[FM20] Sheffield Steel - An FM Personality Experiment

[That There Phil]

Preseason 2020/21

Squad

After all of our transfer business was concluded, our first team squad looks like this:

23 players will make things very tough if we have serious injuries, especially with Champions League football as well as the domestic league and cups, but the nature of the save means we have to take those risks. Other than a lack of numbers, I'm very pleased with how the squad looks, we have 2 players for every position on the pitch and other than a couple of positions, the backups can provide decent quality.

Tactics

After some tinkering throughout last season our three tactics look like this:

    

I'm very happy with our standard and defensive tactics, but I'm still not happy with how the attacking version performs, so I'll keep trying new ideas for that one throughout the season.

Mentoring

We haven't had any mentoring success during preseason, but I have reassigned our mentoring groups after all the comings and goings:

The squad is in a slightly odd place at the moment, as we have so many young players, so are short of decent tutors. In an ideal world I'd have another senior player as a tutor, but all of the model citizens that I can find are out of reach to us at the moment, so we'll make do with what we have for now.

Preseason Results

As will become obvious as the save progresses, preseason for me is all about increasing morale ready for the start of the season, so there will be lots of games against very small reputation teams. it's nice to see all the green dots, but I don't take too much notice in terms of making tactical decisions.

 

Edited July 10, 2020 by That There Phil

[That There Phil]

Balls. I had my eye on him.

[That There Phil]

I was hoping for a kind Champions League draw for our first year in the competition, then this happened.

I feel like we'll need to take 6 points off Zenit to have any chance whatsoever. We'll see.

[BuryBlade]

6 hours ago, That There Phil said:

Thanks. I'm not sure if personality has more of an effect on the pitch than I thought, but we certainly seem to be overperforming, and the amount of late goals we score is crazy - we scored after the 80th minute in six of the seven matches in April/May!

Cheers. It pained me too, but I guess I was already on my way to Blades hell for the cardinal sin of stealing Wilder's job, so dismantling his team was just the icing on the cake. I do think a lot of the United players are a bit short changed when it comes to determination and personality to be honest. Anyone that can watch Enda play and think he has determination 11 must be mad.

I agree, and I think that it’s not just determination that is too low on some of our players. Other attributes could and probably should be higher. 

[That There Phil]

1 minute ago, BuryBlade said:

I agree, and I think that it’s not just determination that is too low on some of our players. Other attributes could and probably should be higher. 

Maybe. I guess researchers have to be careful giving out big boosts to players after a good half season in the Premier League though, and lots of them did get a small boost in the last update to be fair.

[BuryBlade]

What’s your expectations for season 2?

(Not John Egan sold too!! Haha)

[That There Phil]

15 minutes ago, BuryBlade said:

What’s your expectations for season 2?

(Not John Egan sold too!! Haha)

I see it as a bit of a transition season having shifted on so many of the senior players, so the most important thing is settling in and developing the youngsters as our future mentors.  I'd love to get a European place, but anything top half I'd be happy with to be honest.

Yep. Sander Berge is the only player from the original senior squad left now, and his personality hasn't developed at all, so he might be on the way out in the next 12-18 months too! Marcus Dewhurst is likely to stick around for a while though.

[BuryBlade]

Seems a realistic ambition for this season. Hopefully you can get through the CL group. 
Wow that’s a radical squad overhaul. Dewhurst developed really well in one of my saves and really badly in another.

[That There Phil]

August 2020

Results

We began the new season with a 2-1 win away at Watford, with Fedor Chalov carrying on from where he left off last season, getting on the scoresheet early in the second half. We then played host to Wolves, and looked like we were heading for defeat, until our new right wingback popped up in the 95th minute to grab an equaliser. A big win against Bournemouth was more than a little lucky, we just took our opportunities in what was a pretty even match in terms of possession and chances. A respectable 1-1 draw with Tottenham closed out a solid first moth of the season.

 

Table

It's a little bit meaningless so early in the season, but I never need an excuse to show a table that has us in the top 4!

