[FM13] Alice in FM-land

[deltablue]

May 2036

We finished in pretty much the same place as last year, one place lower but with a couple more points. Relegation wasn't an issue after all. We started the year poorly (and it was disappointing to miss out on a potential cup run after losing to Northampton in the cup, as League 2 Birmingham would have been next) but home games against Bromyard and Carlisle allowed us to turn the tide, despite Eastham being on a run of poor form. After the Huddersfield win I felt we were comfortable enough and our form remained pretty good for the most part for the rest of the season, though we also had some tougher teams and a midfield injury crisis late on. It could easily have been much better as we were punished for failing to take our chances score a second (or even first) goal so many times and on balance the fine margins fell heavily against us. We could even have grabbed a playoff spot otherwise.

Hopefully next season things can click a bit better, especially with a more gelled side. I took advantage of having a bit of spare wage budget in January to make deals for a couple of players in Denmark (well the DoF did the first one) but I doubt I will do much more. I already feel like I have the core of a strong promotion-capable side in place so it will be hard to improve in certain areas. I also doubt I can offload the players I want to and gain the budgetary room anyway. The massive overhaul feels complete so it's time to try and see what his side can do once it's gelled and developed some more. If we score at least some of the goals we really should have done last year that should take us a long way.

Star Player: Once again it's Shilton, despite missing a few months through injury. He even set a new average rating record.

Squad Stats

[deltablue]

Summer 2036

As expected it was a quiet pre-season relatively speaking. The first two signings were arranged in January, first with the DoF going for the young Danish winger Stokholm, then when I looked for another player to sign on the same basis I went for Fikret. The logic was that at the time we badly needed a forward to play alongside Eastham who could actually score but by the time he arrived that was less of a necessity, and his time at Goodison really hasn't gotten off to the best of starts. Looking for someone else, I came across the excellent Portuguese defender Castelo. I broke my usual wage rules to get him for 10kpw, twice what I would otherwise consider my limit, but then I had already done so to extend Eastham's contract so I thought that justified making an exception. Finally came my 'investment' signing, a very young Greek midfielder.

I had been rather less successful in getting rid of players, though I should have more luck when some of their contracts expire at the end of the season. A takeover late last season meant a new loan to bolster the coffers enough to not need a big sale, which was just as well as we didn't have anyone suitable anyway. The unhappy Hakoyan ended up being the only sale for a fee, thanks to Castelo's signing. I would soon come to be thankful that I didn't get rid of everyone I wanted to, especially as I still did enough for the signings I wanted to make, with room for one more. We did rise from 3rd from bottom in the wage spend table at the start of last season to 5th from bottom at the beginning of this season but I still feel happy that I am running a tight enough ship on that front.

Castelo

Fikret

Karabatzakis

Stokholm

 

[deltablue]

Oct 2036

It's fair to say that this is not the start of the season I was expecting, starting with the 3-0 defeat to newly (re)promoted Brighton. Only a very late comeback against Middlesborough rescued us from losing our first 3 league games. While converting chances was the issue last year. This time the defence were so often the culprits. However there was definitely an inconsistency involved as despite a few early wobbles, Castilo is a clear second in average rating so far, behind only Eastham. That justifies paying them both more. We also had a bunch of injuries to contend with (including to our first choice keeper Milic), which coupled with a busy schedule in the first couple of months meant the team was having to change constantly and I ended up using players I thought I didn't need more. I even made Karabatzakis the youngest player in the club's history against Plymouth because none of the other players we had in his position (and we had a few) were quite fit enough. He actually had a really good game as well!

That Plymouth match was the start of a relatively good October, given we played 2 out of the 3 sides relegated from the Premier League, as well as a Hull side who I still saw as one of the bigger and tougher teams despite their recent struggles though to their own recent Premier League history. 2 wins and 2 draws was a good record for the month, especially as we came close to beating Plymouth as well after going 2-0 up! That leaves the Watford draw as the one disappointing result. Hopefully that marks a change of fortunes as we climbed up the table to get closer to the playoffs than the relegation zone, especially as our injury struggles almost entirely cleared after the October international break.

There is one more player arriving shortly, using up all the available wage budget left. Vieira was the sort of player I was looking for in the summer, so it will be great to have him here when his Djurgardens contract expires. However I might have to wait an extra month until January to use him as he arrives outside the free agent window (which closes in late November), and he probably doesn't count as one for being able to be registered outside the usual windows anyway.

[LeLaga]

 DM is always key player in my formations and your new signing looks like DM of my dreams. Hopefully He performs!

[deltablue]

21 hours ago, LeLaga said:

 DM is always key player in my formations and your new signing looks like DM of my dreams. Hopefully He performs!

