Getting Barnsley and Burnley To Compete With The Top Four (on a budget) Working Towards Total Football FM22

[Pattric_b]

 

 

(Warning: Long intro)

This journey began when I came across an article in the Wall Street journal about Billy Beane becoming a co-owner of Barnsley. For anyone who is unaware, Billy Beane is the GM of the Oakland Athletics, a professional baseball team in America. He is also the subject of the book “Moneyball: the art of winning an unfair game” and the subsequent film starring Brad Pitt. We know him for achieving a lot of success on a tight budget and being able to compete with big spending teams like the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, etc. Imagine Norwich competing for a top four place all season long. That's basically what Beane has done.

Naturally, when I read he was a big fan of soccer and is now helping Barnsley with their recruitment of players, I became intrigued.

History of Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s and Sabermetrics:

Billy Beanes' personal history isn’t relevant to our journey with Barnsley, but I feel a brief background of his time in Oakland and the events that eventually led to him owning a championship team are interesting. I’m sure a decent amount of people are well aware of Billy Beane and what he’s all about at this point. If thats the case, skip this section.

Oakland has always been on a tight budget. Their owners have far less spending power and as a result, the quality of player they attract in free agency is usually mediocre. Realizing he could never financially compete against the more affluent teams of the league, he had to think outside the box and find another way. Beane hired a man named Paul DePodesta, an economics major from Harvard University. DePodesta, was all about using spreadsheets and saber metrics to analyze players. The idea was that general statistics were outdated and very basic. They didn’t tell the complete story.

Baseball tradition had changed little from the 19th century. Teams relied on their experienced scouts for player recruitment and nothing more. These scouts are trusted because they usually were retired pros, coaches, etc. And this was the normal way to go about business until Oakland made saber metrics popular. Using statistics and analysis, Beane could find a more accurate value of a player by utilizing statistics and equations that went ignored.

Using these analyses, Beane had his Oakland A’s with a payroll of 44m a year competing against the Yankees who were on 125m a year budget. Using this approach, the A’s made the playoffs two years in a row and Beane was later offered a job to work for the Red Sox, which would have made him the highest paid GM in sports history. He would later turn the offer down.

Following their success in Oakland, many teams in various sports tried to replicate Beanes success using Sabermetrics. The first actual soccer team I know of that attempted to apply these methods to find players was Brentford.

Matthew Benham, the owner of Brentford, was a talented sports gambler who made a large amount of money gambling on soccer. Benham used the xG statistic early on before bookies considered it useful and, as a result, outsmarted the odds time and time again. Using his algorithms and other analytical methods, he has got Brentford promoted through smart player recruitment. Similar to how Beane found undervalued players on the market. If you are interested in what Benham has done with Brentford, there is a good book about Benhams methods called “The football code” I recommend you guys read.

Pacific Media Group takeover of Barnsley:

In late 2017, it was announced that Pacific media group (PMG) had become majority shareholders of Barnsley. This group included Billy Beane.

What PMG are doing can be compared to what the owners of Man City and Red Bull are doing, but on a much smaller, sensible scale. PMG also currently own FC Den Bosch, Esbjerg SB, AS Nancy, FC Thun and KV Oostende. They built their model for youth and data analysis, hence including Billy Beane. They know the risks of throwing money at clubs and hoping for instant success, so they are trying to play it smarter.

This method of doing things is also what led me to decide to take over Barnsley. Normally I don’t like the idea of owners running clubs like businesses rather than soccer clubs (man city, Red Bull), but PMG seems to be interested in building up clubs the traditional way of gaining wealth through excellent results and winning trophies. Plus, it’s just a game.

Three pillars of the PMG philosophy:

PMG didn’t buy Barnsley with the plan to pump hundreds of millions into the club. They have a three pillar method they’re using to gain success. So here they are:

1. Rely on analytics over scouting: Being that Barnsley is far from the richest club in the championship, they cannot afford huge scouting networks. They prefer data analysts in one room watching matches every day that feature players they’ve identified by their analyst is platform. The only issue with doing this on FM is we don’t really know what algorithms they used to find these players, so we will have to identify attributes and statistics that suit our style of play instead. We will use the data hub a lot.
2. Commitment to sign young experienced players: Co owner Paul Conway said they “rarely sign players over the age of 23. And that’s hard. Because the industry believes a team needs older leaders to balance out a young squad. But we’ve done a lot of empirical research on it, and that is just not true”. This one is fairly simple, do not sign older players. They even go so far as to not resigning a veteran fan favorite simply because they are committed to giving young players a chance. Plus, veteran players cost a lot more. He also added; “We’re balancing a budget, and we have to develop young players. We have to create transfer profits because we think we can reinvest those profits, just like a fund manager, and get greater returns and build our squad from there.” Again, I’m not really a fan of all the financial talk, but we have to sell in order to invest in younger experienced players. We are a small market team.
3. Focus on acquiring players and coaches who thrive in a high press system: PMG believe playing a relentless attacking strategy will give them the best chance on the pitch as most championship teams don’t play this style because they don’t have the players for it. Personally, I don’t really agree with that but I will deploy an attacking high press system because it's exciting and my preferred way of playing.

Here’s a recap of what we’re going to be doing at Barnsley:

1. Rely on data analysts' opinions for player recruitment rather than scouts.
2. Identify core attributes that suit our style of play and filter players out.
3. Try to sign players 23 and under only.
4. If an excellent offer comes in for an experienced player, sell, then reinvest in more young players.
5. Sell before signing new players.
6. Recruit players and coaches suited for a high press, attacking style of play.
7. Keep a long shortlist with many targets for each position. If one player is too expensive or demands a large wage, move on to the next one.

Translating the philosophy into FM:

My first order of business was to decide how we are going to set up the team tactically. I had one key piece of tactical information already decided by me. They want to press high up the pitch in order to win possession back. They also want to play on the front foot and attack. So I based my first tactical creations on gegenpress default instructions. 

But I was unhappy with how we played in possession. Eventually, it turned into a tiki taka/Barcelona type tactic that saw us passing and moving the ball around the field, patiently waiting for openings. 

This turned out to be the tactic that changed the course of Barnsley's history. In my virtual world, at least. Some team instructions did change from match to match, even the team mentality and player roles changed quite a few times, but this is the core of how I wanted us to play. The foundation for the future.  

How to recruit for a high press possession system with little to no money:

Given our payroll and budget are very tiny compared to the rest of the championship, our recruitment had to be spot on if we wanted to have a good season. As you can see in the above screenshot, we profited off player sales in the effect of 13m. This gave us an opportunity to sign players more in line with what we were trying to do (on loan or for free). So since we are playing a high press, possession style tactic, we need to identify key attributes our players must have in order to play at Barnsley. 

This was my squad by the time the season finished, but the important point of this screenshot are the attributes. These are our core attributes, or club DNA as others say. These attributes are broad enough to find a small championship team on a tight budget, a decent player. And that's exactly what we did. Most of our signings performed very well and were the key to us ultimately winning the league. 

The sale of Styles afforded us the ability to increase our wage budget and bring in these loanees and unsigned players. Styles was one of our best players, but selling him allowed us to bring in more well-rounded players who balanced the squad out. Two of the standouts being Joe Bell and Tobias Raschl, who performed very well in the middle of the pitch together. 