 

Mentoring

We haven't had any mentoring success this month, but our good friend Mr welcoming period has been doing god's work:

So Wöber joins the ranks of our model citizens. His determination still needs a bit of work, but I'm delighted that he's reached model citizen so soon in his career with us.

[That There Phil]

Posted without comment...

[That There Phil]

Maximilian Wöber is rapidly becoming my new golden boy. Less than 3 months into his Blades career and he's already scored his first goal, become a model citizen and unlearned one of his player traits. Everything a manager could want from him so far!

[Mikaelinho]

16 hours ago, That There Phil said:

Transfer Window - Summer 2020

 

As I mentioned in the last post this window was about clearing out more of the players who didn't fit the long term goal, and we were certainly busy on that front.

Bryan and Robinson spent last season out on loan, and both clearly didn't fit our vision, so out they went. In any normal save, Baldock, Egan and Norwood would have been easy decisions to keep, especially as they all performed very well last season, but they were creeping up the club hierarchy, and I didn't want to risk them undoing the good mentoring work we've done, so out they went. Cunningham was a tough decision, being a model citizen, but he only has determination 14, making him of limited use for mentoring, so I made the tough decision to ship him out. It does leave me with only a 17 year old as a backup left wingback, so I may live to regret it, but this is very much a save where I want to push things to the extreme, so I have to stick to what I think is the right thing for the long term. All told we brought in £70 million in transfer funds, swelling our transfer pot and giving me lots of room to manoeuvre in the market.

I now had only 16 players in the first team squad, so it was time to get busy spending some of that filthy lucre!

With Dean Henderson returning to Manchester United at the end of his loan spell, a new first choice keeper was top of my priorities, and I did a £9.25 million deal to bring in Jeroen Zoet from PSV. He's a perfectly solid Premier League goalkeeper, but more importantly he's a model citizen with determination 18, so will make a fantastic tutor - especially as he doesn't have any player traits to accidentally pass on. I'll be making him my vice captain to try and increase his influence in his mentoring group as soon as possible.

I'd been struggling for a first choice left footed central defender since letting Jack O'Connell leave at the very start of the save (sorry @BuryBlade), and  Max Wöber fits the bill perfectly. An absolute steal at £15.25 million, he's already first team material at 22, and we have a couple of years to try and improve his personality. I'll also try to train his player traits out of him too, as I'm not a fan of either of them in my central defenders. 

The transfer for Filippo Melegoni from Atalanta was agreed way back near the start of the save, but we had to wait for his season long loan to end before we could bring him in. He has lost a point of determination during that time, but he's kept his resolute personality, so is still a great candidate for mentoring. A snip at £7.5 million and on very reasonable wages, he'll provide backup for Sander Berge in the DLP role.

Tomás Tavares comes in as a direct replacement for the outgoing George Baldock, and will be our first choice right wingback this season. His determination and personality need a bit of work, but at just 19 we have plenty of time to influence that. I do have a slight concern over his bravery of 8, and if i start to see him shirking challenges and putting us in trouble defensively, then I won't hesitate to move him on in a season or two. I shelled out £9.25 million for him.

One of my main aims for this transfer window was to find a pacy central defender to play in the middle of our back three, and in Davide Bettella I found exactly that. Perfectly suited to the role in question, and first team ready, he also has bags of potential to improve in the future too. Because of that I obviously had to spend heavily for him, and at £31.5 million he becomes the club's new record signing. He's also out biggest earner on £70k a week, although he did accept a 5 year contract with a 3 year optional extension.

I've had my eye on Eduardo Camavinga since the very start of the save to play on the left of my midfield three, and actually tried to sign him in January, but his wage demand were crazy at the time. Since then, Rennes very kindly got themselves relegated, and I was able to do a cut price deal for him at £24 million, and sign him to a £56k a week contract, although he would only accept a 3 year deal, so we could have some very expensive contract negotiations in a couple of years time! He'll rotate with Jorrit Hendrix this season, with a view to him becoming first choice if he develops well.

Finally we have Jude Bellingham. Like Rennes, Birmingham were relegated, so I made a £17.5 million swoop. I wasn't expecting a league 1 player to demand quite the wages he did, but I had money in the bank so we agreed on £54k a week. Despite that he'll mainly be a substitute this season, having agreed to be an impact sub, but I expect him to be a first team regular in the not too distant future.

