turnip Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 Part 1: Devoured Clergyperson Season 1: 2025-2026 Nuneaton Borough I took over shortly after they were promoted back into the Vanarama North. As always seems to be the case, I had a few half-decent players whose contracts were expiring and who had no interest in staying. I signed a whole load of crap players, trying to fill basically every position. Quantity over quality, for sure. There was a hint of panic in some of the signings and we still ended up with a bunch of no-hopers playing out of position. We had an uninspiring August, which was followed by a pretty wretched autumn. After beating Bradford PA 3-0 on 13th September, we literally went 3 months without winning another league match. We did still win 4 cup games, but jeez. Aside from the signings, that actually all happened on Holiday mode. At the start of December I came back from holiday and we promptly got a 0-0 at Home to Kettering. We then won 4 league games on the spin to finish the calendar year with a bit of daylight between us and the relegation slots. Four points from six games in January devoured that daylight like a singularity, but we won 7 games in February and March to basically guarantee safety before we got smeared across the turf in the last stretch. We finished 15th, 11 points clear of the drop and only 16 behind Fylde, who snagged the final Playoff spot. P:42 W:13 D:12 L:17 GD:-2 Pts: 51 Most of our success was due to a young striker, at the club when I joined, who scored 22 league goals almost entirely because he was quicker than opposition defenders. We did also get a good young defensive type in the Youth Intake. Probably League 2 standard, to be honest. He played 9 games at the end of the season and did okay. After all that, I smiled, dusted my hands off, and quit. Coming up next: A Pro Move... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobby_McDonald Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 A good start Turnip. Where next..? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 15, 2019 Author Share Posted August 15, 2019 A Pro Move Season 2: 2026 - 2027 Pro Piacenza I took over shortly before the end of the 'season' (the bit where clubs are promoted/relegated by the game). The club had narrowly avoided relegation out of Serie C after failing to win any of their last 12 matches. In truth, it was the facilities that attracted my attention - Excellent Youth Coaching and Extensive Youth Recruitment are an enticing combination. (Also, I thought it was the other Piacenza team, which meant I was somewhat confused when we drew them in the first round of the Serie C Cup). The transfer window went like most of my transfer windows usually do; lots of players in and a few unwanted players out. We got a couple of loanees from Serie A clubs and I nabbed a handful of players who were in U-19/20 international squads but on Amateur contracts. I've been making copious use of Trials to get young players in whose contracts are due(-ish) to expire to see if they're worth a punt. Form-wise, we had an excellent start to the season. We've tailed off somewhat going into the winter break - winning 5 of our last 10 games, but the league position is good, the board are happy and we're a looong way from the red bits at the bottom of the table. Best player so far this season has been Prskalo, who we got on a free, spotted while unattached in a Croatian U-xx squad (probably U-19s). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 16, 2019 Author Share Posted August 16, 2019 Carpi have gone LLL, we're on LWW. Grip your arse cheeks tightly, football fans Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 16, 2019 Author Share Posted August 16, 2019 You may now release your grips Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 17, 2019 Author Share Posted August 17, 2019 Season 2 - part 2 Pro Piacenza We officially avoided relegation on the 21st February - or at least that's when we paid out the player bonuses for doing so - and then secured a Playoff spot 2 weeks later, before setting a new Serie C/A record for goals scored the week after that. Youth Intake came and went and saw us sign 4 players. I am a fan, as Jimbokav suggests, of looking at every player (irrespective of star rating), but most of the 'bad' players had really poor Determination and the ones who didn't all had really poor Technical attributes. The best player we got - Marco Papa - looks like a potentially very good player, but overall it was all a bit "meh". We did manage to top the table - the Injury Table - towards the end of March, with 5 registered players unavailable (3 of whom I'd consider genuine first-team players). The actual table-toppers, Carpi, though, hadn't lost a game since the beginning of December, although we were one of the two games they hadn't been able to win. As you can see from the previous screenshots, though, Carpi had a very odd three games before remembering how good they were to clinch the league by a point with a final-day win. That threw us into the Serie C Playoffs, where we played Siena first up. After an 8-4 aggregate win, we faced Cremonese in the Semi-Final. We deserved to win the Away leg and lose the Home leg, but after a 0-0 in Cremona, we grabbed an early goal in the return leg and clung on like a mountain goat with superglue-exuding hooves to reach the final. I was genuinely relieved to see that we would face FeralpiSalo, given that our two meetings this season had finished 0-0 and 5-0. We got a goal midway through the first half and despite the referee dishing out 7 Yellow Cards for us, managed to finish with 11 players on the pitch, to seal promotion. We actually did all of this without 3 of our January signings, who were on U-19 international duty (two with Belgium, one with Croatia), so that was nice. Our best player by average rating across the season was Pagano, a guy I picked up in the summer because we were woefully short of MLs. I wasn't expecting a lot but 10 goals and 12 assists from 24 appearances was a very good return. We've got a big job on our hands for next season. A fair few first-team players aren't even really good enough for Serie C (let alone Serie B) and although I'm happy to give youngsters game time and a chance to develop, I can't see more than 8-10 players having much of a role in the higher division. We're also more than £1m in the red, even with me staying within the wage budget. So there probably won't be much money to actually spend on improving the squad. Marvellous. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobby_McDonald Posted August 19, 2019 Share Posted August 19, 2019 Unlucky not winning the league, but well done winning the playoffs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 20, 2019 Author Share Posted August 20, 2019 Forgot to mention that my GK bagged 5 goals last season. I didn't actually set him up as Penalty/DFK taker until about a third of the way through the season, so he could have got more. He's also scored 2 in our first competitive fixture this season, a Pen and a DFK. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 23, 2019 Author Share Posted August 23, 2019 I am sad to report that the club's fans are complete imbeciles. Maybe even brain dead. Throw them in the biological waste bin, either way. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigmattb28 Posted August 25, 2019 Share Posted August 25, 2019 On 23/08/2019 at 22:16, turnip said: I am sad to report that the club's fans are complete imbeciles. Maybe even brain dead. Throw them in the biological waste bin, either way. The social media thing needs looking at doesn't it, you always get the same 3 types of response, 1 positive 1 neutral and 1 negative Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobby_McDonald Posted August 25, 2019 Share Posted August 25, 2019 I take social media with a pinch of salt. Though saying that in my current FM18 season with Bishop's Stortford where we are exceeding expectations, social media has been largely positive, as you'd expect. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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