[FM21] Queen's Journey to the throne

[maxi7]

Introduction

Queen's Park is the club and Glasgow, Scotland is our destination. A club who have finally went pro after always being amateur and have also sold the national stadium in Scotland, Hampden to the SFA for a tidy sum. We'll still be at Hampden for season one before moving over to Lesser Hampden in the summer of 2021.

 

Aims and Ambitions

It's actually a pretty simple aim with Queen's Park. We'll try and climb the leagues as quickly as possible before establishing ourselves as a Scottish Premiership side and then challenging the big two. I think I aim to leave here after one venture into the Champions League proper - so we're here for the long haul.

I'm wishing to hold off major investment into the infrastructure of the club until we hit the big leagues, but we may invest more in youth to start with to try and develop and sell them on with 50% sell on clauses. This will also be our business model of free transfers with a view of moving on for profit.

Our business in window one saw Jordan Cox and Hakim Guenouche arrive on free transfers. Jordan is an inside forward who arrives after a year out of football and was previously on the books of Aston Villa whilst Hakim who plays left back arrives after previously being with Uerdingen of Germany's 3rd tier. He also had spells at Nancy and Zuirch with the latter spending £275k on him.

 

The Squad

I don't want to go to in depth on the squad for season one because as we go up the leagues the club will be like a revolving door.

In goal we'll start with Cammy Bell who has plenty of top flight experience with clubs like Rangers, Dundee United and Kilmarnock. He's joined by ex-Motherwell youth Willie Muir and prospect Jacques Heragty.

Defence has the likes of Lee Kilday and Peter Grant who have a wealth of experience in the top two divisions of Scotland. The likes of Michael Doyle, Canice Carroll and Grant Gillespie provide other options at the back.

Midfield has more defensive minded players in the form of Craig Slater and Darren Lyon alongside more attacking options in Michael McGlinchey to play centrally and Louis Longride, Jai Quitongo and Ross MacLean on the wings.

David Galt and Will Baynham provide options up top alongside ex-Motherwell striker Bob McHugh and ex-Dundee United striker Simon Murray, who'll be keen to get going after a long lay off with injury.

 

Matches

Due to the current worldwide situation, the lower leagues of Scotland will only operate a 27 game season in season one. This also means a long pre-season until Mid-October when the Betfred Cup will start up.

Overall it was a good pre-season, we won the games we should be winning and lost the games we should be losing. Time for the real stuff.

 

I'll cover the cup first due to that starting before the league season and I must say I was pleasantly shocked by how competitive we were. A good win over Albion Rovers before an incredible win at St Mirren, a team who would be 11 games into their season before we met, we're slayed by an injury time Simon Murray winner.

We then drew with a difficult Dunfermline side but took the bonus point in the penalty shoot out before a win against League one side Clyde meant we somehow topped the group.

This rewarded us with a rematch with Dunfermline and with the confidence of the last game, the boys went out and won 3-1 with goals from Murray x2 and McGlinchey.

This gave us a tie in the Quarter finals against Rangers at home and win the tie being at Hampden it boosted our finances by £300k which was welcome.

As you would expect we were outclassed and 2 goals in 3 minutes by Roofe and Morelos made it comfortable for the visitors.

We faced non league Gretna 2008 and unfortunately we're shocked and knocked out at the first hurdle of the Scottish Cup. Terrible.

In the league as you can say some great wins in there and then a real shaky month in December losing to Edinburgh and Annan. The regular 1-0 wins gave me faith we were strong defensively but maybe needed more goals.

 

Table

 

So half way through the short season and as you can see it's a 2 horse race between ourselves and Edinburgh City who have been keeping up with dangerman Blair Henderson banging in the goals. Consistency will see us through, so hopefully no 2nd part of the season blip.

 

Andy Pal

 

Did you know Andy Robertson was a boot boy at Queen's Park then played for them? It's never mentioned. But good to see Andy being excited by what we're building and hopefully you'll join us for part two soon with the conclusion of the first campaign.

 

 

** Please note this has been copied over from my blog so there may be formatting issues, also it's my first time since around FM11 since trying to document in all, so I'm rusty very rusty.

Also season's one to half way through four (yes I've played 4 seasons already) were done in the Beta phase, so part 8 onwards is from the full game! 

 

[Bayern Bru]

Looking forward to doing a QP save soon, they are closest team to where I grew up. Shall be following this, good luck!

[maxi7]

35 minutes ago, Bayern Bru said:

Looking forward to doing a QP save soon, they are closest team to where I grew up. Shall be following this, good luck!

Thanks for following! The project irl intrigues me. I expect the save to start easy but love the ideal of a complete rebuild before the Prem and Championship. The few ex-Motherwell players they have at the moment's the closest connection I have to them. 

[Bayern Bru]

How are you getting on with the finances @maxi7?

[maxi7]

2 hours ago, Bayern Bru said:

How are you getting on with the finances @maxi7?

Not too bad, the board do help a bit to start with. It's more longer term it can have an effect. But certain stages of the journey will see me adapt to a different mindset. Basically get to the top flight at any cost then after that adapt the Motherwell philosophy of youngsters or players who have lost their way in the game and can be improved and sold on. 

[maxi7]

Thanks to an elimination from the cup early doors, it left us with a straight run of league games February onward to ensure we got promotion. Was it plain sailing or did we hit a wobble, let's find out!

Transfer window

As you can see first off our remaining business in the season was well Mark McAusland. Nothing special here, just a good honest pro with lots of experience to give us another body at the back and as you can see by the average ratings he was pretty good when featured.

Youth Intake

The first newgen class of FM21 gave me one 5 star newgen, however remember this 5 star could very well be a 1-2 star player by the time we make the top flight. We'll keep working with Ross and some of the other boys and see if we can give them a good career in Football.

The run in

We started off this part of the season well with 5 victories in a row and 4 clean sheets in that time gives us a lot of confidence. Unfortunately we hit a poor run with no wins from 3 against Stirling, Stranraer and Albion Rovers.

After this though the likes of Simon Murray and Jai Quitongo turned it up and this led us to 4 victories in our last 5 games.

League table

Thankfully we were the most consistent team by a mile and won the league by 13 points followed by Edinburgh who would go up via the playoffs. At the other end it was Cowdenbeath who would go down via the relegation playoffs and a defeat to Bonnyrigg Rose.

Season Highlights

Above is some highlights of the season including some thumping wins. Very surprised the match to remember wasn't that win against St Mirren early doors.

Financial interest

This is a look at few things on the financial side of things and believe it or not, Queen's actually would have surpassed the 90 shirts sold in real life as they have that belter of an away kit on sale that continues to sell out and good on them, what a design.

Best Eleven

As you can see we mostly played a 4-2-3-1 route one formation, lump it forward and allow the forward players to flourish. It done the job. As stated in post one, I don't really want to stablise an identity until we reach the top flight.

Award's season

Finally a look over the various award won by many over the season and my amazing red glasses. But in all seriousness Peter Grant was a stand out.

Now this season only saw 3 arrivals, and windows of that nature are going to be a thing of the past. It's time for season two.

[maxi7]

With the step up to League one, I knew recruitment was key, and the club backed this. The game actually gives you the £5m for Hampden but that doesn't go into your budget, so that was swiftly invested into training and youth facilities as well as junior coaching to allow us to try get some better prospects in quicker.

The recruitment drive

 

 

I acted fast to bring recruits in for the new season and within days of the prior season concluding ex-Dundee United midfielder Ian Harkes was recruited followed by ex-Liverpool and Plymouth youngster Lloyd Jones.

Jamie Semple arrives from Motherwell on loan followed by Reegan Mimnaugh who arrives from Aberdeen after transferring from Hamilton.

A few other frees joined as you can see followed by loans for Anthony Ralston, Jake Hastie and Barry Maguire, who quite honestly should be playing at a far higher level than this.

The standouts

 

Nathan Broadhead was a youngster we tracked for a few months before he finally joined us on deadline day. He left Holsten Kiel last season and the former Everton youth has a lot of raw attributes that we feel we can work with and develop.

 

This signing was made mid December to ensure we go him on board, however he can't be registered until January but someone we feel can play likely in the Scottish Premiership. This is ex-Sheffield United youngster Tyler Smith.

The results business

 

This year the Betfred Cup wasn't as kind to us, we registered wins over Stranraer and Falkirk but unfortunately a late defeat to Hamilton and a penalty defeat to Alloa saw us bow out at the group stage.

I opted to take the SPFL Trust Trophy more serious this year and whilst we do still rotate a lot, it's a stronger pool of players who participate in it. We started with a good win over Airdrie followed by wins over Sligo Rovers and Albion Rovers on penalties. Infact, maybe we're just good at penalties.

Winter is coming

 

As you can see over the two images detailing our set of fixtures, the new squad has adapted to life in the 3rd tier very well, with a small nit pick being too many draws and some wins where we've only just got over the line. Our away record been sensational and crazy to think that we have 5 home games that ended in a goalless stalemate. That'll be something I'll strive to improve in the 2nd half of the season.

Half way point

 

A nice little 6 point gap over Montrose with Cove Rangers just behind and then a small gap to Morton. I'd say already we're comfortably in the playoffs but we've got to keep going and ensure we win the league at a canter so we can look to next season as quickly as possible.

We're rich bit....

 

Crazy money for a 3rd tier Scottish team right? Indeed. The money from the sale of Hampden has came in and I felt like I wanted to make it slightly more realistic so spend the money on Youth and Training facilities rather than just hammering it into our transfer budget.

