Barnet: How High Can They Go?

[scott92507]

Nearly an epic fail. Injuries, a string of games against teams at the top of the table, and generally poor and stupid play from the squad saw Barnet nearly fall into relegation. 

 

We couldn’t beat last-place Accrington Stanley. Settled for a draw. Finished in 18th.

Coulthirst finished the season with 17 goals in league games, which placed him in the top 10. But his scoring really dropped off late in the season. He is rather inconsistent. Jordan Cox was on loan and was selected the fans’ favorite young player. We got him on a free transfer for the coming season.

 

Elito is gone. We were paying him way too much money, and he couldn’t compete at this level. We let him go. Revan was on loan and is back with us. Darcy was on loan and is not back. We tried to get him on a free transfer, but he was not interested. Fonguck is back, but perhaps we need to send him to anger management class — 3 red cards!

As we prepare for the second season is League One, the oddsmakers place us at 400-1 to win the league, which I believe is better than they rated us in the first season. But they also rate us very likely to be relegated.

The key will be hanging on long enough to develop some of the young players I signed in the off season, and a couple of academy products. I may need to loan a couple of them out until January so they can get lots of minutes. But my affiliates are so crappy no one wants an assignment there!

Edited September 15, 2019 by scott92507

[scott92507]

That is ... interesting. A bunch of recent posts and replies have disappeared.

Does that happen often?

The image files I uploaded for the posts are still available online, but the posts they were embedded in are gone.

Edited September 16, 2019 by scott92507

[scott92507]

Wembley Stadium is not far from The Hive. Less than 30  minutes on the Tube. (When I started this save, I thought Barnet was further from the London center.) So we took the lads, the staff, and their families there for a Taylor Swift concert.

What were we celebrating? A good start to our second season in League Two!

We even beat Fulham in the Carabao Cup competition. We didn't stand a chance against Middlesbrough (Premier League), but we didn't want to win anyway. The Carabao Cup does not have prize money for early games. We do not stand a chance of making it to the quarter finals, so the Carabao is just a distraction from league games and increases the chance of injuring players. We will try to beat Leyton Orient (League Two) in our first Checkatrade Trophy match, since the group stage games pay 10.5K for a victory.

The challenge of the off-season was to improve the roster without having any transfer funds. When the Premier League released their players, I scouted them and signed five 18-year-olds with 4+ star potential: two centerbacks, an attacking midfielder, a central midfielder, and a goalkeeper. They have all made their debuts in the first few games, and they have played well. I will keep rotating them into the lineup to keep them happy and to develop them. Perhaps they can carry us into promotion.

Edited September 16, 2019 by scott92507

[Nobby_McDonald]

If seeing Taylor Swift is a reward then I'd be asking for a transfer.

[Carambau]

54 minutes ago, Nobby_McDonald said:

If seeing Taylor Swift is a reward then I'd be asking for a transfer.

Red Card!!!

Taylor is the best there is 

[scott92507]

Haha!

1. Taylor Swift would be family friendly. I think I have heard one of her songs, and that’s it.

2. It was a picture that showed up searching for Wembley images.

[scott92507]

 Some posts disappeared. And then the whole thread disappeared for about 12 hours. Hmmm... I wrote to support. They didn’t contact me, but perhaps they fixed it. So, thanks.

[scott92507]

 

For at least one brief moment this season, we were in first place.

The tie with Scunthorpe felt like a victory. We have always had trouble with them, and we played defensively the whole game. I had six defenders, and we let them hammer away at us. They outshot us 28-11. We got our few shots on counter attacks or mistakes on their part. We scored the tying goal in the last minute of regular time. 

Edited September 18, 2019 by scott92507

[Jimbokav1971]

On 16/09/2019 at 20:32, scott92507 said:

Wembley Stadium is not far from The Hive. Less than 30  minutes on the Tube. (When I started this save, I thought Barnet was further from the London center.) So we took the lads, the staff, and their families there for a Taylor Swift concert.

Barnet is quite a way away from central London, and not actually that close to Wembley either, (which isn't in central London either), but Barnet no longer play in Barnet, they play in Harrow. 

 

[scott92507]

The Hive is near Canons Park Station. Not a long ride to Wembley Park Station. Is there a big difference between Edgware and Harrow? All these neighborhoods get confusing.

