a 17th place finish at worst next season.

 

 

@Warhawk

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

1 hour ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

You've just motivated me to persevere with this. I still haven't got them. When I do, my sub challenge is to make it past the first season 👍👍👍

 

Finally...

[Prank Emperor]

And new season this happens! I hope I don't get placed in Transfer embargo before I get all my deals in!

 

[superdad]

We've done what many thought was impossible, and won promotion to League One. Now to secure the title! Coventry are hot on our heels, so it might come down to the last match of the season to decide who wins it.

[superdad]

@Prank Emperor, you know the thing at the bottom of your posts with information about each season? Do you mind if I do something similar? It looks much better than what I put at the bottom of my posts.

[Rashidi]

 

KINGSTONIAN QUICK UPDATE

Mammoth session this, not the post, the game. 

So I've been chronicling my adventures on Youtube if anyone is interested, and I am well underway in 24/25. The season started horrendously. We had a dressing room revolt, Stefan O'Connor, who I swear is Johny Burns BFF, was so enraged that we had shipped out the BFF, he just stormed into my office:

O'Conner:  "I don't believe this how dare you sell Burns off, he's the one who's held us together in the dressing room"

I was pleasantly surprised that the players were bonding that well, without looking up, I told O'Conner to clear his dressing room. He was going to be next. Gone was any happy atmosphere in the locker rooms, it was replaced by outrage. We'd ended the last season in a terrible way, the manager had made sure of it. His hairdryer treatment had shocked even the board, who sent down a representative to warn him that they were keeping a close eye on proceedings. Really this bunch? They hadn't even upgraded any of the training facilities, we've been trying on the same dungheap since our days in L1.  

Preseason meant we needed to go out and make the two key signings we needed. Financially we had lost 40million from last seasons spending extravangza which still cost us a position on the table.  11 new players and we hadn't even improved a position. It was time for some change. We upped and brought in a defensive midfielder, a goal keeper and a fullback. They were others too, but they were just backup. On the shoulders of these 3 players rested our future. And we still had 30million in the kitty, for a total spend of 12m. That was a lot better. 

Towards the end of last season I had managed to negotiate an upgrade to our training facilities, it was still Basic. By November, the board did something strange, they actually agreed to upgrade those facilities and our Youth Level. Had our Chairman finally come to his senses? Wait he did lose 40m last season, so he's spending more this season on facilities. This club is strange.

Heading into preseason, I knew we had to iron out a style of play. Evren Karadeniz had not lit up the league last season, but we still had faith in him. He was going to be our very own "Bobby Firmino". So far he was playing like Andy Carrol. 

We arranged a few pre season matches against larger reputation clubs, and we went out to see how far we were in quality. Needless to say we lost all of them, but during that time, we were trying out our systems. Each game featured a different one, till our last two friendlies. By then a system was coming together. And it was now time to head into our first league game of the season. We have yet to win on opening day. Let me just put it this way, gents the K's are in town! With 11 matches played, we are riding a way of euphoria.

You can follow the chronicles of my Kingstonian Save on YT here:

It begins with a Getting Started with Kingstonian episiode before I sink my teeth into the save.  The first video is merely a guide, the series really kicks off after that. Thanks and I hope you guys have as much fun as I am having!.

 

[paulskln]

Staines Town (Season 3) Promoted to the 2nd Division .... Finished 7th Won via the Play-Offs

 

[fcunitedfan]

Congratulations on promotion to League Two, @paulskln.

[Prank Emperor]

On 03/06/2018 at 23:23, superdad said:

@Prank Emperor, you know the thing at the bottom of your posts with information about each season? Do you mind if I do something similar? It looks much better than what I put at the bottom of my posts.

Sure why not! Why should I have a problem? 😊

[paulskln]

On 06/06/2018 at 23:36, fcunitedfan said:

Congratulations on promotion to League Two, @paulskln.

Thank You @fcunitedfan

[Boyd The Beast]

Metropolitan Police FC

Season 4 - 2021/22

 

League -  A much improved second season in the National League saw us finish 6th booking our place in the playoffs. We unfortunately faded the second half of the season but still played strong enough when it mattered in the playoffs. We have no issue scoring goals but our defense continues to be a huge liability. Need to improve on this or we could have some serious issues next year.

FA Cup - Not quite as good as last year only managing to make it into the First Round. 

FA Trophy - We did it! We won the FA Trophy getting us our first trophy for our cabinet under my management. We had some solid performances along the way and won the final in the 119th minute! What a feeling!

Transfers - Picked up some solid players who played a big part in our season. Shaw, Wright and Noble all were starters who helped us over the line.

Finances - Our finances look good for the first time giving us the ability to finally upgrade some facilities

Career History:

Season	League	Position	FA Cup	Achievements	Top Scorer
2018/19	VNS	19th	4th Qualifying Round		Harry Warwick (26)
2019/20	VNS	5th	1st Round	Promotion via playoffs!	Cameron Ebbutt (27)
2020/21	VNL	17th	2nd Round		Harry Warwick (26)
2021/21	VNL	6th	1st Round	Promotion and FA Trophy	Dave Shaw (39)

Club Information:

Season	Stadium	Avg Attendance	Training Facilities	Youth Facilities	Youth Level	Junior Coaching	Youth Recruitment
2018/19	3000	301	Poor	Poor	0	Minimal	Basic
2019/20	3000	381	Poor	Poor	0	Fairly basic	Fairly basic
2020/21	4297	546	Poor	Poor	0	Average	Average
2021/22	4297	602	Poor	Poor	0	Average	Average

[Prank Emperor]

The last takeover collapsed and now with January transfer window coming up, I have another takeover process started, hope it goes through as I need a board which will grant me affiliate clubs!! 

With EPL finances rolling in I was able to ask for additional funds and was handed a big transfer kitty of nearly 35mil euros for January! And we have picked up an English striker from Fulham Jon Coady for a massive deal of 40Million euros spread over 3-year instalments, with 15M upfront. Got a left winger coming in from Barcelona on cheap, two defenders a transfer listed first teamer Central defender from Tottenham Spurs and an 18yr old who looks like having bags of potential and will serve as back up to homegrown right back Amaral! Also coming in is no-risk Defensive midfielder on the cheap I splashed on last season when he was U-18 and he looks like displacing my first choice right away, scout report suggests he has a good potential as well! So that is good January transfer business before it opens. Got some dough to spare and will dip only for a good youth with potential.