Hopefully this leads to setting us for the future and we reap the rewards in the future with some better player development and youth intakes.

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by maxi7

[karanhsingh]

Seems like an interesting club to manage! KUTGW

[Peter G]

Interesting challenge.

 

Are they still hard-coded to be unable to spend money on players like in real-life I believe?

[maxi7]

15 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Seems like an interesting club to manage! KUTGW

Thanks, been very fun so far. 

8 hours ago, Peter G said:

Interesting challenge.

 

Are they still hard-coded to be unable to spend money on players like in real-life I believe?

No Peter, it's all change. Turned professional with aims of getting to the top flight and a bit of money behind them. Basically an easier save for the first 2 divisions, but the Championship and top flight not so much! 

[Peter G]

1 hour ago, maxi7 said:

Thanks, been very fun so far. 

No Peter, it's all change. Turned professional with aims of getting to the top flight and a bit of money behind them. Basically an easier save for the first 2 divisions, but the Championship and top flight not so much! 

Oh wow. I suppose being Amateur wasn't cost effective any more.

[maxi7]

21 hours ago, Peter G said:

Oh wow. I suppose being Amateur wasn't cost effective any more.

They also grew tired of losing all their prospects for free over the years. Robertson, Shankland and Ruth just to name three. 

[maxi7]

Going into January I knew this would be the last 6 months of easy football in the save and that from the Championship onward it was going to get tricky. I put a real emphasis on getting promoted early to get a jump start on Championship recruitment.

January Window

 

Not too much to add in terms of our business in January though, Craig Wighton arrives from Hearts for a small fee to gives us another option up top alongside Tyler Smith who I mentioned in the last blog. Jack McMillan arrived from Livingston on loan to cover the departure of Hakim Guenouche who moves to Stoke City for £250,000 plus a 50% sell on fee of any profit made by Stoke.

Lloyd Jones was allowed to move to Solihull Moors on a free.

The Final Assault

 

Our Scottish Cup run started with a win away to league rivals Montrose and doubles from Murray and Hastie gave us the 4-1 win. Unfortunately we lost in the next round 4-3 at home to Hamilton with a late winner, we lead the game 3-2 at one point so it was a disappointing collapse.

League wise it was solid, only 2 defeats which both came away from home to Montrose and Dumbarton. I still felt like too many game we're just won by a goal and only really Edinburgh City away was a truly dominant win.

As for the SPFL Trust Trophy, we took on Championship side Dunfermline and came out 4-0 winners against them with Hastie, Smith, Duku and Grant getting in on the action. This gave us a final against Wrexham at East End Park (Dunfermline again) where a Reegan Mimnaugh goal was enough to allow us to pick up our 2nd piece of silverware in the save, with the 3rd, the league title shortly to follow.

Stage Two - Complete

 

In the end, thanks to recruiting far better players, this season was more dominant with a much bigger gap aided aswell by going back to 36 games. Morton would see themselves in the Championship with us by winning the Playoffs. Whilst Partick will stay in the 3rd tier for yet another season.

Drink It In

 

Crazy to think our biggest win was against a Championship side but that's Football Manager for you. The red card of course assisting. As for Match to Remember well that was the game that clinched the title whilst Reegan's freekick wins our goal of the season vote.

The Best Eleven

 

As you can see another season of 4-2-3-1 where with the average rating it shows that again defence was key with them, Mimnaugh and Murray the only one's to venture over a 7 average rating.

And The Award Goes To...

 

3 Manager of the Month awards was good and a credit again to Peter Grant for a solid season as well as Reegan Mimnaugh, the latter will now arrive from Aberdeen on a permanent basis.

It's now time for the hard work to begin, the Championship one step away from the top flight of Scottish Football.

[maxi7]

Business is about to pick up as we'll start to mingle with clubs who have came down from the top tier, with this being the case I felt it was time to start loading up on talent who either had prior top flight experience or had the potential to comfortably be a top flight player.

Mega Super Recruitment Drive P1

 

In the June recruitment drive, Sondergaard would arrive from Wolves, his loan was cut short when another keeper came in and his services weren't required. MacKinnon and McAllister arrive as development players and will start off with the reserves as will O'Connell who will cover when needed as he brings some experience.

Lee Erwin and Ricki Lamie arrive as former Motherwell players who I can hopefully trust whilst Barry Maguire and Reegan Mimnaugh turn their loan deals permanent.

Josh Bowler I've used before on FM and I fully believe he's far too good for this level so I'm hoping he can hit the ground running.

Mega Super Recruitment Drive P2

 

Starting with the outs, Umaro Balde went to Kilmarnock as he wanted more football that we couldn't offer so we sold with a sell on clause, whilst Lyon's was surplus to requirements. Morrison and Barjonas join the newgens out on loan in a bid to further their development.

July saw the return of Guenouche on loan from Stoke although an early injury to him for 3 months saw the loan of Josh Doig from Hibernian. Ben Liddle arrived after signing a pre-contract agreement, he moves from Bristol Rovers. Whilst Danny Mayor of Plymouth arrived after contract expiry.

We paid for his former team mate Mike Cooper in a deal worth £250,000. We then entered the loan market to bring in Ewan Henderson, Anthony Ralston, Ibane Bowat and Tom Bayliss from Celtic, West Brom, Fulham and Preston respectively.

Luke McCormick formerly of Chelsea joined just before the January window opened.

Stalling at Lights Out

 

A poor start to the Betfred Groups pretty much eliminated us from the start. A horror show at the Toni Macaroni stadium had me wondering if I had completely messed up my recruitment drive, more so when we lost against Clyde. However we did salvage wins against Annan and Alloa to restore some belief.

Wouldn't Look Out Of Place On The Queen's Away Top

 

You look at a lot of the results above and it makes you wonder, could we go down? Have I really messed this up? It started with us 2 down at Dundee before a great comeback to win 5-2 and then just really poor until Ayr at home in late September.

Further question marks were asked with that 7 games without a win in November and December which was thankfully saved by a win at Alloa.

In the SPFL Trust Trophy we saw off old foes Edinburgh City and then Crusaders before being brushed aside by Ayr.

We entered the Scottish Cup just before the turn of the year with a trip to Linlithgow Rose and came out with a 5-0 win.

Congestion

 

You think with some of the result we'd be nowhere, but due to the nature of the Scottish Championship, it's always very tight meaning a small run of good form can see you compete for either the title or a Promotion Playoff spot or look to fend off the Relegation Playoff. Thankfully Arbroath seem fairly rooted to the bottle of the table for us to be worried about that.

Overall it means a big January window and to hit the ground running into the business end of the season. If we can keep tabs with Falkirk we'll have a chance, if not, then hopefully we can at least hold on to a top 4 spot and make an attempt at making the top flight.

[maxi7]

Did we send it? Did we, didn't we send it? I mean we tried to send it. With an aggressive transfer window in January we hoped this would at least secured a top 4 finish and give us at least a punchers chance at the Scottish Premiership.

Now Entering The Battlezone

 

We spent a bit of cash including too very hefty loan fees but all deals I felt could help us. Mikey Devlin arrived from Aberdeen with a few Scotland Caps to his name whilst Fredy Guarin needs no introduction. Also Fredy Guarin at Queen's Park, cause you know lol funny.

On a serious note, I knew Calvin Bassey and Jonathan Afolabi we're a standard higher than the 2nd tier of Scotland and was delighted to get them both on board back in Scotland after both having prior stints at each side of the Old Firm.

Rory Holden brings us creativity that can cut in from the right and allow us to go to a 4-3-3 similarly to how Hastie usually did.

Good Day and Good Night

In terms of out's, I allow at more to leave on free transfers just to get their wages off the books and allow us to progress so this saw Cox leave for Exeter and Harkes move to Swindon. Getting £220,000 for Hynes was incredible, but this was compensation off his youth contract.

Green and Yellow, Green and Yellow

 

From there it just clicked. One league defeat all season from there gave us a chance, that defeat coming at home to Dundee in mid march. You will notice one thing though, very rarely did we score more than one goal which was disappointing considering we had Smith, Murray and Afolabi on the books. Infact it's crazy to think that Tyler Smith has had my most prolific season by a striker yet netting 23 goals in all competitions.

We had an incredible cup run again, seeing off Clyde and Arbroath in extra time, then Championship rivals St Mirren on penalties in the Quarter Finals. The Semi Finals gave us another match up against Rangers and despite matching them the whole 1st half, their quality shown through in the 2nd half and they ran away with a 3-0 win and yes, they did score a penalty, so their social media admin will have fun with that.

The last game of the season against St Mirren was incredible, 1 down in the 91st minute, to going 2-1 up before then losing a goal in the 96th minute to go to 2-2. Thankfully due to Dundee losing, we somehow finished 2nd, giving us at least a week's break before the Promotion Playoff Final for the Championship.

Tight Like A Tiger

 

As you can tell by the graphic above, we never got promoted, so just how did that match up go? Well... sighs....

It Could Be Worse, It Could Be A Kick In The Baws....

 

Proceeds To Get Kick In The Baws

A 0-0 draw in the first leg meant it was all to play for at home and Josh Bowler put us 1-0 up on the 71st minute, 19 minutes away from a match against a Scottish Premiership side to go up. This was it, 3 subs had been made and an injury and we were down to 10 men. 2 minutes to go with a man up and Obika makes it 1-1.

