Budget barmy in bargain basement Barcelona. Are we heading for Serie B? (4 Season save).

[Jimbokav1971]

I mentioned a while ago in the FCCU GD thread, that it might be interesting, (for the 1st time ever), for the likes of some of us, (who like ridiculous challenges), to manage Barca in FM22 because of their £1.2B debt, (I keep trying to say £1.2 Million because Billion is simply not a word that I use very often, but the truth is that Barca's debt is at least £1.2 Billion), and the restrictions that would normally be applied to transfers and wage budgets in these sort of circumstances at normal clubs, don't really apply to Barca, so it's interesting to try and replicate that within FM. 

There is a YouTuber called @lollujo, (now don't switch off quite yet), who has come together with a few others and created a database that has a starting date of 31st May 2021, (the end of the 20/21 season), and my understanding is that all results have been replicated for last season to mirror real life, (although it's possible that that's not true and it's only league positions that have been replicated). To be honest, I haven't checked and don't really care. 

The database can be found here. 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/zfjma8j7rvieu1n/Barcelona_Save_File.fm/file

@lollujohas created a vlog that has inspired me to have a go myself, and even if you are not into vlog's, maybe you will look at my shambolic attempts at managing Barca and be inspired to show me how it's done. (If so, feel free to @ me either on twitter or in here). 

The basic premise is that in order for the debt to work properly in the game, (If you just give them £1.2B worth of debt in the editor then the game just fixes it and it's not a challenge), is to find a way to keep the debt in the game so that you the manager are accountable for it. Those who created the database have decided that the best way to do this was to create bank loans, all repayable by the end of 4 seasons from now. 

I'm not positive, but I think the Transfer Debt of £30M shown above equates to deals we have already done for players already purchased, but the payments of which are yet to be made. 

We are in debt to the tune of £1,195,573,345 (or £1.2B for short), and unsurprisingly we also don't have any cash in the bank. We're £56M overdrawn at the bank. 

The problem isn't the bank balance at all though. £56M is nothing to a club like Barca and we could just sell 1 player to clear it. The problem is that we will be making loan repayments amounting to £25.5M every month. 

Let that sink in for a second. A club like Barca could cope with £25M per season or even a few times each season, but £25M every single month going out in loan repayments over and above what the club spends on wages....... 

Now we get to the real nitty gritty. Wages. 

Barca are spending £13.8M per month on wages, (that's mind-blowing), and the problem is that their budget is only £11.5M per month).  

Now maybe it makes sense why Messi had to go. The only real question is why he wasn't sold a year or so ago, (or before), for £100M+. They didn't even win the league last season, (in real life), and still paid out all this money. It's absolute madness. 

Can you think of a club less suited to being managed by me? (PSG maybe?)

Edited September 17, 2021 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Barca. Season 1. May 2021.

The next question is obviously, we know Messi has gone, but who is getting all these wages? 

Griezmann is getting £2.5M per month, but R.Madrid are actually covering all of that while he is there on loan, (so we pay nothing), and they have agreed a fee of £34M to sign him permanently at the end of the 2021/22 season so at least we can stop worrying about that contract. He earns £30.9M per season! 

Coutinho is getting £1.76M per month, (which equates to £21.12M in wages per season). He's contracted for 2 more years and I really can't afford to be paying his wages for any of that. We need to sell him and sell him quick. He's worth £62M, but as his wages are £1.76 per month, effectively his value reduces by that amount each month. 

Pjanic is another who is out on loan, (to Besiktas), but where as we're paying him £1,172,000 per month, Besiktas are only covering £234,000 of that which equates to approx. 20%. That seems like a particularly rubbish deal. Who agreed to that? I can't even recall him to try and sell him. So we're basically paying 80% of his wages for another year, for absolutely nothing! (That 80% comes to £11.25M by the way). This is absolute madness!

Busquets is also getting paid £1,172,000 per month, (or £14M per year). That a ridiculous amount of money, but he's also the glue that is holding the club together on the pitch at the moment. Can we afford to get rid of him? Can anyone afford to sign him? 

I'm not going to list everyone, but Dembélé, Roberto & Fati's contracts expire at the end of this 1st season and we either have to sell them or risk losing them on a free. It makes sense to me to sell them sooner rather than later, (saving on wages), although Fati has a +2 option in his contract and I'm going to consider keeping him here. The only question is can we sell them and remain competitive? 

I suppose I need to look at who is in my starting XI and what my squad depth is in each position before I start flogging players...... 

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Depth. Barca. May 2021. 

GK. 

Usually this is the screen I would use to form a lot of my decisions on, but now I need to include wage, value, contract expiry date and if there are any options to take up. 