The league position is flattering to us, we are not as good as the position suggests and we got a few lucky results!

 

[Prank Emperor]

Billericay got a new chairman, not sure how he is going to be but let's see he is making the right noise. We finished the league in 6th place getting into Euro Cup displacing Man City on the last day as well as winning the FA Cup after an unbelievable cup run where we took out 4 big name clubs! End of Season detailed report coming up later but really really happy with the season.

[FortuitousFluke]

It's been years since I tried this challenge. I don't recall any success previously but back in the old days I managed to get Dag and Red up to the Premier League. They even constructed a statue in my honour. Unfortunately that seemed to go to my head and I was subsequently sacked when I tried to force my star striker to stay at the club and completely lost the dressing room. Who knew football management wasn't a dictatorship?

Anyway I picked up FM18 on steam after a few years absence from the game so I reckon I'll start this up on Thursday. Already done the holiday bit so ready for the save and reload fest. 

I'm a bit confused by the opening post, is it possible to get St Ives or St Neots? I haven't seen any reports about the them but they're two of my local teams so would be cool. Failing that I work near Dulwich and their crest is epic so I will try for them.

I predict a sacking within 6 months following 10 straight league defeats and a string of suspicious insurance fires in the stadium.

[Algomocu]

You can get both St. Ives and St. Neots.

[FortuitousFluke]

17 hours ago, Algomocu said:

You can get both St. Ives and St. Neots.

Cool thanks for clarifying. 

[michaeltmurrayuk]

Altrincham - Premier League 2023/24 - Season 6

Bit of a delay on this season as I haven't had much chance to play FM recently.

So after making it to the Premier League in the minimum time required the boards Expectations were basically good luck and don't embrass us, with the Media Predicting we'd finish bottom and the Bookies not giving us much chance either however they reckoned four of us stood no chance of staying up and all we needed to do was be better than those three sides, though going straight back down isn't much of an issue I've been relegated at least twice in previous versions without a problem and just one years worth of Prem money should set us up for awhile.

Reputation - Well this should be fun as we are by far the worst team in the league and our rep is still worse than all but one Championship side. We are also the only team with our star player being worth less than £500K, with Derby's worth £6m and everyone else's being worth over £20m.

Transfers - We made a frustrating start as Prem quality players just weren't interested in signing for us and the ones that were wanted silly money, so it was a case of trying to snatch up who we could and quickly broke our transfer record with our first £1m signing, though we had better luck in Jan as I snapped up a couple of promising youngsters, taking full advantage of release clauses and then blew past our transfer record with £14m spent on Wing Back Blake from Wolves and then beat that with £17m spent on Italian Striker De Sanctis.

Outgoing were several squad players who just weren't good enough, though losing Shermadini was a bit of a blow after he moaned when he couldn't get in my side, whilst new signings Markovic and Dunk didn't last long both departing for a profit after struggling.

FA Cup - An excellent run as we made it to the Semi-Final, though we did make a meal of things against West Brom having to come from 2-0 and 3-1 down to claim a replay, we also had to come from behind twice to beat Blackburn thanks to a 93rd minute winner from Weatherall though they had knocked out Utd in the last round. Of course a lucky draw helped out as West Brom were struggling in the Prem and the rest were in the bottom half of the Championship.

The big challenge was the Semi-Final against Chelsea and we put up a good fight but the strikers on each side seemed to have an off day with Chelsea snatching victory in extra-time when subs Lozano and Hazard combined, of course being able to bring on subs worth over £150m helps

League Cup - We went one better here making the Final and without the luck of the draw as I took the competition seriously for the first time for the most part, I fielded my strongest side to get a morale boosting win over Burton, but then gave my second string a chance against Utd and after they'd just thrashed us 7-1 in the league I wasn't hopefully but they also rested players and a double from Lander gave us a famous win, in the next Round I again rested players against Spurs and a brace from Glaztel who had struggled so far saw us come from behind to beat them. In the Quarter Final I fielded a strong side against Stoke where we needed a Glaztel pen to beat them.

In the Semi-Final we face Bournemouth and quickly fell behind but two goals in a minute put us ahead - Glatzel scored the rebound after missing a pen and then Record Signing De Sanctis came off the bench to put us in the lead a day after joining but then conceeded an injury time pen and to make matters worse Striker Lander tore his hamstring leaving him out for the next two months, thankfully Weatherall had just recovered from his knee injury that had kept him out for the last five weeks. The Second leg was a cagey affair not helped by being played in a hailstorm and was settled by another De Sanctis goal to send us to Wembley.

In the Final we faced an Arsenal side who were struggling in the League and we'd also managed to win both our league games against them and to make things even better Arsenal fielded their second string (which still included the likes of Keane, Mstafi, Tierney, Arhur, Pjaca and Lacazette) and they'd also made the silly decision to sell their Star Striker Belotti to City on deadline day for £60m.

League Cup Final - We got off to a great start as some good work from Glatzel on the left found an unmarked Weatherall to open the scoring with less than a minute played, he then added a second tapping in McAuley's cross and then with under 35 minutes played claimed his hat-trick as we claimed our first major piece of silverware and booked our place in Europe next season

And to make things worse the Arsenal manager got fired after the match
 

Premier League - I still have no idea how we managed this as we somehow finished fourth in our debut season to secure Champions League Football :shock:

Though things didn't start well as we lost our first three matches, we got outclassed by Chelsea on our debut but the narrow defeats to Brighton and West Brom hurt as they were the teams we needed to beat, and in the next game we finally got our first point in a crazy 4-4 draw against Palace live on TV as we through away a 4-1 lead with all but one of the goals coming in the first half and then we went to Old Trafford and got stuffed 7-1 the only saving grace was that Liverpool were having just as bad a start as we were.

