[FM21] The 5,000-1 Challenge

[Pip]

Love this idea , and perfect way of reigniting my interest.

 

 

So its the the sleeping Yorkshire giant that is Middlesbrough that offer up the challenge, must admit I'm quite pleased with them as an option , Like Leicester they've never Won the the Title in either the old division 1 or the Premier League, haven't won the F A Cup , in fact  like Leicester their only top trophy in the cabinet of note was  the League Cup win in 2004 and its certainly been a long time since the heady heights of their UEFA Cup Final defeat to Sevilla in 2006.  

 

Its a new dawn at the Riverside

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Pip

[JackJCFC]

Middlesbrough is a great club to get, some great potential in that club and a good setup. Makes a nice change from Rotherham!

[JackJCFC]

What a result in the quarter final against Premier League opposition. Into the semis we go...

[JackJCFC]

Wow, what a season! We managed to take 2nd place. We were in the mix for the entire season, with the title going all the way until the last game. We needed Bournemouth to lose or draw, while we faced Nottingham Forest away from home in what was the promotion place decider. We needed a win or draw to hold 2nd and we held our nerve with a great 3-1 win. Had quite a small squad this year and absolutely ran them into the ground, it almost cost us as for the last month or two of the season we were plagued by injured and could barely make an 18 man match day squad. 

We also had an impressive FA Cup run where we made it to the semi finals, losing 2-0 to Leicester. We only faced one PL team before the semi (Newcastle) so it was a fairly easy run but a nice money maker and it was fun to dream of winning it for a while!

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Loan players were the heroes once again, but Farrugia and Zirkzee turned out to be astute signings who contributed massively. Wouldn't have minded staying down another year to build the squad as we don't have too many worth keeping around if we want to challenge in the Premier League. Focus for the summer is definitely on defence and squad depth. 

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by JackJCFC

[karanhsingh]

Congratulations Jack great work! How many of your squad do you think will be able to stick around in the premier league for a while? 

[karanhsingh]

16 hours ago, Pip said:

Love this idea , and perfect way of reigniting my interest.

 

 

So its the the sleeping Yorkshire giant that is Middlesbrough that offer up the challenge, must admit I'm quite pleased with them as an option , Like Leicester they've never Won the the Title in either the old division 1 or the Premier League, haven't won the F A Cup , in fact  like Leicester their only top trophy in the cabinet of note was  the League Cup win in 2004 and its certainly been a long time since the heady heights of their UEFA Cup Final defeat to Sevilla in 2006.  

 

Its a new dawn at the Riverside

 

 

 

Great team to get! Good luck 

[JackJCFC]

2 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Congratulations Jack great work! How many of your squad do you think will be able to stick around in the premier league for a while? 

Thanks! I think I've probably got about 9 player I could keep around, 4 of whom were relegated to league one, although not many who would be first teamers in a title challenging team. Issue is most of my squad is barely championship standard in a lot of areas. 

 

It's proving harder than I thought to recruit better players as I don't want to spend too much until my reputation has improved and the players I buy I want to be clear upgrades on what I've got rather than more of the same. 

[VP.]

Finally got underway.

Some transfers came under last season, went cheap to try and save some funds for later rather than spend it all now on lower quality players. Could still do with another striker as are a bit light.

 

 

Spoiler

Pics of Players

Squad

Only 5 games in and currently 2nd in the league, lost away to Wycombe. Took the lead in the 88th min, 6 mins later we've lost 2-1...

Edited May 23, 2021 by VP.

[karanhsingh]

So the first season of the challenge is over, and the first set of points is on the board. We made fairly easy work of League One in the end.

The squad stats from a successful title challenge.

I definitely have the highest hopes from Styles & Tymon in terms of making it all the way to the Premiership. They are both solid young players with a long way to go. Can perhaps add Brittain to that list as well.

Woodrow & Mowatt probably my two best players who will continue to play a key role, but will likely be too old by the time any Premiership challenge comes to fruition. 

Will wrap up with the season 2 summer transfers:

It's been a challenging summer, because now the aim is to really only find and spend money on players who I am fairly confident will be able to make the step up. And not only play in the Premier League, but be one of the better players there.

We've raided parent club Man City for a few loans, and they also provided us with the transfer I am most excited about in Ivan Ilic (screenshot below). He joins us on a free and I really think he can be a good strong player for us for the remainder of the save.

Spoiler

My aim for this season is to definitely NOT get promoted. Would like a top half finish, maybe flirting with the play-offs. 