These players are far from world class, but they are well rounded at this level. And to my shock, they actually punched way above their weight for the entire season. These players are low-level total footballers, but for Barnsley, they're superstars. 

So I have spoken a lot about how we prepared for the season. Let's look at the actual results in practice. 

First season results:

It was a record-breaking season for Barnsley. We earned the most points in Championship history and over achieved against clubs who, on paper, had a more talented squad than ours. They originally predicted us to finish 14th. 

Funny enough, our record-breaking season drew parallels with the Oakland A's 2002 season. Where they won 20 consecutive games in a row, a feat no other team in baseball history ever achieved. We also broke the consecutive wins record with 11 games won in a row.  

This pass map epitomizes how I see us playing in the future. Every player involved passing and moving, waiting for an opportunity to attack space. Very similar to Ajax and the Dutch national team in the 70's. Once I figure out how to record my screen, I will post gifs for everyone else to see because this tactic was producing very nice ball movement and play. 

Here's some other data to look at:

 

In case you were curious how lucky we got during the season, we out performed where xG and xPts expected us to finish, but we still created the highest amount of xG in the league which is evidence that our system is working in the match engine.

Our revenue is small compared to the top clubs in England, but we are turning a profit and now, moving to the Premier League, we are going to be getting more money than our small club has ever seen. The lowest payroll in the Premier League (minus the relegated sides) is 50m. Compare that to our 9m a year and we will face a really tough challenge to stay up. The Premier League obviously brings new riches, but we must continue to be frugal and sell before we buy or sign new youngsters. 

New Challenges:

The new season will see us again have to hit the nail on the head with player recruitment. We are also going to be looking to release a lot of the staff to bring in like-minded staff and improve our recruitment analysts. I'm hoping a large turnover doesn't affect our momentum too much.

It's perilous, but I don't plan on changing our tactic. I want us to play bravely regardless of how much our opponents earn. This is obviously a long-term challenge, but I expect it will be worthwhile. I haven't enjoyed a save this much since FM13 

Final Word:

I received pretty alarming mail just before the season finished. 

The fact he's willing to entertain selling the club tells me I am way ahead of their schedule and they see Barnsley as a quick way to make money. I will be upset if they sell the club because that would sever the ties with Billy Beane but I would still continue to practice the same moneyball techniques.  

My next update will probably be more in depth about player recruitment and how I plan to use the data hub (sabermetrics) to stay in the Premier League.  

Thanks for reading!

 

Reading Material:

• Study of Sabermetrics: http://olinblog.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/AStudyofSabermetricsinMajorLeagueBaseball.pdf
• Club statement: https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2017/december/club-statement/
• Moneyball gives Billy Beane backed Barnsley a premier league shot: https://www.sportico.com/leagues/soccer/2021/barnsley-premier-league-promotion-1234628851/
• A moneyball experiment in English soccer's second tier: https://www.wsj.com/articles/barnsley-championship-promotion-moneyball-billy-beane-11621176691
• Moneyball comes to Barnsley: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/dec/19/barnsley-consortium-takeover-nice-owner-chien-lee-billy-beane
• Billy Beane's got Barnsley on the brink of promotion: https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/sports/barnsley-promotion-billy-beane-english-soccer
• Oakland to Oakwell: https://www.foxsports.com.au/football/premier-league/epl-news-2021-championship-play-offs-final-barnsley-vs-bournemouth-moneyball-billy-beane-premier-league-latest/news-story/ba2da696b67fb042e60d5906b48da77f

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by Pattric_b

[coach vahid]

I always struggle in recruitment for "well rounded" players. I find 11-12 for the most attributes, but don't know which attributes deserve more attention.

Great thread by the way. I eagerly await follow-up.

[Pattric_b]

22 minutes ago, coach vahid said:

I always struggle in recruitment for "well rounded" players. I find 11-12 for the most attributes, but don't know which attributes deserve more attention.

Great thread by the way. I eagerly await follow-up.

Thank you!
Depending on what level you’re at, 11-12 could work. For the championship that is a little low. One thing that could help is once you’ve identified how you want to play, look at the training schedules and find which attributes are boosted when you train for that specific style of play. For example if you pick the “translation- press” regime, it will show you exactly which attributes of your players will improve and therefore you know which attributes are needed to press the opposition in the match engine. It’s a more simplified approach with fewer core attributes, but it’s a good place to start when you’re on a tight budget. 

[lipebtavares]

Do you use player instruction?

[lipebtavares]

Are the attributes in the first column the main ones or are they all important?

[Pattric_b]

55 minutes ago, lipebtavares said:

Do you use player instruction?

 

53 minutes ago, lipebtavares said:

Are the attributes in the first column the main ones or are they all important?

I use tighter marking for my front three to try and force them to close down more. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t do much. I’ll admit getting my team to press high up hasn’t been consistent. 
 

All the attributes are important. The left column of attributes are mostly attack phase, the middle is neutral (I want all my players to have these attributes regardless of position) and the last column is mostly defensive attributes. 

[Pattric_b]

Moneyball in the Premier League

Anyone who is familiar with Brentford knows they were the first championship team to earn promotion into the Premier League, despite having a small budget and using secret algorithms for player recruitment. It remains to be seen if they’re able to stay in the Premier league following promotion, but so far it's gone very well for them. Currently, they have approximately $35m payroll. Which is still significantly higher than our current wage bill.

Our promotion came a few years earlier than expected by our board. That said, our squad will be the weakest in the Premier League by a far margin. We are 1000-1 odds to win the Premier League, which is the worst. The only way we will have a chance of staying up is by getting our summer recruitment spot on. The first thing I’ve done is increase our scouting scope to all of Europe. An expensive decision but a necessary one given what’s at stake. We need to have as many players on the radar as possible. 

Scouting to survive:

Our transfer budget is respectable. Our wage budget is rather low.

We are going to continue to recruit the same type of player as we did last season. Well rounded, versatile players who can play a high press and possession style tactic. But how do we go about finding the right players for this style of play? We use the game's own training schedules to tell us which attributes are key for certain styles of play. Let's look at the games ‘transition-press’ schedule:

The game tells us that if you want to high press your opponent, you will need to work on these attributes (first touch, passing, tackling, anticipation, aggression, decisions, teamwork and work rate). It’s a very simplified approach, but it worked for us last summer, so we’re sticking to it again this time around. Now let’s look at the ‘general- possession’ attributes.

These are the attributes that are needed to play possession. The primary attributes are dribbling, first touch, passing, technique, anticipation, composure, decisions, off the ball, teamwork, and vision. The secondary attributes are marking, tackling, technique, aggression, anticipation, concentration, decisions, positioning, teamwork and work rate. As you can see, some attributes are the same as the pressing training, which is good for us. The fewer attributes, the more likely were able to find a player to press and play possession. Now all we have to do is combine the two and we can create a template for the type of players we should bring to the club. Easy enough.