What I already knew is that ter Stegen is comfortably the best GK at the club, but it also tells me that we're paying Neto £457,000 per month, (or £5.5M per season), to basically sit on the bench. He's 31 and his value of £22M is presumably only going to go down from here unless we play him, (which we're not), and at the same time we have Arnau Tenas, (never heard of him), who is a 20 year old with higher potential, (hopefully). As I don't plan on doing much defending, (we're Barca remember), I think we can save some money on getting rid of our Reserve keeper. 

Marc-André ter Stegen - 1st choice. 
Arnau Tenas - Loan/Backup.
Neto - SELL.
Iñaki Peña - Loan/Backup
Lazar Carević - Loan-Backup

Edited September 17, 2021 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Depth. Barca. May 2021. 

DL. 

Jordi Alba is significantly ahead of the competition here, and unless I can bring someone else in to compete who is cheaper, he will surely start the season as 1st choice. Valle, Balde and Mármol will offer some depth in the future, (and I particularly like the look of Balde), but we wouldn't want to be playing them this season at all, (and I need to get that focus on Youth Development out of my head because it's already chirping up). That's not what this save is about at all, (although some HG youngsters in season 4 would go down a treat). There isn't a left back worth selling, (other than Jordi Alba). 

Jordi Alba - 1st choice. 
Àlex Valle - Loan/Backup.
Alejandro Balde - Loan/Backup.
Mika Mármol - Loan/Backup.

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Depth. Barca. May 2021. 

DR. 

I was about to tell you that I had never heard of Sergiño Dest, (other than in the @lollujosave), but when I saw he was out of the Ajax Academy I knew I had heard of him. I also know, (form watching @lollujovideo's), that Sergi Roberto does a better than decent job at right back.

Sergiño Dest - Long term right back. 
Sergi Roberto - 1st choice for now. 
Moussa Wagué - Injured. I really like the look of him, but he's done his cruciate & will be out for about 6 months. I probably want to see if I can use his injury as a bargaining tool to get him to sign a long-term contract now for less than might be the case after he regains fitness. 
Álvaro Sanz - Loan/Backup.
Sergi Rosanas - injured. A 2nd DR with a long-term cruciate injury. Not as good as Wagué, but might be decent. 
Guillem Jaime Loan/Backup.

My initial reaction to seeing quite a few decent(ish) right backs here, (before I saw that 2 had long term injuries), was to think about selling the fringe players, (Wagué is worth £4.3M and is getting paid £42,000 per month or £504,000 per year), but the reality is that this is a pee in the ocean and I really don't need to be looking at players like him. It's the bigger players who are the issue with their hundreds of thousands of pounds each week. 

[Edit]

I've just realised that Sergo Roberto only has 1 year on his contract, and I've also remembered that we're banned from making transfers, (in or out), in the 1st window for some reason. So while it will be good to get him off the wage bill, he's currently valued at £55M and I really want to sell him in the winter window before others can nick him on a free. He's 29 so I think I'm happy to see him go. Technically he's on £761,000 and if I could re-sign him on something similar then that wouldn't break the bank, but we will have to see how things are closer to the time. 

Edited September 17, 2021 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Depth. Barca. May 2021. 

DC. 

The thing that jumps out at me for centre-half is that Eric Garcia is going to have to be fast-tracked this season to make sure that he is up to speed next season. We're going to have a strong squad until Christmas, but when the January window opens I'm likely to be getting rid of quite a few of our better players. He needs to play quite a bit in the 1st part of the season when I hope that we will be dominant. Conversely, Samuel Umtiti is getting paid almost £1M per month at centre back at a team who doesn't have to defend for most of it's domestic games. (Yes, my view of La Liga is quite extreme!) I'm not paying him £1M a month to attack set-pieces! Gerard Piqué is on about half what we're paying Umtiti!

The other thing is, because of the way I play the game in my normal saves, I don't know any of the youngsters at Barca and whether or not they are any good. Don't get me wrong, I know Fati & Pedri, but that's more from real life than it is from FM. I just don't tend to manage these players in the game. 

Eric Garcia - Long term centre-half. 
Clément Lenglet - 1st choice. 
Gerard Piqué - 1st choice. 
Ronald Araújo - Back-up.
Samuel Umtiti - SELL.
Óscar Mingueza - Back-up.

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Depth. Barca. May 2021. 

MC. 

The 1st thing that jumps out at me from the midfielders is that I need to sign Gavi, (never heard of him), onto a long term contract, (but that's the youth developer in me talking). Frenkie de Jong and Sergio Busquets are the real big-hitters in the middle of the pitch and that comes with a price, (a combined salary of almost £2M per month). I'm obviously hoping that Pedri can be the long term successor to Busquets, but for the here and now he's very much 2nd best. Nico also looks decent, but the youngsters are going to have to come in and fill important shoes in the middle of the pitch I think. Coutinho could come and play in the middle against the weaker teams I think, (but I see him more as a wide player than a central player). Sergi Roberto will also be playing centrally as well as at right back. 