I've also agreed a future transfer for 17 year old Gastón Chávez, who will join us next summer. Argentinian with a Spanish second nationality, meaning no work permit issues, he looks a real prospect. He has attributes in all the right areas and is also two footed as a bonus. If he responds well to mentoring and develops well he could be a future star.

These are some very promising signings and a couple of proper steals imo! The future is looking bright!

[That There Phil]

1 hour ago, Mikaelinho said:

These are some very promising signings and a couple of proper steals imo! The future is looking bright!

Rennes getting relegated did us a real favour with Camavinga. I came close to signing him for over £50 million in January, so to pick him up for the price we did was amazing. I also tried for Sandro Tonali after Brescia went down, but he wanted £130k a week, so he ended up going to Liverpool.

[That There Phil]

The Anatomy Of A Non-Signing

I wanted to talk about the process I go through when signing a player in a save like this, but I think this situation where I don't sign a player probably illustrates it even better.

One of my analysts suggested a young Brazilian player to me who had 10 goals and 19 assists in 27 appearances in the Brazilian U20 competition. I don't have a dedicated Brazilian scout at this stage of the save because of work permit issues, and not yet having a feeder club to send South American players to, but this guy's numbers were so good that I sent my chief scout to take a look at him. He came back with the following info:

At first glance, and in a standard save, he might seem like an absolute no brainer of a signing; great attribute distribution, amazing potential and a perfectionist personality, which means good professionalism and ambition. But in a save like this we have to look deeper. His personality is immediately a red flag for me. As well as good professionalism and ambition, perfectionist also means that he has temperament of 1-9, so even if it is at the maximum it can be, he would need to improve it by 6 points to become a model citizen. Not impossible in such a young player, but a very tough ask.

The next thing to do is take a look at his media handling style for more clues about his hidden attributes, and this is where things really go south!

Volatile - temperament 3-6

Media Friendly - is the equivalent of a balanced personality, so doesn't tell us much

Confrontational - temperament 1-7, sportsmanship 1-7

So both volatile and confrontational reinforce that he has poor temperament, and in fact show us that the maximum he could have is actually 6, rather than 9 - even worse! Combined with a maximum sportsmanship of 7 it basically takes away any chance of him ever becoming a model citizen. In a normal save I might overlook both of these issues because of his good ambition and professionalism, but in this instance I can't afford to infect the squad with such low attributes which will not only restrict him, but may spread to our youth as he becomes more influential in the future.

So what looked like an amazing signing at first becomes an easy pass after drilling down into his personality. He's obviously going to be an amazing player for someone in the future, but for the reasons above it won't be me. This is a great example of the compromises you have to make when you commit to a save like this, often giving up on a great player, only to sign someone with less ability/potential because they fit the long term goal better.

Edited June 16, 2020 by That There Phil

[BuryBlade]

47 minutes ago, That There Phil said:

The Anatomy Of A Non-Signing

I wanted to talk about the process I go through when signing a player in a save like this, but I think this situation where I don't sign a player probably illustrates it even better.

One of my analysts suggested a young Brazilian player to me who had 10 goals and 19 assists in 27 appearances in the Brazilian U20 competition. I don't have a dedicated Brazilian scout at this stage of the save because of work permit issues, and not yet having a feeder club to send South American players to, but this guy's numbers were so good that I sent my chief scout to take a look at him. He came back with the following info:

At first glance, and in a standard save, he might seem like an absolute no brainer of a signing; great attribute distribution, amazing potential and a perfectionist personality, which means good professionalism and ambition. But in a save like this we have to look deeper. His personality is immediately a red flag for me. As well as good professionalism and ambition, perfectionist also means that he has temperament of 1-9, so even if it is at the maximum it can be, he would need to improve it by 6 points to become a model citizen. Not impossible in such a young player, but a very tough ask.

The next thing to do is take a look at his media handling style for more clues about his hidden attributes, and this is where things really go south!