I don't really use a DM, so he will probably be used both in central midfield and defence. I usually use a ball-playing defender with my formation but there was no point trying at the low levels and even players who should be suited do it haven't worked so far at Everton. Hopefully he will though.

[deltablue]

Feb 2037

It's fun playing FM at a pace that I haven't managed for a long time, even with family distractions right now. It also helps get through seasons quicker until things hopefully start to click. This is now my 3rd full season at Everton, and while we will probably end up in a similar position, this year our form has been the most consistently mid-table, aside from a poor January where we lost all 4 league games (but really didn't deserve to), though February saw our form recover nicely despite an injury to Eastham (though thankfully just for a couple of weeks). This about as quiet a league season as we could have, not having to worry about relegation after our poor start, and nor are we getting anywhere near the playoffs.

The FA Cup has been the main point of interest. We conceeded early against both Staveley Miners Welfare and Watford (a big problem we had at the time) and beat them both comfortably in the end anyway. Then we had an easy time of it against League 1 leaders Notts County, even if that's where Eastham got injured. That brings us to the quarter-finals, where we face Arsenal away. We haven't done much in the cups so far (in contrast to my adventures at Grimsby) so it's nice to get this far and have a big occasion, even if we'll almost certainly lose.

[deltablue]

May 2037

March was an excellent month as it looked like we might be able to make a late push for playoff contention after all. We also pulled off an excellent FA Cup win over Arsenal, somehow finding ourselves 3-0 up at half-time after taking the lead through a penalty, and restricting them to a single late goal. However going into April we hit a perfect storm of a hectic Easter weekend, having to save ourselves for the FA Cup semi final and having injuries really rack up once more, especially in midfield. I thought we would be favourites for the Bristol City game and we certainly dominated the first half but our failure to score in normal time cost us dearly as we were hit by a red card and 2 more injuries (including to Eastham) in extra time and lost on penalties. It felt a bit like a missed opportunity but I am still happy with our run and beating Arsenal. Bristol City ended up winning the whole thing.

By that point we were clearly running on empty with injuries and other fitness issues, not helped by the FA Cup semi adding to a hectic schedule of games, with Chesterfield and Charlton being tough teams to face under the circumstances. We improved in the final few games (and really should have beaten Bolton at least, as well as Rotherham) to at least secure a decent top half finish. Add that to the cup run and while again I was wondering what might have been, I feel satisfied that we're showing signs of promise.

Star Player: For all his goals, Eastham has been too inconsistent to win this award over the past couple of seasons. However this was his best year yet (even though he noticably scored far fewer league goals in the second half of the season) and we would probably be in League 1 without him.

Squad Stats

[Boycott]

Seeing a few of names in your leagues reminds me how much more variety the older FMs had in terms of getting random non league teams managed by the AI climbing up the pyramid compared to the recent games where frankly the Championship in my saves is pretty identical twenty years in from the first year. 

[deltablue]

Summer 2037

This was a much busier summer than expected for a few different reasons. The first deal made had actually been for the Bulgarian defender Stanchev back in January, but he wasn't actually the first to arrive. We had Schalke as a parent club but nothing came of it until it was cancelled and immediately re-established, leading to a defender and a forward coming here on loan. It's nice to get good free players like that though neither of them will be first choice. The big event was the sale of Stokholm. Cardiff came in for a 5m bid and while I rejected it, I then immediately realised that he was the best bet for the big sale we need to make pretty much every year, especially as he was relatively expendable and the third highest earner in the squad (after Castilo and Eastham at 10kpw) at over 8kpw, without performing well enough to justify it. It worked out pretty well as an example of the transfer model I am trying to follow, so hopefully we'll get that interest in other players in future.

Stokholm's sale actually gave me a proper transfer budget to use for a change, though I didn't want to spend too much of the money I had just raised. There was a focus on trying to get rid of a bunch of squad players who had done well for us but who could be replaced (or already had been) with clearly better ones. That was the thinking behind spending actual money on Leopoldo as our latest attempt to give Eastham a reliable partner, as an alternative to Pergolini and as a vastly superior replacement for Rush. Miki was another example of this policy in action.

There was another problem I wanted to address, and that was the lack of homegrown players, given how players in England are just too expensive compared to what I can occasionally find in other leagues and non-English free agents. We had to have 6 in a matchday squad and we only had 8 (including one I really hoped I wouldn't have to use). We had a few players who would get that status in time, with Epstein and Basic thankfully being just a year away, but I felt I needed a stopgap. I searched for decent free agents who would accept relatively low wages, eventually finding Millington and Richards who should also provide decent depth.