Being “close” to central London may be a relative term. I live in the San Fernando Valley, just north of Los Angeles. Here “close” means anything less than an hour’s ride away.

When I was in London a couple of years ago, we went to the observation deck of the Shard, and we could see Wembley Stadium from there. Not that I thought Wembley was in central London, but it it didn’t seem far from there. And Edgware didn’t seem to qualify as suburban in California terms. (I had mentioned suburban London in my first post.)

Edited September 18, 2019 by scott92507

[Jimbokav1971]

3 minutes ago, scott92507 said:

The Hive is near Canons Park Station. Not a long ride to Wembley Park Station. Is there a big difference between Edgware and Harrow? All these neighborhoods get confusing.

Being “close” to central London may be a relative term. I live in the San Fernando Valley, just north of Los Angeles. Here “close” means anything less than an hour’s ride away.

 

Haha. 

Yes. When you put it like that, "close" will probably do. 

In England, moving a club the 9 or so miles from 1 area to another is a big deal. I know that in the US, teams or franshises are often moved from City to City, but it's just not like that here. 

[scott92507]

What do Londoners consider the suburbs of London?

[Jimbokav1971]

1 minute ago, scott92507 said:

What do Londoners consider the suburbs of London?

Barnet is very much the suburbs. It's the last station on the Northern Line. The "end of the line" so to speak.

The "suburbs" have changed over the years as more and more houses get built. 

[dothestrand]

2 hours ago, scott92507 said:

What do Londoners consider the suburbs of London?

I'd call the suburbs anything in transport zones 3-6.

http://content.tfl.gov.uk/london-rail-and-tube-services-map.pdf

[scott92507]

The New Guys. The free transfers I picked up in the off season from Premier teams. Butler and Harrison have already worked their way into the first team. Mullen gets regular rotation and has done well. Heredia and Muldoon struggle to keep up, but I still put them on the field to develop them.

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by scott92507

[Carambau]

Especially Heredia looks good. Quite the technical player with his first touch and technique. I can imagine him a good shadow striker coming on late as a sub maybe. Butler got all the right attributes for his position, only his heading can improve some more but i see youre on it

[Hootieleece]

Heredia would make a great Playmaker.  Reasoning he has relatively high (12-13) passing, decisions, vision, and flair and terrible at long shots (1). Might also want to train PPM's "Killer Balls" and "Arrives late in the Box" to use the finishing.

[scott92507]

Killer balls. [insert Beavis & Butthead laugh]

I have only recently started playing with the personalized playing instructions. Still learning about soccer IRL and still figuring out how to play FM. 

Heredia just had his first POM, finishing with a goal and an assist as an advanced playmaker, alternating between support and attack.

[scott92507]

We had a good run on defense recently:

For his role in our promotions and our success in League One, our assistant coach was rewarded with... being sacked.

Old:

New:

He is an improvement over Spencer in nearly every category. Both are mediocre in regards to fitness, and he is worse in regards to goalkeepers. But Spencer was bad there, too, so I don’t think we will see much change there. One candidate was really good with GKs and moderately better than Spencer everywhere else, but he turned us down before we found Carsley. (IRL I believe Carsley is a coach with U21 England team.)

Eighteen games into the season and we are 1 point out of first place and 20 points above relegation. We finished last season with 56 points (18th place), but we have 35 points already this season. 

We are still in need of options at left fullback. Our second and third choices are National League-level players. We have nobody worthwhile in that position in the Academy.

Edited September 21, 2019 by scott92507

[scott92507]

The stadium crew has taken to playing the theme song from “The Young Ones” as the team comes out for warmups — since the new players we brought on board in the off-season have continued to shine.

Daryl Harrison was selected Young Player of the Month, and Academy product Steve Porter was runner-up.

And then Carlos Heredia was POM in our key match — #1 Barnet vs #2 Portsmouth. I could not find the “Killer Balls” selection in personalized instructions, as was advised, so I simply told him to “Shoot More Often.” And he did. Scoring twice.

And I include this board confidence report only because I have never seen a report without SOME criticism.