Pedri - Long term DLP.
Frenkie de Jong - 1st choice. 
Miralem Pjanic - SELL.
Sergio Busquets- 1st choice. 
Jandro Orellana - Back-up.
Àlex Collado -Back-up.

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Depth. Barca. May 2021. 

ML & MR.

The 1st thing that I'm going to have to do when it comes to looking at the wide positions is decide if I'm going to be playing an inverted style or not. I've not enjoyed playing inverted in my Balkan save recently so I'm going to dismiss this "wrong-footed nonsense" where I can, but obviously the way that Barca play in real life mean that they love all this inverted rubbish so it might not be possible to do away with it completely. In those situations I might try another option, but IW isn't it, (but I'm not ruling out an IF). 

ML.

Coutinho - SELL. He's getting paid £1.76M per month, (or £21,120,000 per year). Do I need to say more? That being said, until the Winter window he's here so will play. 
Ousmane Dembélé - SELL. There is no doubting his quality and he's only 24, but his contract expires at the end of the season. We are going to have to flog him sharpish when the window opens.
Ansu Fati - 1st choice. He's a "righty", but I don't think there is a better option after we lose the above 2.  
Pedri - Rotation. I'm going to have to squeeze him in wherever I can to aid his development. I think he's likely to play everywhere this season. 
Francisco Trincão - Long term ML role. I really wish he wasn't out on loan. 
Àlex Collado - Back-up. 

It's really not looking good on the left flank for the 2nd half of the season. 

MR. 

Memphis Depay - Option. I think I'll be playing him through the middle most of the time. 

Christ only knows who else is going to play on the right. The 1st season will be ok but think I will have to sign someone after that. 

Edited September 17, 2021 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Depth. Barca. May 2021. 

SC.

I think the striking position perfectly sums up the problems at Barca. Griezmann is getting paid approx. £31M per season and the next highest is Sergio Agüero at £7.5M. 

Sergio Agüero - 1st choice. 
Memphis Depay - 1st choice. (I might have to play him elsewhere and I really don't want to play the 4231 that would suit Barca so much better). 
Luuk de Jong - Back-up.
Martin Braithwaite - Back-up. 

There really isn't a lot to shout about up front and depending on how long Aguero lasts, this could get interesting pretty quick. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Contract extensions. Barca. Jun 2021. 

There were a few players who were in the last year of their contracts and if they had an option to extend I have done so. 

The most noticeable of these is Fati, and most of them are fringe players at best. 

[Jimbokav1971]

1st Press Conference. Barca. Jun 2021. 

I think this is going to get messy pretty quickly. 

Caroline is pretty clued up. 

Profile. 

I know I usually go for Sunday League experience and no badges, but I think this save demanded a little more. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Restructuring of debt. Jun 2021. 

The game is trying to fix the financial issues, but these issues are not so easily fixed. 

They've taken out a 4th loan, (for £72.4M), repayable over 10 years at a monthly rate of £675,00. 

So the good news is that we're now only overdrawn at the bank to the tune of £12.7M. 

The bad news is that we now have 4 loans to pay off each month, now totalling £26,375,000.

The really bad news is that our total net debt is now a whopping £1,233,160,187. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Season Expectations. Barca. Jul 2021. 

It would seem that the board understand the situation we're in and that a period of "transition" might be required. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Finances. Barca. Jul 2021. 

The game thinks we have made a profit of £373M over the last financial year. We haven't. If we had I wouldn't be here. 

Because the game thinks we've made a whopping great profit, it's stuck us with a £107M tax bill.  (You've got to laugh).

It's not all bad news though. 

Oh my good good. I hate this at any club. At Barca it's like..... I don't know. I don't have the words to describe this abomination. 

You couldn't make this stuff up! 

Edited September 17, 2021 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Pre-season. Barca. Jul & Aug 2021. 

Our 442 tactic has survived pre-season, but I'm not overly confident of sticking with it and I have a 3 at a the back tactic and a 3 behind a striker tactic also lined up and ready to go. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Barca. Aug 2021.

Euro Super Cup. I was a little nervous about playing 442 with Barca, because basically it's not a great fit for their current squad, but that being said it's what I know best and what I find most pleasing on the eye and to be honest, (other than 3 at the back which I'm less confident about). I have absolutely no idea what I was worried about. Piqué 6'4" got booked after 4 mins and lasted until the 58th min without making a 2nd foul never mind a booking, and by that stage the match was won. They scored 2 late goals to give it a semblance of respectability, but be under no illusions, we absolutely battered them and the XG was 0.65 to 2.70 in our favour!