That just left my young 'investment' signing for the year, kind of like my version of the 'galactico' policy except trying to find a young player who would cost relatively little. It was actually pretty hard this year, as I wasn't going to spend anywhere near as much money as I could and I wanted players young enough to eventually get homegrown status and help solve the aforementioned issue. The Kourkoutis signing was an example of how I was being a bit more flexible on previous hard transfer fee and wage limits if it could be justified as a worthwhile investment, both to improve the team and to hopefully reap a big profit if need be. He was too expensive (and too good already) to count so despite the number of players I knew I was signing, I still wanted to go for Windfeld to tick that box. Again, it was all about the potential low-cost and high reward investment.

Hopefully all those signings hasn't put us back too much, especially as I took the rare step of raising expectations to top half for a bit of extra budget (which was less necessary after the Stokholm sale). We have plenty of budget one or two more signings, which I will go for if the right player comes along (especially a right-back). Things are progressing slower than expected but Rome wasn't built in a day. I have already dealt with many situations where I have built a strong young squad like this and it takes a few years to click in terms of consistency and efficiency, as what I am seeing on the pitch points to a team that could easily be doing a lot better in terms of goals, points and wins. Surely our time will come.

Barton

Forte

Kourkoutis

Leopoldo

Miki

Millington

Richards

Stanchev

Wacker

Windfeld

[deltablue]

50 minutes ago, Boycott said:

Seeing a few of names in your leagues reminds me how much more variety the older FMs had in terms of getting random non league teams managed by the AI climbing up the pyramid compared to the recent games where frankly the Championship in my saves is pretty identical twenty years in from the first year. 

Well Bromyard Town and Staveley Miner's Welfare are tycoon clubs. I have seen a couple of others as well though those are the only two to make it that far up. The Premier League isn't that different with Plymouth perhaps being the most notable team to have made it that far The conference is much more interesting even if some of those clubs may have 'only' had to go up a couple of divisions. Guernsey in League 2 are the most notable non-tycoon team to make it to the football league, though there was Weymouth for a while before that. On the otber end of the scale, Lincoln have been struggling in the Northern League for years now and are currently a mid-table Northern League Division 1 South club, while Preston have also long become a Conference North club. I do really like seeing things change over time like that.

[argento]

Just caught up with all this. Hell of a career

[deltablue]

On 26/12/2022 at 10:25, argento said:

Just caught up with all this. Hell of a career

Thank you so much. Its been interesting to explore.

[deltablue]

Oct 2037

I haven't been too well recently but hopefully I can get back to it more now, especially with a new a faster laptop! Anyway, I wasn't too happy with what seemed like a relatively slow start to the season. We had made a lot of signings which I thought might hold us back a little but otherwise we were getting to the point where we really should be pushing on and challenging for the playoffs, if not this season than certainly next. Thankfully we gradually improved going unto autumn and soon found ourselves in a position where we were on the verge of the playoff places but not quite consistent to hold down a top 6 place for more than a match or two. The top of the table looks a lot more open than previous years with no one breaking away from the pack so it's set to be an interesting few months as we see how looks like they might last the distance and I feel confident that we can at least keep our place in the fight.

I am certainly a lot happier than I was after the first handful of matches as I while we're far from perfect, I do think we're playing closer to our potential with far fewer points dropped due to goals we should have scored but didn't. It helps to have Leopoldo to finally give Eastham a partner who can actually score goals, while Stoyanov has had a fantastic season so far on the wing. It's definitely up front where we've done better, and we are at least keeping pace with the teams around us on the goalscoring front after a few seasons of having a relatively low goal tally at each end. It's a shame that the defence has let us down on a few occasions, like against Swansea, or things could be going even better but I can't complain too much about where we stand so far, especially after so many summer signings.

[deltablue]

November started well enough with a win in what I thought would be a tough game away to Staveley Miners Welfare, followed by a comfortable win over Derby. However we then lost 5 games in a row (almost half our total defeats for the season so far), all by a single goal and most of those being 1-. Eastham was going through a dry spell and a general attacking slump was really costing us dear. We dropped quite a bit down the league, going from 5th to 12th and 8 points adrift of the playoffs.  We started to turn it around near Christmas, winning our last 5 league games in a row (and it would have been 6 if it hadn't been for a stoppage time Brentford equaliser) to bounce right back up into 5th. That run will probably end away to West Ham next but with Villa likely ending up top and 3 more teams fighting for the other spot and likely to make the playoffs at least,  we head a decently sized pack competing for the other two playoff places. However, a lot can happen in the remaining 15 matches to change things up a bit more.