Volatile - temperament 3-6

Media Friendly - is the equivalent of a balanced personality, so doesn't tell us much

Confrontational - temperament 1-7, sportsmanship 1-7

So both volatile and confrontational reinforce that he has poor temperament, and in fact show us that the maximum he could have is actually 6, rather than 9 - even worse! Combined with a maximum sportsmanship of 7 it basically takes away any chance of him ever becoming a model citizen. In a normal save I might overlook both of these issues because of his good ambition and professionalism, but in this instance I can't afford to infect the squad with such low attributes which will not only restrict him, but may spread to our youth as he becomes more influential in the future.

So what looked like an amazing signing at first becomes an easy pass after drilling down into his personality. He's obviously going to be an amazing player for someone in the future, but for the reasons above it won't be me. This is a great example of the compromises you have to make when you commit to a save like this, often giving up on a great player, only to sign someone with less ability/potential because they fit the long term goal better.

Really enjoyed the insight in this post and your thought process behind the (non) signing.

Can you direct me towards any literature on the hidden attribute brackets (how you know what descriptions equate to what numbers) as I’d like to read up more on this? Thanks

[That There Phil]

2 hours ago, BuryBlade said:

Really enjoyed the insight in this post and your thought process behind the (non) signing.

Can you direct me towards any literature on the hidden attribute brackets (how you know what descriptions equate to what numbers) as I’d like to read up more on this? Thanks

This is the most accurate one I've found. https://www.yekbot.com/football-manager-2019-player-personality-guide/ The only error I've found is that Perfectionist doesn't include that temperament is 1-9, although there could be other errors that I've missed.

This tool is amazing, but unfortunately the info is out of date now - there have been big changes to the personality thresholds since then. An up to date version would be my dream!

[ShaunG95]

As soon as you said you had a new goalkeeper on the way, I absolutely knew it would be Zoet! He's a perfect tutor. Wober also has an excellent personality for his age, really enjoyed using him on a save.

[BuryBlade]

2 hours ago, That There Phil said:

This is the most accurate one I've found. https://www.yekbot.com/football-manager-2019-player-personality-guide/ The only error I've found is that Perfectionist doesn't include that temperament is 1-9, although there could be other errors that I've missed.

This tool is amazing, but unfortunately the info is out of date now - there have been big changes to the personality thresholds since then. An up to date version would be my dream!

Thank you! Will have a read tonight after work.

[That There Phil]

September 2020

Results

We started the month with a 2-2 draw away at Everton, a result I'm pretty happy with considering we played very much a second eleven, keeping our first choice players fit for our first Champions League match. That historic moment arrived and went better than I could have imagined, a 2-1 win against the giants of Inter Milan in a match that we dominated from start to finish. We followed that up with a routine 2-0 win against Aston Villa in  the Premier League, before a double header against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup and league. We edged past them on penalties in the cup game, but they quickly got revenge, winning the league game 1-0 in a match they dominated - they could easily have scored 4 or 5 and to be frank we were lucky to get nil! A daunting trip to The Santiago Bernabéu rounded out the month, and I was delighted to come away with a well deserved point from an even game as Fedor Chalov took his goals total to 6 in 7 games so far.

 

Tables

Winning only 1 of our 3 league games this month saw us drop a couple of places to 6th, which I'm not too concerned about at this early stage. The really story of the month however, was our performance in the Champions League. Two magnificent performances see us sitting top of the group with what should be our easiest 2 games to come. If we can win those we could be qualified for the knockout rounds before we have to play Inter or Real Madrid for the second time, which would really be amazing.

 

Mentoring

Another month with no mentoring success, but yet again the welcoming period has done it's job:

Unfortunately he hasn't immediately become a model citizen like Wöber did, but it's a step in the right direction.

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by That There Phil

[That There Phil]

1 hour ago, ShaunG95 said:

As soon as you said you had a new goalkeeper on the way, I absolutely knew it would be Zoet! He's a perfect tutor. Wober also has an excellent personality for his age, really enjoyed using him on a save.

Yeah, he's amazing. It's a pity he's on loan for the first season, but he was worth waiting for!

I was a bit unsure about Wober, as he had a fairly determined personality which doesn't give much away, so it was a pleasant surprise when he immediately became a model citizen after the welcoming period.