We need to get in at least another 3-4 potentially top players before we get out of the Championship. This season will hopefully be about scouting & finding them. And improving the club finances and current squad along the way.

Edited May 24, 2021 by karanhsingh

[JackJCFC]

11 hours ago, VP. said:

Finally got underway.

Some transfers came under last season, went cheap to try and save some funds for later rather than spend it all now on lower quality players. Could still do with another striker as are a bit light.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Pics of Players

Squad

Only 5 games in and currently 2nd in the league, lost away to Wycombe. Took the lead in the 88th min, 6 mins later we've lost 2-1...

 

Some good signings there VP, a few familiar faces. Hopefully Sam Hughes is as good for you as he is for me.

 

2 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

So the first season of the challenge is over, and the first set of points is on the board. We made fairly easy work of League One in the end.

The squad stats from a successful title challenge.

I definitely have the highest hopes from Styles & Tymon in terms of making it all the way to the Premiership. They are both solid young players with a long way to go. Can perhaps add Brittain to that list as well.

Woodrow & Mowatt probably my two best players who will continue to play a key role, but will likely be too old by the time any Premiership challenge comes to fruition. 

Will wrap up with the season 2 summer transfers:

It's been a challenging summer, because now the aim is to really only find and spend money on players who I am fairly confident will be able to make the step up. And not only play in the Premier League, but be one of the better players there.

We've raided parent club Man City for a few loans, and they also provided us with the transfer I am most excited about in Ivan Ilic (screenshot below). He joins us on a free and I really think he can be a good strong player for us for the remainder of the save.

  Hide contents

My aim for this season is to definitely NOT get promoted. Would like a top half finish, maybe flirting with the play-offs. 

We need to get in at least another 3-4 potentially top players before we get out of the Championship. This season will hopefully be about scouting & finding them. And improving the club finances and current squad along the way.

 

Fantastic season in League One, I think you could find yourself challenging near the top of the Championship with that kind of record but totally get that you don't want to be getting promoted too early as it does cause issues with keeping around some pretty poor quality players. Illic looks like a great find!

[JackJCFC]

Our first season in the Premier League is over. Overall not a bad one, safely out of the relegation spots in 14th, had the chance to grab 11th on the final day but lost 3-2 to Wolves. Quite happy with how the season went, managed to stay out of the relegation zone for the entire season with a high of 5th in week 8. Defence was one of the worst in the division which is an obvious cause for concern, feel like I need to get the chequebook out this summer to move us up the table and sort that out. 

Season	League	Position	Accumulative Transfer Spend	Trophies	Challenge Points
1	League One	1st	£179k	1	25
2	Championship	2nd	£1.744 Million	0	25
3	Premier League	14th	£5.879 Million	0	25

 

Didn't spend much on transfers this season. Found it quite difficult to attract the quality required for the Premier League so thought I'd be better off sticking with what I had. A mistake in some ways as our depth in some positions was severely lacking, hoping to get rid of some of the League One/League Two standard players this summer and find some better replacements.

When I did spend money I mostly stuck to young regens. Artigas was the standout at £650k, 18 years old from Malaga and got 15 goals 10 assists in 35 games. Vinicius Jose is a young Brazilian LB with plenty of potential, started at League Two ability but I threw him in the deep end mid season and he held his own and developed nicely. Lecjaks comes in as the number 2 keeper with a view to the future, Castano is a smart young Columbian striker I couldn't say no to for free but needs some work on his physicals, Castello is a good young DLP who hopefully finds his feet a bit next season. 

 

Finances are looking very nice, our wage budget for the year was under £20 million so we've made a huge profit. I've managed to upgrade youth and training facilities a couple of times since last summer as well as junior coaching and youth recruitment. We had a takeover towards the end of the season but no major changes otherwise. 

 

 

 

[JackJCFC]

Looks like the AI have decided to have a go at the challenge with Barnsley!

 

[iamnobody]

Can I try this challenge with FM20 Touch?

[karanhsingh]

17 hours ago, JackJCFC said:

Our first season in the Premier League is over. Overall not a bad one, safely out of the relegation spots in 14th, had the chance to grab 11th on the final day but lost 3-2 to Wolves. Quite happy with how the season went, managed to stay out of the relegation zone for the entire season with a high of 5th in week 8. Defence was one of the worst in the division which is an obvious cause for concern, feel like I need to get the chequebook out this summer to move us up the table and sort that out. 