[deltablue]

May 2038

As expected, our run came crashing to an end against West Ham, before we had a surprisingly comfortable win in a '6-pointer' against Plymouth. I had finally decided to play one of the defenders on loan for nothing from Schalke and he opened the scoring in that game, proving to be a valuable member of the team for the rest of the season.  Our form wavered for a little bit and we found it harder than we should gave against Swindon and Millwall, then threw away a lead late on at Swansea. However we recovered some form near the end of the season and despite failing to beat bottom club Derby, the win against Bolton was key as that gave us a 4-point margin over 7th with 3 games to go. The win against Rotherham also helped a lot and results elsewhere secured a playoff spot before we even played Aston Villa (due to playing later). I was able to  make a few changes at Leicester and grabbed a late draw which didn't really matter aside from helping secure 5th.

After a frustrating start to the season we spent a lot of the year either just inside or just outside the playoff places, finally doing enough to seal our place late on. That was despite a lot of changes last summer so I am glad that this team is finally starting to come together and take a big step forward, though it was clear early on that the playoffs was the best we could hope for this season. However after such a tough fight it feels like a genuinely achievement as part of Everton's gradual recovery.

Star Player: This really wasn't a hard decision at all. Castelo broke his own average rating and man of the match records from last season, even managing to be man of the match in a few games where we lost! It's amazing that no one has come in for him, especially with a 5m release clause!

Squad Stats

[deltablue]

Playoffs 2038

Rotherham making the playoffs was a bit of a shock, having finished not far above the relegation zone last season and otherwise had years as a mid-table club, which was why I was glad to be playing them instead of Stoke. I thought that Pergolini had given us an early lead in the home leg only to see it disallowed. Windfeld had a goal disallowed himself before finally giving us a lead to take into the away leg. Unfortunately at we picked a bad time for one of the worst collective performances of the season as usually reliable players like Castelo, Eastham (who was poor in both legs) and Epstein in goal really let us down. It didn't take long for them to level the tie, then take the lead. Pergolini managed to get a goal just before half-time to make it 2-2 on aggregate but a poor second half saw us go down 4-1 on the night in the end. Rotherham ended up beating Nottingham Forest in the final to complete a shock promotion. The playoffs really hadn't gone our way (even the first leg could have been more comfortable) but hopefully our time will come.

[deltablue]

Summer 2038

This was always going to be a quieter year after last summer's activity. A handful of players were set to leave, which needed to happen after the board slashed the wage budget in the middle of last season to leave us massively over. It was a relief to get rid of a few players at last though a few choices like Shilton were harder to make. I anticipated having to make a big sale as well, so it was a nice surprise that I was able to make it Forte just a year after getting him for nothing as player who lost out among our glut of playmakers and wingers, helped by the fact that unlike the others he wasn't homegrown. Paton was a deal I made in January (thankfully just before the budget was cut), not someone we needed position-wise but getting someone of his potential for nothing was an opportunity I didn't miss. While I was trying to sort out a right-back (the one new signing we needed to make) the DoF went ahead and essentially got this year's 'investment signing' for me, and incredible Finnish defender who had already popped up on my radar, though not when I was able to make an offer. Free agents clearly weren't cutting it anymore (with rare exceptions like Castelo) and I wasn't sure how much I was willing to spend, so I made the incredibly rare move of initiating a loan deal for Stathopoulos as a good player who would at least do for this season.

I would also like to finally showcase Skrzypczak, a player I picked up on a free after the start or last season who I keep forgetting to post about. He looked like an amazing young winger who might even give me the opportunity to sell Eastham if we really needed the money, but aside from an assist, his few appearances so far have been woeful. However he has plenty of time to pick things up and be the player I hoped I would eventually get. After our playoff appearance last year my eyes are now firmly on fighting for promotion. A relatively quiet summer should allow us to improve more with a gelled squad and I feel like we can get promoted eventually. It's just a matter of how long it takes and how much improvement we still have left, though we don't need much.

Johnson

Paton

Skrzypczak

Stathopoulos

[deltablue]

Dec 2038

Whoops! I put this save to one side for a while and I thought I had gotten the screenshots for a delayed update (corresponding to the end of September in-game) but it turns out so instead of two smaller updates, here is one big one!

The start to the season was very disappointing, and I have yet to win my opening game of the season at Everton. By this point, being in the playoff places is my bare minimum expectation but we spent the first couple of months of the season with inconsistent form leaving us roughly halfway down the table.  Unlike previous seasons, it's the defence that has been a bigger liability than an attack that's finally starting to click on a (mostly) consistent basis, leading to far more goals at both ends. If we could get both performing well at once, then we'd get promotion comfortably. I felt we could do with another defender so after September saw the arrival of the free agent Iaconi.