[ShaunG95]

3 minutes ago, That There Phil said:

Yeah, he's amazing. It's a pity he's on loan for the first season, but he was worth waiting for!

I was a bit unsure about Wober, as he had a fairly determined personality which doesn't give much away, so it was a pleasant surprise when he immediately became a model citizen after the welcoming period.

I think generally his personality attributes across the board are pretty good aside from his adaptability as far as I can remember when I looked ages ago!

[That There Phil]

Nice one grandad!

[Steel Eagle]

Really enjoyed the thread, great concept, I never knew the welcoming message held so much sway, but I had a question with regards to mentoring you might be able to shed some light on with regards to passing on traits.  I noticed you said you weren't fussed about players positions when mentoring, but say I have Leighton Baines as a mentor, model citizen, and he has the traits of a good wingback, so if he mentors a striker or centre mid will these traits pass on, for example "gets forward whenever possible" is not an ideal trait for a holding midfielder or do traits only get passed on to players with similar positions?

[That There Phil]

October - November 2020

Results

We began October with our now traditional big win over Crystal Palace, sticking 4 past them this time around, before managing a narrow win against newly promoted Brentford. Zenit proved to be much worse than I expected them to be, and a routine 2-0 win left us on the verge of qualifying for the next stage of the Champions League. Norwich rolled over to give us another 2-0 win, before our second string notched up  a superb 2-0 win against Manchester United. We rounded out the month with a lucky 1-0 win over Arsenal, Sander Berge scoring his first ever Blades goal before getting sent off, leaving us to ride our luck for an hour with 10 men.

November began how October had ended, with another comfortable win - this time 3-0 in the return fixture against Zenit. We were brought crashing back down to earth a few days later though, as Liverpool beat us at a canter, 2-0 not telling the full story of how much they dominated us. We got back to winning ways immediately though, grabbing a 1-0 win over West Ham in an even game, before rounding out the month with 2 very creditable 1-1 draws, away at Inter in the Champions League and away at Man City in the Premier League courtesy of a 90th minute equaliser.

 

Tables

A superb couple of months has seen us rise back up to 4th in the Premier League table as the league starts to take shape, while superb performances in the Champions League see us qualified in 1st position with one game still to play, which was beyond my wildest dreams when I saw the draw.

Mentoring

After a quiet few months on the mentoring front, we were back with a bang:

    

2 mentoring successes, both after almost 18 months of being mentored, showing just what a long term process it can be. Karol Fila became our 9th model citizen, and Zaracho went from fairly determined to light hearted. At almost 23, Zaracho is running out of time to become a model citizen, but I'll keep plugging away with the mentoring in the hope he can make it before he turns 24. We also had a 'squads general character' increase for Riccardi, his determination jumped to 17, but his personality stubbornly refused to change.

[That There Phil]

1 hour ago, Steel Eagle said:

Really enjoyed the thread, great concept, I never knew the welcoming message held so much sway, but I had a question with regards to mentoring you might be able to shed some light on with regards to passing on traits.  I noticed you said you weren't fussed about players positions when mentoring, but say I have Leighton Baines as a mentor, model citizen, and he has the traits of a good wingback, so if he mentors a striker or centre mid will these traits pass on, for example "gets forward whenever possible" is not an ideal trait for a holding midfielder or do traits only get passed on to players with similar positions?

Thanks. Glad to hear people are enjoying it. As for transferring traits during tutoring, the short answer is that I don't know. The chance of traits being passed on is pretty low I think, for example Rodrigo Palacio has been mentoring for a season and a half and he hasn't passed his traits onto anyone yet, and Darren Fletcher and Phil Jagielka didn't either after a full season. My instinct tells me that there should be more chance of passing them on to players in similar positions, but that's just a hunch, I have zero evidence to back it up either way.

[That There Phil]

2021 Youth Intake Preview

And I thought last years intake was bad! All I can do is keep improving our facilities etc, and hopefully we'll see an improvement in the future.

[That There Phil]

This is a decent draw all told. There are no real easy games at this level, but we can hopefully be competitive against Schalke.