Disaster strikes again after losing Bayliss, we now lose Ewan Henderson on 90+3. It's likely we'll play extra time with 9 men. Well we would have, if we got there. 90+6 minutes and Alex Jakubiak puts the ball in the back of the net and hearts are broken. St Mirren advance to the the Promotion/Relegation match and we must endure another season in the Championship.

 

 

Narrative

After sitting for 20 minutes taking it in, it was time to rebuild and the squad got restructured quite significantly for a push to go up as Champions next year. However an interesting narrative has happened. St Mirren lost the playoff final to St Johnstone so they will be challengers. Airdrie got promoted from League One so we'll meet them and of course, the team I support, who'll be desperate to go straight back up, Motherwell will be against us as they got relegated. What a season upcoming we are about to have.

I hope you join us, for season four! This is our time.

[maxi7]

After last season's heartbreak of just missing out on promotion, it was time to put a team together that would ensure that history didn't repeat itself. We're so close to that promotion to the top tier, but just what steps did we take to attempt this?

Not All Talent Costs

 

Much of recruitment was done straight off the bat when we knew we'd be stuck in the Championship for another year, however only 4 transfers happened before the league resets due to many pre-contract agreements taking effect from July 1st.

The first batch of in's saw Jamie McCart arrive from Hearts, he's someone with a good bit of Championship and top flight experience and someone I feel we can develop and move on. Anthony Ralston's move was made permanent as I was impressed with what he done last year and felt he could contribute again. Musialowski and Gorrin arrive from Liverpool and Millwall respectively, however Gorrin would suffer a bad injury early doors before his work permit would expire.

 

Enter July and as you can see a big recruitment drive in terms of loans and free's covering all positions and many players who will start and some who will be role players popping in the door. It does inflate the squad for sure, but anything to get us into the top flight.

The one's to watch out for are Warren O'Hora who is a central defender who arrives from Brighton, Josh Pask who was on the books of League One side Coventry City and loanee's Jonathan Afolabi and Scott Banks, who both have a big upside in terms of potential, it's up to us to help them find it.

Scott Bain arrived on loan from Celtic in a panic move till January, as Mike Cooper went down injured for 2 months and only Jacques Heragthy was on our books as a senior keeper.

Deadline Day Chaos

 

So yeah, our business wasn't done then, we went out and brought in 4 players on deadline day. Unfortunately one departure which I'll cover further on, meant we had to react and when bigger names became available it was a no brainer to recruit them.

Finlay Robertson has great experience at this level with Dundee, so we opted to bring him in from Bournemouth and his team mate, ex-Man Utd and Sunderland prospect Joe Hugill arrived too.

Anthony Gordon formerly of Everton, joins from Werder Bremen to give us an option left, right and in the 10, whilst Callum Hulme provides an option in the 6 and 8 role.

Farewell friends

 

Unfortunately failure to go up last season and players attracting interest from bigger clubs meant we were going to lose a few with Ross County turning the heads of key players Ben Liddle and Josh Bowler. Thankfully we got them interested in Nathan Broadhead and that meant we managed to net £800,000 upfront for all 3.

Marlon Fossey's contract was not renewed due to our interesting in keeping Anthony Ralston.

 

July saw a few out the door, mostly younger boys out to gain experience. We also somehow got £60,000 for Ricki Lamie.

However it was with great sadness that Rio Ave turned the head of Reegan Mimnaugh before his transfer request saw him depart to Reading for a measly £100,00. I had opted I didn't want an unhappy player around and some promising loanees were on the way.

Cups and Pre-Season

 

Only one friendly was arranged by my assistant Craig Easton which confused me but I wanted to use the Betfred Cup Group Stages as my proper pre-season.

4 games and 4 wins was a delightful start with wins at Queen of the South and Airdrie, whilst home wins over Stirling Albion and Premiership side Hamilton.

Partick Thistle took a 4-0 beating in the next round to book us a place in the Quarter Finals, where we had a showcase match up against Celtic. I opted just to go for it and at one point we led 2-1 thanks to 2 Afolabi goals. Unfortunately class told and Celtic ran out 4-2 winners.

The SPFL Trust Trophy was pretty much used as a rotational players showcase, as my focus was on the league and resting players.

A nice 6-1 win over Dunfermline in the 3rd round was followed up by a defeat on penalties to Irish side Shelbourne.

Bono, My League form

 

As you can see it was a fantastic start to the promotion charge, with only a defeat to St Mirren being a smudge on our record after 7 games. Unfortunately after this we turned into a tale of inconsistency with a run of 2 wins in 9 to end the year.

I'll be honest, a lot of the time I had shoehorned players into a system that didn't fit with only really Jonathan Afolabi really shining.

A World of Consistency

 

As you can see despite not being horrible, we are mile behind due to St Mirren's consistency, so going forward we need no mistakes, we need to be flawless.

Recruitment was going to be in January, with some departing and some arriving, but one man has been identified who could change it all, step forward....

[maxi7]

Save us Y2J

With St Mirren getting further and further ahead, we searched all window for someone to save our season and get us heading in the right direction. Enter not Phillip J Fry but Phillip A Jones.

 

It sounds farfetch'd doesn't it, Phil Jones in the 2nd tier of Scottish football. Until I realised he hadn't played a game since 2019/20 and at that it was 2 league games for United. It was very much Steven Caulker to Dundee this move.

 

PSA

So a few things to tidy up before we start rounding up the 2nd half of the season. I believe it was mid January that the game fully released, so the BETA was played right up to likely 12th January.

 

Also at the start of the season the board upgraded the stadium to just under 5k seats, I had no say in the matter, so couldn't disagree, which I would have as fear the top flight would require 6.5k seats and undersoil heating. Apparently that doesn't exist now according to the in game rules, so full steam ahead, lets try and salvage this season.

Big Names With A Lot To Prove

I had a rummage around the free agents list to try and turn our season around, and boy did some big names pop up. Admittedly these were under the interested, doubtful section, but some I took a risk with asking and somehow we lured them in. First in the door was Sam Byram, only playing 4 games in season 20/21 and none since, was desperate to play football, thus we lured him in.

The day after, was the arrival of Phil Jones, who had only played 2 games in the 19/20 season, thus meaning in the whole save so far he hadn't played a competitive game. I had a think over it, was it believable, and the deal I compared it to was when Steven Caulker signed for Dundee not long after playing for Liverpool.

Speaking of Liverpool, we lured their ex-youth talent Adam Lewis on a free. He had only a loan spell at Aimens in the 1st season and had played no competitive football since. He was someone I had used before on a previous FM and his versatility was a key factor in the deal getting done.

Speaking of versatility, that sums up our 2 signings on deadline day. Did they get desperate on the last day? Maybe. But their talent is undoubted. Callum Paterson hadn't played in 6 months since leaving League One Sheffield Wednesday, whilst Kasey Palmer had played 4 games in 2 years for Bristol City. Both can played in a number of positions and this will be key with quality now in depth. If we can all of these players up to match fitness, we'll be laughing.

Leaving the club was Luke McCormick who joins Dundee United after requesting to leave and the deal that pretty much promoted the Adam Lewis deal. Young Matthew Craig was poached by Airdrie, who'll have to pay incredible compensation, for someone who seemed quite meh.

Our Scottish Cup campaign was as you would expect. Good wins over former lower league rivals Stirling Albion and Cove Rangers before being put in our place by Premiership side Celtic. A 4-2 scoreline is good though as it shows we have the attacking prowess to challenge these teams.

So how did our league form go? Well as you can see above, Phil Jones and co-came in and we won every bloody game after that. This was the first part of the challenge under the full game and wow did the boys react. I think the St Mirren defeat pressurised me into spending to ensure we would go up via playoffs but a ruthless February, March and April put the pressure on and they crumbled. A special shoutout to the 4-3 game on the 16th of March, we were 3-1 up, they brought it back to 3-3 before Scott Banks fired one across the keeper to give us a 4-3 win. Scenes you love to see.

The image above shows the end of season that St Mirren had, a defeat to us and then Inverness opened the door, before a draw at home to Motherwell and then a last day defeat to Ayr. Even worse was their bottle to Raith in the Playoffs, where a 3-0 defeat in Kirkaldy was enough damage that the saint's couldn't overturn.

In the end we won the league on the final day by 3 points, our goal difference certainly helped, but what a swing of momentum it was and it now allows us to focus on the the top flight of Scottish football.

Our chairman has down-scaled funding, so we will not have an injections of cash should we go in the red. So the real challenge starts now with minimal money and a very low reputation. Bring it on!

Unfortunately I've played on a bit since this and my season review is unobtainable now, however he is a look at my best XI for the season.

You can see just the impact Phil Jones had especially to his defensive partner Josh Pask who had a phenomenal season. Also whilst Afolabi's record is inredible, it's great to see both widemen Scott Banks and Anthony Gordon hit double figures.

 

Now it's time for us to step up and find our identity, because we are Scottish Premiership bound.

[maxi7]

Our biggest challenge awaited us, the top flight of Scottish football with the smallest budget and small stadium. With the worst facilities in the league, how would a team who were in the 4th tier 4 seasons ago, cope with top flight football.