October saw things improve. We grabbed a late point in a tough game at Charlton, then got good wins (our first back to back league wins of the season in fact) over Leicester and Hull, climbing up the table and into serious playoff contention at last. We then stumbled against Hartlepool when a win would have seen us go into the top 6 and be just 3 points off top, followed by a defeat to Staveley Miner's Welfare where we had 2 goals disallowed and a player sent off in the first 10 minutes! We had to wait until beating Ipswich to taste the top 6, starting a run of 13 points from 5 matches to give us the best form of the season so far. The lead-up to the festive period was not a happy one as we lost in what should have been comfortable home games against both Coventry and Middlesbrough, as part of how we could get results against the toughest sides in the league but not the weaker ones on enough on a consistent basis.

The Christmas period itself saw rather better news, starting with a points deduction for Staveley Miner's Welfare that promoted us back to 6th before we even played Chesterfield (we were otherwise 2 points off in 7th), taking a potential rival out of the picture. Ending the year with two league wins in a row (for only the third time this season) put us into 5th with a 4-point margin, and we were still just 6 points off top despite the relative inconsistent mess of a season so far. No one is running away with it this year, either a single team or a small group of teams (and you can get both together) battling for the top 2 and already leaving the play-offs as the best anyone else could realistically hope for at this stage. It makes for a very open battle at the top where a lot of teams (ourselves included) are still in with a decent chance of automatic promotion with a good enough run of form.

The party is very much over for Staveley Miner's Welfare. They were one of our biggest play-off rivals until their points deduction. Looking through their history, they still have their tycoon owner but he withdrew funding (which I didn't realise was a thing) at the start of last season. They did build a new stadium of about 27k capacity which should help consolidate at a higher level then they otherwise would but having the second highest wage bill in the league (only behind fellow tycoon team Oldham, and over 6 times our wage bill) is clearly starting to bite. It's probably not much fun at Hull either, in administration for the second time I've seen while at Everton (with Leicester having also done so twice) and having to operate such a low wage bill that even without their points deduction they'd be half-doomed already. This is why I avoided the bigger and richer Championship clubs (as Hull were up to this point) and decided to take the slow and more sustainable path with Everton. I saw their wage bills as a ticking time bomb if they failed to quickly get back to the Premier League every time.

[phnompenhandy]

2 minutes ago, deltablue said:

Dec 2038

Whoops! I put this save to one side for a while and I thought I had gotten the screenshots for a delayed update (corresponding to the end of September in-game) but it turns out so instead of two smaller updates, here is one big one!

The start to the season was very disappointing, and I have yet to win my opening game of the season at Everton. By this point, being in the playoff places is my bare minimum expectation but we spent the first couple of months of the season with inconsistent form leaving us roughly halfway down the table.  Unlike previous seasons, it's the defence that has been a bigger liability than an attack that's finally starting to click on a (mostly) consistent basis, leading to far more goals at both ends. If we could get both performing well at once, then we'd get promotion comfortably. I felt we could do with another defender so after September saw the arrival of the free agent Iaconi.

October saw things improve. We grabbed a late point in a tough game at Charlton, then got good wins (our first back to back league wins of the season in fact) over Leicester and Hull, climbing up the table and into serious playoff contention at last. We then stumbled against Hartlepool when a win would have seen us go into the top 6 and be just 3 points off top, followed by a defeat to Staveley Miner's Welfare where we had 2 goals disallowed and a player sent off in the first 10 minutes! We had to wait until beating Ipswich to taste the top 6, starting a run of 13 points from 5 matches to give us the best form of the season so far. The lead-up to the festive period was not a happy one as we lost in what should have been comfortable home games against both Coventry and Middlesbrough, as part of how we could get results against the toughest sides in the league but not the weaker ones on enough on a consistent basis.

The Christmas period itself saw rather better news, starting with a points deduction for Staveley Miner's Welfare that promoted us back to 6th before we even played Chesterfield (we were otherwise 2 points off in 7th), taking a potential rival out of the picture. Ending the year with two league wins in a row (for only the third time this season) put us into 5th with a 4-point margin, and we were still just 6 points off top despite the relative inconsistent mess of a season so far. No one is running away with it this year, either a single team or a small group of teams (and you can get both together) battling for the top 2 and already leaving the play-offs as the best anyone else could realistically hope for at this stage. It makes for a very open battle at the top where a lot of teams (ourselves included) are still in with a decent chance of automatic promotion with a good enough run of form.