We were playing in this because we won the EURO Cup last season, (in the game). 

La Liga. We smashed it in the league and should have won away at R.Madrid. All in all I'm delighted with how things are going. We're playing some lovely looking football, (well we are Barcelona after all), and scoring a few goals at the same time. 

Champions League. Our draw in the Champions League could have been easier with both Dortmund and Porto in our Group. 

Records. 

Finances. We've got £211M in the bank, (which seems great),  but actually we still owe £935M.  

And as if that wasn't enough of a problem, the real problem is that we are over our wage budget. 

I could always do a budget adjustment...... if I had any transfer budget. 

 

[Jimbokav1971]

Instant Result button. 

Although I usually use an IR button in my saves, I haven't started doing so in this one yet and I'm not sure I will. The football being played is completely different to the football my teams usually play, (because I am managing Barca rather than some backwater little team from some backwater little Country), and if I'm completely honest with you I'm enjoying the slower pace. There is a maximum of 4 seasons in this save/thread and we have a while before FM22 is out so there really is no rush. 

[Sonic Youth]

Very interesting database 

Does it have if Coutinho plays ~10-20 games more games, Liverpool get £17 million more?

[Jimbokav1971]

7 minutes ago, Sonic Youth said:

Very interesting database 

Does it have if Coutinho plays ~10-20 games more games, Liverpool get £17 million more?

No. The only Coutinho clause is this one. 

As he's already played 50+ league games for Barca I don't think it's possible for them to code it in, (if the real clause exists).

[Jimbokav1971]

Barca. Sep 2021. 

La Liga. We dropped 6 points, but we're still unbeaten under my tenure so actually I'm quite happy. It's been a tough month and we have been absolutely hammered with injuries to key players so I will happily take remaining unbeaten. 

Champions League. We've won both our Champions League games and I know it's early days, but we're sitting comfortably at the top of the Group having already beaten Dortmund and Porto. Back-up striker Braithwaite has come up with 2 good goals. 

Injuries. We've been absolutely decimated with injuries. Amongst others, ter Stegen had a twisted ankle and missed the opening 5 games of the month, (returning in the 6th). The real loss was Agüero though, who after scoring 9 goals in 7 appearances, was forced to sit out the last 3 games. 

Finances. We have a few quid in the bank,  but we still owe loads.  We're also still over budget, (and that's not going to change until Jan 2022). 

[Jimbokav1971]

Barca. Oct 2021. 

La Liga. Our unbeaten record is gone, but we had a very good month despite that, with 4 good wins. While Agüero was injured, Fati came in and more than filled a gap, with a brace against Alaves and 4 goals against Levante. We're 6 points off R.Madrid in 1st place, and that's a result of having 3 more draws, (last month). We're within striking distance though

Champions League. I possibly rotated this squad a little too much for this game and we paid the price. Don't get me wrong, we absolutely battered them, but they scored and we didn't. 

Finances. Our bank balance has dropped from £186,769,490 to , (so a loss of approx, £42.5M in 1 month), but the net amount we owe has risen from £936,498,600 to , (so our net debt has risen by approx. £17.6M in 1 month). 

[Jimbokav1971]

If anyone wonders a my slow pace of playing, I'm not using IR for this save. Not really sure why. Just fancy it and quite enjoying it. 

I can't remember the last time I managed high profile players such as this. I really like managing Pedri & Fati and it's given me quite a different insight into the match engine. Don't get me wrong, I still love managing useless cloggers, but this is making quite a nice change. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Barca. Nov 2021. 

La Liga. It was a good month in the league with 3 wins from 3. The Leganés result was particularly pleasing as 8 of the starters were not 1st choice and we were 5-0 up at HT. 

Champions League. 2 more wins in Europe means we've qualified for the Knockout stages, and all that remains is to see if we finish 1st or 2nd. 

Finances. Our bank balance has dropped from £144,278,300 to , (so a loss of £56,983,245 in 1 month), but our net debt has risen from £954,164,913 to , (so our net debt has risen by £32,158,367 in 1 month). 

[Sonic Youth]

Hmm, results are fine and already looks a lock for a top four finish. What gets me is the debt going up per month. Just need to play all your games at home 

[Jimbokav1971]

8 minutes ago, Sonic Youth said:

Hmm, results are fine and already looks a lock for a top four finish. What gets me is the debt going up per month. Just need to play all your games at home 

I know that others have done better than I have in the 1st part of the season, but the real challenge here isn't if you can win all the games before the 1s transfer window, (I have lost 3), but how you cope with having to sell players, replace them on a lower budget and how you respond over the next few years. I would love to win the league in the 1st season, but it's really not the be all and end all. 