Edited September 22, 2019 by scott92507

[Carambau]

Great season so far - keep up the momentum! The young guns seem to pay back your trust. I´m happy to see that Heredia can make the difference once played in a position that suits his attributes, especially in the lower leagues. Maybe you can start a good FA Cup run as well

[Hootieleece]

Tries Killer Balls often" is a PPM you have to train on an individual basis. It isn't an instruction.

(It is on the right of the individual Training screen, Choose a coach and tell him to train the appropriate PPM (killer balls is under passing). He might disagree and give another choice.)

Heredia can become quite the playmaker...with appropriate PPM's!

[scott92507]

The holidays are approaching and we are enjoying the year’s end — in first place at the half-way point of the season. Just one less victory than we had all of last season, and 27 points away from relegation.

And another team comes knocking for Monty’s services. Charlton Athletic is in last place of the Championship League. 

I read IRL that The Hive has a potential expansion to 8,500 seats, at least in the design stage. I wonder if the directors will do that for us if we make the playoffs.

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by scott92507

[Nobby_McDonald]

Promotion on the cards Scott. Keep it up.

[Hootieleece]

Monty must stay and become a Barnet Legend!

[dothestrand]

Yep, don't leave! I lived near Barnet and have tried to get a couple of games off the ground, but their wage budget is always so horrendously over (even after promotion and releasing players) that any squad building is impossible. Charlton are in many ways my second English team, so you could pick worse teams to go to - but do you want to work for Roland Duchâtelet?

[scott92507]

Monty said “no” to Charlton. (Who wants to work for someone named Douche-Olay?) But he is hoping the board of directors rewards his loyalty.

Game question: It is January 2, and Barnet has played only one game — an away loss to West Ham (2-1) in the third round of the FA Cup. Yet somehow the team has 825K pounds in gate receipts for the month (and no other income). We have no message stating we received a portion of the gate receipts for that FA Cup game. Is this a bug?

 

[Hootieleece]

I think you automatically get a portion of the gate receipts from an FA Cup Game if you are a lower League team.

[scott92507]

I hope that’s what it is. In the Scottish League the participants in the late-stage games that are played in Glasgow get portions of the gate receipts and TV money, but you also get a message notifying you of this.

[scott92507]

Barnsley approached Monty at the start of the season, and they have come knocking again at the mid-way point. It would be nice to have a salary budget of 8 million pounds rather than 3, but I will delay them a week and then turn them down.

One of the dilemmas of playing for a rising team is you know that your hard work can very well result in you getting replaced. Alex Palmer is a goalkeeper whom we acquired in the National League. He helped us through that promotion, and then was our starting GK through our season in League Two and that promotion. He was our primary GK in our first season in League One, when we avoided relegation. We paid him a lot to keep him, and he kept getting promotion raises. So now he is expensive (160K p/a) but not up to the competition. These are his stats for this season, when he has been rotating with the GK our new GM brought in.

His rating isn’t that bad, but he gives up too many goals. In a key game against Shrewsbury, we were down 2-0 at the half and battled back to tie the game — and then Palmer scored an own goal on a Shrewsbury free kick late in the game. The ball bounced off the post and off the back of his head and into the net. He started complaining about not getting enough time on the first team, so I played him and he sucked and then gave up 4 goals to Ipswich. He is now transfer listed for half his value. He is no better than the hot prospect GK, Darren Mullen, we picked up in the off-season. His contract runs out at the end of this season. With the possibility of a daunting promotion, there isn’t much reason to keep him around, complaining and making everyone miserable. If he has trouble with League One, he will be in worse shape in the Championship.

Edited September 26, 2019 by scott92507

[Carambau]

Glad you decided to stay. I´m pretty sure you can find a decent first team GK among the players whose contracts have run out. I was mostly lucky with newgens being released by top clubs.

[scott92507]

January in Harrow, and that means a little snow and the transfer window.

We made no moves. We bid on a left fullback, which is much needed, but the free agent turned us down. And no one bid on the GK we want to get rid of. We spent most of our time fielding calls for an Academy member and telling multiple teams “no.” The highest offer was worth up to 525K pounds. That would be nice to have in the bank, but the bidding frenzy make us want to keep him and see what we can make of him.