The party is very much over for Staveley Miner's Welfare. They were one of our biggest play-off rivals until their points deduction. Looking through their history, they still have their tycoon owner but he withdrew funding (which I didn't realise was a thing) at the start of last season. They did build a new stadium of about 27k capacity which should help consolidate at a higher level then they otherwise would but having the second highest wage bill in the league (only behind fellow tycoon team Oldham, and over 6 times our wage bill) is clearly starting to bite. It's probably not much fun at Hull either, in administration for the second time I've seen while at Everton (with Leicester having also done so twice) and having to operate such a low wage bill that even without their points deduction they'd be half-doomed already. This is why I avoided the bigger and richer Championship clubs (as Hull were up to this point) and decided to take the slow and more sustainable path with Everton. I saw their wage bills as a ticking time bomb if they failed to quickly get back to the Premier League every time.

Fascinating to see such financial chaos. I wonder if that's still a thing in FM23 or does SI have to be more vanilla these days?

[deltablue]

13 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

Fascinating to see such financial chaos. I wonder if that's still a thing in FM23 or does SI have to be more vanilla these days?

Oh I am sure it happens. Here is the current wage bill table...

We're at about 115kpw, which seems reasonable and sensible at this level. You can see just how much the tycoon teams are spending, which means bit trouble for Staveley Miners Welfare with no more financial backing. They're paying their captain 63kpw, while for me 10kpw is exceptional and only granted to the most important players! You can also see how badly Hull have been squeezed financially.

[deltablue]

May 2039

I am not sure I've done a season in just 2 updates before, especially not one as long as this! Unfortunately we failed to push on as hoped, which is especially frustrating given we counted Plymouth and Leicester (for the second time) among the teams we did managed to beat. The division was incredibly open this season, with almost every team hitting double-figures for wins, draws and defeats and it wouldn't have taken a massive amount of extra effort or luck to at least get close to automatic promotion. It was pretty much the same as it's been for a while, getting into the playoff places but not being able to do much more than hang on by a narrow margin. Thankfully the last 3 games of the season were comfortable enough to rack up three wins for only the second time this season, which was also only the 4th time we got back to back wins.

We just didn't look like promotion challengers so it was a relief to at least hit my personal minimum expectation of making the playoffs. At least we weren't Hull, who probably racked up all sorts of records in a season where they failed to wipe out a 10-point deduction! Staveley Miners Welfare would have been in the playoffs if it wasn't for their own. It was clear that goals alone weren't enough this year. Aside from division winners Charlton Athletic (just), the only two teams to outscore us failed to even make the playoffs, Brighton had a particularly eventful time at both ends of the pitch, only narrowly missing out to Forest as the league's top scorers while conceding more than anyone other than 2 the relegated teams.

Star Player: Castelo once again, capping a brilliant 4 years at the club after being a free signing. However last autumn he wanted a move to a bigger club (something that I was amazed took that long from any player) and with one year left on his contract I'll probably have to grant his wish.

Squad Stats

 

 

[deltablue]

Playoffs 2039

Our final day win over Millwall took us up into 5th and a playoff semi-final with Plymouth, who seemed beatable. We took the lead early on in the home leg thanks to Pergolini, one of those goals where someone pretty much keeps hold of the ball with only a small amount of movement in various directions before finally letting off an incredible shot. We weren't super convincing but we seemed solid enough throughout the team, however a stoppage time penalty allowed them to equalise and deny us a lead to take into the away leg. The second leg saw us needing to keep it tight and cautious, and we seemed to do a good job of it. Eastham had been unconvincing at best in out playoff matches so far but he finally woke up to give us the lead in the second half, and I found myself imagining that we could just about do it after all. Unfortunately the lead didn't last long, before we conceded again to end our promotion hopes.

Sometimes getting promoted through the playoffs can be most satisfying when you're struggling to look convincing for most of the season and otherwise just scrape through, but this was not to be one of those times. In truth we probably weren't really good enough at any point in the season to say that we deserved to go up, while Plymouth arguably deserved to win on balance. We were decent enough up front, though we could have done more and in the end the defence threw it all away as an accurate summary of our season as a whole. Like Rotherham before them, it was Plymouth who ended up getting promoted, beating Swansea 3-0 in the final.

[phnompenhandy]

Good honest assessment.  Sounds like you'd have been out of your depth if you'd won. Maybe a year to consolidate and strengthen is for the best. 

[deltablue]

5 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

Good honest assessment.  Sounds like you'd have been out of your depth if you'd won. Maybe a year to consolidate and strengthen is for the best. 

Well I feel the quality is there but the consistency really isn't. In the past we just weren't doing it up front but now that's working a lot better, it's the defence that's throwing points away. The team is pretty much as good as it's realistically going to be at this level, especially with how careful I feel I have to be financially, with paying 10kpw for a player and even anywhere near 500k for transfer fee having to be exceptional. I think we were at least Plymouth's equal on paper and close enough to pretty much any team in the division, depending on who comes down from the Premier League. Like with the Conference and League 2 with Grimsby, the best thing to do is just to be patient, find small ways to improve things where I can and eventually it'll work out.