Season	League	Position	Accumulative Transfer Spend	Trophies	Challenge Points
1	League One	1st	£179k	1	25
2	Championship	2nd	£1.744 Million	0	25
3	Premier League	14th	£5.879 Million	0	25

 

Didn't spend much on transfers this season. Found it quite difficult to attract the quality required for the Premier League so thought I'd be better off sticking with what I had. A mistake in some ways as our depth in some positions was severely lacking, hoping to get rid of some of the League One/League Two standard players this summer and find some better replacements.

When I did spend money I mostly stuck to young regens. Artigas was the standout at £650k, 18 years old from Malaga and got 15 goals 10 assists in 35 games. Vinicius Jose is a young Brazilian LB with plenty of potential, started at League Two ability but I threw him in the deep end mid season and he held his own and developed nicely. Lecjaks comes in as the number 2 keeper with a view to the future, Castano is a smart young Columbian striker I couldn't say no to for free but needs some work on his physicals, Castello is a good young DLP who hopefully finds his feet a bit next season. 

 

Finances are looking very nice, our wage budget for the year was under £20 million so we've made a huge profit. I've managed to upgrade youth and training facilities a couple of times since last summer as well as junior coaching and youth recruitment. We had a takeover towards the end of the season but no major changes otherwise. 

 

 

 

Very solid season, Artigas looks great! Hope you can continue to push on from here.

14 hours ago, JackJCFC said:

Looks like the AI have decided to have a go at the challenge with Barnsley!

 

Woah!

[karanhsingh]

Half-way point in the Championship, and it's going really well indeed.

I know I said I didn't want promotion this season (and a part of me still doesn't), but it will be interesting to see if we can keep this up.

In case we do go up this season, I think it will be a struggle to maintain continuity until an eventual PL title challenge. Nonetheless, best go one step at a time.

No transfers as such in January to speak of, now down to the business end of the season.

[VP.]

Record breakers

[JackJCFC]

21 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Half-way point in the Championship, and it's going really well indeed.

I know I said I didn't want promotion this season (and a part of me still doesn't), but it will be interesting to see if we can keep this up.

In case we do go up this season, I think it will be a struggle to maintain continuity until an eventual PL title challenge. Nonetheless, best go one step at a time.

No transfers as such in January to speak of, now down to the business end of the season.

It's hard to say no to a promotion when it's on the table, it's a struggle if you go up but you're in a win-win situation. Stay down, you can build the team up, go up and you've got all the riches of the premier league to build your team and an extra season in the top flight.

 

11 hours ago, VP. said:

Record breakers

Seems like you're walking League One!

[VP.]

13 minutes ago, JackJCFC said:

It's hard to say no to a promotion when it's on the table, it's a struggle if you go up but you're in a win-win situation. Stay down, you can build the team up, go up and you've got all the riches of the premier league to build your team and an extra season in the top flight.

 

Seems like you're walking League One!

Approaching Christmas and should still be top at New year, had a couple of draws in last two matches which meant the gap closed.

Will post the league when home later.

[karanhsingh]

17 minutes ago, JackJCFC said:

It's hard to say no to a promotion when it's on the table, it's a struggle if you go up but you're in a win-win situation. Stay down, you can build the team up, go up and you've got all the riches of the premier league to build your team and an extra season in the top flight.

Absolutely agree, if we do go up I'll have to try and get the loan players back to maintain some continuity. But yeah good problem to have. 

[JackJCFC]

Season 4 done and dusted. An improvement on last year by 4 points but this time we're top half which was a good accomplishment. The seasons started horribly, after 10 games we had 7 points and I thought we had a relegation battle on our hands, but a few tweaks to our tactical system paid off and we were much better in the second half of the season. Most noticeably we scored more than last season and conceded less and actually finished with a positive goal difference so lots of signs of improvement. 

Artigas was the league's top scorer with 25 goals.

 

Season	League	Position	Accumulative Transfer Spend	Trophies	Challenge Points
1	League One	1st	£179.00	1	25
2	Championship	2nd	£1,744.00	0	25
3	Premier League	14th	£5,879.00	0	25
4	Premier League	9th	£42,379.00	0	25

 

Spent quite a bit of money this summer, the biggest fees were for Vignato, a very good Italian winger and Pitacas, a young rock at the back who should have a very big future with the club. Chaparro was a cheap backup option at RB who will challenge for a first team spot next season. Vasquez was a keeper who popped into my inbox randomly but was a star for us this season, a bargain free transfer. Zarate added some dribbling and flair to my midfield, although he does need to improve in some areas. Sutherland was a big purchase for us at £8.25 million but he was so underwhelming, at 6ft 6" I thought he'd be able to dominate in midfield but he was always poor and struggling to stay fit, I think my scouts might have overrated his potential.