Fulfilling objectives

 

For 2 seasons the club has requested I sign players under the age of 20. Of course I'd love to do that, but again my focus was promotion, we're now in a position to do that though, so whilst not all of these are under 20, it does lead to signing younger players. Jamil Umoh was released by Rangers and the newgen aged 18 has a lot of potential. We'll likely find a loan spot for him to aid his development first. Dapo Mebude also joins on a free from Rangers after a PCA was made. He brings lightening pace to the team and can play out wide and up top. Lennon arrives from Norwich and is an 18 year old playmaker.

Mikey Johnston is one I'm excited about. A move to Aberdeen hasn't worked out after leaving Celtic, so we managed to agree a 2 year loan deal with Aberdeen. It sucks he'll miss games against them, but hopefully he thrives for us and we poach him at the end of the loan spell.

Avengers Assemble

 

As always we had a strong July recruitment drive with Bali Mumba, Luke McGee and Brian Lomas arriving under PCA's from Norwich, Forest Green and Liverpool respectively.

After the Phil Jones success story, I thought I'd seek the same joy with Grant Hanley, he was joined 2 days later by Sonny Lo-Everton who joins from Watford on loan. He can play as a 10, and someone I've only heard of, because well, his name is Everton.

Liam Gibbs arrived from Ipswich as an under 20 prospect, whilst Kelland Watts, Tony Watt and Aaron Pressley (Yes son of Stephen) all joined on deadline day as back up options. Also over the summer Scott Banks and Jonathan Afolabi extended their loan deals.

Josh Reid signed in October as we seek for him to replace Scott Tanser next season whilst Joseph Bull was released by Ross County and slots in our under 20 side.

Goodbye Friends

 

Of course, we have an identity as a club who brings players in, develops them and sell them on to keep the club afloat. That was the case with Warren O'Hora who was a great servant but fell behind Jones and Pask in the pecking order, with Hamilton a bigger club (and it pains me to say that) 500k was a fee we couldn't turn down.

Kane O'Connor and Rory Holden left on free's to allow them to come off our wage bill whilst Jamie McCart moves to Livingston.

Million Dollar (Well Pound) man Ted Dibiase

 

As always we will get as many of the younger players out on loan as you can see above, but you can also see how I could afford the £300k for Pressley. We let Khumbeni join Crewe for £10,000 where the fee can raise to £55,000 plus 50% of any sell on, plus Anthony Ralston joined Ross County in a deal worth up to £300,000.

The big one though was Tyler Smith, a bit unhappy with limited action up top, he got his request to leave granted by Sunderland who paid a club record sale for us of £1,000,000 for his services.

League Cup Adventure

 

Pre-season was hit and miss with a win,draw and defeat before we started our Betfred Cup Campaign. We were very average against Ayr, only managing a draw before taking the bonus point on penalties. We responded well with a 6-0 demolishing of Partick Thistle before facing fellow Scottish Premiership side Hamilton as a result of us still being an unseeded side. The 0-0 game us an idea of how tricky top flight life will be but luckily we took the bonus point here too. We rounded out the group with a hammering of old rivals Edinburgh City.

The next round saw us travel to Dumbarton and continue our trend of scoring penalties with Lewis netting 2 in a 4-1 win.

A tricky trip to Dundee United followed and it took a late goal by Jonathan Afolabi to send us back to our old home Hampden.

Unfortunately it was one step too far as Aberdeen showed their superior class winning 3-1 with their 3rd being a late goal as we chased an equaliser.

So This Is Where The Big Boys Play Huh?

 

So the league campaign, how's it going against the big boys you ask? Not bad actually. The aim from the off was just to keep a distance ahead of 11th and just survive for a year or two and settling into the league.

A tricky opener away to Hibs saw us lost 3-2, but showed we at least had firepower to compete here and this was further exemplified when Afolabi netted twice against Dundee United in a 2-1 win.

I didn't feel like there was much point in changing our strategy for Old Firm games and the difference in resource was telling as Celtic put 7 past us at Parkhead. But we rebounded well after this with a draw against Hearts and hammering Hamilton.

Inconsistency continued until we hit December with 4 wins in 6 including a tremendous 2-0 win over Celtic, a 13 point haul in that month alone is one third of what we'd usually need to stay up.

Nosebleed

 

So as you can see that leave us in a very tidy 5th place at the winter break. We won't be getting ahead of ourselves but we will try and manage the gap to 7th. If we get in the top 6 and stay close to Hearts, it could come to down to that battle for a European spot, which would be incredible. Unfortunately the top 4 are just too far ahead.

Style and Identity

 

Finally I've mentioned a lot about style and identity, so here's how play. A 4-2-3-1 with the aim of playing veritical tiki taka. I try and give my front 4 as much creative freedom as they want and they all have unique skills that can make them gamechangers.

As Afolabi is left footed I play him to the left so he can run and shoot across goal and always be on his favoured foot. I believe this will also occupy the RCB of the other team allowing other gaps to open up for Johnston and Lo-Everton.

We started well, but can we make it count, a chance at European Football surely not?

[maxi7]

This could be a lengthy post, the story took so many twists and turns, so many highs and lows just in the period of January to June of 2025. So here goes. Brace yourself it gonna be good.

Greetings, Sir

Believe it or not, it was a very quiet window indeed. With one of youngsters Jim Smith going out on loan, the only arrival was Glenn Middleton from Hearts, he was out on contract in the summer and as he was transfer listed, we were able to acquire him for just £15,000.

Reality Check

 

This was a stark reminder that despite the great adventure we've been on up the league, that we still have poor facilities in comparison with the rest of the division, with our pitch being not the best in poor conditions.

Man In Demand

We finally had a few job offers as well over the 5 month period, however the plan is to do the full adventure with Queen's Park and a journeyman is on the cards down the line. We turned down an advance from Barnsley and then Motherwell, which is why I got the achievement you see above.

A poor season from Celtic saw the man below sacked, and they actually offered me the job with a £50m transfer budget, frustrating to turn down, but I had just done 20 seasons at Celtic in FM20.

A Few Choice Words

 

I did have to laugh at this comment from Lopetegui. I mean there's a reason why my squad is just British players. It's called Brexit and a horrible Work Permit system. We don't have the resources to bring in a top player from overseas who'll pass that system.

Support The Rainbow Laces Campaign

It's been a while since I've had this news item but it was class to see our youngster Jason McInally come out as gay. He's currently on loan at Stirling Albion and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've had the news item in a good bit.

So What Happened Then?

 

On to the action then and as you can see we did not have a great return to league action suffering defeats at Hamilton, Rangers and Hibs.

We fared better in February but what a March we had, after Aflobai went down at Kilmarnock, step forward a man who had been left on the fringes and that was Dapo Mebude. He fired in a hat-trick against Hamilton before scoring 4 in the first half against Livingston in 6 and 7 nil wins respectively.

April was hard as we just faced the old firm and that included Celtic putting another 6 past us.

A late goal at Easter Road gave us a vital point where a win at home to Hibs would see us 5th with a great chance of Europe. All we had to do was beat Hearts, 2-2 and in the 90th minute, Stuart McKinstry scores to send us on our way. Well before a minute later Hearts score to take it to the final day.

They hosted an out of form Celtic side whilst we traveled to Aberdeen and fair play to the lads they were superb. Lo-Everton scoring before an Afolabi double gave us a comfortable 3-0 lead. They brought one back before Tony Watt fired us into a sure European place. But why was I so confident of us making Europe in 5th?

A Run Like No Other, Destination Europe

 

Well because it was ourselves and Rangers who took part in the final, meaning that the top 5 would make Europe regardless.

We had a fair easy run to the final and got lucky beating St Johnstone on penalties. We actually led the final twice before Rangers pegged us back on both occasions within a minute. In the 2nd half their quality told and we crumbled as we chased the game.

It was nice to sample our 1st major final and the defeat means 3rd place will enter the Europa Leauge, whilst we enter the Europa League Conference 2nd round qualifiers. I'm actually happy with this as it gives us a chance to settle in Europe and pick up coefficient points against smaller teams to help our seeding over time.

Final League Standings

Now after all that's wrapped up, here's a look at the 2024/25 Scottish Premiership table.

 

Scott For The Scots

 

Whilst one of the aims of the save was to get 2 players in the Scotland squad from our own academy, we've at least gotten one from our squad as Scott Banks made the team in the summer qualifiers. He didn't feature but an awesome experience for him none the less.

All Change At The Top

 

I won't delve into all the moments of the year etc, because so much happened but I'll round it up with this. We got taken over for the 2nd time and thank god. Because our benefactor downscaled, we actually had saw ourselves develop a £-3m bank balance, thankfully the cup run and 5th place wiped most of that out.

We now have £2m in the bank thanks to this takeover so that gives us some financial security. However our wage budget has been trimmed. It's up to me to make it more sustainable and start bringing in player sales. We had an early summer of £2.2m for Pask, but I got greedy, asked for £4m from Rangers and they withdrew their interest. I saw it as a great opportunity to really sort the club out financially but alas it was not to be.

So we move on to season 2025/26, a unique journey in both the Betfred Cup group stages and some Euro Conference qualifiers, can we make the groups and can we maintain our top 6 ambitions.

Stay tuned to see if we can make our mark mata next season.

[maxi7]

Our journey continues into the 2025/26 season, it was going to be an interesting one. Would we suffer 2nd season syndrome in the top flight, would we have a great run in Europe, it really was going to be a season that could make or break the club. So how did we do? Let's detail that journey.