After that I made some changes dropping new Defenders Bran and Dunk for Academy players Tandy and Best, and made some tactical tweaks switched my Wing Backs from the Support to Auto duty, changed my Midfielder roles from a DLP-S and RPM to a DLP-D and AP-S to add a bit more cover to my defence and had my Wide Strikers man-mark the Full Backs to add some support down the flanks as everyone seemed to be using attacking full-backs against us which overwhelmed my flanks, it also helped that my first choice Keeper was finally back from injury having got injured in our second match.

And that seemed to work as Lander came off the bench to grab a brace against Soton to claim our first win which kicked off a club record 17 league game (22 overall) unbeaten run which was ended by City.

On Boxing day a 3-1 win over Spurs in game 17 saw us climb into fourth place and that is basically where the season ended, the only reall difference in the table from then is that Spurs took Bournemouth's place in Europe and Liverpool swapping places with Arsenal, though there was some final day drama as Newcastle scored an 89th minute winner against City to spend Boro (who lost to Utd) instead of themselves down.

We did drop off in the second half of the season as I concentrated on the cups and made a soft attempt to drop out of the UCL places (as I was happy with the Europa League and don't want the board demanding a top four finish next season) but the teams below us kept on dropping points and even after we failed to win any of our last six games (which was also a new club record) losing four and drawing to City and Spurs they couldn't take advantage, you also have to go back to 2004/05 when Everton finished fourth with 61 points to find a lower points total for fourth (with Liverpool getting 60 in 03/04 and Villa in 95/96 and Chelsea in 97/98 both getting 63 points as well) it also wasn't just us overachieving as newly promoted Stoke managed to finish 7th, of course Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal all being woeful helped out.

Whilst Utd walked the league we were at least one of the two sides to beat them in the league and were responsible for two of the six defeats they suffered this season, though I have no idea how I'll ever catch them as they had a tycoon takeover a couple of seasons back which makes them even more powerful than they normally are

We also had some interesting league stats - we were fourth top scorers but had the fourth worst defence and gave away a league high 10 pens. Whilst our Salary costs were £10m which was a quarter of the next side Derby and likely the costs of one player at Utd who spent £241m! and they also had a net spend of £200m.

Squad, Home and Stat-Pack

In Goal was Pole Kamil Grabara who had a good season, though his place is under threat from Colombian Wonderkid Hugo Perez who arrived in Jan and looks like he could be a great player.

In the Centre of Defence initialy was Lewis Dunk who was doing okay but found himself out of the team and was sold to West Ham for a profit in Jan as he'd lost his place to academy graduate Michael Tandy who despite barely being good enough for the Championship again stepped up with some solid performances. Playing to the Right was Italian Alex Bran who wasn't one of my better purchases having an awful season and lost his place to another Academy graduate Lamar Best who outperformed him despite being rated as a League One player. On the Left side was German Robin Englbrecht who did well and will be joining us permanently next season, covering him was Italian Gaetano Pascuccio in joined in Jan and made a good start.

At Right Wing Back in came Australian Nathan Lyons and after a slow start improved as the season went on, but is likely to lose his place next season to Jacob Blake who arrived for big money in Jan. At Left Wing Back was Spanish youngster Sergio Santamaria who also had a slow start but improved as the season went on which is good as I don't really have any cover on the Left.

In the Centre of Midfield playing as my Deep Lying Playmaker was Scot Taylor King who had a good season and was partnered by Scottish Wonderkid Jim Hamilton who was in good form, though he isn't likely to stay as he spent most of the season wanting out when Arsenal then Spurs looked at him but neither made a bid and he eventually signed a new contract, but at the end of the season has demanded a move to a bigger club even though no one is interested and it seems Champions League football isn't enough to keep him, providing cover was German Vangelis Gerardis who is touted as the next Schweinsteiger and did well when called upon.

Upfront leading the line was another Academy graduate Arran Weatherall who had an excellent season (and hopefuly my board won't try to sell him next season) and was named European Golden Boy and won the Euro U19 Golden Boot, playing to his Left was Captain Paul Glatzel who did well enough after a poor start and on the Right was Irishman Glen McAuley who was solid enough but I don't think either are going to be good enough going forward. Thankfully I have a couple of promising Strikers looking to breakthrough, Academy Grad Olly Gray is developing nicely and is labelled as the next Michael Owen, whilst Uruguayan Maurico Arioli made a good start. Whilst record signing Manuel De Sanctis struggled a bit as he just kept on picking up little knocks and loanee Garry Lander again impressed but I doubt I'll bring him back next season.

Best XI - Pretty much spot on.

Overall XI - Hamilton and Weatherall both make the bench, though Watkins, Graham and Thomas are all promoted from the bench replacing Logan, Guru and Kehinde despite none of them being here any longer.

Euro U19 Dream Team - My England youngsters Best, Weatherall, Gray and Tandy are all named after England lost in the Final to Italy.

Academy - We get three quality players this season GK Tinnion, DC Mooney and Striker Hammell who made a quick start grabbing three goals in four appearances and becoming the Premier Leagues Youngest player and youngest scoring at the age of 15 and claimed Young Player of the Month for April.

Manager Profile - My Reputation goes up by about 1/4 a star whilst I grab the final Coaching Licence and claim Manager of the Year for the fifth team and manage my 300th game.

Finances - We make a crazy £100m profit this season as income is up across the board with the £100m TV deal the biggest increase, outgoings increase threefold but are dwarfed by our income increases, though the £25m the board took later was our biggest expensive.

Commerical Summary - Not much surprise with the players topping the shirt sales, though for next season we sign some bumper new sponsorships which includes £4m p/y for some Altrinicham flavoured coca-cola.

Facilities - Main change see's our Youth Facilities increase to Average and I finally both to invest in some Data Anaylsis facilities, which hardly cost anythin and only take two weeks to build.

Nationalities

17 ENG
5 NIR
4
3 GER, ITA, IRL
2 AUS, SCO, ESP
1 COL, CRO, IRQ, POL, SVK, KOR, TUR, URU, WAL

Squad Rules

Currently I have 16 FGN players, with a max of 17 allowed, though two are on their way out.

For Homegrown rules we have 16 Club Grown and 6 Nation Grown with a further 17 due to become Homegrown, with just 7 not counting at all

Plans For Next Season

So after an excellent Premier League debut I doubt we'll be mounting a title challenge next season and will just be happy to stay up and enjoy our European debut that should be in the Group stage with the rule changes.