 

 

[VP.]

Finally reached January, 4 draws in last 5 means we're just 4pts clear.

One signing arranged for January, Sidnei Tavaras arrives from Leicester for £575k.

 

[allisiaa]

Have I got some news for you! 

We actually have done it!

We won the Premier League in season 4! 

 I actually have no idea how many points I have got in terms of the challenge scoring as I write this, but will soon find this out. Incredibly happy with the achievement no matter what.

I managed to sign good players while I was in the Championship, so managed to bring many of them along as key players all the way to Premier League glory. Should do pretty well.

It obviously have been an amazing season, and in addition to the Premier League trophy we also got the League Cup trophy as well. I thought I was happy with the Champions League draw as I got Porto in the first knock-out-round, but they proved too strong. Man City beat us in the 120. minute of the FA-cup quarter final.

But let's get on to the points:

Premier League title: 1000 points
League Cup: 200 points
Championship winners: 75 points
League One winners: 25 points

League One Player Bonus: 2000 points

Callum Styles! 37 League games for us in the title winning season, all of them from the start. Not often subbed out, either.

  

On 30/03/2021 at 20:48, Mark_w said:

+100 points for every game the player relegated to League One starts in the Premier League title campaign (Andy King started 9) – the player must not be subbed off in the first half unless injured for this to count.

Therefore; Callum Styles actually gives me an additional 37*100 points bonus = 3700 points

Championship team continuity bonus:

Players who won promotion from the Championship that were registered to play in the Premier League:

Filip Benkovic, Kostas Tsimikas, Anibal Moreno, Callum Styles, Rodrigo Vilca, Morgan Gibbs-White, Joe Dickinson (regen), Tom Davies, Jack Butland, Hamza Choudhury, Angel Gomes and Ben Davies.
12 players=1000 points (I presume the scoring mean 10-14 players gives 1000 points)

And at last, an extra 250 points for every one of these players that started at least 10 Premier League games in the title winning season:

Benkovic, Tsimikas, Moreno, Styles, Vilca, Gibbs-White, Dickinson and Davies.

8 players = 2000 points

Total score:

10.000 points! We did it!

 

Thank you for an inspiring, fun challenge, @Mark_w. Really enjoyed it. As the title was not secured until the last game I actually wasn't prepared for it to end so suddenly, was already planning ahead for next season. But thank you for the fun save this proved to be. Will add a few screenshots, but not sure how many is wanted/needed to provide evidence of the accomplishments. Will happily provide more if needed.

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

Transfers:

Spoiler

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by allisiaa

[JackJCFC]

Amazing achievement great work! Would love to know what your tactic is, that's incredibly fast!

[allisiaa]

11 minutes ago, JackJCFC said:

Amazing achievement great work! Would love to know what your tactic is, that's incredibly fast!

Thank you!

Will send you a PM.

[karanhsingh]

11 hours ago, allisiaa said:

Have I got some news for you! 

We actually have done it!

We won the Premier League in season 4! 

 I actually have no idea how many points I have got in terms of the challenge scoring as I write this, but will soon find this out. Incredibly happy with the achievement no matter what.

I managed to sign good players while I was in the Championship, so managed to bring many of them along as key players all the way to Premier League glory. Should do pretty well.

It obviously have been an amazing season, and in addition to the Premier League trophy we also got the League Cup trophy as well. I thought I was happy with the Champions League draw as I got Porto in the first knock-out-round, but they proved too strong. Man City beat us in the 120. minute of the FA-cup quarter final.

But let's get on to the points:

Premier League title: 1000 points
League Cup: 200 points
Championship winners: 75 points
League One winners: 25 points

League One Player Bonus: 2000 points

Callum Styles! 37 League games for us in the title winning season, all of them from the start. Not often subbed out, either.

  

Therefore; Callum Styles actually gives me an additional 37*100 points bonus = 3700 points

Championship team continuity bonus:

Players who won promotion from the Championship that were registered to play in the Premier League:

Filip Benkovic, Kostas Tsimikas, Anibal Moreno, Callum Styles, Rodrigo Vilca, Morgan Gibbs-White, Joe Dickinson (regen), Tom Davies, Jack Butland, Hamza Choudhury, Angel Gomes and Ben Davies.
12 players=1000 points (I presume the scoring mean 10-14 players gives 1000 points)

And at last, an extra 250 points for every one of these players that started at least 10 Premier League games in the title winning season:

Benkovic, Tsimikas, Moreno, Styles, Vilca, Gibbs-White, Dickinson and Davies.