Adding to the ranks

 

As always our business is divided into two stages, the opening of the window and the any business done after the league resets. I acted fast to secure 5 new signings to the club. Eoin Thain was recommended by our scouting team and he's one for the development squad which is an area I feel we need to start recruiting in, as 1) the board want under 23 and 20 players signed and 2) we need to start bringing through talent to ensure I make my personal goal of 2 players in the Scotland squad.

James Graham arrives on a PCA alongside Dean Campbell from Rangers and Aberdeen respectively. Graham has some raw talents but lots of pace and someone I thing we can round into a good player. Campbell is someone who had a lot of promise, who maybe hasn't fulfilled it in this save and its up to us to help him.

Our final two buys in this portion of the window we're Ethan Erhahon and Jude Russell, both from relegated Livingston. I'm a big fan of Erhahon and he's something who in real life will have a fantastic career. He adds depth and of course quality to the middle of the park whilst his team-mate Russell adds versatility with the option to play right and centre back.

Brian Lomas and Liam Gibbs left the club on loan to Dundee United and Livingston respectively, whilst Pat Williams, a young academy prospect was sold to Dundee with a sizeable sell-on clause.

Big Name Signings

 

The 2nd part of the window saw well, realism get thrown out the window. We started our window with PCA signings of Jaden Brown, a pacey left back who'll replace Scott Tanser. I then managed to obtain a work permit for RB Salzburg newgen Christoph Kirnbauer. He's a lot of raw attributes, but one where if he applies himself could net himself a good move and a tidy sell on for us.

Scott Banks was retained following his loan moves from Crystal Palace, so the fact we've got someone permanently onboard who has made Scotland squad's now, is a big big plus for us.

Then I had a moment of madness, trailing through the free agent list, I managed to bring in a 37 year old Juan Mata and a 34 year old Douglas Costa. Both are completely physically done, in fact Mata's never really had it, but I still believe both had fantastic mental and technical attributes which could help the team take a step forward.

Ex-Motherwell youngster Reece McAlear arrived after being released by Norwich City and then highly rated youngster Mamadu Camara arrives from Chelsea as we look to fill the void left by Sonny Lo-Everton's departure.

 

Tips Hat To Mr Mumba

 

In terms of out's here it was mostly some of our best young prospects out getting first team football including Joseph Bull, Ross Higgins and Jack Scott.

We allowed Kelland Watts to leave for Killie on loan, whilst Bali Mumba wanting to move to a bigger club in the form of St Johnstone, so somehow we salvaged a fee of £425,000. Not bad profit on a freebie last summer.

Betfred and Europe Demise

Unfortunately in finishing where we did it meant we had to participate in the Betfred Cup Group, this led to horrible fixture congestion at a time where we were trying to get some minutes into most of the squad's legs.

A tricky start in the Betfred saw a 1-1 draw with Motherwell end in a penalty shootout defeat, leaving us in a position where we pretty much had to win the rest of our group games.

2-1 wins away to Morton and Stranraer helped but were hardly convincing. Our other home game was against Dumbarton and thankfully we sailed through that 4-0, the goal within the opening minute likely settled any pre-match nerves.

The 2nd round was against fellow Premiership side Hamilton and despite scoring just as extra time started, we were eliminated 3-2.

As for Europe, our journey started against Neman Grodno from Belarus, a 2-1 win gave us an okay start to life in Europe, with the away goal a cause for concern.

The return leg in Belarus, saw us trail 1-0, before a Dapo Mebude goal cancelled out their away goal. Any concerns were dashed at the end once Afolabi made it 2-1 and 4-2 on aggregate.

Bulgaria was our next destination with Beroe Stara Zagora our next opponents. This is where the dream became a nightmare, we dominated at home but where unable to score thus a 0-0 scoreline.

Over in Bulgaria we went for it, just to get that away goal, but alas it never came and Beroe would go on to win 1-0 thus eliminating us from the competition. Tenev the goalscorer.

Home Good, Away Bad

 

As you can see we started slowly to the league campaign with a 2-2 draw against St Johnstone before a hammering at Celtic Park.

We then kicked on with 5 wins on the spin including a victory over Rangers thanks to a Lafont own goal. October was a bit more inconsistent with our away form being poor but a good win against Aberdeen in our only home game.

It was reverse fortunes in November with 2 away with wins with 7 goals and a solitary home defeat against Celtic by 3 goals to 2. Frustratingly their winner was in the 4th minute of added on time.

December was back to status quo, 3 wins from 3 at home with just the 1 point picked up from 3 tricky away matches. Glenn Middleton hit a great run of form with 6 goals coming in just 3 games.

League standings

 

Overall we're in a good position, its going to end up between us, Hibs and St Johnstone for the 3 lesser European Places, provided the Old Firm make the final of the Scottish Cup.

The board are delighted as their expectations are just to survive relegation and well we're 31 points clear of Kilmarnock. Can we kick on and assure ourselves of another run in Europe, join me for part 12 soon.

[maxi7]

So can we push on and claim that Europa League spot or will we bottle? Lets find out. But let's make the most anticlimactic start ever to the post. We had no money, so no January recruits.

Trimming The Fat

 

With no one coming in, I felt like it was best to trim the fat of the squad a little, thus potentially creating openings for younger players to get their chance.

The like of newgens Mackechnie and Sharp got lower league moves, whilst Bronsky and Meechan were poached by lower clubs, I have no idea how they'll afford that compensation, but I think that's only if they play X amount of games etc.

Reece McAlear and Dean Campbell are expected to play a part for the squad down the line so they'll get football at a good level at Crewe and St Johnstone respectively.

Tony Watt was allowed to leave on a free to Oxford after a being a great servant in a back up role, scoring the occasional important goal, whilst Aaron Pressley was allowed to depart to Ross County after barely featuring either.

Tailing Off

It's weird that I sat tailing off because whilst it does look that way, we still ended up in a strong position as you'll see. I was disappointed with the opener against Ross County before the usual defeat at Parkhead.

2 good wins followed before a run of 3 without a win which was ended with a win against Hearts thanks to a late Adam Lewis penalty.

After this I felt like we had 5 winnable games and we only came home with 2 wins, a 3-0 at home to Hibs and a win at Dundee United thanks to youngster Eion Thain who had been thrown in to try something new.

As we entered the split we fell away, infact just 1 win in our last 5. We should have beaten Falkirk in our last game but alas no matter what we would have done we would have still finished 4th.

This means we shall enter the Euro Conference League at the 3rd Qualifying Round next season.

P4, That's P4.

 

Overall not to much to discuss, a mile off the Old Firm and in the battle for 3rd-5th with Hibs and St Johnstone.

The league may be easier next season with the relegation of both Hearts and Kilmarnock. They'll be replaced by Livingston and Dundee, who make their first appearance in the top flight in this save.

No Trips To The Bigger Hampden This Year

It was a pretty boring cup run, all teams we've faced before including 2 premiership sides. The scorelines weren't boring, just the lies.

A good win at Partick followed up by a nice victory over Ross County. St Johnstone was always going to be tricky and the 3-4 scoring line was gutting, we just couldn't handle Jamal Lowe, who scored a hat-trick for the visitors.

The Best XI

 

As you can see from the graphic we actually had a mostly settled side. I think its a glitch though as the Jones shows at 7.40 despite that being Pask. I will say I was shocked by how many games Phil Jones managed.

Middleton's contribution is highlighted here with a goal every 3 games and he stepped up well after Scott Banks had an injury in February that ruled him out till the new season.

Leave The Memories Alone

I thought it would be nice to document the best team of the full save so far. Afolabi has already made 150 appearances in all competitions for us despite him now only becoming a full member of our squad after agreeing a PCA.

Peter Grant and Craig Slater seem to be the only survivors from the initial squad in the starting XI with Simon Murray and Jai Quitongo on the bench. It will be interesting to see how this looks 5 years down the line.

[maxi7]

As we enter our 7th season of the save and our 3rd in the top flight, we we’re looking to try and make a run in Europe and try and become Scotland’s third force. With limited finances and no real improvement to the ground or facilities, could we do it?

A Point To Prove

 

 

Our first batch of signings all come under the term “A point to prove”, having maybe a lot of potential but not quite fulfilling it.

David Bates has Rangers and Hamburg on his resume and he’s someone I felt could add good competition to our backline. Alan McIntyre also has Rangers on his resume, the newgen comes under the potential to be a good player and will be on for the future.

Lewis Smith was tipped for great things at Hamilton and was released after never really kicking on, we’ll try help him there. Finn Ecrepont had a good spell at Ayr before moving to Premiership side West Brom and we’ve loaned him in for added competition at left back.

Beni Baningime and Scott Twine both impressed against us last season, with the latter scoring and they both arrive from Dundee United and Aberdeen respectively.

Not a lot happened on the early out’s, Kelland Watts left for Inverness and a few newgens were released. Some youngsters have went to East Fife for experience.

Other release’s included good servants such as Sam Byram and Jacques Heraghty and experienced flops such as Douglas Costa and Juan Mata.

 

The King Has Returned

 

Our latter half of the window was all about options up the top of the park with Afolabi finally become a permanent member of the roster arriving on a free from Newcastle, as he becomes our highest earner of all time on £6k per week whilst he was joined by Plymouth striker Luke Jephcott.

We spent £325,000 on ex-Rangers youth Kai Kennedy as he arrived from Serie A side Sampdoria.

The last one in was 18 year old Graeme Tait, who arrives on loan from Sporting. He departed Dundee United in the summer and someone with a big future in the game and hopefully can make a big impact for us.

