slightly Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 So I'm playing the FM18 Beta as Sunderland (I know, I know). We narrowly missed out on the playoffs in the first season. I'd been given £15m transfer budget and had £3m left at the end of the season, plus agreements to sell around another £2.5m worth of players. Unfortunately this wasn't enough to stave off the very real threat of administration (not a problem, Sunderland are in a very precarious position in real life). We haven't officially entered Administration yet, but it can't be far off. So, the board have set my budgets for the new season at £0 transfer (expected) and £62,500 wage budget (entire weekly budget for the whole squad). For reference, I'm currently spending 10x that on the squad wages, in line with the original budget I was given. As mad as that is, I could basically sell most of my first teamers and try to cope with a squad made up of reserves and kids. Again, not totally unrealistic given the circumstances. The part I can't fathom is that the board are expecting me to sign a new contract and have set the expectations as "reaching the playoffs". The playoffs. With no recognised first team players. With no experienced players. With a greatly reduced coaching and scouting team. The board have also just sold the training facilities (again, not surprising). I've repeatedly put off signing a new contract, each time asking for an increased wage budget - but I'm always knocked back. I'm well aware that administration is catastrophic, but I can't help but feel that this seems like a bug. What can I do from here? Will actually going into Administration alter the board's expectations? Has anyone else had a similar experience in FM? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrdanbartlett Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 Will be interested to see what the response is here. I wonder if you got a long new contract, then went into admin, it would then be harder for the board to sack you as they would need to spend a fair bit of money paying up your contract? On a side note terrible as the situation sounds, it actually sounds like a cracking save, a great challenge. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameuss Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 It's the age old problem that touches on a whole load of modules in-game. Context. Not enough factors coming into a decision, and no real-world (or game-world) understanding of the bigger picture. If they nail that, they'll be flying. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemeuresnew Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 i would imagine the high expectations are mainly reputation based? kind of opposite to how you can rip through a league after promotion because the AI assumes you are weak for the weekly budget, you need around 25 million to make up the difference over the season. i would just keep as much as the team as possible, and make a final charge for the promotion. that will seem like pennies if you make it... how many fringe or over rated players do you have that you can afford to lose and still give it a shot? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Per Annum Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 I actually often find that boards in FM are unrealistically not bothered by debt, to the point that it becomes boring. I often run up loads of debt and it always just gets re-financed, with loan repayments plunging me in to ever increasing debt, which is re-financed, rinse repeat for ever and ever as I continue spending. I therefore think what is happening to you at Sunderland is (nearly) fantastic and wish it happened more. Agree completely however that it destroys the whole thing that they want you to aim for promotion. If your wage budget is that it should be merely stay up. The only caveat I can think of is that if you get promotion to EPL then you will likely clear all the debt just from TV payments. I doubt an FM board is that 'smart' to be thinking that though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomGuy. Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 Tbf I wonder if the use of "board expectation" is a bit deceiving here. I'm not sure it's totally unrealistic that a club who desperately need promotion, and the resultant windfall, to stave off administration, would tell their manager they need to get promoted. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
slightly Posted November 7, 2017 Author Share Posted November 7, 2017 I agree its certainly an interesting save. I'm currently £500k p/w over my wage budget after further trimming. I think that alone would be grounds for sacking me. Lets see how the paper thin squad fares in the gruelling Championship season... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
slightly Posted November 7, 2017 Author Share Posted November 7, 2017 Here's another odd thing though... I've just had the staff recommend I sign one of my 16 year olds to a pro contract. They were willing to let me go up to £5k p/w wages as a hot prospect. However, when I'm trying to sign 30 year olds on free transfers as first team or key players, the max I can offer is £400 p/w. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Per Annum Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 sounds like the save needs to be given to SI, from the closest date before the board actions as possible. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spurs08 Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 1 hour ago, slightly said: I agree its certainly an interesting save. I'm currently £500k p/w over my wage budget after further trimming. I think that alone would be grounds for sacking me. Lets see how the paper thin squad fares in the gruelling Championship season... Really, they shouldn't sack you. That would cost money. Rather, they should just be selling everyone they can as quickly as they can by themselves, and if you don't like it you're free to resign. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