 

(I forgot to check concentration by mistake so imagine it's there)

This is the list of players that appear after searching. I limited the age to 30 and below because of our original philosophies of giving youth a chance. Although, I realize finding young experienced players that will help keep us in the Premier League is very slim. One problem here is most of these players are all central midfield players.
When we search for just the ‘transition- press’ attributes listed above, we find this:

A much more broad list of players and the good thing about pressing attributes is it shares some with possession. Meaning, all these players are not far off from the exact player we need. As long as I feel like the player would be comfortable with the ball, and capable of making a pass, we will look him at. Now we need to establish which players are realistic signings, financially and if they make sense, tactically. As I said in the opening post, we will rely on our data analysts' reports to determine who to sign.

… Eventually the reports came in and we find our first target. Woo- Yeong Jeong.

Our analysts are raving over this guy. He is a hardworking, aggressive winger with good off the ball movement. 14 for first touch, dribbling, technique and 15 for teamwork. He also only costs 3m and we require more quality on the wings. He is a talented player but unfortunately for us; we face a lot of competition signing him which isn’t what we want. Usually, when there is competition, the player's agent can drive up the wage and bonus demands. That’s bad news for us. It's unlikely we sign Jeong. 

We also found this player:

We currently lack quality at left back and this player at 21 y/o looks like he can be good. He’s also available for a mere 1.2 million. My analyst team gives him the green light and they believe he can improve a lot, so I make the bid. 

We also found Jacob Christensen, who was dominating the Danish league.

My analysts say he is very good at retaining the ball. He was also first in his league in assists, won possession 407 times, created 9 clear cut chances and already has 153 appearances for his club. Jacob fits the bill. He is on the pricier side at 6m, but if we sell one of our players, that will afford us Christensen with cash to spare. 

That's the gist of how I will continue to go about finding players in the transfer market this summer. You can see what players I am looking for and I'm going to maintain my discipline, so I don't sign players outside of the mold simply because my scouts give him an A+. It's simple, but so is this sport. Fingers crossed all goes well and we're able to sign the right players. 

Finding like-minded Staff:

We can assemble a great squad but all of that would be for nothing if we don’t have suitable staff to coach them. As I mentioned earlier, it is important that we find staff who have a similar preferred playing style. That way we stay consistent. We will be bringing a new assistant manager into the club. Arguably the most important staff role, the assistant manager, needs to be my twin and be as close to how I want to play as possible. As luck should have it, there is exactly someone who I think would thrive in this role.

Fresh off his sacking at United, Solskjaer has made the bizarre career choice to accept lower coaching roles. But honestly, he would be a very nice fit. His tactical style is vertical tiki-taka. His pressing style is ‘more often’ and his playing mentality is adventurous. He is also a model citizen. He would be a welcome addition to the club and a major upgrade on our previous assistant. 

We are stuck with some of the previous regimes' staff members, but most of their contracts should run out next season and we will replace them with better staff. 

Summer Summary:

It has been a pretty busy summer transfer window, a lot of players asking for new contracts, some bridges being burned, cursing at my screen because players are choosing to sign for other clubs, the usual. I have been taking my time with it because I want to limit the amount of mistakes I make when signing a player. Am I giving the agent too much money? Am I giving the player too much money? Will these bonus clauses effectively bankrupt the club if we overachieve? Will this player be the right fit, personality wise, at Barnsley? These are some questions I ask myself before I sign a player. I've been taking a few real world days to make some decisions on players which some might say is extreme, but I'm very invested in this save at this point and I want to take Barnsley all the way to the league title. 

The updates may not come as often as I'd like due to work and other responsibilities, but this is going to be a long term save with many updates in the future so stay tuned. Thanks for reading. 

P.S. I came across this video on youtube yesterday and thought you guys would find it interesting:

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by Pattric_b

[kiwityke1983]

I'm a massive Barnsley fan and won promotion via winning the league in the 2nd season on the Beta. Playing pretty much this.

It's much easier this year than ever before due to us having a decent season last year a lot of our current squad are relatively highly rated so you don't need to add a huge amount of quality to turn the squad into a genuine contender.

Oh and they sold the club as soon as we went up too on mine. Our owners really aren't popular IRL, so this would be genuinely welcomed.

But I enjoyed reading your journey for sure, interesting how you basically came to the same conclusions as myself.

Edited November 19, 2021 by kiwityke1983

[Pattric_b]

7 hours ago, kiwityke1983 said:

I'm a massive Barnsley fan and won promotion via winning the league in the 2nd season on the Beta. Playing pretty much this.

It's much easier this year than ever before due to us having a decent season last year a lot of our current squad are relatively highly rated so you don't need to add a huge amount of quality to turn the squad into a genuine contender.

Oh and they sold the club as soon as we went up too on mine. Our owners really aren't popular IRL, so this would be genuinely welcomed.

But I enjoyed reading your journey for sure, interesting how you basically came to the same conclusions as myself.

Thats great, how did you do in the premier league? You’re right their starting squad is decent they have some players I was never too familiar with but like a lot now. 

Interesting the supporters don’t like the ownership though, why is that? It seems very likely the club is going to be sold in my game as I keep getting messages about it. 

Good luck with Barnsley if you’re still playing that save! I’m becoming a supporter myself as every day passes. 

[kiwityke1983]

1 hour ago, Pattric_b said:

Thats great, how did you do in the premier league? You’re right their starting squad is decent they have some players I was never too familiar with but like a lot now. 

Interesting the supporters don’t like the ownership though, why is that? It seems very likely the club is going to be sold in my game as I keep getting messages about it. 

Good luck with Barnsley if you’re still playing that save! I’m becoming a supporter myself as every day passes. 

Don't do it its bad for your health.

Honestly mate I could write a 4k word thesis on why people hate the ownership. Some of it justified some of it not so justified.

But it basically boils down to them being untrustworthy liars, who are leveraging the clubs own money to buy it whilst running the stadium into the ground via neglect and not investing a single penny into the club.

Paul Conway isn't known as conjob for nothing.

I did really well in the transfer market and got Canwtell, Brooks and some German target man in and we finished comfortably midtable.

I then did another save on the Beta lower down the leagues to see how that was.

[Pattric_b]

12 minutes ago, kiwityke1983 said:

Don't do it its bad for your health.

Honestly mate I could write a 4k word thesis on why people hate the ownership. Some of it justified some of it not so justified.

But it basically boils down to them being untrustworthy liars, who are leveraging the clubs own money to buy it whilst running the stadium into the ground via neglect and not investing a single penny into the club.

Paul Conway isn't known as conjob for nothing.

I did really well in the transfer market and got Canwtell, Brooks and some German target man in and we finished comfortably midtable.

I then did another save on the Beta lower down the leagues to see how that was.

That was my initial concern, Im always skeptical about these consortiums that start buying multiple clubs. They aren’t there for the right reasons. I wonder if the ownership changes in game, are my ties to the other affiliated clubs severed? I would assume so. 

That’s great though, premier league life for me has been rough as my opening three fixtures are Chelsea, Arsenal and man utd… A mid table finish would be amazing!

[kiwityke1983]

30 minutes ago, Pattric_b said:

That was my initial concern, Im always skeptical about these consortiums that start buying multiple clubs. They aren’t there for the right reasons. I wonder if the ownership changes in game, are my ties to the other affiliated clubs severed? I would assume so. 