 

Here Comes The Money…. Dollar, Dollar, Ching, Ching

 

In terms of outs, just one big one and then lots and lot of loans. You’ll see Jose Antonio Escribano in that list, more on him in the next blog.

Aside from the many loans, it was the £5m record sale of Dapo Medude, a key player, but a fee that will help the club function for a few seasons. We’ll lose his pacey outball, but he wasn’t happy to it was best for both parties.

 

From Portugal And Back

Unfortunately the Euro gods were not in our favour as being unseeded we we’re drawn a very tricky tie against Portugese side Rio Ave.

They were far better prepared and to be truthful, probably just better than us full stop. They beat us 2 at our place before going 2 up away before we finally turned up with a minute to go through late goals from Mikey Johnston and Scott Banks.

Hopefully next time we get a more favourable draw.

 

Green Is Good, Red Is Bad

 

Despite the early exit in the Europa Conference we actually started the season very well with 7 wins from the first 11 matches against each team. All the defeats, Aberdeen, Rangers, Hibs and Celtic were to be expected. Well maybe not the magnitude of the Hibs game, but somehow they’ve amassed a strike force of Lassina Traore and Joe Gelhardt.

It was good to see a mix of scorers in the team aswell as Afolabi started slow with just 2 in his first 7 league matches.

October was a good month, although that County match was nearly a horror show, we lead 6-1 before they brought it back to 6-5.

November was solid if not spectacular, with 5 points obtained and only Afolabi and Scott Banks netting.

December started okayish with 2 wins from 3, until a trip to Dingwall and what began, what only could be described as the great decline.

 

Hi, Bye

 

 

Due to our finishing this year, we did not enter the Betfred Cup group stages, which whilst allowed our players a breather in July, it did mean limited time in the competition itself.

Luke Jephcott scored a hat-trick as we dispatched St Johnstone, before we lost a very winnable home tie against Ross County 1-0. Very disappointing.

 

National Service

 

One positive news was Scott Banks finally getting capped for Scotland. I thought his chance was over as his previous broken ankle, but he recovered well and got his cap. Now just hopefully we can get some decent youth intakes through to join him.

 

Where We Stand

 

In conclusion, we’re in a decent spot, comfortably in the top 6 and in a real battle fo a top 3 spot with Hibs and the surprise package of the season in the form of Falkirk who are flying under Russell Lapaty. Can we catch them? Haha, oh god wait till you see what happens.

 

Part 14 will be up in a few days.

[maxi7]

So in context, i'll be straight to the point. This 6 months here was an utter horror show, how I survived it, well likely thanks to the club wanting to just avoid relegation. Get ready, it's a mess.

Hola Señor

 

As I previously stated, we made the signing of Jose Antonio Escribano from Merida for £35,500 after being recommended to me by one of our scouting reports.

Jorge Escobar also popped up via the scouting report, as the knowledge pool was deepened by my small stint in charge of the Columbian National side.

 

The tricky Brexit scenario makes work permits extremely difficult to get as such we did not secure one for Escribano, however his talent was enough to get him in and hope we can develop him into a position where he can get one and be a useful asset to us down the line. He'll spend the remainder of the season at Spanish 2nd tier side Real Zaragoza.

 

Jorge Escobar will join us this window and he's someone with some very raw attributes but hopefully we can mould him into a good challenger to Afolabi for the striker role. He arrives as a free agent after his last 4 seasons saw him reach double figure for Deportivo Cali in his homeland.

Part Time Departures

 

Not too much to add in the out's. McCluskey was poached by Ayr and with his potential I doubt we'll get that full compensation. Scott went to Hearts and Kirnbauer and Umoh we're allowed to leave on loan just to not impressing greatly for the first team.

Can We Get A F In The Chat Please

 

I normally go over the league portion of the season in a little detail, but it's time to be super unprofessional here. As you can see it was rotten, 3 wins in the 2nd part of the season, thanks to Dundee and a big thanks to rivals Falkirk who gifted us 7 points with only Aberdeen giving us 1 other point.

One positive note was the home tie against Hibs on the final day, I opted to give a lot of youth academy graduates a game and thanks to getting a penalty we smashed the record for youngest Queen's scorer of all time with Wesley Pierre scoring aged 15 years and 269.

What was crazy to me is Hamilton had a newgen younger than this who managed it in at the start of season 2 in July 2021. This newgen would eventually move on to Manchester United at the end of that campaign.

Just And No More

 

Celtic end up winning the league by 5 points and we find ourselves still way overachieveing as no team caught us before 33 games thus we found ourselves cast adrift in 6th place. No european football next season but still okay placement money brought in.

Another Cup Run

 

In terms of getting in Europe, we had a small chance through the Scottish Cup, we dispatched lowly Annan before a big win at our friends from Falkirk.

An early Scott Banks goal gave us a lead at Dundee, which we didn't hold on to, but thankfully Jephcott and Banks again gave us the win in the replay.

Unfortunately we matched up against Rangers and despite an early goal from Scott Banks, we would go on to lose 3-2 with a late consolation from Mikey Johnston for us.

Room For Expansion

 

Despite no improvement's on the park, we do find ourselves with a stadium that will reach just under 7,700 seats, during the process of this we'll groundshare with Hearts at Tynecastle park till mid-Feburary. Hopefully this is one step in gaining some more income to allow us to be far more aggressive in the transfer window, something that has significantly let us down.

Debts Acquired

 

Of course, the club itself doesn't have any money, so we're paying for the upgrade with a loan. Luckily its only 30k a month for 10 years and hopefully well, I'll have the league in that time. (I've jinxed that haven't I!) Anyway time for season eight, lets go!

[maxi7]

A new season is upon us and our first in three that didn't involve European competition. Whilst a financial curse on the club, could it be a blessing in the long term progression of Queen's Park? Let's find out.



Our early recruitment was based on depth, bringing in proper back up options whilst waiting for all the old free agents to become available on July 1st. Tobi Oluwayemi arrives as a back up goalkeeper after a release from Celtic whilst Jayden Stoker is a young newgen with a barrowload of potential that we were able to nick from Raith Rovers.

Ro-Shaun Williams, formerly of Manchester United arrives from Oxford to provide us with a pacey athlete at the back, something we've lacked in prior years.



The early out's included the likes of Jamil Umoh and Reece McAlear, who whilst still had time to grow, we're sold on with sell on clauses to protect our best interest.

Jaden Brown, who was fantastic for us, was subject of a very attractive bid from Falkirk, of which I opted to cash in on to try look for another prospect we bring in, improve and sell on.



Overall with a lack of cash it was a very quiet window with 6 more signings in total.

Oliver Bosworth has signed from Leicester and after playing 14 games in the English Championship last season, he'll battle with Luke McGee for the keepers jersey.

Charlie Wiggett arrives from Preston after a long period on the books of Chelsea.



He arrives with some raw attributes technically but very impressive mental and physical attributes which we can work with.

Jordan Houston arrives to bring competition to the right back birth after a steady season at Championship side Hearts last season. In game he amassed a 2nd spell at Rangers, Queen of the South and Oldham before rocking up at Hearts.

Andre Lewis, whilst on the books of Leicester, found most of his football on loan at League One Queen's Park Rangers. While technically not the greatest, he has very raw pace and again he's someone we believe we can work with.

Sam Noakes arrives from Bristol City on loan, to add competition to the left back birth, so you can see where I had to improve this year. Whilst Daniel Chevalley joins our reserve/development squad from Boavista.



Not too much changed in terms of outs, with mostly youngsters going out for first team football. We did however sell Lewis Smith to Falkirk and lost Ross Higgins to Braga as both chased first team football.



Pre-season consisted of some friendlies and then minutes in legs thanks to the Betfred Cup. QPR and Wolves visited Lesser Hampden before we traveled to Airdrie.

A good 4-0 win there was followed up with a 7-0 win at home to old rivals Edinburgh City, we truly had found our shooting boots.

Partick Thistle were saw off with a 2-1 win at Firhill before seeing Stranraer off 3-0 at home.

Motherwell visited us in Round two, with goals from Scott Banks x2 and Scott Twine giving us a Quarter Final against Celtic. Unfortunately we were 2nd best on the day losing 2-1 with a late Adam Lewis penalty our consolation.



It started so well with the Jonathan Afolabi show up at Dundee and then 10 points from our first 4 games including a win against Rangers thanks to a late Adam Lewis goal.

Then it just went so far downhill, 1 point in 7 games and a shocker of a 6-1 home defeat to high flying Falkirk under Russell Lapaty.

Wins against Hibs and Livingston gave us a chance and early domination of Hibs saw us out of sight before a late winner from the spot v Livy.

Then we didn't win again, 2 draws started the run before defeats to Rangers, Motherwell and Dundee United. Points at Hamilton and Aberdeen helped before normal service resumed.



As you can see, it's not looking great, just 5 points clear of the relegation playoff spot, however we are just one win off the top 6. We need a hero from somewhere, can we do it, well we just need to remember one thing.





[maxi7]

So how do you turn round such a poor start to the season, well it turns out not a lot. One signing changed it all, plus a move to 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress, is it OP again?

 

Due to lack of financial resources I was really worried about what and who we could recruit, it came down to panic signing, young Alex Ballantyne on loan from Celtic to come in an play as a ball winner in the middle of the pack.