[Dereka]

Have you tried this player interaction option where you discuss a contract renegotiation with a player? It might be a way to lower your wage budget even before January.

I've never actually used it myself but Barcelona seem like the perfect opportunity to try it

[Djecker]

Time to get the best out of La Masia.

[Jimbokav1971]

2 hours ago, Dereka said:

Have you tried this player interaction option where you discuss a contract renegotiation with a player? It might be a way to lower your wage budget even before January.

I've never actually used it myself but Barcelona seem like the perfect opportunity to try it

I can't even negotiate at the moment because we are over the wage budget. 

We're £2.3M per week over our wage budget! 

If I was to try and offer a new contract to Pedri, (who's contract runs until Jun 2024 by the way), then....

This is what Pedri is on now. 

This is what Pedri's agent wants. 

This is what we are able to offer. 

I was going to say that we can't offer any contracts at all, (and that isn't quite true), but we can't offer a realistic contract to anyone at the moment. 

We've had some bids in, but not bids for the players I want to offload. 

£60M bid for De Jong £762,000 per month on wages.
£30M bid for Araújo 6'3" £196,000 per month on wages. 
£40M bid for Depay £252,000 per month on wages. 
£30M bid for Aguero £625,000 per month on wages.

Believe it or not I have declined all these bids because these are players I want to keep at the club. The issue isn't so much transfer income as just getting players off the wage list even if they have to leave on a free. 

Coutinho SELL is being paid £1.76M per month on wages.
Busquets SELL is being paid £1.17M per month on wages. 
Dembélé SELL is being paid £918,000 per month on wages. 
Umtiti 6'0" SELL is being paid £918,000 per month on wages. 

I really can't stress enough that wages are the issue here rather than transfer fees. As mentioned above, we also can't sign or re-sign anyone else until we get rid of some. 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Jimbokav1971

[Djecker]

Offer them out on a free and with a wage contribution? It's galling but at least it'll get a percentage of the salary off your bill.

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, Djecker said:

Time to get the best out of La Masia.

I may have to, but as this save is only going to last 4 seasons I'm likely going to have to deal with what La Masia has already produced rather than anything it produces during the save. 

Pedri & Fati look amazing and I love them both. There are a few other options, but nobody other than Garcia having a big impact in the 1st half of the 1st season. 

I quite the look of Araújo 6'3" and although I had initially earmarked him as a centre-half, I've actually been playing him in the more conservative central midfield role. 
Ilias Akhomach  scored a couple of goals on his debut so will get another chance soon.
Alejandro Balde is going to play a lot of games over the next few years I think.
Riqui Puig looks decent, but I'm not sure of the best way to use him yet. 
Àlex Collado is a player I quite like, but it might be too late to develop him as he's already 22. 
Mingueza 6'0" will be needed at some point I'm sure. 
Nico is a bit raw but should be able to step up and do a job. 

I haven't had many opportunities to play them yet, but I think many of them will get opportunities in the 2nd half of the 1st season. 

[Jimbokav1971]

34 minutes ago, Djecker said:

Offer them out on a free and with a wage contribution? It's galling but at least it'll get a percentage of the salary off your bill.

Yeah, I'm having to resort to that now. I've never ever offered a player out with me agreeing at the outset to pay any part of his wages before. It's pretty sobering. 

The 1st sale has been made though. 

Neto SELL was our 2nd choice GK when I arrived but even when Ter Stegen was injured I opted to play one of the younger keepers so he had to go. We got £5M for him, (he's valued at £12.5M now and was valued at more earlier in the season), but he was getting paid £457,000 per month, (which equates to £5.48M per year), and although we are still paying £93,500 of his monthly wage, there we've still made a saving and put £5M in our back pocket to boot. I could do with a few more of these types of deals going through if I'm honest. Transfer activity has been ominously quiet so far. 

Part of me thinks the above deal was a completely rubbish deal and at another club there is no way I would do it. I would rather pay the player off or loan him out or simply let him languish in the Reserves. I just can't afford to do any of that here. It's almost is it's not about how much money you can make. It's about how little you can lose. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Barca. Dec 2021. 

La Liga. You will see I changed the tactic slightly this month. I wasn't happy with how we were performing, but I wanted to get our wide players more involved, (because I'm trying to sell them), so 1st pushed the left winger forward from the ML line to the AML line and then did the same thing on the right. I swapped between the 2 during the Bilbao game. Things are going well on the pitch, but I am still desperately trying to drum-up business for some of our high earners. 

Champions League. We've qualified top of the group and will play Ajax in the 1st Knockout Round. 

Spanish Cup. Depay scored 3, but should have had about 6!

