[FM22] It's always sunny in...Wrexham

[JohnWarrington]

The Journey begins

Hello and welcome to my FM22 career story. After successful spells with Warrington Town and Southport in FM20 and FM21 respectively, I have once again decided to delve into the lower leagues of the English period. For a long time, I have been undecided on which team to manage in FM22 having already played as a lot of my local clubs. That was until one club, in particular, stood up. By now, everyone has seen the story that Hollywood Superstars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have taken over Wrexham in the National League and in a recent interview, they had this to say:

"You take a deeper dive into Wrexham, and you see how invested the community are in the club,".

"This club can really grow, and I am just anxious to see it grow.

"I don't understand why we can't get to the Premier League. We have the structure here. Why not dream big?"

Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney - Wrexham FC co-owners

Consider the challenge accepted. My goal in FM22 is to take Wrexham, who coincidentally is only 45 minutes away from my house, to domestic and European glory.



The goals

Obviously, the main goal is to take the club to the top as I mentioned previously but I've also set myself a couple of other targets to keep the save fresh and interesting.

Youth Development

One of my main aims is to develop youth as much as I physically can. This doesn't mean I'll have a team of kids but I will use younger players where I can. I also want to have at least 1 youth academy graduate in every matchday squad, much like Sir Alex Ferguson did with Man Utd.

30 or below

Throughout the save, I want to avoid having any player over the age of 30. Obviously, I won't be able to achieve this straight away but I want to be achieving it within 2-3 seasons.

4-2-3-1 is banned

On Football Manager I more often than not opt for a 4-2-3-1 formation because it works in the match engine. This time I've decided to test myself and force myself to not use it.

Club Vision



Now onto the board's goals. The goal for this season is to at least reach the playoffs before achieving promotion next season. I'd like to think that we can do better than that but we'll see over the course of the season. Rob and Ryan also want us to play entertaining football, which is music to my ears. For someone who likes to play attacking football like myself, that's perfect. Our cup goals seem reasonable, though we will need to be lucky in the FA Cup draw to reach round two, we don't want to face a League One team in round one.

The Club



Now for a look at the club itself. Wrexham is a club with a long history having been founded in 1864, however, success hasn't been too easy to come by. The highest the club has ever been is 15th in the Championship, whilst their finishing position in 2019/20 was the lowest they've ever had. The club has also been at National League level for 13 years since relegation in 2007/08.



Stadium + Facilities



The club plays its home games at The Racecourse Ground, a 15,500 capacity stadium with 10,500 seated. That's a really good size and to be honest, is massive compared to some of the other sides in the National League. It'll be interesting to see whether we'll be able to expand the stadium as we move up the leagues or if we'd need a new stadium....but that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves.



Good training and adequate youth facilities are good for this level but given my goals, these are something I will be definitely looking to improve on as we progress. I feel like upgrading our youth recruitment will be the most important though as we'll be able to develop much better youth players as a result of improving that.

Records





Hopefully, we'll see a few of these broken in the future.

 

[JohnWarrington]

The Squad and Tactics

Now we've had an introduction to Wrexham and we've seen the aims, now let's see what I've got to work with. The squad on paper looks to be a very good one, especially at this level. After all, it does include last season's League Two top goalscorer. Let's dive in and take a closer look.

The Squad

Goalkeepers



We currently have three goalkeepers at the club and I'm pretty underwhelmed in all honesty. Our best goalkeeper doesn't meet my 30 or under criteria and the other two are lackluster at best. I'll definitely be looking to strengthen here. Chances are I'll look to loan out Dawid to free up a wage and try and sell Dibble.

Full/Wing-Backs



Disregard Ben Tozer here, he's not a wing-back. To say we are thin on the ground would be a massive understatement. I think the plan has to be to sign at least two new wing-backs minimum, maybe three if the budget allows. A couple of injuries there and we will be done for.

Centre-Backs



Much better, much much better. We have two absolutely quality centre backs for this league and some good back up too. I can safely say that I don't need to go out looking for a central defender in the summer transfer window, though if one becomes available, I won't say no. That being said, two of them are over 30 but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Central Midfielders



We have one absolutely quality centre midfielder in James Jones but the rest are a bit meh in all honesty. No offence to David Jones but he definitely doesn't fit my squad criteria at 36! The aim here is to get a couple in, two maybe three depending on budgets. I think two will see us right but you can never be too cautious with injuries at this level. Especially given that teams will definitely be looking to kick lumps out of us.

Wingers



Could be better, could be worse. I think we'll definitely want to strengthen here but it's not my no 1 priority. I think we could get through the season with what we have but we can definitely improve the quality if the right men are available.