Transferwise a couple of new Defenders are again top of the list as whilst Tandy and Best did well they aren't really good enough, a backup Left Wing Back would be nice and possibly an extra Striker. Hopefully with Champions League football we'll actually be able to attract Premier League quality players.

State of The World

Championship - Leeds, Villa and Swansea will all join us next season.

League Two - Billericay continue their 'slow' climb winning promotion to League One with Forest going up as well.

FA Cup - Utd retain the cup thrashing Championship Wolves 5-0 in the Final.

League Cup - Chelsea become the first side to win this twice, beating Utd on pens.

Champions League - Well the English domination didn't start but their was still a shock as Monaco beat Real in the Final, with Monaco beatin Chelsea (QF) and City (1KO) along the way with Utd (Real) and Spurs (Porto) both going out in the Knockout Round.

Europa League - Some good news for England as Everton beat Roma in the Final after extra-time thanks to a 120th min Sandro Pen. Arsenal went out in the QF to Shakther and Liverpool lost to Roma in the 2KO.

Leaderboard points (FM Mode)(My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)
(points / position)
Single Game: 4,484,193 (88,272)
Single Season: 1,090,552 (161,460)
Single Season England: 1,090,552 (82,173)
Single Season Premiership: 888,542 (118,920)
Single Season Championship: 177,858 (31,475)
Single Season League One: 709,941 (9,933)
Single Season League Two: 749,065 (1,360)
Single Season National League: 1,090,552 (153)
Single Season National North: 868,235 (94 :cool:)

Career Overview

Season	League	League Finish	Achievements	Leaderboard Points	Av. Attendance
18/19	National North	1st	Promoted & FA Trophy Winners	868,235	1,927 (31%)
19/20	National League	1st	Promoted & FA Trophy Winners	1,090,552 / 1,958,787	3,022 (49%)
20/21	League Two	1st	Promoted	749,065 / 2,707,852	3,920 (87%)
21/22	League One	4th	Promoted - Playoffs & Checkatrade Trophy Winners	709,941 / 3,417,793	4,198 (98%)
22/23	Championship	2nd	Promoted	177,858 / 3,595,651	5,000 (100%)
23/24	Premier League	4th	League Cup Winners	888.542 /  4,484,193	25,146 (87%)

[fcunitedfan]

I had a problem with my FM Touch, which was caused by Google Play Store. Before realising Play Store was the problem, I uninstalled the game and reinstalled it. In doing this, my Kettering save disappeared! I'm so annoyed about this, as I'd just reached the end of my first season and had done really well. I'm going to restart the challenge, this time with Barwell as I don't think anyone else has used them this year.

 

[bigmattb28]

I've reloaded a lot of times and the team I want always stay down and never go up, is it random what teams go up or is it based on rep? I don't want to keep reloading if the team is never going to come up. 

[michaeltmurrayuk]

5 hours ago, bigmattb28 said:

I've reloaded a lot of times and the team I want always stay down and never go up, is it random what teams go up or is it based on rep? I don't want to keep reloading if the team is never going to come up. 

It's mainly based on reputation with some randomness throw in as well, though for the most part the lower the rep the lower the chances of the team being promoted. Also the team you want has to be in one of the feeder leagues there is a list of teams in the opening post - if you want a team from below these leagues then you'd need to holiday multiple seasons to allow them to get promoted to the feeder league, this can also sometimes help with getting different teams especially if their is a large team that nearly always appears as you'd get them out of the pool (though you'd have to hope a big side didn't get relegated and took their place).

[Jellico73]

My Enfield Town save continues.

Last season was a surprise promotion the League 1, and after a frustrating offseason, our League 1 start is well underway, and we aren't doing to bad.

 

 

Jellico

[michaeltmurrayuk]

Altrincham - Premier League 2024/25 - Season 7

So after an excellent debut season in the Premier League the Board were expecting us to stay clear of relegation with a Mid-table finish, not that the Media gave us much chance predicting a 17th place finish, with the Bookies making us the best of the cannon fodder. Though Weaherall was made third favourite to be Top Goalscorer.

Reputation - Still fairly rubbish as it only slightly increases leaving us miles behind everyone else again, though we are now better than most Championship sides.

Takeover - We finally had to deal with the fuss of a takeover (first time in the challenge this hasn't happened in the first couple of seasons) thankfully it went through quick and easy after the window had shut and all I got out of it was the board cancelling our facilities approvements adding a years delay to them.

Transfers - Not a lot of activity as we still cannot really attract quality players so instead snapped up some promising youngsters before spending a club record £22m on a Centre-Back from relegated Derby. Outgoing were youngsters and squad players who weren't good enough with Striker McAuley going for a club record £9m.

League Cup - Not a great defence of our trophy as our second string went straight out to Liverpool's second string.

FA Cup - An excellent run as we went one better than last season reaching the final, though we made hard work of an easy draw. Things started well with an 8-0 thrashing of Swansea thanks to their GK having a shocker as he gifted us three goals and ended the match with a 3.1 rating the lowest I've ever seen. Brushed past Spurs with easy before making a meal of beating Championship strugglers Birmingham needing three goals in the last 10 minutes to beat them. We then snuck past another Championship side Wednesday setting up a Semi-Final against relegated Palace and nearly made a mess of that needing two late goals from mistakes to beat them though then we went and gave away a pen in injury time but thankfully my Keeper saved it to set up a final against the all conquering Utd.

Going into the Final Utd had already won the League Cup and Premier League and were hoping for a domestic clean sweep, though we did have an interesting record against Utd - we'd won three of the five games, however we did lose the other two 7-1 and 5-1 so the game could go either way and having several injuries was going to make things harder as Defender Englbrecht and Strikers Matheus and Andrew were all out injured, whilst Defender Pascuccio needed an injection to let him play on the plus side Dybala was out for Utd.

The Final - We got off to a great start with Weatherall reacting first to the rebound opening the scoring on his birthday (not sure how Gray got this assist considering two other players touched the ball after him?) and then we made it 2-0 this time De Sanctis smashing in after Weatherall's header and whilst Utd pulled one back it seemed their Striker got injured scoring and had to go off. In the second half we restored our two goal lead when De Sanctis returned the favour setting up Weatherall for his second and whilst Utd pulled back another thanks to our inability to clear a corner we held on to win the FA Cup With our 23 goals being a new comp record.
 