Finances. Our bank balalnce has dropped from £87,295,055 to , (a modes drop of only £4,798,821), but our net debt has fallen from £986,323,280 to , (a drop of almost £20M. I've got absolutely no idea where that came from.  There was nothing on any income line last month bigger than £5.7M 

Transfers.  It's not easy getting rid of these World Class players.

Awards. 

Youth Intake preview. Even La Masia is miss-firing. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Board madness! Barca. Jan 2022. 

I'm desperately trying to flog Coutinho and have just offered him out for £0 (absolutely nothing), and have even agreed to pay £260k per month towards his wages). I finally get a bite from PSG who make a bid and the board block the deal. 

You couldn't make this up! 

The deal would have saved us approx. £30M over the course of his contract. 

[Djecker]

Dang useless board! Yeah I hate offering players out while paying their salaries, but its the only way sometimes to offload useless high earners. You can also use it though if clubs have transfer-listed high earners - make the AI pay their salaries while you play them.

[Sonic Youth]

Hahaha, sounds like the Bale transfer to China.

Results continue to be good on the field 

[Sonic Youth]

Have you found any players on the free market bosman for next season?

Also, swap deals? Have you tried those?

[PaulHartman71]

Saw the series by the guy you mentioned but gave up watching after the second video. I’m sure he has his niche but I don’t really have the time or patience to watch 45 minute videos each time to follow a concept like this, much prefer to follow a thread of yours like this. 
 

My gripe with him as well is that he just wings the videos on the spot. I get why he does it like that but it makes for a crap viewer experience and the videos end up way longer than they need to be. 
 

Interested to see how you get on though. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Jan Transfer window Update. Barca. Jan 2022. 

Ousmane Dembélé SELL has gone to Man Utd for £10M. He's immediately valued at £10M, but Liverpool were about to sign him on a free and £10M is better than nothing. I'm delighted that he's off the payroll. 

Coutino SELL has gone to Juve for £30M. I was ready to let him go on a free just to get him off the books. We have had to pay £260k per month towards his wages,  but we were paying him £1.76M per month, so that's still a saving of £1.5M per month. In another save this would be bad business, but I'm happy with it here. 

With these 2 transfers we're back within our wage budget and have £319,000 per month to spend either on a new player, or to secure a longer contract on existing players. 

Jordi Alba was a player I was unsure about. He wasn't earmarked as "SELL", but at the same time he was earning £918,000 per month at the age of 32. From my point of view it wasn't so much the money for him, but the fact that he would be restricting the development of the other left backs at the club. I have therefore accepted a modest £11.25M from bid from Inter to get him off the books and free up some more wage budget. 

With Jordi Alba leaving it means that we now have a surplus wage budget of £1.3M. In the bad old days this would have been 1 single player. I'm hoping we can sign a few for that now. 

Sergi Roberto SELL has gone to Spurs for £20M. He was fantastic and we will miss him, but we sure as hell won't miss his wages of just under £1M per month. 

With him now gone it means we have a surplus wage budget of £1.5M (The board have been sneaky though and cut our budget by £0.5M when they thought I wasn't looking). 

Next we have our 1st signing of the save. 

Next we have the 1st signing of the save. And it's pretty special even if I do say so myself. 

I have never heard of him, but I suspect everyone else will have, (because he looks absolute mustard). 17 year old Youssoufa Moukoko was signed on a free from Dortmund, (well they have Haaland so they don't need another striker), but I have agreed to pay them £1.6M to do the deal immediately rather than wait until the end of the season. Even though he's only 17, the plan is for him to play on the left of Aguero, (who has 16 goals and 10 assists this season), and play him where Depay, (21 goals and 5 assists), has been playing, and that way Depay can play out wide. Either that or we finally have a 3rd striker worth of the name. We're only paying him £80k per month, and I've signed him on a 3+3 deal. 

We still have £8.4M in the transfer kitty and we have £1,432,930 available to spend per month on wages. 

Daniel Braithwaite has gone to Arsenal for £5M. I'm happy that Moukoko is an upgrade, (a much younger upgrade getting paid significantly less money), and while 30 year old Braithwaite is now valued at £13.25M at Arsenal, I'm ecstatic to have his wages off the books. He did ok for us, (5 goals in 0(11) appearances), but he was getting paid about £425,00 a month!

With him gone it means we now have a transfer kitty of £8.6M and a surplus wage budget of £1.9M. Things are certainly moving in the right direction. 

Neto SELL was our 2nd choice GK when I arrived, but he was getting paid about £450k per month and even when Ter Stegen was injured I still didn't play him so he had to go. I managed to get £5M for him and he has signed for Krasnador. 

The more players I sell, the more they keep knocking my wage budget down. It was £11.5M per month to start with and now it's down to £9.8M less than a month later. That's tough!