Strikers



We have the best striker in the league, enough said. Paul Mullin was the League Two top scorer last season so I have no idea why he's here. I'm definitely not complaining though. We could maybe use a better backup for him but again, it's not a priority.

Tactics



This is what we'll be starting the season with. An attacking formation but I feel like we should be looking to go on the front foot from the start.



 

These are our two backup tactics if the 4-3-2-1 doesn't work...I'm having 4-2-3-1 withdrawals already. The 3 at the back will most likely be reserved for if/when we play bigger teams than ourselves.

Edited November 14, 2021 by JohnWarrington

[JohnWarrington]

Pre Season 2021/22

So we've finally reached the start of the National League after a busy pre-season period, here's how it went, starting with our transfer activity.

Transfers

In



As you'd expect, it was a busy first window for me as I looked to make my mark as Wrexham boss. I have to admit, I'm really happy with how we did in the transfer market. Not a penny spent on transfers and a whole lot of quality coming in. In goal, we brought in Jordi Van Stappershoef, a 25-year-old Dutchman formerly of Bristol Rovers. Earlier I said that we needed to strengthen at wing-back and that we did. Elvis Bwomono and Myles Kenlock bring real quality to that area of the pitch with Josh Clarke also able to provide cover. Clarke's main position though is right-wing and he strengthens there along with Josh Shonibare and Jahmal Hector-Ingram who can both play there. To shore up the midfield, we brought in Emyr Huws and Melvin Sitti.

Out



Noone left on a permanent deal but what the many loan departures did was free up a lot of the wage bill, enabling us to add real quality to the squad. All in all, a successful window.

Fixtures



I don't think we could have done much better than that. Six games, six wins, including a very good win against Carlisle from League Two. I'm very happy with what I saw and I'm optimistic for the season ahead.

2021/22 Squad

01 -  Jordi Van Stappershoef
02 -  Elvis Bwomono
03 -  Myles Kenlock (on loan from Ipswich)
04 -  Aaron Hayden
05 -  Ben Tozer
06 -  Emyr Huws
07 -  Jordan Davies
08 -  James Jones
09 -  Jahmal Hector-Ingram
10 -  Paul Mullin
11 -  Josh Shonibare
12 -  Reece Hall-Johnson
13 -  Max Cleworth
14 -  Bryce Hosannah
15 -  Shaun Brisley
16 -  Harry Lennon
17 -  Cameron Green
18 -  Luke Young
19 -  Jake Hyde
20 -  David Jones
21 -  Dan Jarvis
22 -  Devonte Redmond
23 -  Melvin Sitti
25 -  Liam McAlinden
26 -  Rob Lainton
27 -  Dior Angus
28 -  Kwame Thomas
29 -  Josh Clarke

Edited November 14, 2021 by JohnWarrington

[JohnWarrington]

August - December 2021

News + Results

News

17th November

Niall Mason joins on a free transfer.

23rd November



Shaun Brisley joins Notts County for a fee of 8.75k.

7th December

Striker Josh Coburn joins on loan from Middlesbrough.

31st December



Liam McAlinden joins Shamrock Rovers for a fee of 7.25k.

Results




Awards Won

John Warrington National League Head Coach of the Month x2 (August, December).
Aaron Hayden National League Player of the Month x1 (September).
Melvin Sitti National League Player of the Month x1 (September).
Josh Shonibare National League Player of the Month x1 (November).
Emyr Huws National League Player of the Month x1 (December).

Team Stats



Player Stats



Data Hub



Medical Centre



Finance



League Table



League Stats



Manager Thoughts

Going into the new year we sit comfortably at the top of the National League and are into the 3rd round of the FA Cup. Can't ask for much more than that really. We've been excellent so far this season and hopefully, we can keep it going. It's also great to see us injury-free at the moment. January is going to be a big month as I look to offload some of our fringe players and upgrade the quality of our squad if that's possible.

[abulezz]

Dominating the first season - Wrexham's future is indeed looking bright!

[JohnWarrington]

12 minutes ago, abulezz said:

Dominating the first season - Wrexham's future is indeed looking bright!

Dominating would definitely be the way I'd describe it.  Our squad is far too good for this league.

[BARNESDON]

Nice thread, what happened next?

[Jono Cpfc]

20 hours ago, BARNESDON said:

Nice thread, what happened next?

why would you bump a thread thats 2 years old you weirdo....

that being said, the use of the smaller font size looks really really nice

[BARNESDON]

As I started a FM22 save with Wrexham last month.