slightly Posted November 7, 2017 Author Share Posted November 7, 2017 Ironically I've just been awarded the Shrewd Spender achievement for attaining 90% board confidence for controlling the clubs wage bill. For info, the wage bill is currently £500k p/w and the allocated budget is £80k p/w. Bizarre! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Per Annum Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 5 minutes ago, slightly said: Ironically I've just been awarded the Shrewd Spender achievement for attaining 90% board confidence for controlling the clubs wage bill. For info, the wage bill is currently £500k p/w and the allocated budget is £80k p/w. Bizarre! As above, early save file as possible to SI with bug report - the game clearly can't handle the admin situation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toffle Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 Why don't you report it as a bug? That's the main goal of a beta. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takamaru Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 It's a tough situation. I'm at Guiseley in my 2nd season after taking over halfway through the previous season. During last season we were somehow losing about 100k a month (highest wages in league + 2nd lowest attendance). Wages were a result of the previous management, but at the end of the season we were -800k. Chairman slashed my wage budget, which was fine by me as it was way too high anyway. Monthly salary expenses went from 80k to 35k. Glad we're still beating expectations sitting 11th in the league. I'm just about managing to balance the books at the moment, still slightly dropping. I see no way of saving even more expenses and still managing to finish mid-table though. Apart from that, at the moment all I can see happening is having even less budget next season and falling down the league more. Seems to be a matter of just waiting to enter administration. Just like in real life, if your boss can't offer you what you're looking for it's always an option to move on to another challenge. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takamaru Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 Update: the board has reduced my wage budget twice now in the first 6 months. I'm now down to 25k per month, which means I'm almost 30% over the budget that was set at the beginning of the season. Even though I'm already spending about 35% of last season's budget. No future at this team. I'm outta here as soon as I can... but shhhh, don't tell my chairman Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Etebaer Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 In FM17 starting a CaC Club in the german lowest league (3rd League) i have a ton of very Young loan Players as i can get them for no Wage and Fee - so i can stay in my small Budget while trying to make it into Promotion and invest my Little Money in some key Players (better have a few quality Players than many average ones and hope you dont get to many injuries). Does that still work in FM18? (I have started another FM17 CaC Club but as usualy i only toy around and see little worth in playing it seriously especially now that FM18 is so few days away - i know 3000+ hours of playtime looks impressive but most of it is running idle at the background) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
puffascruffowitz Posted November 7, 2017 Share Posted November 7, 2017 Pretty fun challenge to find yourself in. I'm curious how you managed the squad with the hugely decreased payroll? Did you end up signing any "greyed out players" or things like that to fill your squad? I don't even know how I would go about that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takamaru Posted November 8, 2017 Share Posted November 8, 2017 3 hours ago, puffascruffowitz said: Pretty fun challenge to find yourself in. I'm curious how you managed the squad with the hugely decreased payroll? Did you end up signing any "greyed out players" or things like that to fill your squad? I don't even know how I would go about that. Not sure if this was aimed at my post or OP's, but since the question applies to both our situations I'll try to answer how I dealt with it. When I took over from my current team mid-season 17/18 I noticed that my team had similar quality and aged players for a lot of positions. That's a fantastic situation when you've got plenty of money, but we obviously didn't. So I tried to only keep one first team-level player for every position as much as possible. I also got rid of any other players that had high wages compared to their skill level. Next step, I filled up the backup team with youth players where possible. I promoted about 4 players from the youth team which had only 1 or 2 stars current rating, but 4+ star potential rating. Additionally I tried to sign some good loan players, but failed pretty much in that regard. Only managed to get 1 loan player in later in the season that made the first team. Finally I took in a lot of players offering themselves for a free transfer. Basically any player where their report (their own opinion it seems) says they were better than my current players I offered a 2 or 3 week trial. Signed 3 or 4 good players that way. I negotiated hard for all new signings and current players who needed a new contract. Managed to get the average wage per player down to about 1.5k per month instead of the 3k that it was. The signing of affordable free transfers and youth players of course helped with this. At least that's what my approach was. Maybe I just got really lucky Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tajj7 Posted November 8, 2017 Share Posted November 8, 2017 22 hours ago, Per Annum said: I actually often find that boards in FM are unrealistically not bothered by debt, to the point that it becomes boring. I often run up loads of debt and it always just gets re-financed, with loan repayments plunging me in to ever increasing debt, which is re-financed, rinse repeat for ever and ever as I continue spending. I therefore think what is happening to you at Sunderland is (nearly) fantastic and wish it happened more. Agree completely however that it destroys the whole thing that they want you to aim for promotion. If your wage budget is that it should be merely stay up. The only caveat I can think of is that if you get promotion to EPL then you will likely clear all the debt just from TV payments. I doubt an FM board is that 'smart' to be thinking that though. For clubs in or around the Premier league it sounds realistic, when was the last time a club in the PL or Championship went out of business? There is so much money rolling around those leagues that they are bound to find some investors or they will get some money from somewhere. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Per Annum Posted November 8, 2017 Share Posted November 8, 2017 Yeah I agree with your for EPL - I'm certainly not just talking about EPL board being blasé to debt though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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