[deltablue]

Summer 2039

The major headline was always going to be the loss of our defensive rock Castelo. He has been amazing for four seasons and I considered just letting him leave on a free after keeping him a year longer but that would have been a broken promise and we needed our annual sale. Unfortunately to keep his wages as an acceptable level I had to give him a £5m release clause, which is a shame as otherwise I had hoped to get around double that for him. Speaking of clauses, our former winger Stokkolm went to Sporting for almost £20m, meaning that I was kicking myself for concentrating in the fee instead of putting in a % of profit from next transfer clause as that would have been worth quite a bit, instead of getting around 200k as a 1% solidarity payment. Castelo ended up being our only departure, at least among players who had actually played for us since the only other sale was for one of the 'homegrown' signings from a couple of years ago who turned out to be redundant.

Knowing that Castelo was leaving so far in advance meant that I could plan to replace him, and I jumped on the Belgian defender Goethals to secure a move at the end of his contract. Since we had plenty of transfer budget at the time, I also saw a couple of players who caught my eye as 'investment signings'. Basic had a decent enough season on the wing last season but he's really not a winger attribute-wise, which is why I felt we needed Thompson , while Knudsen was more speculative. Once the window opened properly I needed to get a proper right back, having failed to get a young player from Juventus at the same time as I made the Goethals deal. The Tosi signing was a matter of luck, as I was just resigning myself to making another loan deal when I saw that he had an asking price that was a fraction of what I thought it would be (his scout report being out of date). I think he's the most expensive signing I've made so far but there isn't much available on the free market right now I have accepted that I have to spend (within reason when I have to now. He at least brings much-needed pace to the position as well as being a bit better going forward.

While I was looking for a right back I came across Nieminen, who didn't have the pace to be my solution in that position but aside from how promising he looked he is incredibly versatile position wise, being able to play anywhere in defence, defensive midfield and regular midfield positions. Speaking of midfield, since I am still looking for improvement in that area and found the veteran Swedish midfielder Besic. His contract was actually expiring but I thought it was worth paying a small sum to get him now. I really wanted to make one more young signing but we were pretty much out of transfer budget and while there were a few players I considered selling, I didn't want to do anything reckless just for the sake of one more player when we had invested enough in that direction already. One of the players I had to miss out on was another young Finnish player, which would have made it 3 at the club. Finland does seem like a good place to find young players right now!

I felt this was a good summer of investment. By the end of last season I had a few ideas about what I could do to fine-tune this team a little more, not just in terms of signings but also a couple of players to potentially use more. While I spent a lot more in the past, I felt I spent well and got all the players I felt I needed to (with a couple extra). Hopefully 6 signings in one year won't be too much and we cam push on to at least make the playoffs less of a tough fight than in the past couple of years, and maybe even make more of a push for the top 2 (though that's less likely).

Besic

Goethals

Knudsen

Niemenen

Thompson

Tosi

[DavidBeckham]

Goethals and Tosi are like the perfect RB and CB. Am excited about Tosi especially, he's rapid!

[deltablue]

On 06/02/2023 at 13:45, DavidBeckham said:

Goethals and Tosi are like the perfect RB and CB. Am excited about Tosi especially, he's rapid!

You turned out to be psychic

[deltablue]

Dec 2039

Now this is more like the team I was hoping to see over the past couple of seasons. Despite winning the opening game (for the first time as Everton manager), the first handful of games were a bit of an inconsistent mess that made it seem like we were in for yet another season of muddling through and just about snatching a play-off place at best. However September saw the team step up a gear and start a run of 5 wins and a draw in 6 matches, suddenly putting us potentially as automatic promotion contenders. October and early November saw us stumble a little with some tough games, but we still remained in the top 2 pretty much the entire time, even spending a bit of time in 1st. We managed to recover and get back into good form after that, starting to put a bit of daylight between ourselves and Wycombe in 3rd. We're technically in a battle for top spot with Wolves but really it's the gap to 3rd that I keep thinking about, as well as the real possibility that we're going to do it this time.