8 players = 2000 points

Total score:

10.000 points! We did it!

 

Thank you for an inspiring, fun challenge, @Mark_w. Really enjoyed it. As the title was not secured until the last game I actually wasn't prepared for it to end so suddenly, was already planning ahead for next season. But thank you for the fun save this proved to be. Will add a few screenshots, but not sure how many is wanted/needed to provide evidence of the accomplishments. Will happily provide more if needed.

 

 

 

  Hide contents

 

Transfers:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Wow this is nuts. Crazy that you won the PL with that squad! Congratulations 

Yes would like to see the tactic too. Looks striker-less?

BTW you didn't end up keeping the likes of Mowatt, Walton, Oduor, Kitching, Andersen, and Palmer around? I am hoping that all of them can keep contributing as we move up the leagues.

Edited May 27, 2021 by karanhsingh

[karanhsingh]

16 hours ago, JackJCFC said:

Season 4 done and dusted. An improvement on last year by 4 points but this time we're top half which was a good accomplishment. The seasons started horribly, after 10 games we had 7 points and I thought we had a relegation battle on our hands, but a few tweaks to our tactical system paid off and we were much better in the second half of the season. Most noticeably we scored more than last season and conceded less and actually finished with a positive goal difference so lots of signs of improvement. 

Artigas was the league's top scorer with 25 goals.

 

Season	League	Position	Accumulative Transfer Spend	Trophies	Challenge Points
1	League One	1st	£179.00	1	25
2	Championship	2nd	£1,744.00	0	25
3	Premier League	14th	£5,879.00	0	25
4	Premier League	9th	£42,379.00	0	25

 

Spent quite a bit of money this summer, the biggest fees were for Vignato, a very good Italian winger and Pitacas, a young rock at the back who should have a very big future with the club. Chaparro was a cheap backup option at RB who will challenge for a first team spot next season. Vasquez was a keeper who popped into my inbox randomly but was a star for us this season, a bargain free transfer. Zarate added some dribbling and flair to my midfield, although he does need to improve in some areas. Sutherland was a big purchase for us at £8.25 million but he was so underwhelming, at 6ft 6" I thought he'd be able to dominate in midfield but he was always poor and struggling to stay fit, I think my scouts might have overrated his potential.

 

 

Solid progress and a very good season.

What is your total spending up to now?

[karanhsingh]

BARNSLEY - SECOND SEASON REVIEW

We somehow managed to do it! Two promotions in a row.

No championship though, so no points for the challenge. As you can see, Norwich were just too good.

We did try to bottle it towards the end of the season, but luckily Stoke were better than us at the bottling  They were actually ahead of us with 10 games to go, but proceeded to lose 5 out of the next 6 matches before limping over the line. 

The squad stats from clearly a hugely successful season:

Alex Mowatt continues his fine form in the Championship as well. I look forward to seeing how our captain does in the Premier league.

Cauley Woodrow finished as top scorer predictably enough, but I have my doubts about him going forward. However he has earned his shot.

Alan Velasco is easily our best player and truth be told I was expecting a bit more from him. But 28  G+A is still good of course. I really hope we can keep him around.

Shout-outs for both the wing backs Yan Couto (again need to try and keep him here) and Josh Tymon who has been developing well and I think can definitely cut it at the top level.

Surprise of the season was Clarke Oduor who continues to out-perform his attributes and has a knack of scoring important goals.

Bring on the Premier League!

[allisiaa]

2 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Wow this is nuts. Crazy that you won the PL with that squad! Congratulations 

Yes would like to see the tactic too. Looks striker-less?

BTW you didn't end up keeping the likes of Mowatt, Walton, Oduor, Kitching, Andersen, and Palmer around? I am hoping that all of them can keep contributing as we move up the leagues.

Thank you. Can give you more details after work of how these players helped me during the challenge. But can say that Mowatt is the only one of these players that still was around for the title win. 

The tactic is strikerless, yes. So instead of sending a bunch of PM I can just say that it is called Waterfall v1. Don't remember which site I downloaded it from, but should be fairly easy to find.

[JackJCFC]

2 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

BARNSLEY - SECOND SEASON REVIEW

We somehow managed to do it! Two promotions in a row.

No championship though, so no points for the challenge. As you can see, Norwich were just too good.