[That There Phil]

Just thought I'd play one more game before the Villa - Sheff Utd match and this happens...

 

 

Thanks FM.

[Patfan1991]

This is great! I did not know about the welcoming period. Looking forward to future posts.

[BuryBlade]

3 hours ago, That There Phil said:

Just thought I'd play one more game before the Villa - Sheff Utd match and this happens...

 

 

Thanks FM.

That’s still better than what happened in the Villa match 😡

[That There Phil]

15 hours ago, BuryBlade said:

That’s still better than what happened in the Villa match 😡

You have to laugh, otherwise you might cry. After 30 odd years of being a Blade nothing surprises me any more.

[That There Phil]

December 2020

Results

We began a busy month with a trip to newly promoted Fulham, and eased our way to a 2-0 win with a Chalov brace, before beating Southampton at home by the same scoreline. The mighty Real Madrid were the next visitors to BDTBL, but they could only leave with a point after a 1-1 draw. A Yorkshire derby was up next, and a 3-0 win against dirty Leeds was one of the most satisfying results of the save so far. Unfortunately we followed that up with a pretty terrible performance, needing a late equaliser and penalties to beat Championship Reading in the Carabao Cup. Two draws came next, an incredibly frustrating 1-1 result against Leicester, before a much more creditable 0-0 draw against Manchester United. We rounded off the month in fine style with a 4-1 win over Norwich.

 

Tables

An unbeaten month in the league sees us climb back up to 3rd place. We're still some way off the top two, but 3rd to 6th is very tight, meaning we can't afford to take out eye of the ball. Our fantastic performances in the Champions League leave is in the surreal position of sitting above Real Madrid and inter Milan at the top of the table. We face Schalke in the first knockout round, which is one of the better draws that were available.

 

Mentoring

Nothing to report this month, but I can't complain after the superb month we had in November.

[That There Phil]

Transfer Window - January 2021

I'm pretty happy with where the first team squad is at the moment. We have a young squad who are developing well, supplemented with a few older heads, so there was no transfer business for the first team at all. Rodrigo Palacio is now 38, so will definitely need to be replaced in the summer, but he can do a job as back up for the rest of this season.

The only player I brought in was the guy:

Damián Ferrer comes into our U18 squad initially, as well as providing a 3rd GK option for the first team in case of injury. He already has some really strong areas in his game, and can certainly develop to do a job for the first team in the future. Personality wise he has determination 15 and a professional personality, providing a solid base to build from.

Edited June 18, 2020 by That There Phil

[Don Logan]

Following this with great interest. Two questions about mentoring though. 

Can one model citizen highly influential player improve the personality of another highly influential player with an inferior personality. Or would they cancel each other out?

Is three the sweet spot for the size of mentoring groups?

[ShaunG95]

19 minutes ago, Don Logan said:

Following this with great interest. Two questions about mentoring though. 

Can one model citizen highly influential player improve the personality of another highly influential player with an inferior personality. Or would they cancel each other out?

Is three the sweet spot for the size of mentoring groups?

Answer to your first question is yes. On my save Lautaro Martinez and Karim Adeyemi were both highly influential players but Lautaro helped improve Karim's personality.

[That There Phil]

1 hour ago, Don Logan said:

Following this with great interest. Two questions about mentoring though. 

Can one model citizen highly influential player improve the personality of another highly influential player with an inferior personality. Or would they cancel each other out?

Is three the sweet spot for the size of mentoring groups?

I take it by highly influential you mean from the club hierarchy screen?

If so, then the answer is yes. It's about their level of influence in their mentoring group rather than their place in the club hierarchy.

I find 3 gives me the best results, but there's such a huge random factor involved that I couldn't say that it's 100% the best size. I've also had some success with groups of 4 with the following structure:

1 Significant influence model citizen with high determination + 1 average influence model citizen with slightly lower determination + 2 light influence players with lower level personalities and lower determination.

[Don Logan]

9 hours ago, That There Phil said:

I take it by highly influential you mean from the club hierarchy screen?

If so, then the answer is yes. It's about their level of influence in their mentoring group rather than their place in the club hierarchy.