That’s great though, premier league life for me has been rough as my opening three fixtures are Chelsea, Arsenal and man utd… A mid table finish would be amazing!

Yeah I had a very kind start I don't think I played one of the big 6 until about 10 games in and lucked a 0-0 with Man City.

Also, yes the ties are severed when they leave.

IRL In the past few months they've said the following about our 3rd most successful league campaign in history...

"If you look at the table it was a very successful campaign but we didn't receive any offers for any of our players so actually it was a failure."

"Getting to the play-offs cost us 500,000 this is unacceptable"

Or words to those effects. I don't think many would miss them if they left IRL.

[Pattric_b]

4 hours ago, kiwityke1983 said:

Yeah I had a very kind start I don't think I played one of the big 6 until about 10 games in and lucked a 0-0 with Man City.

Also, yes the ties are severed when they leave.

IRL In the past few months they've said the following about our 3rd most successful league campaign in history...

"If you look at the table it was a very successful campaign but we didn't receive any offers for any of our players so actually it was a failure."

"Getting to the play-offs cost us 500,000 this is unacceptable"

Or words to those effects. I don't think many would miss them if they left IRL.

Spoken like business people, not soccer people. What a shame. Now I wouldn’t be opposed to them selling in my game after hearing that haha

[MattTrev97]

Hey, I was sent this by a friend and it was a great read - you've clearly done your research on the club and found good success. Even if the "Moneyball" trope and influence of Billy Beane is often over-stated (you're not the first nor will you be the last), it's fairly realistic replication of our recruitment philosophy. I'm actually one of your recruitment analysts so please keep me on in-game lmao

[Pattric_b]

7 hours ago, MattTrev97 said:

Hey, I was sent this by a friend and it was a great read - you've clearly done your research on the club and found good success. Even if the "Moneyball" trope and influence of Billy Beane is often over-stated (you're not the first nor will you be the last), it's fairly realistic replication of our recruitment philosophy. I'm actually one of your recruitment analysts so please keep me on in-game lmao

Hello! I never would have thought this thread would reach an actual staff member of Barnsley, that’s really cool! I honestly have a lot of questions considering you’re on the recruitment side of the club, but I’m not sure how much you are able to talk about. 

I became interested in moneyball when the movie came out and I agree, it is over stated, but when I saw he decided to bring his knowledge to England, I was immediately interested what he could do for a smaller team in soccer.

Obviously this season we’re struggling but I think last season and the signing of Dike in particular, is evidence the methods can be successful as long as the recruitment is spot on. 

I’ll be honest, your contract may have expired 🤭 but I’m going to bring you back ASAP. Thanks for commenting though I think it’s awesome this reached a member of Barnsleys staff. If you’re allowed to talk about recruitment methods or vague details that could potentially help me, I’d be all ears! 

[Pattric_b]

October Update:

Our first four games in the Premier League were Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Utd and then Liverpool. In that order. Needless to say, we had a rough start. It wasn't until we played Villa in october that we got our first league win and rose above relegation zone. Possession wise, we have done quite well and we are still moving the ball at a high rate. Pressing on the other hand, has been a complete failure and we are leaving our backline exposed. The match against villa was fortunate for us. They created very good chances but were unable to score while we scored our only goal on a near post header. Following this game, I considered changing our formation shape to give us a better chance of pressing our opponents backline. With only three attacking forward players, we are always going to be out numbered by the opponents back 4 and the 5 position. That led to this:

Since our 3 front players were having trouble creating chances for themselves and were not able to press efficiently, I added another body up top to try and give them an advantage. The team instructions say gegenpress but I changed some around as you can see. This was changed right before our match against West Ham. We were massive underdogs and they expected us to lose. 

 

 

In short, we dominated the game and won easily. The tactical change has so far, brought us success. Our next match is away to Leeds and that will most likely see us adapting our tactic so its better suited for away games. 

Our next order of business was to right a wrong. 

We were only allowed 3 recruitment analysts and already had 3 at the club. Following @MattTrev97 post on this thread, I made an effort to bring him back to the club. 

I will be keeping Matt at the club for as long as I play this save. So, Welcome back! Wouldn't it be weird if this was the wrong guy though? lol 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by Pattric_b

[MattTrev97]

hahaha thanks for re-signing me  no way they've taken my LinkedIn photo for the facepack, I need to update it. I'd be happy to answer any questions (feel free to message here or DM me on twitter @trevillion_), but I'm guessing you already know must of the stuff that I can reveal. 

Edited November 22, 2021 by MattTrev97
additional text

[Bitner]

42 minutos atrás, MattTrev97 disse:

hahaha thanks for re-signing me  no way they've taken my LinkedIn photo for the facepack, I need to update it. I'd be happy to answer any questions (feel free to message here or DM me on twitter @trevillion_), but I'm guessing you already know must of the stuff that I can reveal. 

May i say i just love the fact a real staff not only plays FM but browse the forums? hahah

Cheers,
Bitner 

[Pattric_b]

First season in the Premier League:

It was an eventful first season indeed. We were predicted to be relegated in pre season, but we managed to avoid that fate with games to spare. We had some good transfers, some not so good transfers, we made money by simply existing due to the tv revenue and pulled off a few upsets. All in all I think we would have done Barnsley proud.

I also recently had the pleasure of speaking with Matt Trevillion, a recruitment analyst at Barnsley. He agreed to answer some questions and is allowing me to post his responses in this thread. The Q&A will be at the end of this post.

Season Review:

In short, we overachieved. There were games we drew or lost that I felt disappointed with and I felt was unfair which tells me the standards are where they should be. Just because we're considered favorites for relegation doesn't mean we cant expect to win games and be disappointed when we lose. The tactic transformed a few times from what I posted in October. But the shape stayed the same. We always used a 4-2-4. 

We are always trying to press the opponent high up the pitch. The Gegenpress is the best playmaker you could ever ask for. So turning our mentality to attacking seemed a no brainer. Is it risky? Yes absolutely, but it pushes up higher up the pitch and if we win the ball we are in a far better position than we would be playing on balanced. 

Our shape continues to look aesthetically pleasing. We continue to lay the foundation for total football, and fully fluid soccer. We don't quite have the players to achieve those goals but we are on the way. 

Recruitment is a big part of what we are doing so let's look at our singings. 

The Brazilians played a huge role in our success. Savio came in January but he hit the ground running and provided much needed creativity and energy on the wings. Our most expensive signing, Amallah, was something of a disappointment. He was solid in defense and worked his butt off, but he struggled going forward. He seemed lethargic and slow to anticipate the situation. His attributes told me he would do well, but watching him in game, told me something different. This is always the issue with the moneyball strategy. When you rely solely on the numbers and statistics you can often times miss something. Without actually watching a player you wont get a complete idea of who he is, how he reacts in tough times. You can stare at data until your face turns blue and it won't change this fact. Data only tells half the story. 

That being said, we aren't going to be abandoning our data and recruitment philosophy because one player had a down year. We are simply going to be more thorough. Amallah was coming from Ligue 1 which is a reputable league, but for whatever reasons he struggled his first season. I expect him to improve next season but Im taking this as a warning shot. 

Bagan also proved to be quite the bargain. He was constantly involved in our build ups and was always involved in our goal scoring moves. He is far from world class and even missed out on a Euros call up for Ireland. But I appreciated his efforts.  