We did try to bottle it towards the end of the season, but luckily Stoke were better than us at the bottling  They were actually ahead of us with 10 games to go, but proceeded to lose 5 out of the next 6 matches before limping over the line. 

The squad stats from clearly a hugely successful season:

Alex Mowatt continues his fine form in the Championship as well. I look forward to seeing how our captain does in the Premier league.

Cauley Woodrow finished as top scorer predictably enough, but I have my doubts about him going forward. However he has earned his shot.

Alan Velasco is easily our best player and truth be told I was expecting a bit more from him. But 28  G+A is still good of course. I really hope we can keep him around.

Shout-outs for both the wing backs Yan Couto (again need to try and keep him here) and Josh Tymon who has been developing well and I think can definitely cut it at the top level.

Surprise of the season was Clarke Oduor who continues to out-perform his attributes and has a knack of scoring important goals.

Bring on the Premier League!

Congrats on the promotion, great work! Squad looks pretty solid, seems to be a bit stronger than the one I had in my promotion year. Norwich look absolutely insane, no chance of a title challenge there!

[JackJCFC]

2 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Solid progress and a very good season.

What is your total spending up to now?

By end of season 4 I'd spent £42million, I think I've just spent another £15 or so in the summer so I'm probably close to £60 in total now.

[karanhsingh]

1 minute ago, JackJCFC said:

Congrats on the promotion, great work! Squad looks pretty solid, seems to be a bit stronger than the one I had in my promotion year. Norwich look absolutely insane, no chance of a title challenge there!

Yes Norwich were a proper Premiership team competing in the Championship.

Thank you, I have been trying to build a solid squad to ensure continuity. But still a long way to go.

Just now, JackJCFC said:

By end of season 4 I'd spent £42million, I think I've just spent another £15 or so in the summer so I'm probably close to £60 in total now.

Got it. Maybe start scouring for some free transfers, what I am doing is offering people more wages than they are asking for to get them as long as the transfer fee is nil/ low. 

[karanhsingh]

31 minutes ago, allisiaa said:

Thank you. Can give you more details after work of how these players helped me during the challenge. But can say that Mowatt is the only one of these players that still was around for the title win. 

The tactic is strikerless, yes. So instead of sending a bunch of PM I can just say that it is called Waterfall v1. Don't remember which site I downloaded it from, but should be fairly easy to find.

Found it, looks like Shadow Strikers are the vogue thing this year. I haven't yet actually tried one.

Forgot to ask about Brittain too, I am hoping to keep all these guys around at least as squad players.

[hyrule_king]

Now Holidaying through and will post screenshots in a bit.

Really like this idea.

[hyrule_king]

1 hour ago, hyrule_king said:

Now Holidaying through and will post screenshots in a bit.

Really like this idea.

 

[karanhsingh]

Good to see a new team! Best of luck

[allisiaa]

12 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

BTW you didn't end up keeping the likes of Mowatt, Walton, Oduor, Kitching, Andersen, and Palmer around?

This may not interest any other than @karanhsingh, but just scroll over it if so.

 

Mowatt was a key player for me in the first two seasons, but was reduced to a squad player in the first season in the Premier League. Ended up with 12 Premier League matches, sadly not in the title winning season. He would have deserved it based on being the captain all through the challenge. 

Walton played a handful of League One games, and every cup game in the first season. However, when Jack Butland came in he obviously became our firstkeeper. Sold him to Minnesota in the january transfer window halfway in the Championship-season. Was actually replaced by Gianluigi Buffon.

Odour was sold after not playing a single game in League One.

Kitching was sold half a season later in the january transfer window. He was a backup player for me in League One, and really not needed after the summer transfers was done. By that time he was a backup to Pierre Kalulu (loan from AC Milan) and Michal Helik. When we also managed to land Dan Burn, he simply was not going to play anymore. Sidenote: Michal Helik actually scored 16 times in League One from his central defender position. Pretty special!

Mads Andersen was a useful player in League One. Played about 1/3 of the games. In the summer transfer window I traded him for another danish player, Mads Pedersen, the left back. A year later Mads Pedersen actually was part of another player exchange which ended in us signing Luke Shaw before taking on the Premier League. Therefore, Mads Andersen actually proved to be a very important player, although mostly for the role he had in improving the squad with Luke Shaw.

Palmer was a decent squad player I had high hopes for, but became a victim in the need for money to increase the wages. Sold him right before the season in Championship started, which enabled me to sign Butland permanently, Hamza Choudhury and Tom Davies on free transfer and Filip Benkovic on loan. In that sense, Romal Palmer may be one of the most important players for the success that followed. The four players he partly financed became four key players in my Barnsley team.