Champions League - Thanks to the new rules we made our debut straight in the group stage, but being fourth seeds we ended up with a tough group that included two of the favourites - Italian champions Juventus who have won the Italian league 14 years in a row(!) and won the Champions League back in 21 and had lost in the Semi's three times and had so far always made it past the group stage. Second seeds were Spanish giants Barcelona who'd won the Champions League the year before Juventus and then lost to them in the Final next season, other than that they hadn't made it past the Quarters but again always got out of the group. Third seeds were Scottish champions Celtic who'd also won their title 14 years in a row, but had never made it out of the group stage and hadn't won a Europa league game when dropping down.

Game One - We started off with the short trip to Glasgow and things did not go well we fell behind within a minute and then had our left back sent off as we just didn't turn up and welcome to Europe

Game Two - A much better performance as we matched Barcelona and were unlucky not to win with Tandy unlucky to deflect a late shot into his own goal.

Game Three - This is more like it as we hammer Juventus thanks to a De Sanctis hat-trick which lifts us up to second.

Game Four - A crazy game as we beat Juventus 5-4 in Italy though the first half didn't go well as we just couldn't cope with their firepower and were getting torn apart down the flanks as their FB's were almost playing as Wingers so in the second half I brought on Krasniqi and moved him out to the Left Wing purely to mark their right back out of the game and it worked as we started to take control with De Sanctis quickly pulling a goal back and then we had a crazy last five mins as we levelled the game thanks to their right back deflecting the ball into his own net, we then missed a pen before their right back was sent off and then scored the second pen for a famous win, which left us on the brink of qualification having 7 ponts to the 3 that Celtic and Juventus had.

Game Five - And we blew it with another woeful performance against Celtic as we somehow made three goal mistakes whilst only conceeding twice.

Game Six - A disappointing performance as we conceed at the start and end of the match to lose which combined with Celtic drawing against Juventus sends us out on head-to-head.

Group Table - To be honest I would have taken third at the start, though was expecting Juventus not Celtic to beat us. In the End Real Madrid went on to beat City in the Final, with Real also knocking out Chelsea (SF) and Utd (QF) along the way.

Europa League - In the First Knockout Round we faced Turkish side Besiktas who'd also finished 3rd in their group and had only made it past this stage once in the first season when they lost in the Semi to Liverpool, and with the First Leg in Turkey we made no mistakes thrashing them 6-1 thanks to a Weatherall hat-trick with all goals coming in the first half. In the Second Leg I rest players but we still dominated scoring three second half goals.

Second Knockout Round drew us against A.Madrid another team that finished third in their group and that won the Champions League in the first season but this was their first time in the Europa League. Again we dominated the First Leg with De Sanctis giving us an early lead before two late goals gave us a commanding lead. In the Second Leg I was again able to rest players as a solid defensive performance gave us a 1-0 win. We also lost a couple of English sides as this point with Spurs losing to AC Milan and Stoke going out on away goals to Valencia after spending most of the game with just nine men.

Quarter Final we faced Italians Fiorentina who'd made it this far twice previously and the First Leg was another crazy 5-4 win we were looking comfortable with a 3-1 lead going into the last 10 mins, but found ourselves 4-3 down by the 91st minute but then scored in the 92nd and 94th minutes to claim a weird win - the issue was Fiorentina were playing an insanely high line as they threw everyone but their DCs forward we kept on picking them off and really should have been out of sight before the end but their tactic of throwing everyone forward nearly worked as we couldn't cope defensively. The Second Leg was a much better performance as our defenders easily dealt with everything they threw at us and my attackers took their chances.

Semi Final we faced our third Spanish side Valencia who'd actually won this back in 22 and had made the Semi's on two other occasions. An excellent First Leg put us in a commanding position as we again surperbly and took our chances as Academy Prospect Gray grabbed a hat-trick. In the Second Leg an early Gray goal broke Valencia as we easily saw out a poor game to book our place in the Final.

In the Final of course we'd face another English side as last seasons winners Everton had follow the same route as ourselves though they'd been beaten by Leverkusen and Rangers in the Champions League. We also had an even record against Everton both having won two of the five games we'd played, though we had won both our league games this season. But we still had the same injury problems from the FA Cup that was just a couple of days ago though Defender Englbrecht was just about fit enough to start, whilst Glatzel had to be given an injection to be fir for the bench with Pascuccio getting another injection.

The Final got off to a bad start as we gave their MR Romero all the space to score from the edge of the area, then things got worse as Gray saw his penalty saved but he made amends minutes later setting up De Sanctis to draw us level, but midway through the second half our good work was undone as we switched off and let sub Bernard ghost in at the far post to restore Everton's lead, but it wasn't long before Wonderkid Hamilton drew us level again bringing the ball down beautifully then smashing the ball into the net from the edge of the area and minutes later he did the same to put us in the lead for the first time and that broke Everton as we held on to win the Europa League and re-secure Champions League football Also rather harshly the Everton manager got sacked after the game.
 

Striker Weatherall was named Player of the Comp with De Sanctis second with both of them being named in the Dream Team along with defenders Badea and Pascuccio with the rest of my side largely missing out due to not playing enough games, with De Sanctis and Weatherall both also making the All-Time Team.

Premier League - Another excellent season as we finish fifth but with more points than last season, we Started off well with another crazty 5-4 win this time over Everton and we put up a good fight but ran out of steam in the second half of the season as I put the effort into the cups and europe and couldn't keep pace with Stoke (who seem fairly strong for a team that came up with us) as we don't have the squad depth to compete on several fronts as nine of our defeats came before/after cup games, though we did come close to snatching Stokes place as on the last day a last minute Tandy goal gave our badly weakened side a draw at Villa which left us three points behind Stoke but whilst everyone else had finished we still had to play Chelsea as their wasn't any place to fit the game in before the end of the season, but now a badly weakened and tired team claim a solid draw against Chelsea though it wasn't enough to pass Stoke.

Squad, Home and Stat-Pack.