Preparing for the road ahead:

We are determined to win trophies. It will be a slow process because we are a small club. Our ultimate goal is to become a high performing club both on and off the pitch. We want to dominate the world. One of our main objectives is to develop and win with young players. We know how we want to play and we know the core attributes we want our players to have. Knowing that, it seems obvious that we develop the players coming through our own academy first and foremost. We've been lucky enough to have the owners improve our academy and we have had some interesting players come through our academy the last two seasons.

The best player to come from Barnsley since John Stones I'm sure. He's made 13 appearances in the first team already at the ripe age of 16. He has already been attracting interest from Juventus and Inter. 

We also had this lad come through this season. No idea where this German youngster came from, but he is attracting interest from the top clubs all over Europe and I hope to sign him to a future deal ASAP. 

Targets to take us to the next level:

We have made good use of the loan market. But I personally do not like the feeling of building a tactic with players that will be leaving the club at the end of the season. Our goal is to buy these players and sign them to long term deals. James Garner, who we signed on loan, is a great player who I will try to permanently sign. But he is attracting attention from many clubs following his great performances this season. We may again lose out to a player due to competition. 

We need to take our club to the next level and stop relying on loanees to help us to achieve our goals. This summer we need to make an effort in avoiding loanees and signing players on a permanent basis. 

Other targets and aims for the seasons ahead are related to something called defensive actions. 

As far as I know, defensive actions are tackles, tackle attempts, interceptions and fouls committed. As a high pressure team, we want to see our defensive actions high up the pitch. If you take this graph at face value, it says we have failed in our goal. This is something we need to address and figure out but we will get into this in more depth later on. 

Now onto the Q&A!

Talking to a Barnsley recruitment analyst.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Matt Trevillion, a recruitment analyst at Barsnley. He agreed to answer some questions and is allowing me to post his responses. So here they are:

“Hey Matt, 

Thanks again for reaching out, really cool being able to talk to someone from the club! So if you don’t mind I’d like to ask you a few questions to try and make my save as realistic as possible (even if it’s just a game lol). If there’s anything I ask you don’t feel like you can answer obviously that’s fine I’m not trying to get inside information I’m just very interested in what you guys are doing at Barnsley.

Q1 (Me). I know you guys like a high press, when you are watching a match and maybe you identify a player, do you have some sort of rating system that ranks a players work rate or stamina etc? 

A1 (Matt). There's no sort of ranking system in place. Physical data exists for some clubs, but it's super costly. We use StatsBomb data and they cover events like Pressures & Counter-Pressures that are very useful to us. However, like a lot of data, you need additional context to the situation. A player might rank poorly in pressures p90 simply because it's a tactical instruction, but they could be good as an individual. It's actually quite difficult to find an easy solution - just watching a lot of football and comparing with various data sources is the only way. Do they generally work hard out of possession, how quick do they react to triggers, how do they react when their team loses possession etc.

Q2. How involved is Billy Beane as far as recruitment goes? Does he have a strong understanding of the sport or does he mostly just look at the data? 

A2. He has nothing to do with the club as far as I'm aware. Just a small investment for him when the new ownership group took over. I wouldn't know, I'm assuming he would tho.

Q3. I wasn’t able to find much info about how you like to attack, so when trying to find an attacking player do you look for more possession style players or maybe fast counter players? What is the first things you look for?

A3. A lot of emphasis on verticality. Hitting the ball forward quickly. 3 different managers in 12 months means 3 different in possession styles which is quite annoying. Valerien was direct and gaining ground through counter-pressing. Schopp was on the floor but emphasis on quick combinations.

Q4. Who is one player that would be a dream signing if you could have him? Someone who is the perfect Barnsley player? 

A4. A player like Mane would be excellent.

Q5. What’s been going wrong so far this season? Barnsley seem to be underachieving at the moment. 

A5. A lot of turnover in key positions. CEO, Manager, Captain. And some other things I have opinions I shouldn't share 😂

Q6. How did you guys find Daryl Dike? You obviously thought he’d be able to adapt to the English game but was it his sheer physicality and mobility for a big guy that drew you to him? What a signing he was haha I’m trying to bring him back in my save because he’s unhappy but he’s expensive. 

A6. I actually joined a week after Dike. I think he just fit the style perfectly. Physical and willing to do the defensive work. Good in the air.

Q7. I know the data hub in fm is limited compared to real life but if you were trying to replicate real life Barnsley on the game what would be your go to data you look at in fm? Distance covered? Tackle win percentage? Interceptions? I’m more of an old school type of person who likes seeing players with my own eyes to make an assessment but I know there are a lot of flaws in that way of doing things. 

A7. I haven't been using the data hub much in FM - it's nice to play it differently and have a break 😂 The data in FM is still quite limited. Obviously the match engine has its flaws too so I'm unsure. Distance covered seems a good one though.

Q8. How many games on average do you watch a day? Is this your dream job? 

A8. I watch about 3/4 matches per day. And then lots of clips. Absolutely my dream job!

Q9. How limited are you as far as which matches you can watch? Do they limit which continents or countries they want you to watch?

A9. Im only limited by the Brexit/GBE rules. I’ve watched most top leagues, mainly stick to EFL, Irish Prem, Belgium, Portugal, France and Netherlands. Hope I covered everything

———

So, let's go in depth with some of the answers and things Matt mentioned.

1. I had never heard of pressure p90 before Matt mentioned it. I never even realized you could measure how much pressure a team applies per 90 minutes. This led me down a rabbit hole which consisted of complicated math equations and lots of scatter graphs. I will post reading material below for anyone interested but at its simplest, it measures a teams tackles, interceptions, tackle attempts and fouls committed per opponent pass. This is very tedious to translate into FM but it is possible, as long as you know how to translate this information onto scouting views and squad views you should be able to gauge how well your teams pressures their opponents. As a result of this new information I created a new view for myself. 

For whatever reason the tackles attempted isn't working, it may be a bug. But We can see the tackles won, fouls committed and interceptions. These are all important stats when considering how your team presses the opposition and how successful they are when doing so. I also included some attributes that I consider important for a hard working player. 

This is very simple, which is our theme, but it does the trick for a game like FM. When we recruit players in the future we will consider their defensive action statistics. Being that I wasn't totally happy with how we pressed our opposition this past season, these stats will be looked at heavily this summer. 

4. Matt calls Mane the dream signing for a high pressing system and that is obvious if you know Mane's skill set.

This is Mane at the start of the game. His aggression and stamina is lower than I thought it would be but this is the archetypical gegenpress player. Very well rounded with a positive personality. He works very hard and plays for his team. Who knows, maybe he might be the only over 30 player Barnsley sign at some point. 

This confirms something I have been assuming throughout the entirety of this save. Physical attributes are very important. I believe Mane is successful because of his dominant physical attributes. Similar to how Daryl Dike was an immediate success last season at Barnsley, it was his physical dominance that made that possible. I will be placing a greater importance on physical attributes going forward. 

I hope you enjoyed this update, stay tuned for the next one!