Callum Brittain was a key player in League One, 2./3.choice in Championship and the first season in Premier League, but sold him after the first season in Premier League as the alternatives were just too good for him to have any chance of game time.

Edited May 27, 2021 by allisiaa

[allisiaa]

Will attempt this challenge for a second time. This time with Coventry.

It will be nearly impossible to surpass the achievement with Barnsley, so will do it differently and with more difficult restrictions than last time. With Barnsley most of my Premier League winning squad was a result of either player exchanges and/or transferlisted players who were possible to sign for free. A few of them were also a result of initial loan signings who turned out to sign for us. 

For that reason I will only sign players who are/will be out of contract. Players who requires a compensations fee is not allowed. No player on loans.

I know this will be much harder, which is the point.

[VP.]

Think we should get more points depending on the team we end up with.

This has nothing to go with me being Rotherham 

[karanhsingh]

15 hours ago, allisiaa said:

This may not interest any other than @karanhsingh, but just scroll over it if so.

 

Mowatt was a key player for me in the first two seasons, but was reduced to a squad player in the first season in the Premier League. Ended up with 12 Premier League matches, sadly not in the title winning season. He would have deserved it based on being the captain all through the challenge. 

Walton played a handful of League One games, and every cup game in the first season. However, when Jack Butland came in he obviously became our firstkeeper. Sold him to Minnesota in the january transfer window halfway in the Championship-season. Was actually replaced by Gianluigi Buffon.

Odour was sold after not playing a single game in League One.

Kitching was sold half a season later in the january transfer window. He was a backup player for me in League One, and really not needed after the summer transfers was done. By that time he was a backup to Pierre Kalulu (loan from AC Milan) and Michal Helik. When we also managed to land Dan Burn, he simply was not going to play anymore. Sidenote: Michal Helik actually scored 16 times in League One from his central defender position. Pretty special!

Mads Andersen was a useful player in League One. Played about 1/3 of the games. In the summer transfer window I traded him for another danish player, Mads Pedersen, the left back. A year later Mads Pedersen actually was part of another player exchange which ended in us signing Luke Shaw before taking on the Premier League. Therefore, Mads Andersen actually proved to be a very important player, although mostly for the role he had in improving the squad with Luke Shaw.

Palmer was a decent squad player I had high hopes for, but became a victim in the need for money to increase the wages. Sold him right before the season in Championship started, which enabled me to sign Butland permanently, Hamza Choudhury and Tom Davies on free transfer and Filip Benkovic on loan. In that sense, Romal Palmer may be one of the most important players for the success that followed. The four players he partly financed became four key players in my Barnsley team.

Callum Brittain was a key player in League One, 2./3.choice in Championship and the first season in Premier League, but sold him after the first season in Premier League as the alternatives were just too good for him to have any chance of game time.

Interesting. I am waiting to see how these guys turn out for me in the premier league although I do have my doubts. I need some of them to do well though for the way the challenge is structured. 

[karanhsingh]

47 minutes ago, allisiaa said:

Will attempt this challenge for a second time. This time with Coventry.

It will be nearly impossible to surpass the achievement with Barnsley, so will do it differently and with more difficult restrictions than last time. With Barnsley most of my Premier League winning squad was a result of either player exchanges and/or transferlisted players who were possible to sign for free. A few of them were also a result of initial loan signings who turned out to sign for us. 

For that reason I will only sign players who are/will be out of contract. Players who requires a compensations fee is not allowed. No player on loans.

I know this will be much harder, which is the point.

Good luck. Maybe try a different tactic too? Looks like the one you used may have broken the game 

[allisiaa]

56 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

Good luck. Maybe try a different tactic too? Looks like the one you used may have broken the game 

Not a chance!  Making tactics have never been a fun or interesting part of football manager for me, and never will be. So what I'm looking for is not a game breaking tactic by any means - but a stable one which doesn't suddenly become useless. The thing I like best is building teams and limit my options by making my own restrictions - working towards a concrete target. This challenge gives me just that :-)

EDIT:

  

On 03/05/2021 at 21:07, nyg said:

Here we go with Coventry.

@nyg Did your start with Coventry also start with financial trouble? I'm taking over a Coventry which struggles with Financial fair play and is in high risk of breaking them - and actually can't even make staff signings at this point because of the finances. May have to keep all players, even sell some even though my return would be 0 %, and scrap my initial plans.