In Goal Colombian Wonderkid Hugo Perez had a good season cementing his place as first choice and is developing nicely though for some reason the fans seem to dislike him, providing cover was Pole Kamil Grabara who was a bit unlucky to lose his place.

In the Centre of Defence was Romanian Bogdan Badea who arrived for a record £22m and had a mixed season as he struggled in the league but showed his worth in Europe, playing to his Left was German Robin Englbrecht who had a poor season and also seems to have hit his limit, and on the Right was Italian Gaetano Pascuccio who also struggled but can still improve. Providing cover was Academy prospect Lamar Best who had a poor season but to be honest is no where near ready, whilst Michael Tandy had his best season so far, whilst Colombian Victor Batalla stepped up at the end of the season with some strong performances but some better quality defenders will be on my list again next season.

At Right Wing Back was Jacob Blake who was in good form, but is likely to be pushed hard next season by Promising Turk Ilhami Gizlen who finally arrived in Jan after turning 18. Down the Left was Spanaird Sergio Santamaria who was in excellent form, providing cover was German Till Leipertz who was a bit unlucky as he'd broken his leg before joining in Jan and had to be slowly nursed back to fitness.

In the Centre of Midfield as my Deep Lying Playmaker was Czech Wonderkid Marek Kovarik who made a slow start but improved as the season went on helped by the switching of the duty from Defend back to Support, partnering him as my Advanced Playmaker was Scottish Wonderkid Jim Hamilton who had his best season yet and no longer seems to want out. Providing cover was Scot Taylor King who had a poor season and will likely be moved on as he doesn't count as homegrown and I'll likely need his squad place, whilst German Vangelis Gerardis was in good form.

Up Front leading the line was Academy graduate Arran Weatherall who had a storming season grabbing an impressive 43 goals from 44 games (which just fell short of the record 49 goals scored by McAuley a couple of seasons back) and became only the second player to retain the European Golden Boy Award, playing to his right was Italian Manuel De Sanctis who was also on fire and showed why I spent £17m on him last season. On the Left was another Academy graduate Olly Gray who stepped up with some excellent performances and is developing nicely and is still only 18. Providing cover was my Captain Paul Glatzel who randomly decided he was German midway through the season and whilst he started the season well he just couldn't get back into the team after losing his place to Gray and his time is likely up, especially as I signed Liam Andrew from Liverpool to add some more squad depth, whilst Brazilian Matheus was brought in to add a bit of experience and did surprisingly well when called upon.

Best XI - Pretty much spot on.

Overall XI - This just gets more messed up each season, though at least Hamilton and Grabara make the team, but for some reason Midfielder Thomas moves to Left Back and Kehinde moves into Defence - which probarbly sums up our defensive issues as the game reckons my best defenders were a Midfielder, Full-Back and a guy I had on loan, as it seems the game uses a places current position ratings instead of historical ones.

Academy - Only one player with Potential this season Striker Jim Pinch who seems to have insane physical attributes for that age.

Facilities - Only improvement is to our Data Analysis Facilities as the takeover cancelled the other improvements, whilst we should finally move into our new Staduim next season though will be losing 10,000 capacity.

Finances - We again make crazy money, with the main income increases being the £25m European prize money and £15m TV Money, we also got £14m sponsorship money which was a massive increase on the previous £1m deals we had. On expenses the biggest increase was the £34m we paid out in tax. With our Net Transfer spending being £37m.

Commerical Summary - Bit of a surprise to see Gray topping the sales, whilst the game seems to have finally solved the long standing Sponsorship issue as our sponsorship for next season will double to over £30m!

Profile - Only real change is in my Tactical rating, whilst my Reputation reaches four stars and I become the first in-game Manager to win Manager of the Year twice in a row. I was also offered the Belgium and Italy jobs.

Nationalities

18 ENG
5 GER
2 COL, ITA, MEX, IRL, SCO, TUR, WAL
1 AUS, BRA, CRO. CZE, POL, ROU, KOR, ESP, URU

Squad Rules

Currently I have 14 registered FGN players, with a further 4 unregistered.

For Homegrown rules we have 21 Club Grown and 4 Nation Grown with a further 16 due to become Homegrown 5 of which are due at the end of this season, and just 5 not counting at all.

Plans For Next Season

I'll likely concentrate on the Champions League next season (hopefully we'll have a better seeding) as we don't have the squad depth to match Utd in the league.

Transfer targets will again be some Defenders and it looks like we are finally at the point where we can attract Prem quality players the only issue now is being able to afford them. I may also need to have a clear out of some of my squad players as we are at the squad rule limit.

And one thing that is a bit silly is that the board keep on setting our pre-season training camps for the week before pre-season starts which makes them pointless but their doesn't seem to be anyway to opt out of them?


Leaderboard points (FM Mode)(My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)
(points / position)
Single Game: 6,143,550 (57,930)
Single Season: 1,659,357 (104,698)
Single Season England: 1,659,357 (58,049)
Single Season Premiership: 1,659,357 (57,304)
Single Season Championship: 177,858 (31,475)
Single Season League One: 709,941 (9,933)
Single Season League Two: 749,065 (1,360)
Single Season National League: 1,090,552 (153)
Single Season National North: 868,235 (94 :cool:)

Career Overview

Season	League	League Finish	Achievements	Leaderboard Points	Av. Attendance
18/19	National North	1st	Promoted & FA Trophy Winners	868,235	1,927 (31%)
19/20	National League	1st	Promoted & FA Trophy Winners	1,090,552 / 1,958,787	3,022 (49%)
20/21	League Two	1st	Promoted	749,065 / 2,707,852	3,920 (87%)
21/22	League One	4th	Promoted - Playoffs & Checkatrade Trophy Winners	709,941 / 3,417,793	4,198 (98%)
22/23	Championship	2nd	Promoted	177,858 / 3,595,651	5,000 (100%)
23/24	Premier League	4th	League Cup Winners	888.542 /  4,484,193	25,146 (87%)
24/25	Premier League	5th	FA Cup & Europa League Winners	1,659,357 /  6,143,550	25,721 (88%)

 

[jaysdailydose]

I know I'm very late to the party, but I just got FM18 for my 40th birthday, and what better challenge to run with than the Dafuge.  