The difficulty of competing with our budget is evident in the transfer window roundup. Our competitors in this league can spend more than a million pounds on one player, while we have a little more than 100K in our transfer budget.

So how do we keep winning?

(Honestly, I think it is some user bias in the game. The makers know winning is more fun than losing, and if you want to make a popular game, you need to have one people enjoy playing. So you tweak the game in favor of the user.)

At the end of the month, we have slipped out of first place, but we are still in a promotion spot.

Oh, and we made it to the Checkatrade Trophy Southern Section Semifinals! We play the Tottenham Reserves (the defending champs) at The Hive.

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by scott92507

[Hootieleece]

Another reason is with you making few moves in transfer window. Your team has more cohesion and tactical familiarity. 11 okay players can beat 11 good players who haven't played together.

I agree there is some user bias but most of it is Human managers are generally better than AI at building teams.  AI often buys a player one window and ships him out the next without playing him or in a wrong position.

[sc91]

On 18/09/2019 at 19:32, scott92507 said:

What do Londoners consider the suburbs of London?

Postcodes. 

N, NW, W, WC, SW, E, EC, SE

Anything else becomes the suburbs.

[scott92507]

We are going back to Wembley Stadium, but if Taylor Swift is there again SHE will be watching US.

We defeated Tottenham Reserves in a penalty shootout, after a great performance from one of the Young Ones. He blocked a penalty shot in the game and in the shootout. Now we are set to play in the final.

Edited September 27, 2019 by scott92507

[Hootieleece]

I really would like you to cap off the Cinderella run with a Trophy...as vindication of everything Monty has stood for and of course my readership! LOL!

[Carambau]

Come on Bees! You can do it! Just leave it to Monty 

[scott92507]

In front of a mostly empty Wembley Stadium we lost to Manchester City’s “reserve” team. They brought Gabriel Jesus and David Silva with them. Several members of their roster earn a salary greater than our team’s entire salary budget.

But we made it close. Tough-to-swallow close. We lost on penalty shots after tying the game 1-1 — with their score coming on an own-goal by our keeper.

At least we picked up a 54K pound check for our efforts and were deemed the overachievers of the competition.

Meanwhile, we are holding on to first place, and we are close to securing a playoff spot at the least.

Edited September 29, 2019 by scott92507

[scott92507]

I have never had a player score four goals in a game, until recently.

We bought Sam “Pornstache” Jones from Solihull Moors, and he spent the first half of the season on loan to Kidderminster in the Vanarama North (our highest affiliated club). He recorded a bunch of assists there, but for Barnet, in limited played time, he has been a bit of a scoring machine. 

Edited September 29, 2019 by scott92507

[Carambau]

Silva and Jesus! Those damn cheaters! Hats off for keeping the result so close! 

[scott92507]

Unlike the conclusion of last season, which included six consecutive losses, we held our form at the end of our second season in League Two.

And we finished the season in first place.

This means there is good news and bad news. The good news is we have been promoted to the Championship. The bad news is we have been promoted to the Championship.

Monty received a 12K bonus for qualifying for the playoffs and a 25 percent raise for winning promotion. So he will start the next season making 151K per year. Pretty good for someone younger than 30, but still a lot less than the other Championship managers make.

He gets plenty of offers — 400K from Ipswich and Rotherham, for example — but so far those have not resulted in a new contract offer from the Barnet board. He could ask for a new contract, but he will wait to see what the board does on its own. 

Perhaps his award will help.

Few surprises in the Team of the Season.

Two members of The Young Ones are included: Daryl Harrison and Carlos Heredia. Odd that Michael Butler (another YO) did not make the Team of the Year, since he had become a key player (center back) before the season ended.

The board has given us nearly 900K for a transfer budget and 3.9 million for player salaries — an increase of about a million. I don’t see how we can put together a Championship team with that.

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by scott92507

[scott92507]

By letting some players go, I cut the payroll down from 2.8M to about 2M to make room for the promotion raises that were coming and for new players. With the new salary budget of 3.85M, I had some room to work with.

My biggest acquisition (and a record for Barnet) was Matthew Worthington for 250K. He is a defensive midfielder, and in this new, harder league we will be playing back on our heels more. He is here to play by Wesley Fonguck or to rotate with him, depending on the schedule.