It's wonderful to find some consistency at last, with the young Irish winger Thompson being the only who has been disappointing on more than a very occasional basis. That consistency was particularly clear with the defence as we've conceded the fewest goals in the league, while still not being too shabby up front, thanks not just to Eastham but Pergolini as well. Making the latter the firm first-choice partner up front for the former turned out to be an example of one of the little changes I decided to make that has really worked out. The Italian all-rounder has the highest average rating in the team so far, thanks to 11 goals and 9 assists, sometimes stepping up when Eastham was having a sub-par game. As DB predicted above, Tosi and Goethals have slotted into their roles well (despite shaky starts), as did Besic until an injury (Kourkoutis pretty much taking over his place afterwards), while the previously inconsistent Bulgarian defender Stanchev (who was within a whisker of being sold in the summer) has been repaying the faith as part of the first-choice defensive line-up. Last season gave me a lot to think about in terms of how to try and fix things (not just what we needed in terms of signings but selection choices among the existing squad) and it's amazing to see how right I was.

[deltablue]

May 2040

The job was done easily enough, with a general trend of widening the gap to the team in 3rd (Wycombe at first, then Middlesbrough). It did look like there was a teensy little wobble in March which allowed Wolves to catch up to us in the race for 1st (which I still wasn't caring about) but the promotion safety margin seemed comfortable enough. We pretty much put one foot in the Premier League after beating Middlesbrough, opening up a 15-point gap with just 6 games to go, though it still took a few games to officially confirm it. As Wolves had a poor end to the season it only took one more game to secure top spot. It did feel a bit of a shame to finish the season with defeat at home to Huddersfield (which I thought would be a comfortable win) but thankfully that really didn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things aside from denying Eastham the chance to be at least joint-top scorer, 36 league goals was still 2 behind a Wolves forward, though he was a full 10 goals ahead of everyone else.

We actually scored one goal fewer than last season, though that was still enough to be joint-second in the scoring charts. It was having comfortably the best defence in the league (despite a few bad days like the embarrassing) 4-0 defeat against QPR) that made the difference, as well as just having more consistency across the board. Lots of little changes from last season combined to finally help this team come together. It was kind of fitting that Everton are finally back in the Premier League after a gap of exactly 20 years. With loan repayments being our biggest expenditure, we're finally rid of the 300kpm CVA repayments and we have just one more year of 131kpm repayments before we're just left left with a 99kpm repayment that's almost nothing, especially for a Premier League team. Eliminating the loan repayments alone would only have reduced our losses so much and as we reached £15m in the red after the season finished, it's fair to say that it was a timely promotion from a financial perspective! However with budgets remaining low for now (the initial transfer budget was around £7m with a wage budget of just 230kpw) the next couple of seasons at least should see big profits and financial stability at last.

Star Player: This really has to be shared, with Eastham and Pergolini being split by just 0.01 (and they were in fact exactly level for average rating going into the final match of the season). Eastham racked up 30 league goals in just 33 games (missing a few later matches due to injuries) and as mentioned above 36 still wasn't enough to be top scorer. He was a player I only just managed to sign thanks to taking the minor financial hit of releasing multiple players to free up enough wage budget, but he was worth it. In almost 6 seasons he's racked up 178 goals and 40 assists in 262 matches, and without him we'd have ended up in League 1, not the Premier League.

As amazing as it seems now, Pergolini was a player I actually wasn't sure about signing, he just seemed like a low risk free agent who might end up being decent. He at least made a good impression from the start but he was more a versatile rotation option until I decided that to make him more of an established first-choice player this season, one of the various decisions that helped it all come together. Getting into double figures for both goals and assists for a season is usually something worthy of recognition, let alone getting 21 and 12 respectively to make him the perfect foil for Eastham.

Squad Stats

[deltablue]

The End

And so, I think I am going to bring this career thread to an end, and probably my FMCU career as well. It's been coming for a while but I think things have reached the point where it truly is time. While I haven't reached what I feel will be the natural end game of this save (to win the Premier League, probably will with Everton), I have at least ticked off all 10 promotions from Level 11 to the Premier League. Who'd have thought that I'd only need to change three clubs to do it? It's always nice to leave things on a positive note anyway, along with my favourite montage song (even if I can't really provide images to go along with it).

 

[bigmattb28]

On 03/03/2023 at 17:45, deltablue said:

The End

And so, I think I am going to bring this career thread to an end, and probably my FMCU career as well. It's been coming for a while but I think things have reached the point where it truly is time. While I haven't reached what I feel will be the natural end game of this save (to win the Premier League, probably will with Everton), I have at least ticked off all 10 promotions from Level 11 to the Premier League. Who'd have thought that I'd only need to change three clubs to do it? It's always nice to leave things on a positive note anyway, along with my favourite montage song (even if I can't really provide images to go along with it).

 

Ahh man don't say you won't be posting on here again. I enjoyed this thread am sure others did as well. I only play older FM games too but don't post in here although I have been on the stories thread quite a bit. I've restarted my blog maybe you could give that a go?