In terms of outs, youngsters Calum Campbell and Steve Donaldson left for Morton, the latter being poached thus we'll be lucky to see much of that compensation, whilst Jude Russell leaves for Motherwell in search of first team opportunities.

 

Then things change, a good point against Celtic, then 2 wins from 3 in January after that with all our starting attacking options all picking up a goal.

2 more wins would follow with a last gap winner from Brian Lomas against Rangers, then a statement 4-2 win at Motherwell. Afolabi banging 3 in 2 games.

Unfortunately Livingston and Dundee United would turn us over in 2 of our next 3 games but a good win over Hamilton gave us a vital 3 points. The league ended so tight that somehow we just scrapped a top 6 place thanks to a great win at Aberdeen who we were fighting against for the spot.

The place was sealed after a good win at home to Hibs with further home wins after the split to follow against Dundee United and Celtic.

We ended the league season with a bit of whimper, a draw at Hibs before a loss at home to Falkirk and then away to Rangers.

 

5th place was a tremendous finish considering where we were. We ended up a mile behind 3rd and 9pts off 4th, but to squeeze in the top 6 and then into a European spot, kept it up business as usual. But wait that says EC now EC2, what the hell happened?

 

Oh when the Queen's go up and win the Scottish Cup, we'll be there. What a run, so many lucky moments, but the cup spot takes priority over 3rd place, so we'll be playing in the Europa League Group Stages. It started with an iffy win over Hearts thanks to an Adam Lewis pen.

PENALTY QUEENS was the cry in the next round as Adam Lewis netted a double from the spot at Killie. Stuart McKinstry got in the act aswell with a goal in between Jonathan Afolabi's double in a 5-2 win.

Given we were playing catch up with some games, one thing I didn't want was any replay's, so naturally of course this happened with a 0-0 draw at home to Aberdeen.

Thankfully up at their place, we smashed them 3-0 with Banks, Andre Lewis and Afolabi scoring.

A trip to Hampden against Hatton's dee's. A real opportunity to make the final, but it didn't really go our way. 1-1 at full time, and 2-2 after 120 minutes, 2 Scott Banks goals couldn't get us there, thankfully we won the penalty shootout to bring more drama in the final.

The final then and our old friends Falkirk. As you can see above we lined up with our usual 4-2-3-1 giving Lewis and Erhahon the chance to bomb forward.

We took the league thanks to Stuart McKinstry, who really does step up in the big games, before Scott Banks looked to have put us on our way. Then with 7 minutes to go we crumbled. The Bairns made it 1-2 before, Moore equalised in stoppage time to make it 2-2.

Into injury time and time for new heroes, after finally getting a work permit and being used very sparingly it was a rare chance for striker Jose Escribano and the same to Jorge Escobar who replace the tiring Kai Kennedy.

I couldn't believe it, the man we brought in with no permit, sent him back out till he got one, returned in January and then finally bagged his first goal for the club in the Scottish Cup final to put us 3-2 up.

I was sweating and freaking out, before calmness prevailed when Jorge Escobar stepped up on the counter attack to put us 4-2 up and secure not just the Scottish Cup, but Europa League football and vitally the few million that the Europa League group stages brings.

 

I'll be honest, I know we still overachieved even in league position, but the poor start show rule me out of this. I've had better seasons and not won it, but 5th and a cup win gets me Manager of the Year.

 

Finally, because I was itching to start the following season, it was just one thing we got updated which was our academy coaching, I want to help bring through the next Andy Robertson and this is the first step in doing so.

 

[maxi7]

The 28/29 season brought the first of its kind, a team competing in the group stages of the Europa League and one that could maybe, just maybe attack the Old Firm should the recruitment be right.

 

The first phase of transfer we're relatively quiet, with Jake Doyle-Hayes, Reece Hudson and Mikey Johnston arriving. Mikey's no stranger to the club and shock horror he's back on yet another loan deal.

Young newgen Canadian Hudson arrives into our reserve squad, while Doyle-Hayes arrives to bring competition in the middle of the park as someone who's impressed me with St Mirren in real life.

In terms of out's at this phase, only young newgen Jamie Evans left, departing for St Johnstone under freedom of contract.

 

The 2nd phase of in's were actually completed by mid July as we opted for quality over quantity this year due to last years end of season form.

All 4 were newgens are defensive midfielder Kareem Phillips arrived from Spurs after a loan spell at Leeds and he was followed by impressive centre back Kieran Watkins.

Keen to improve the backline, Mohamed Kargbo also arrived on a pre-contract agreement from Manchester United and after being transfer listed his young reserve team mate Adam Pattison joined for 23k, to give us more depth at left back.

Due to his fantastic impact last season, we were happy to extend Alex Ballantyne's loan from Celtic to cover the full of this season.

The out's were pretty insignificant aswell, Glenn Middleton left for Sunderland for first team football and we allowed Jordan Houston to leave for Ross County thanks to bringing in Watkins to cover right back. The rest we're all loans with the exception of Eion Thain (Kiel) and Brian Sutherland (Kilmarnock).

 

Pre-season started shaky with defeats to FC Chambly and Leicester with a goalless match against Barnsley in between.

Thankfully wins against Crawley, Colchester and Cardiff followed however no clean sheet did.

The League Cup run was short and eventful with a 5-1 win over Dundee in the 2nd round before a 3-2 defeat at home to Celtic giving us a quick exit, Jephcott and Escribano on the scoresheet.

 

Oh wow did the league season start badly and give me the fear, no wins in our first 4 with an opening day defeat at Ibrox and a defeat at home to Aberdeen. 2 draws occurred in between but points lost from a winning position was extremely frustrating in both... and then well it clicked.

A trip to the Tony Macaroni started it off and we served up a cracking 6-0 victory to really kick off our season. We hosted Hamilton next and it looked like back to normal before Afolabi on 82 and Adam lewis in injury time gave us another win.

A trip to Parkhead ended the month, a 3-1 defeat was the outcome with a rare penalty given at Parkhead being our source of a goal. This defeat would somehow be the last time we'd suffer a loss in the league in 2028.

Step up Jonathan Afolabi with 6 goals in 5 games. The only goal in a 1-0 win over Dundee United, before a 1-1 draw with Falkirk. He added a late 2nd in a 2-0 win at Hearts, before scoring at home in the win over St Johnstone and both (including a late winner) at former club Dundee.

Even the visit of Rangers didn't bring a defeat as Scott Twine scored in a 1-1 draw with wins over Livingston, Hibs and Aberdeen to follow.

Celtic visited and somehow we turned them over with a 1-0 win with yet another penalty against them scored by Scott Twine.

A trip to Hamilton saw us drop 2 points before we ended the calendar year with back to back 2-1 wins at Dundee United and Falkirk.

Despite that great run of 1 defeat in 16, we had somehow only gathered 4 clean sheets.

 

It saw the league table look this and it makes you wonder what great position we would be in if we didn't mess up the start. Still if we can keep the fight with the Old Firm, we could possibly sneak into that 2nd Champions League berth.

Also while all that was going on, we had our Europa League run, where we somehow made it into the groups after winning our playoff tie against Dutch side FC Utrecht.

A 0-0 draw in Holland gave us a chance, and with it being 1-1 with 10 minutes to go and us on the brink of exit, young right back Andre Lewis rattled home the winner to send us into the group. Malmo, Fiorentina and Lille to take us on.

It was France first and a trip to Lille and a reminder of just how far we still have to go as they ran out easy 6-1 winners. A trip to Malmo followed with a 1-1 draw thanks to Lewis' late leveler, before an incredible draw with the Italian's Fiorentina at the Alex Totten Stadium, Pask and Banks our scorers.

Now we all know about Rangers' famous night in Florence, but this was ours, a Jonathan Afolabi goal giving us a great victory.

More chaos followed when Lille visited Scotland with it being 2-2 in the dying embers of the game, Scott Banks broke down the left and fired across the keeper to give us an incredible 3-2 victory.

 

The final match saw us host Malmo, and what a start we had, we went 2 up after 54 minutes thanks to Scotty Twine.

Unfortunately the great bottle happened and we conceded on the 77th and 81st minute to draw 1-1 as we couldn't force a winner.

 

When you look at the table and notice we were knocked out via head to head, it shows that draw cost us in the end.

It wasn't all doom and gloom as it drops us to the Europa Conference and admittedly a better chance of progressing and improving our coefficient.

We will face Astra from Romania in the new year. With that tie and a chance to compete for the title, can we be heroes?

[maxi7]

When you have such a strong start to the season and when you don't have much money, not a lot changes at the club, as such we did no business until the final day.

 

We didn't received money until a deadline day sale as you'll see below but this allowed to turn Alex Ballantyne's into a permanent deal for a club record fee of just £350,000.

Also arriving on deadline day was young left winger Haojin You from Stuttgart, I'd love to say I knew a lot about him, but he was a complete punt after popping up in my scouting centre. Honestly I advise fully using this to your advantage.

 

Jake Doyle-Hayes and Kareem Phillip failed to settle with St Mirren taking Jake on a full time basis for £200,000 and Phillip out to Hamilton on loan. Ethan Erhahon expressed a desire to leave and we decided to let him go with Nottingham Forest paying just under £2million for his services.

Then the game changer, the silly MLS money, as Toronto FC offered £7m for Jose Antonio Escribano, of which we negotiated to £9m to bring us by far a record transfer fee. Something that would set the club up for years.

 

I felt it was vital to show this image of You, not you, but Haojin You, as you can see what an impact he had. 16 appearances, 5 goals and 7 assists, incredible for a young boy in foreign country.