I find 3 gives me the best results, but there's such a huge random factor involved that I couldn't say that it's 100% the best size. I've also had some success with groups of 4 with the following structure:

1 Significant influence model citizen with high determination + 1 average influence model citizen with slightly lower determination + 2 light influence players with lower level personalities and lower determination.

Trying to follow your lead with Lyon. The two issues I need to resolve are H.Aouar is now a highly influential player after a round of departures and I need a model citizen above him to improve his personality. I've made Hendrix my Captain but don't know if or when he'd get promoted to team leader and be able to mentor Aouar.

 

Second issue is Memphis Depay. He's the best player at the club by some distance. Would you sell him straight away?

[That There Phil]

52 minutes ago, Don Logan said:

Trying to follow your lead with Lyon. The two issues I need to resolve are H.Aouar is now a highly influential player after a round of departures and I need a model citizen above him to improve his personality. I've made Hendrix my Captain but don't know if or when he'd get promoted to team leader and be able to mentor Aouar.

 

Second issue is Memphis Depay. He's the best player at the club by some distance. Would you sell him straight away?

What is Aouar's influence in a mentoring group? If it's average or below (which it probably will be due to his age) then you can mentor him with anyone with significant influence. They don't have to be above him in the club hierarchy.

You might want to check your captaincy, according to that picture Fletcher and Palacio are captain and vice captain.

I'd sell Depay and Lopes Immediately. You can't afford to have them influencing players outside of mentoring.

 

[That There Phil]

January 2021

Results

Another packed month began badly with an unlucky 1-0 loss to Manchester United in the FA Cup. That was followed by an even worse result, being dominated by Manchester City and losing 3-0 in the Carabao Cup semi final first leg. Fortunately we got back to winning ways in the league as we beat Crystal Palace - it wasn't our usual goal fest against them with a solitary Fedor Chalov goal sealing the points. 2 more league wins followed, beginning with an impressive 2-0 win against Chelsea, before putting Brentford to the sword by the same scoreline. We managed a decent 0-0 draw away at Old Trafford, before what proved to be the oddest game of the season in the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi final. 3-0 down from the first leg, things looked to be over when we conceded early on, but Rodri very kindly got himself sent off for a bad tackle, and we scored 4 unanswered goals to bring us level on aggregate. Jude Bellingham had a chance to win it for us after being put clean through on goal in the 93rd minute, but only succeeded in hitting the post. That meant penalties which we duly lost. I was hoping to erase the memory of that game in our final league match of the season, but unfortunately we put in one of our worst performances of the save so far and lost 2-1 away at Wolves.

 

League Table

So despite a poor end to the month, taking only 1 point from our final 2 matches, we maintain 3rd place on goal difference. However with both Manchester clubs and Liverpool breathing down our necks, it's going to be tough to hold on to.

 

Mentoring

More success to report this month:

Fillip Melegoni gains a point of determination from being tutored by Fedor Chalov, his personality remains at resolute, but he's only 21, so plenty of time for further improvement.

We also had a 'squad's general character' increase for Pietro Rovaglia, increasing his determination by a point and becoming our tenth model citizen!

 

[Hootieleece]

Impressive stuff with churning out all those "Model Citizens". I'm usually happy with a mostly Professional or Resolute team.

[That There Phil]

21 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:

Impressive stuff with churning out all those "Model Citizens". I'm usually happy with a mostly Professional or Resolute team.

Thanks. I'm the same normally, This save is just meant as an extreme example to see how far the mentoring model can be pushed. I've been helped in my recruitment early on by the fact I've managed a lot of these players before and so know that they can be mentored fairly easily into model citizens. I'm not sure how sustainable it will be in the longer term when it's all newgens and I have no prior knowledge.

[OlivierL]

Great topic  ! good job

I'm experiencing a lot with personalities  and media handling but u opened my eyes in a few matters.

Edited June 19, 2020 by OlivierL

[That There Phil]

18 minutes ago, OlivierL said:

Great topic  ! good job

I'm experiencing a lot with personalities  and media handling but u opened my eyes in a few matters.

Thanks. it's a very extreme experiment, and I wouldn't expect anyone to play a real save like this, but if people can learn one or two things then I'm happy.