On the plus side we now have £22.4M in the transfer kitty and have £1.17M per month to spend on wages. 

I wasn't planning on selling Depay. I'm not a fan of his in real life and I'm astonished that he has scored 21 goals in 28(2) appearances this season, but we have just had a bid of £40M (rising to £60M) + 25% and a friendly from PSG, and I think I'm going to accept it. I've offered him out to other clubs for £10M more in the hope someone will gazzump PSG, but I don't think it's likely. I think the reality is, that if this was a normal save then I wouldn't sell Depay, but it's not a normal save so I think  have to. 

With that in mind, I've also accepted a £32M bid for Lenglet 6'1" from Chelsea. I wanted to sell Samuel Umtiti 6'0" SELL and I wanted to keep Lenglet 6'1", but we haven't had an offer for Samuel Umtiti 6'0" SELL so I have to work with what I've got. He was on £438,000 per month so that will be a saving, but I fully expect to have the wage budget reduced again so I'm not sure how much we will actually gain. I that respect though, this isn't a normal save and I somehow have to save £1.2B in 4 seasons, (which must be impossible, come on). 

After all these deals have gone through we have £25M in the transfer kitty and are spending £8.053,595 of a £9,877,707 budget, so we have £1,824,112 additional wage spend per month to play with. 

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, Djecker said:

Dang useless board! Yeah I hate offering players out while paying their salaries, but its the only way sometimes to offload useless high earners. You can also use it though if clubs have transfer-listed high earners - make the AI pay their salaries while you play them.

It's certainly a steep learning curve for me, but you will see from the January transfer window that I got there with most of my targets in the end. 

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, Sonic Youth said:

Hahaha, sounds like the Bale transfer to China.

Results continue to be good on the field 

Thanks very much. Yeah it was a bit like that. Results on the field have been better than decent. I'm not sure how long I can expect it to continue based on who has left though. 

[PaulHartman71]

Jesus, that’s one hell of a fire sale in January  

Champions League knockout stages should be interesting with what’s left of the squad!

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, Sonic Youth said:

Have you found any players on the free market bosman for next season?

Also, swap deals? Have you tried those?

Yes I have. 

I only signed 2 players, (1 free and 1 loan), but the free transfer was Moukoko and I agreed to pay £1.6M to sign him immediately. 

I have signed 5 players who will join on a free at the end of the season. 

20 year old French DL from AS Monaco. 
27 year old English utility defender from Arsenal. 
20 year old Scottish DM from Chelsea. 
19 year old Portugese midfielder from Benfica. 
27 year old Polish striker from Marseille. 

I'm really happy with these signings. Often freebies are old and there will be little re-sale/investment value, but with all of these I hope to make a decent profit. The Polish striker is currently worth £7M, but I expect him to be worth much more when he signs for us. I don't think I overpaid on any of them. Really happy with he business. 

In terms of the business I didn't do.... this is everyone at the club who is earning more than £400,000 per month. 

Griezmann has a permanent deal agreed to join Atletico at the end of the season, (for £34M), and they will pay 100% of his wages until then so I can just ignore him. 
Pjanic SELL is an absolute nightmare. He's on loan at Besiktas until the end of the season, but they are only paying £234,000 of his £1,172,000 monthly wage, (meaning that we're stuck paying £938,000 each month for nothing. The even bigger problem is that at 31 years old the contract doesn't expire for 2.5 more years. My #1 goal at the end of the season will be to offload him somehow. 
Busquets SELL was a player that I was going to keep, but actually his legs have gone and he's not performing great so even if it leaves us slightly short I was happy to let him go. I just couldn't get a deal done during the window though. Now I need to keep playing him to drum up some interest. 
Umtiti 6'0" SELL is a player I was desperate to offload because as well as earning almost £1M per month, he also wasn't 1st choice. Now that Lenglet has gone though he should be playing more regularly and this will hopefully generate some interest. 
DdJ, Ter Stegen and Aguero I'm happy to keep, (and may even offer Aguero an extension). 
Trincão is out on loan at Wolves until the end of the season, (well he is Portugese after all), and they are paying all of his £608,000 monthly wage. He will be playing for us next season and we will see if he can perform and generate some transfer income for us. 
Piqué 6'4" is dying a slow lingering death. (His acceleration is down to 8 now), but he wants a new deal, (a pay rise!) and he also thinks I have dissed his mate Busquets, (I did). Maybe someone will take him on loan next season? 

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, PaulHartman71 said:

Saw the series by the guy you mentioned but gave up watching after the second video. I’m sure he has his niche but I don’t really have the time or patience to watch 45 minute videos each time to follow a concept like this, much prefer to follow a thread of yours like this. 