--------

Sources:

https://www.statsperform.com/resource/how-we-measure-pressure/

https://statsbomb.com/2014/07/defensive-metrics-measuring-the-intensity-of-a-high-press/

[Shirts]

Great posting! Cool to see a newly promoted side use a 4-2-4 and not get hammered. Solid first season that. Did you have to make changes away to the 'big' clubs?

Also, a lot of talk on these forums has been regarding a pressing bug / opposition defences with abnormally high pass completion... was this something you noticed, seen as though your emphasis is on pressing? Or did the team shape help with this regardless?

[Pattric_b]

9 hours ago, Shirts said:

Great posting! Cool to see a newly promoted side use a 4-2-4 and not get hammered. Solid first season that. Did you have to make changes away to the 'big' clubs?

Also, a lot of talk on these forums has been regarding a pressing bug / opposition defences with abnormally high pass completion... was this something you noticed, seen as though your emphasis is on pressing? Or did the team shape help with this regardless?

Thanks! We have had some stinkers (lost to brighton twice and conceded 9 goals in 2 matches) but overall we did really well and punched above our weight. Yeah I did make some changes when we played the big clubs (chelsea, city, united, spurs, liverpool and arsenal). The most common things I changed was how we played in possession and our playing mentality. I usually had us playing on control the majority of the season but against the big clubs I moved it to balanced and removed 'work ball into box' instruction. I knew they would attack us so I wanted to give my players the freedom to cross and hit long balls in an attempt to counter. 

I have noticed an issue with pressing, yes. It was made slightly better when I added player instructions on the front 4 to man mark. But I do find my players sitting off the backline and being lazy. In this game below we played Crystal palace and won 0-3. They had a 91% passing completion rate. We played with attacking mentality with our defensive line and line of engagement set as high as it can go. 

This is our defensive actions in that game. Tackles won, lost, interceptions, blocks and gained possession. Just looking at this info in isolation, I dont think there would be many people who would assume we are a high pressing team. 

Heres another example of our game vs. Watford. Very little defensive actions going on in our opponents half. We played this game the exact same as against Crystal Palace. Attacking mentality, front four and much higher defensive line and line of engagement. Watfords backline had an average pass completion rating of 96%. 

So no, I don't think the pressing is working perfectly. I know I don't have world class players, but you'd expect more tackle attempts in the opponents half at the very least based on how we are playing. We also have nearly full tactical familiarity. All I can do in continue to try and improve the squad and hope for the best.

[Pattric_b]

Cauley Woodrow:

It wasn’t long ago Cauley Woodrow found himself in the U21 England set up playing alongside the likes of Jack Grealish, James Ward-Prowse and Nathan Redmond. A highly rated youth player coming out of the Luton setup, he spent his younger years at Fulham, before finally getting a chance to fulfill his potential when he was purchased by Barnsley.

Woodrow has become a fan favorite and is considered Barnsley’s best player at the moment. I became reliant on his ability in my first season managing the club. Woodrow possesses more than enough talent to score goals and be very successful in the Championship. The Premier League is another story.

When we won promotion to the Premier League, I knew I needed to improve our strikers. I felt Woodrow, in his prime years, only needed the right strike partner in order to be successful. I was wrong. We brought in Luiz Henrique to play alongside him, and the Brazilian outshined Woodrow the entire season.

Turned out, the jump to the Premier League was tough for Woodrow. He failed to assert himself in matches consistently. I started him to score goals, and he failed to do that. Woodrow had become probably my favorite player at Barnsley during this time, so I didn’t want to accept he wasn’t good enough for the Premier League. So, I had to figure out what to do with him.

This is Woodrow, now 29, as well as he will probably ever be in my save. Nowhere near as talented as some of the star strikers in the league, but looking at his attributes, he is a decent player. Poor defensively, as you would expect most strikers to be, he makes up for it by having nothing less than a 12 in all of our core attributes. He is well rounded. A good team player. Instead of forcing the spotlight onto him, I’m going to let him play a supporting role.

Now, I had to find out how I would go about using him in a support role. One thing I kept thinking about was his player traits. He likes to come deep to get the ball. I thought it would work for him last season playing as a DLF but the more I thought about it; I realized he was being played too high up the pitch.

So rather than have him in the striker strata when I know he wants to drop deep, I thought why not move him to the 10 and by doing that I’m also balancing out the formation and potentially dragging the opponents defenders further forward, making space for my inside forward. Here is an example of Woodrow doing exactly that against Arsenal.

Ignore the player selection. Woodrow has been playing as our 10 for the majority of the season. 

You can see we highlight Woodrow and he’s taking up a much better position as opposed to last season. It’s awkward for Arsenal to mark him because they do not have a defensive midfielder and the center backs are zone marking. He stands on the shoulder of an Arsenal midfielder for a moment, then finds open space in between the midfield and back line. His player trait is on full display here as he drops into midfield to receive a pass from Helik and the move is immediately on. Credit also to Oduor, he found a large amount of space and played a perfect ball in to Maupay. 

Woodrow has been a revelation for us this season. He is a key player and a major reason we find ourself so far up the table in January. We just had a very important match against Man City who is in first place. And here are the goal highlights:

Maupay had to sit out this game because of fatigue. We played Woodrow at the 9 and he shined (the second goal stood). After this win in January, it brought us within 1 point of City with a game in hand. Yes, you are comprehending what I'm saying correctly. We are currently 1 point behind City in second place. 

An impressive 6 points ahead of Liverpool, we have been having a Leicester-type season. Honestly, even I didn't think this would work out as well as it has. 

As you can see, we have had some outstanding results, shutting out Liverpool at Anfield and City home and away. We also managed results against Arsenal, Spurs and our Achilles' heel, Brighton. My only concern at this point is the league. I want to finish top four and we have a tough schedule ahead of us. I have not decided yet whether I will try to strengthen the squad in January. In the past, we have had success recruiting in January, but our team is playing nicely right now. And part of me doesn't want to disrupt anything and potentially make players unhappy. 

Before I end this update, I wanted to talk about our tactic/philosophy a bit. There has been a lot of talk about Ralf Rangnick lately due to him becoming Man Utd interim manager. The way I have Barnsley playing is unintentionally very similar to his philosophy. It was only after watching Rashidis video on youtube about how he likes his teams to play did I realize how similar it is to Barnsley's philosophy. I found multiple parallels between Ralf and Barnsley. If you'd like evidence to back it up, look no further than the rumor that he is trying to bring Gerhard Struber to Man Utd to assist him in managing. Struber was the manager of Barnsley during the 2019/20 season before he left to manage NY Red Bulls. But before that, Struber also was coach and assistant at Red Bull Salzburg and developed his philosophy based on Rangnick's (who was RB Leipzig manager at the time). It's no wonder they hired such a person to manage Barnsley. They have essentially copied the Red Bull plan to have their teams press high and gegenpress. It's clear the Red Bull corporation value Struber as they brought him to NY after seeing the success he was having in England. 

When I finally realized the parallels between the Red Bull and the PMG clubs. I also realized which clubs I can look to recruit from. The philosophies are nearly identical. If Barnsley were a Premier League club today, hiring Ralf would be their top priority. This additional information gives me more to research and learn about the origins of Gegenpressing and I will attempt to apply what I read into FM. 