(Will post less frequently now to make room for others. Good luck, everyone!)

Edited May 28, 2021 by allisiaa

[JackJCFC]

@allisiaa Should be a good challenge, good luck!

Edited May 28, 2021 by JackJCFC

[JackJCFC]

A huge improvement this season, taking 2nd place with 81 points. United were just far too good to even be challenged, we were the only team to beat them all season. Feel like I need the big teams to all have a bad season if we're going to win the title but at least we've got a few more seasons. Champions League next season should be fun, just hope it doesn't affect our league form too much. A nice bonus was seeing Spurs finish bottom in a team which includes Harry Kane!

 

Esposito was the big transfer this summer at £13 million, he finished the season as the leagues top scorer with 30 goals in 38 games. Tang Wan is a promising Chinese wonderkid, hoping he can kick on next year. Lemos adds more strength to our back line depth while Horvath arrived in January to be our backup winger and was a useful rotation option. If we're to have success we need to make sure we can hold on to the player's I've signed, the bigger teams are already sniffing around some of them.

 

 

 

 

[karanhsingh]

5 hours ago, allisiaa said:

Not a chance!  Making tactics have never been a fun or interesting part of football manager for me, and never will be. So what I'm looking for is not a game breaking tactic by any means - but a stable one which doesn't suddenly become useless. The thing I like best is building teams and limit my options by making my own restrictions - working towards a concrete target. This challenge gives me just that :-)

EDIT:

  

@nyg Did your start with Coventry also start with financial trouble? I'm taking over a Coventry which struggles with Financial fair play and is in high risk of breaking them - and actually can't even make staff signings at this point because of the finances. May have to keep all players, even sell some even though my return would be 0 %, and scrap my initial plans.

(Will post less frequently now to make room for others. Good luck, everyone!)

Fair enough it certainly will be a challenge! 

2 hours ago, JackJCFC said:

A huge improvement this season, taking 2nd place with 81 points. United were just far too good to even be challenged, we were the only team to beat them all season. Feel like I need the big teams to all have a bad season if we're going to win the title but at least we've got a few more seasons. Champions League next season should be fun, just hope it doesn't affect our league form too much. A nice bonus was seeing Spurs finish bottom in a team which includes Harry Kane!

 

Esposito was the big transfer this summer at £13 million, he finished the season as the leagues top scorer with 30 goals in 38 games. Tang Wan is a promising Chinese wonderkid, hoping he can kick on next year. Lemos adds more strength to our back line depth while Horvath arrived in January to be our backup winger and was a useful rotation option. If we're to have success we need to make sure we can hold on to the player's I've signed, the bigger teams are already sniffing around some of them.

 

 

 

 

Wow that's a fantastic season! Well done. 

Shocking to see spurs down there though. 

[hyrule_king]

First Season Review:

Bristol City

Points So far : 25pts for League One Win.

Edited May 28, 2021 by hyrule_king

[VP.]

Season 1 Complete - 25pts

[VP.]

Also my technical director has just brought in Neil Warnock and Sam Allardyce as scouts

[karanhsingh]

SEASON 3 - MID WAY REVIEW

Well we have reached the half-way point of our debut Premiership season, and it has been a proper grind. I think this has been my hardest FM season in a very long time. I'll let the table do the talking.

So we are just about staying above the relegation zone. As long as we don't go down, that is all I now want.

I have to say that we have been quite unlucky as well with some undeserved late defeats, according to our xG and xGC we should be 11th in the table and not fighting for our lives. It's been largely very frustrating.

Chose to save my money for later and didn't spend too much in the summer, that may be one reason why.

One transfer of Rhys Williams from Liverpool got counted last season.

I am quite happy though with the transfers especially -

Yan Couto from Man City means another good player for us who was part of the Championship squad. Had to give him 40k/week but hopefully he will be worth it.

Wahid Faghir looks like a decent free signing to compete with Woodrow for the striker position.

Two new-gens as well who are in the first team squad already -

Setti has been progressing well and is now ranked as a wonderkid. He has been out for half the season so far due to niggling injuries so I am hoping he can kick on now.

Berkovec I originally didn't think would be first team but after some howlers like Walton he broke his way in, and has been developing quite well ever since.

Here is the overall squad right now. I think we may need to strengthen in January.

[karanhsingh]

Oh also I didn't know this is a thing

[hyrule_king]

Second Season Review:

Bristol City

Just Missed out on Playoffs

 

Overall Points: 25

League One Champions

Edited May 29, 2021 by hyrule_king