 

We showed our intention from the restart with a good win against Dundee and then a fantastic 2-0 win at Ibrox thanks to goals from Lomas and Afolabi.

A small defeat to Hibs happened before 7 wins in a row, with Scott Banks hitting incredible form with 5 goals in 4 games. This great run was ended by Celtic, before we embarked on another small winning run again ended by Celtic.

We then finished the season with wins over Aberdeen (4-1) and Hibs (3-2) before a credible 2-2 draw at Rangers.

 

This just shows how close we were and how vital those defeats to Celtic were as we finished 5 points off them in 2nd place.

But disappointed we are not as we'll qualify for the Champions League Qualifiers, I doubt we'll make it through, however it should get us to drop into the Europa League Groups.

It was also fantastic to average 97% full capacity of our stadium all season and a well done by Afolabi scoring 29 goals.

 

As you can see we still deploy the basic 4-2-3-1 but 3 behind the striker are so vital to the system, will all 3 set to an attack role, they bomb forward and run at the opposition to overload the attack. Both wide men work as inside forwards to allow the fullbacks to bomb up too, so at times we can go 6 forward.

The amount of assists by our wingers and wing backs indicate this as well as Scott Banks 17 goals from RAM.

 

Confirmation of how vital a signing Kieran Watkins was with him winning both signing and young player of the season.

This confirms the few records we broke including the record buy of £300,000 and biggest sale of £9,000,000 plus Scott Twine scoring in just 22 seconds one game.

 

Thankfully the board also saw sense and are captalising on our success by upgrading our stadium to just over 11,500 seats.

 

This was the most successful season in Queen's Park history according to the game although in saying that 5 of our last 6 have been.

 

So how did the rest of our European adventure go? Well we started with a shaky win over Astra, before seeing the job over there with a 2-0 win in Romania.

Legia were our next opponents and we sailed to a comfortable 2-0 win at home. Then over in Poland I have no idea what happened, but we absolutely smashed them 9-0.

Unfortunately money talks and well backed Bournemouth were our opponents in the Quarter finals, we only lost 1-0 down in England, but unfortunately as we pushed in the home leg, we were sucker punched and lost 2-0.

 

It's been a long post, but we do have conclude it with our Scottish Cup run. Victories over Partick and Clyde paired us with Ross County, and our rotated side saw us only draw 1-1 at home before a 2-1 win up in Dingwall.

Hibs were our opponents in the semi-final and they were the victors on penalties, they still have a bit of class up top that's still far too good for us in my opinion.

On to the new season, can this be the year?????

[maxi7]

2029/30, could this be the year? Possibly, I mean it's been a while since I've blogged right!



Recruitment phase one was very quiet, so quiet infact it only saw the arrival of youngster Joshua Kirk, John Stewart and Lewis Marshall, the former two on pre-contract agreements whilst Marshall being unhappy at St Johnstone.



The 2nd phase of the window saw our usual pre-contract agreement's from England plus from further afield this time.

Anton Kingston is a tricky number 10 and his creativity gives us a good option there.

Young Englishman Muhammed Kakire arrives from Chelsea, and whilst never having an appearance in senior football, we believe he has the physical attributes to have a good career with us.



Ashley Appleyard arrives from Sheffield United and gives us a great option in all 3 positions behind the striker, whilst we've taken a massive gamble on youngster Helmut Paul, who arrives from Bayer Leverkusen with the promise he'll come in and straight off the bat be the new number one keeper.

Scotsman Kyle Thompson found himself as a free agent, despite earlier in his career moving for £9m between Middlesbrough and Burnley. Due to this I believed it was worth taking a risk on this transfer.

Steve Birch arrived for the reserves from Leicester whilst Stewart Lumsden arrives on a loan, a product of Aston Villa's academy, has already been on the books of Rangers, Crystal Palace and now West Brom, and hopefully we can give him the launch pad to really thrive from.



Not much to report in terms of out's, just mostly players going out go gain experience, whilst Oliver Bosworth was let go due to the arrival of Helmut Paul.



It was a bit of a hit and miss pre-season with wins over Hull and Crawley, a draw at Clyde with defeats to QPR and Deportivo.

Not overly great, but it's something that's never really interested me and I let my assistant take full control.

It was a short run in the Betfred, as it is most season's now due to no longer having to navigate the groups.

A 3-0 win at Tannadice thanks to an early Afolabi hat-trick was made redundant when we lost 2-1 at home to Hearts. Scott Banks getting our consolation.



Our Scottish Premiership season started at the hardest possible venue, a trip to Parkhead to face Celtic, we played well and came out with a point before going on to defeat Dundee, Hamilton and St Mirren all at home with no goals conceded.

However if we wanted to challenge for the title, the next 2 matches would be vital, could we avoid defeat at both Hibs and Rangers? You bet you're bottom dollar we did, two 0-0 draws meaning 5 clean sheets in a row, propelled us into a great run of form.

7 wins in a row, if we are going to win the title, we need to beat all the lesser teams and try take something from the Old Firm. A great run in October and November saw that before we hit a small sticky patch at the start of December with a draw at Hamilton then our first defeat at home to Hibs.

Thankfully we got over this with 4 wins in 5, which included a win over Rangers, meaning we had beaten both the Old Firm at home, it was looking really rosey.



Qualifying through the league path of the Champions League was always going to be difficult and it looks so promising after the trip to Belgium, but the home tie saw the European pedigree tell as Anderlecht took the win.

A drop to the Europa League saw us draw Monaco, Malmo and Valencia, a very tricky draw.

An early goal gave us hope against Monaco, but we drew 1-1 before a good win over Malmo with a late onslaught there.

A defeat to Valencia in Spain was expected, whilst the 4-1 at home was not, incredible to think we could score 4 goals in 45 minutes against a team of that calibre.

We lost 3-1 at home to Monaco as class told, before bottling qualification after a 1-1 draw in Sweden against Malmo.

 

A third place finish saw us drop to the Europa Conference where we will face Romanian side Cluj.

What a position we are in, with less than half the season to go, we are top of the table by 6 points with a game in hand, having only lost 1 game all season, could this be the year?

 

[maxi7]

Momentum was on our side, we had a chance to become heroes and make history for Queen’s Park. How would we get on?

Our recruitment was very precise in the January market, a deal was tied up for us to break our transfer record with the £775,000 deal for Paulo Salgado from Vizela, Paulo is a true number 10 stacked with potential.

Alan Combe arrives on loan from Chelsea and brings us a fantastic cover option at right back, defensive midfield and in the number 8 role.

Josh Pask was our only departure, the long standing servant joins Charlton on loan till the end of the season.

We had a taster for Europe with our training camp friendly away to SC Cambuur where we won 2-1, this prepared us for our tie against Cluj in the Euro Conference and a Jonathan Afolabi hat-trick steered us to a 5-1 win over the Romanian outfit, with a 1-0 win over there thanks to Stuart McKinstry giving us a 6-1 agg win.

Unfortunately, the next round was a step too far after a 3-2 home defeat to FC Basel was followed up by a stalemate over in Switzerland allowing the Swiss side to progress to the Quarter Finals.

We came back from the shut down and played Hearts 3 times, in a week, but more on those other two matches later, we won this one before avoiding defeat at Parkhead again in a 3-3 draw to maintain our gap.

Wins followed over Hamilton, Hibs, Dundee aand St Mirren before a small blimp against Dundee United where we lost 2-1. Would we recover?

Damn right we did, a trip to Falkirk 5-3 win, a trip to Aberdeen 2-0 win before a 3-1 at home to Hearts. It was looking all great before a defeat to Livingston.

A trip to Ibrox saw us avoid defeat there and really give us confidence that the gap wasn’t coming down, we saw victories over Aberdeen and Hibs, before we ended the season to limp over the line as CHAMPIONS with draws at Dundee, at home to both Rangers and Celtic, before one at old rivals Falkirk.

The dream had came true, great consistency, and going to places like Ibrox and Parkhead and avoiding defeat we’re 2 of the things helping us become Scottish Premiership Championship.

We ended up winning the double, with a Scottish Cup win, we drew with Hearts before 10 days later an early onslaught had us 2-0 up at Tynecastle before a late Afolabi goal made it 3-1.

Forfar were put to the sword by 5-0 before a really late show v Ayr turned a 0-1 scoreline into 3-1 thanks to Afolabi, Appleyard and Kargbo.

No late drama this time as we defeated Falkirk 2-0 in the Semi’s thanks to two Afolabi goals.

We saved that drama for the final where we defeat Celtic by 1 goal to nil, in extra time thanks to Brian Lomas striking in the 112th minute.

The following year

I did carry on a year to see what the new stadium would end up be getting called. That season didn’t go too well with early eliminations from both the League and Scottish Cup’s.

The Champions League saw us finish 4th in a tough group with Real Madrid, Inter and Young Boys, however looking at it. Real Madrid vs Queen’s Park is pretty mental.

Our defence of the league wasn’t great either, we were inconsistent and it resulted in a third place finish behind Rangers and Celtic.

We didn’t achieve our goal of 2 youth prospects into the Scotland squad, but instead we managed to get Scott Banks and Alex Ballantyne.

Our stadium will be coming but unfortunately that’s the end of the save here as the stadium name felt like an insult, it wasn’t named after me.

Thanks for reading and stayed tuned for future content on other FM21 adventures!