I hope you enjoyed this update. I also hope we can hold on and finish in the top 4. That would obviously be a tremendous achievement and grant us the opportunity to earn more money and recruit better players. Fingers crossed our next update is a happy one!

[JoOSTAR]

Some sick results right there, with a good philosophy!

Do you use any specific Player Instructions in your tactic?

[Pattric_b]

10 hours ago, JoOSTAR said:

Some sick results right there, with a good philosophy!

Do you use any specific Player Instructions in your tactic?

Thanks and yes, I have the front four and my wingbacks all marking tighter. I also have some personalized instructions for wingbacks and wingers who are poor crossers. I just have them cross less. 

[Shirts]

Another great update! What a season so far.

Would enjoy seeing this system take on the Champions League, as well as the extra layer of finances you will receive that will undoubtedly help with recruitment. 

I have just started a new save with Brentford who share 'some' similarities with the way you are recruiting here and style of play.

What is your approach to training?

 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Shirts

[Pattric_b]

4 hours ago, Shirts said:

Another great update! What a season so far.

Would enjoy seeing this system take on the Champions League, as well as the extra layer of finances you will receive that will undoubtedly help with recruitment. 

I have just started a new save with Brentford who share 'some' similarities with the way you are recruiting here and style of play.

What is your approach to training?

 

 

Thank you! We have done very well for a team with such a small pay roll so the method is working.

Brentford is what Barnsley is aspiring to be right now. Their owner has been very successful using data to recruit players and essentially paved the way for other clubs. Check out “The football code” if you haven’t already. It tells you the background of Matthew Benham and how he created new statistics for analyzing players. 

Right now I’m using @Rashidi training schedules as they’re the best ones I know of. He has videos explaining it. 

[HanziZoloman]

Hey! This is amazing stuff especially how fluid and courageous you are with experimenting and implementing all that stuff. It’s very hard for me and I’d like to know more about how you developed your idea of a tactic and how you experiment to reach such results. Just Name this Woodrow dude, excellent! I have a team full of woodrows some sticking with me since 3rd division (GER) and I’d like to play them really to their strengths in Bundesliga, it’s challenging.

how did you come to the point of playing him shadow striker? Brilliant!

Edited December 8, 2021 by HanziZoloman

[Pattric_b]

6 hours ago, HanziZoloman said:

Hey! This is amazing stuff especially how fluid and courageous you are with experimenting and implementing all that stuff. It’s very hard for me and I’d like to know more about how you developed your idea of a tactic and how you experiment to reach such results. Just Name this Woodrow dude, excellent! I have a team full of woodrows some sticking with me since 3rd division (GER) and I’d like to play them really to their strengths in Bundesliga, it’s challenging.

how did you come to the point of playing him shadow striker? Brilliant!

Thank you. I try to keep it simple and use as much common sense as possible. So for my tactic this season, I have been reading about gegen pressing. I already made the objective for my team to press very high up the pitch before I started managing Barnsley. That is the clubs philosophy. So I already had 1/3 of my tactic decided for me. I looked at the preset “out of possession” team instructions when using gegen pressing and copied it. 

Now for the rest of the tactic I had to decide how I want to play while in possession. You have to have a very clear vision of how you want your team to play. I first wanted us to play possession and move the ball around patiently while we wait for an opening. When we got promoted, we weren’t good enough to outsmart the opposition defense. So I opted to play slightly quicker and more direct. My style of play is very similar to Klopp and Rangnick at this point. 

Once you have a style of play in mind (my recommendation is to decide this before pre season starts), you need to recruit the players to fulfill your needs. Identify the main attributes for possession play if that’s your vision and stick to it. You may see a player who wows you but if he doesn’t fit the mold he’s no good to you. 

As far as Woodrow went I just wasn’t seeing him drop into midfield to link up well enough and he wasn’t scoring goals so I knew his role had to change. He already had some knowledge as a 10 so I decided to drop him down to attacking midfielder but set him as a shadow striker so he is close to midfield but remains a goal threat. Asymmetrical formations work VERY well in FM. Having a team of woodrows is good but if you don’t strengthen the squad properly you will never progress.

Any other questions I’ll be happy to answer!

[HanziZoloman]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb Pattric_b:

Any other questions I’ll be happy to answer!

I have some other questions for you but they are more related to my suffering in relegation battle. I had a style of play in mind preseason but I believe it was over ambitious. Now it’s winter we have some real trouble. Maybe you know that and could answer some questions:

First of all: Did you ever really struggle with your teams, staying in relegation spots for some months, losing game after game say after promotion? Because that’s the case with me. I could not anticipate the higher level of 1st division. How did you adapt to that with Barnsley, how was your thinking and mindset beforehand?

If you have some real issues if something is going very wrong how do you analyse this and how do you adapt when every step seems not working out well? How is your mindset when managing a team with serious issues?

Well that would help much! Apart from this I’ve found some wonderful help in this Barnsley thread for Squad building which is what I am trying to achieve. My most common mistake is, that I switch from one tactical idea to the next to often and to frequently. The parameters are changing constantly and that is not good, I am trying to find consistency.

Thanks 

[Shirts]

On 07/12/2021 at 15:37, Pattric_b said:

Thank you! We have done very well for a team with such a small pay roll so the method is working.

Brentford is what Barnsley is aspiring to be right now. Their owner has been very successful using data to recruit players and essentially paved the way for other clubs. Check out “The football code” if you haven’t already. It tells you the background of Matthew Benham and how he created new statistics for analyzing players. 

Right now I’m using @Rashidi training schedules as they’re the best ones I know of. He has videos explaining it. 

Just wrapped up season 1 and wow, what a season it was. 

Firstly, beyond the clubs and my own expectations we managed to finish 5th and qualify for the Europa League:

And this happened...

We had a relatively easy run to the final to be fair and scored with 2 of our 3 shots in the entire match at Wembley but I'm not complaining .

I haven't quite put as much emphasis and focus on data like you have (yet) but aim to work towards it this season coming.

I signed 3 players in the summer, maintaining the club philosophy of either former/current EFL players (Carvalho and Mavididi) and young Norweigans  (Christensen). : 

Christensen just picked up the player of the year award after impressing in the deep lying playmaker role infront of the back 4. 

Carvalho hasn't been able to get going yet but he's still young. While Mavididi got 12 goals and 9 assists, mainly as an inside forward on the left. 

Board have given a budget of near £60m for the new season but I've already done some good business signing this guy on a free:

While our playing styles are similar (high pressing) I have tried to employ a more possession based, narrow tactic. We ended up with an average of 53% over the year, 5th in the league, this is an area I'd like to improve on in the new season and get it up towards 60.

Thanks for the thread, definitely inspired me - keep up the posts

Edited December 9, 2021 by Shirts

[Pattric_b]

2 hours ago, HanziZoloman said:

I have some other questions for you but they are more related to my suffering in relegation battle. I had a style of play in mind preseason but I believe it was over ambitious. Now it’s winter we have some real trouble. Maybe you know that and could answer some questions:

First of all: Did you ever really struggle with your teams, staying in relegation spots for some months, losing game after game say after promotion? Because that’s the case with me. I could not anticipate the higher level of 1st division. How did you adapt to that with Barnsley, how was your thinking and mindset beforehand?