I've got to let my Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge rest on its laurels for now, anyway, as it was on FM17.

I originally started the challenge with Marine, but as it was my very first save on FM18, I had some problems adjusting to the new features.  I didn't have things set up well, and it showed once we hit competitive play.  I also didn't know that Marine did not have a U23 side, and that is vital to me -- so I restarted quickly, and will now play with Merthyr Town!



EDIT: Kind of funny that I just turned 40, got FM18 for my 40th birthday, and my entry in to the challenge (for the first time in a few versions) is on Page #40.  Omen, perhaps?

[jaysdailydose]

Well, that was a real bummer... sacked before there's even another post in the thread.   

I was going to go with my Marine start again, but I did it at the very end of the night last night, and honestly, after sleeping on it, I decided I really don't want to try to go without a U23's side, for help with fitness and development, and, not unimportant, an extra coach with the senior setup in the U23's manager.   I hadn't done anything but the base interview with the chairman, and with this being such a long term save, I didn't want to be angry three years down the road in-game if I didn't have a U23's side.

I've honestly never looked to play with, or knew anything about the club I'll be taking over for my final attempt at the challenge, but I will be playing as the manager of Matlock Town F.C. for better or worse.  

I've still never completed this challenge in my "career" of playing FM, so this is big to me... hopefully, now that I've learned all the new features and the new scouting, I can actually be successful.  




 

[ozzymanborn]

Just Started with Rushall (I'm hoping better results than people who used that team)

I'm in love with my crazy diamond narrow.

[fcunitedfan]

Barwell F.C. - Vanarama North - 2018/19

With this being my first season in charge of the newly promoted team, we were expected to struggle in the league and the cups. The media predicted us to finish 22nd.

League Table - We defied all the odds to win the league by five points!

Past Positions - We spent the majority of the season in and around the top three.

FA Cup - We had a fantastic run, reaching the 2nd round. It's a shame we couldn't make it one round further and get a big money match, but there's always next season.

FA Trophy - Somehow we managed to battle our way to the final, where we faced Macclesfield. The final was a close one, but we pulled off a massive upset to secure the double.

Transfers - Quite a few players brought in, but not all of them became first team regulars. I did release a few players at the start of  the season as well, but they don't show on the screenshot.

Squad - I managed to put together a good squad of players, most of which were brought in by me after I took over. The dead wood is due to leave soon, to make way for hopefully higher quality players. 

Finances - We made a nice profit due to the cup runs and our final league position. Next seasons wage budget is quite low, which is a slight cause for concern.

Club overview - Still only a one star reputation, even after the league and cup double. We'll be playing our home games in Tamworth stadium due to a required upgrade to our ow  stadium.

Manager Profile

Key Players:

Elliot Rokka - Joined the club in December, but still became our top scorer for the season and second from top in the Vanarama North league. Can't wait to see how many he can bag next season.

Joel Logan - Loaned in from FC United. Played brilliantly on the wing, getting the most assists and winning Vanarama North player of the season. He'll be joining the club permanently from 7th June.

Chris Ward - He was rock solid at the back, defending with passion and getting the most player of the match awards for our club this season.

Cameron Mason - His performances in goal saved us on many occasions, especially against the bigger teams in the cups. A truly great keeper at the lower levels, with room for improvement.

Career Overview

Season    League                       Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2018/19   Vanarama Conference North    1st         Champions, FA Trophy winners   

Next Season

Our main aim for next season is to avoid relegation, and at a push achieve a mid-table position in the Vanarama National league. We'll be looking to strengthen the squad in a few positions to achieve this. Winning the FA Trophy again would also be great, as would another FA Cup run.

[fcunitedfan]

Good luck @jaysdailydose and @ozzymanborn.

[CMU Chips]

Just got a new PC so I decided to give this a try.

Ended up at Whitby

20 games in we are sitting in 18th place, 5 clear of relegation and 12 back of the playoffs.

Huge problems in defense (47 conceded) but the goalscorers are doing alright. 

Makes me feel bad that the three newly promoted teams in the Vanarama South are 2nd, 3rd, and 10th but at least I'm ahead of one of the new teams in my own league :P

 

 

[fcunitedfan]

Best of luck @CMU Chips.

[CMU Chips]

2 hours ago, fcunitedfan said:

Best of luck @CMU Chips.

Thanks, I didn't think I would need it when we were sitting 15th in the middle of February, but when you do this over the final 12 games of the season it ends up coming down to luck.

Entered the final matchday 1 point ahead of both Halifax and Nuneaton for the final safe position, luckily only one of those two won.

I had no idea what to do in the transfer market; I started by signing anyone my scouts/assistant thought were first team players when they were on trial but many turned out to be pretty awful. After that I had some panic purchases. Most of these guys won't be back for next season. A fair few are non-contract players but I wasted way too much of the wage budget early on on sub-par players so I'm hoping next year I can make better decisions in that regard. 

Overall we were probably the second or third worst team in the league (thankfully King's Lynn was there for us) but the form in December/January/February was enough to barely keep us up. Gonna change things tactically over the summer and hopefully next season we can finish much higher in the table. 

 

[fcunitedfan]

The main thing is that you survived to manage for another season. Fingers crossed you can do better next season.

Wow, that's a lot of players in! How far over your wage budget were you? How are your finances? 

[CMU Chips]

9 hours ago, fcunitedfan said:

The main thing is that you survived to manage for another season. Fingers crossed you can do better next season.

Wow, that's a lot of players in! How far over your wage budget were you? How are your finances? 

Since most were non-contract I think I was only between 3k-5k over wage budget (which is actually pretty large at this level), so finances suffered quite a bit but the board keeps injecting cash to cover the expenses so we are sitting around 50k in debt. I'm 3k over again this season and yet I'm still 21st in terms of salary in the league with only one of the newly promoted teams behind me. Got a few decent looking players who are out of contract with their clubs but won't talk to me since they don't think I can pay them what they deserve

Early season we are floating between mid-table and lower mid-table, so I'm hoping we can find some consistent good form at some point and push our way up.

[Cloondawg]

After unfortunately losing my save file when I updated to Windows 10, I'm starting again as Hitchin manager!