[LUFCspeni]

Really enjoying this save! Inspired me to try something similar, albeit I am in the Portuguese 2nd tier. Managed to pick up Pepe (Perfectionist) and Buffon (Born Leader) though, who will hopefully have some positive affect on my youngsters.

How do you set up mentoring? 2 good personalities to one poorer one?

[That There Phil]

1 hour ago, LUFCspeni said:

Really enjoying this save! Inspired me to try something similar, albeit I am in the Portuguese 2nd tier. Managed to pick up Pepe (Perfectionist) and Buffon (Born Leader) though, who will hopefully have some positive affect on my youngsters.

How do you set up mentoring? 2 good personalities to one poorer one?

Sounds good. Beware of perfectionist personalities though, they have low temperament, so can cause issues down the line.

My mentoring groups are usually 1 mentor and 2 mentees. I've experimented with 2 mentors and 1 mentee, the thinking being that there might be twice the chance of influencing the mentee, but never really saw any success. Like I always say to questions about mentoring though, the random factor is huge so I'd never say that anything is definitively better or worse, I can only talk about what seems to work for me.

[Don Logan]

11 hours ago, That There Phil said:

What is Aouar's influence in a mentoring group? If it's average or below (which it probably will be due to his age) then you can mentor him with anyone with significant influence. They don't have to be above him in the club hierarchy.

You might want to check your captaincy, according to that picture Fletcher and Palacio are captain and vice captain.

I'd sell Depay and Lopes Immediately. You can't afford to have them influencing players outside of mentoring.

 

Yeah Jorrit was made captain before I hit continue. Depay and Lopes out is mad harsh but I'll do it.

This is a really great read and it's breathing new life into my FM20 saves. Hope this lasts.

[That There Phil]

February 2021

Results

A comfortable 3-0 win over Watford began the month, immediately bouncing back from the disappointment at the end of January. A 2-0 win away at Leicester followed, with Chalov making the difference in an otherwise tight match. Schalke proved to be a much poorer side than I expected, but we could only manage a 1-0 win despite dominating from start to finish - hopefully it won't come back to haunt us in the second leg! A 2-1 Yorkshire derby win over Leeds rounded out the month, although we were left hanging on at the end of the match.

 

Table

3 wins from 3 in the league has seen us open up a bit of a gap between us and Liverpool in 5th, although we could still drop down a place if Man City win their game in hand. The race for the top four looks like it will go to the wire this season, and although I'm more confident than last year, we still have to play most of the teams around us so anything can happen.

 

Mentoring

Lots to report this month!

A mentoring success for Wisniewski saw his determination rise to 17 and become our eleventh model citizen. It's been 18 moths of mentoring to get this first increase, so if you're setting up mentoring don't panic if you don't see immediate results, it's very much a long term process.

Goncalo Ramos gained a point of determination from a 'squad's general character' effect, taking him up to 17 whilst keeping his model citizen personality.

It's not all good news though, Francesco Laurenzi lost a point of determination from the 'squad's less desirable characteristics', but must have increased some of his hidden attributes as we also get a 'squad's general character had a positive influence' message. Laurenzi is only 19 so he has plenty of time to hopefully regain his losses through mentoring in the future.

[That There Phil]

I'm in desperate need of a new deep lying forward this summer, but Trent Alexander-Arnold is unhappy at Liverpool and potentially interested in joining us. He'd be an absolute monster in the RWB role!

[ShaunG95]

2 hours ago, That There Phil said:

I'm in desperate need of a new deep lying forward this summer, but Trent Alexander-Arnold is unhappy at Liverpool and potentially interested in joining us. He'd be an absolute monster in the RWB role!

I've always wanted to sign Trent on a save, it's virtually impossible doing so when managing Everton though. I hope you manage to pull it off!

[That There Phil]

5 minutes ago, ShaunG95 said:

I've always wanted to sign Trent on a save, it's virtually impossible doing so when managing Everton though. I hope you manage to pull it off!

To be honest I don't think I'll be able to afford his wages even if Liverpool accept an offer, but a boy can dream!