We also spent 190K on Josh Vickers, a goalkeeper to rotate with Dillon Barnes and Darren Mullen. He replaces the whiner Alex Palmer.

And we spent 155K on Brandon Fleming to give us options at left fullback. I think our weakest links are at left and right fullback. 

We tried for the loan of a couple of wonderkids from Premier reserve teams, but they wouldn’t come to little Barnet. Instead we got three young loaners to provide some options at striker, left wing, and center back. We have Dominic Revan on loan from Aston Villa for a third year at center back; he has been a workhorse for us and we hope to pick up his contract at the end of the season. And we have Jack Stretton on loan from Derby for a third year at left wing; but we have him back because we are desperate at that position. He gives up the ball way too often, dribbling deep into the defense rather than passing the ball.

We scouted the castoffs from the Premier League, as we did last year for The Young Ones, but there was nothing there that looked good.

Edited September 30, 2019 by scott92507

[Nobby_McDonald]

On 25/09/2019 at 23:19, Hootieleece said:

I think you automatically get a portion of the gate receipts from an FA Cup Game if you are a lower League team.

45% go to each team, the remaining 10% goes to the Football Association.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Very well done winning promotion Scott.

[Hootieleece]

Congrats on Promotion! Monty deserves it. What do his badges look like? If not a Continental Pro License get the board to pay for a few...It will make you more attractive to other teams (and foreign ones, too) thus prodding the board to pay Monty.

[scott92507]

This thread’s title asks, “How high can they go?”

We may know the answer: no higher than last place in the Championship League.

Our salary budget is not only the smallest in the league, it is half as much as the next smallest! And less than one-tenth of the salary budget of the top team — just-relegated West Ham. The budget disparities help explain why we have 1000-1 odds to win the league and 1-5 odds to get relegated. (We had the same odds to win League One last year, and Monty wagered a fiver on the team.)

(Portsmouth and Barnsley, who got promoted with us, have much bigger budgets than we do.)

With TV money and solidarity payments we can expect to make more than 7 million pounds this season, plus ticket sales, prize money, facilities fees, and merchandising. So if we get relegated, the board could use that money to finance getting back to this division the following season. We might need to bounce back and forth a few times before we can stay there, if we can withstand the roster churn that may cause.

But staying in the second division for more than a season depends on the directors having that kind of vision, and it depends on the fans demonstrating enough support.

For instance, we have sold 5,600 season tickets this year — for a stadium that seats 6,135. That means a sellout for nearly all league home games! But will that, and 7 million in Championship money, convince the directors to expand The Hive? Will fans come back in similar numbers if the Bees get relegated? I do not have much faith that they will. We were in first place for most of last season, and yet we were selling out only toward the end. Why weren’t the fans coming? They are clearly excited about seeing Championship games; will they come back for a fight to win League One again?

Late last season I asked the board for a stadium expansion and they said “no.” 

If the board demonstrates a lack of vision, Monty will have to assume they are happy having a League One team and he will move on to bigger things.

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by scott92507

[scott92507]

Another off-season change was hiring a new head of youth development.

Old:

New:

In the current transfer window, Stevens put in a bid on a young striker. I had not noticed that before — someone other than the General Manager or myself making transfer offer for players. Perhaps it happened in my Ross County career and I hadn’t noticed.

Edited October 1, 2019 by scott92507

[Hootieleece]

HYOD should have a Professional or Resolute Personality to encourage "better" personalities among the youth intake.

Otherwise your new HOYD is an improvement.

Also is his preferred formation the same as you are playing? Because you will have more ready to plugin roles and positions in youth intake. (it won't be perfect but better the wrong formation HOYD's)

[scott92507]

I do not find many staff that prefer 4-2-3-1, which is what I play the most. I find it as the second formation at times.

I believe my assistant coach has a Resolute personality. 

I have been playing some games with 4–2-2-2 narrow, counter attacking. The formation looks like a top hat. It has been effective so far.

[scott92507]

I swear I am not cheating. I know the season is still young, and a lot can happen, but things are going well for now.

And four home games, four sellouts. There are only about 500 tickets available for each home game, since most of The Hive was sold for season tickets. Perhaps the board will give us that stadium expansion.

 

Edited October 2, 2019 by scott92507