 

 

[fcunitedfan]

It's a shame you lost your save. I had my Kettering save corrupted somehow after my first season, which was annoying. Good luck with your second attempt.

[fcunitedfan]

I've reached the FA Cup 3rd round, and this is the match I got drawn!

I'm playing FA Cup holders Swansea at their stadium.

[CMU Chips]

Improvement, but we fell just short of the playoffs.

 

We only spent one week in the playoff spots all season, and it was quite early on, but we were on the edge for the entire second half. Brackley spend 10 of the last 13 weeks in the playoff spots but lost on the last day and both Telford and Gainsborough passed them. Telford's second half of the season was insane, I think they have a real shot at winning the playoffs.

 

Transfers were much more subdued this time around, and of those most became important first team players. Squad season stats are here. I'll be looking to extend a couple more contracts, but there are some areas we need to improve upon. We had the third most goals scored in the league, but also the second most conceded. I'm looking for a first choice GK over the summer, along with a RB and possibly a LB+CB.

 

I originally told the players that I aim to be at least in the playoffs next year; they thought I was being too ambitious so to satisfy them I told them mid-table and they agreed that was fair. Since we were only expected to fight relegation this year I hope we can show a similar level of overachieving next season.

[fcunitedfan]

Great progress @CMU Chips. Unlucky not to get into the playoffs. Next season will hopefully be your season to gain promotion.

You signed some good players. Tyrell McKenzie is a great striker.

[ozzymanborn]

 

RUSHALL OLYMPIC

First Season Update: Relegated & Sacked (22th place after 38th week)

All Wins came in December and I win Manager of the Month.

My transfers usually were old folks Marcus Tudgay epitomies that and Ironically his career finished with hip injury (twice) 28 apps 16 goals 1 assist

Sorry for multiple pictures and not making it a story but I was very confident which I'm able to stay in division with Rushall.

 

 

[berty1978]

Going to give this a go after getting back into FM recently, still terrible at the game though.  After a few reloads I chose Witton Albion, quite a low rep team so expected to finish rock bottom and promotion odds of 300/1.  Not many players to start with so will need to make plenty of free signings.

 

Not an exciting history, once runner up in the FA Trophy and spent most of the last 30 years in the Northern League apart from three seasons in the National League, in fact they were a newly promoted team into the Northern Premier last season so had two successive promotions into the Vanarama North.

[fcunitedfan]

Barwell F.C. - Vanarama National - 2019/20

After our massive over-achievement last season, the prediction for this season was that we'd finish rock bottom of the league and go straight back down. The minimum prediction for us in the FA Trophy was 2nd round, which was a bit surprising as we won it last season.

League Table - I would have been very happy with a mid-table finish, as I thought that was as good as we'd achieve. I never thought we'd get into the play-off spots, but we somehow managed it. In the playoff 1st round, we were taken to penalties against Dagenham. We got through to the playoff semi finals, where Hartlepool took us to another penalty shootout. After an even more nerve wracking yet successful shootout, we met Newport County playoff final. They dominated the match, but we were able to score the only goal and gain promotion to League Two!

Past Positions - After a few draws which saw us I  the bottom half of the table, we found our rhythm and climbed to the play-off spots. That's where we stayed for the rest of the season.

FA Cup  - We went one better than last season, making it to the 3rd round. We were drawn away against last season's FA Cup winners, Swansea. They best us easily, but we got a nice pay day.

FA Trophy - With a minimum expectation of 2nd round, the pressure was off even though we were the defending champions. I wanted us to win it again though, and we did just that. It's a shame we won't be participating in this cup next season.

Transfers - This season saw me spend my first bit of cash to bring a player in, but he was a bargain at just £5K.  Apart from him, all the other players in and out were free transfers.

Finances - A couple of trips to Wembley and the FA Cup run saw us pass £600K at one point, but upgrading our training facilities brought us down to just over £500K. We have a nice transfer budget for next season, but I'll probably move most of that money into the wages instead.

Club Overview - We've gained half a star and become a pro club. We're also back in our own stadium, but for half of next season the capacity will be reduced due to one of the stands needing an upgrade to meet League Two standards. Good to see our season ticket holders doubled from the previous season. I'm hoping by the end of next season, we'll see my name with the other club icons.

Manager Profile - I gained half a star of reputation, which is nice I guess. I'm now contracted to the club for another two years. With my reputation overtaking the club's, I may have to leave for one of the many Premier League clubs who'll undoubtedly be coming for me next season! 😂

Key Players:

Mark Wood - Easily my best signing so far. Wood had a brilliant first season, earning himself Vanarama National player of the season. He also scored the winning goal in both the FA Trophy final and the playoff final. Definitely £5K well spent, and he's been improving in training all season as well.

Elliot Rokka - Another great season for the lone striker. He was Vanarama National top scorer. He's also signed a new contract since I took the screenshot, which is great for the club as he'll still be featuring in next seasons first team.

Marvin Ekpiteta - Came in on loan from eventual league winner Leyton Orient, and defended like a champ. I've offered him a permanent contract, which I hope he accepts.

Jordan Wright - Another new player to the club who had a great season. Wright spent the majority of the season embarrassing defenders on the right wing with his outstanding dribbling skills.

Joel Logan - FC United were crazy to let this guy out on loan last season, and even more crazy to let us have him for free this season. Another amazing season for Logan, as he make the left midfield position his own. He scored as many goals as he set up.

Career Overview

Season    League                       Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2018/19   Vanarama North               1st         Champions, FA Trophy winners
2019/20   Vanarama National            6th         Playoff winners, FA Trophy winners

Next Season

Playing in League Two is going to be a massive step up for us, after back to back promotions. I'll be pleased if we avoid relegation next season. Another run to the 3rd round of the FA Cup would be great. Getting past the group stages in our very first Checkatrade Trophy would be a bonus, but that'll be a big ask. I'm not too bothered about the Carabao Cup, but having a good run in that cup would be nice.

[fcunitedfan]

@ozzymanborn it's a shame you got sacked. I also got sacked from Rushall on my first attempt at this year's Dafuges. Are you going to have another go with a different team?

@berty1978 good luck with Witton. They're a good choice of team. They have a really nice looking stadium in real life. I think I had a go as them in FM15 or 16, and had a lot of fun.