My gripe with him as well is that he just wings the videos on the spot. I get why he does it like that but it makes for a crap viewer experience and the videos end up way longer than they need to be. 

Interested to see how you get on though. 

I tend to listen in the background, but the problem with that is that I miss things I want to hear and hear things I don't care about so it's not ideal. I do like his laid-back style though. Doesn;t take himself too seriously. 

I must admit it's pretty challenging in ways I'm not used to being challenged. I'm very much out of my comfort zone here. So much so that it actually feels like a completely different game if that makes sense. Not sure I would like playing like this the whole time, but really engrossed in it at the moment. 

[Jimbokav1971]

6 hours ago, PaulHartman71 said:

Jesus, that’s one hell of a fire sale in January  

Champions League knockout stages should be interesting with what’s left of the squad!

Yeah, I think I may have gone a tad over-board, but I think this is quite an an extreme challenge because we're in quite an extreme situation. 

Neto SELL

 Jordi Alba,  Lenglet 6'1" SELL, Mingueza 6'0", Sergi Roberto SELL

Ousmane Dembélé SELL, Arnau Solà, Lucas de Vega, Coutinho SELL

Depay, Martin Braithwaite

The 2 Bold players are only out on loan, but that's a pretty decent La Liga team right there. 

I wasn't getting the best out of the 2 wide players and they also weren't really 1st choice, (even though they should have been). The full backs were brilliant though and we have nothing anywhere near as good as them left at the club. 

If I could have just got rid of Pique and Busquets I would have been a very happy man. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

 Barca. Jan 2022. 

La Liga. The Sevilla game was the 1st after the window opened and I had upset everyone by trying to flog so many big players. he Pique and Busquets decisions probably cost me this game. 

There are few names on the goal-scorers that you might not used to be seeing though.

22 year old centre-half Mingueza 6'0" scored a hat-trick against Espanyol before I sent him on loan to Rennes in France. 
17 year old Fabián Luzzi has scored in both La Liga and the Copa del Rey. 
17 year old Ángel Alarcón is a a wide attacker.
23 year old Guillem Jaime is a right back. 

17 year old Moukoko is my recent signing who didn't score on his 1st sub appearance against Valencia, but then scored 2 against R.Madrid and 1 against Getafe. I think we will call that a decent start. 

Copa del Rey. The Espanyol game was directly after Sevilla in the league, (when the squad were upset with me for flogging everyone), and we conceded an 87th min goal to drag us to ET and then lost on pens. 

Finances. After all the ins and outs we now have  in the bank, (which is up approx. £67.5M). Our net debt figure is now , (which is a reduction of £109M from last month). 

[Djecker]

Good work signing Moukoko, that's a great pick-up.

[Sonic Youth]

Very nice business in the January window 

Those two losses look well worth the cost of that January business.

And under 900m 

Still top too I see 

Curious about how your wages now stack up against the rest of the league 

 

[Jimbokav1971]

4 hours ago, Djecker said:

Good work signing Moukoko, that's a great pick-up.

My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw him. 

I don't know if he is a famous wonderkid or anything like that because this isn't the sort of save I normally play and I'm usually managing some little team in some little backwater full of useless regens. (Please don't tell me how good Moukoko is or isn't by the way. I would rather find out for myself). 

[Jimbokav1971]

2 hours ago, Sonic Youth said:

Very nice business in the January window 

Those two losses look well worth the cost of that January business.

And under 900m 

Still top too I see 

Curious about how your wages now stack up against the rest of the league 

 

I must admit that when I was struggling to flog Coutinho & Dembele I was worried that this save was doomed before it got started, but we got there in the end. Now, after off-loading both full-backs I'm wondering if I haven't been over-eager. 

The way I see it I have 4 years but only 7 transfer windows and £1.2B divided by 7 = £171M, so the average amount of money we have to save is £171M over 7 transfer windows, (and the 1st window was inactive). We've already reduced the debt by £342.3M in the 1st window, that should have been the toughest window and if I can just get rid of Pique, Busquets, Pjanic & Umtiti in the next window then we are laughing. 

There is so much money in La Liga that it's ridiculous that things have got this far with Barca. The Pjanic contract just about sums up everything that was going on there. They spent £55M on a transfer fee for a 30 year old, after they had already spent £67M on FdJ, while they already had Busquets at the club and had the likes of Pedri coming through. Then they offered him a contract that would see him paid approx. £54M in basic salary over the next 4 years, (without bonus payments). It's just madness!

[Jimbokav1971]

Not here they aint! I would love to generate £100M and go out and get Haaland, but I just can't see it happening. If I can get rid of the debt I will make as big a signing as I can in the last window. 

If I get rid of Pjanic, Busquets, Pique & Umtiti in the next window I will splash a little cash to celebrate. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Jimbokav1971