If you have some real issues if something is going very wrong how do you analyse this and how do you adapt when every step seems not working out well? How is your mindset when managing a team with serious issues?

Well that would help much! Apart from this I’ve found some wonderful help in this Barnsley thread for Squad building which is what I am trying to achieve. My most common mistake is, that I switch from one tactical idea to the next to often and to frequently. The parameters are changing constantly and that is not good, I am trying to find consistency.

Thanks 

In this years game I haven’t had to worry about relegation. I’m the past though I’ve been sacked multiple times because of poor results. If your squad is very poor and you are overwhelming favorites for relegation, it’s always going to be difficult to overachieve. With Barnsley I luckily had some money to spend and I used all of it to give us a chance to survive. If you have the same players that played in 3rd division and you haven’t strengthened the squad with bundesliga level players, it’s fine to accept you may be relegated. What was your transfer budget? And did you spend it? 

It’s hard to speak on your circumstance because I don’t know your team or tactics but the most important thing to do is try to create a balanced tactic and stick to it, chopping and changing isn’t going to help. To get an idea of what your team is capable of doing, create a new tactic and see what style of play your assistant thinks they're suited for. You could start with that and use the winter break to get your team familiar with it. Check out rashidis training schedules also, that could help. 

[HanziZoloman]

Thanks for your encouragement! I will continue reading this thread also, wonderful stuff here!

[Pattric_b]

51 minutes ago, Shirts said:

Just wrapped up season 1 and wow, what a season it was. 

Firstly, beyond the clubs and my own expectations we managed to finish 5th and qualify for the Europa League:

And this happened...

We had a relatively easy run to the final to be fair and scored with 2 of our 3 shots in the entire match at Wembley but I'm not complaining .

I haven't quite put as much emphasis and focus on data like you have (yet) but aim to work towards it this season coming.

I signed 3 players in the summer, maintaining the club philosophy of either former/current EFL players (Carvalho and Mavididi) and young Norweigans  (Christensen). : 

Christensen just picked up the player of the year award after impressing in the deep lying playmaker role infront of the back 4. 

Carvalho hasn't been able to get going yet but he's still young. While Mavididi got 12 goals and 9 assists, mainly as an inside forward on the left. 

Board have given a budget of near £60m for the new season but I've already done some good business signing this guy on a free:

While our playing styles are similar (high pressing) I have tried to employ a more possession based, narrow tactic. We ended up with an average of 53% over the year, 5th in the league, this is an area I'd like to improve on in the new season and get it up towards 60.

Thanks for the thread, definitely inspired me - keep up the posts

Very impressive for your first season in the prem! Even got some silverware out of it! 

Love the Christensen signing, I tried to bring him to Barnsley but couldn’t get a work permit sadly. Other guys you could look at are Neal Maupay and Jack Harrison, they are both very suited for pressing systems and have been having a great season for me. 

I really want to move back to possession, I loved how we played in the championship but it proved to much to in the prem. My goal is to get to a vertical tiki taka style in a 4-2-4. 

Good job though keep it up and let me know how the next season goes! 

[Pattric_b]

Winding Down the Season and the Epitome of Moneyball?:

We are continuing to defy the odds. I think we have been very fortunate as we have won quite a few games we lost on xG by a large margin.

As you can see, we should be in 7th based on our xG and xGA. Despite all that, we sit top of the table with only 3 matches remaining...

We have guaranteed champions league football. We have also had our fair share of struggles to score, as we aren't as creative as the top teams, but we have been very good and lucky, keeping the ball out of our own net. I won't lie. I am feeling very nervous even though there isn't any pressure on us. I expected us to finish just above relegation. At the moment, we control our own destiny. 5 point lead with 3 games left. If United drops any points, they are in trouble. The best part for us is the remaining schedule is very kind to us. We play Norwich (away), Derby (home) and Tottenham (home). I hope that by the time we play spurs, we will have already wrapped the league up. 

The Final Matches:

Match day 36 is finished, and we did not play well at all. I'm not sure if it's nerves or what, but we could have easily lost this match. 

United won their game 1-2 and they close the gap between us. The title race is heating up...

Match Day 37: 

United face a tough match against Liverpool. We, on the other hand, have an easy matchup against Derby who sits 19th on the table. We should win this match with ease. If United drop points and we win, the title belongs to us. 

As I expected, United did not drop points and beat their rivals in the early kickoff. A late goal, no less. They are putting the pressure on our inexperienced squad. Going into the match I do not want to do team meetings. I feel it may be unwantedly pressuring my players. So we are approaching this next match just like any other. This is the lineup: 

And here are the goals: 

We have kept up to United and won 2-0. Our center back Mads Anderson scoring an absolute screamer and Maupay nearly ruining a penalty kick. We now have a 3 point lead on United and one game left to play. If we draw Spurs, we will the title! Final day drama is on the cards, I know. United are playing 15th place Burnley. I expect them to win that match. 

The 15th minute of the match approaches and I notice Burnley has already scored! Only for Fernandes to score a penalty a few minutes later. We went into halftime 0-0 and Spurs have had the better chances. I feel like changes probably should be made, so I drop my defensive line and untick 'use offside trap' because Isak is running riot on our back line. We come out into the second half in a much better position. Isak is no longer beating our back line in a foot race to long balls. Then, in the 71st minute, a highlight appears:

We have hit Spurs on a quick counter and lead the match 1-0 thanks to Raschl's vision. Not long after do I see United have scored in the 88th minute and I assume the worst is about to come for us. 

We make it to the 91st minute before a highlight appears and we concede a penalty. Kane stepped up and scored. There was 5 minutes of extra time and I had a bad feeling it was going to be one of those games... However, no other highlights appeared for the match and we drew Spurs 1-1. Meaning we were champions!

The title came a lot earlier than I expected, and luck was on our side. Whatever we do in the future, this will go down as probably the greatest achievement in Barnsley history. I'm very proud the vision came together and we could achieve such success with the second smallest payroll in the league. In that sense, money ball has succeeded. We built a championship winning side with a small budget. My goal now is to continue moving forward and win the champions' league on a budget.

I wanted to do a quick update on how our season ended. I'm ecstatic. It will definitely be hard to repeat the title given how much luck we seemed to have. And we also have the champions league coming up, so that will be very exciting. I hope our reputation as a club improves a lot so we will have no limits on who we can sign!

My next post is going to go in on how we played this season. I am going to go through our data hub and try to assess how we performed. 

Thanks for reading. 

Edited December 10, 2021 by Pattric_b

[Lordluap]

Really excellent and inspiring read

[Shirts]

What a season! Champions. Look forward to see how you spend a larger budget and attack the Champs League.

[Pattric_b]

6 hours ago, Shirts said:

What a season! Champions. Look forward to see how you spend a larger budget and attack the Champs League.

 

9 hours ago, Lordluap said:

Really excellent and inspiring read

Thanks guys! We had a lot of luck go our way but i'm very surprised we were able to win it so quickly.  

[Pattric_b]

How to Build On Success And Improve A Title Winning Squad

We managed to beat United to the title, even though we had a far weaker and cheaper squad. We’ve effectively achieved what most Moneyball teams fail to do, win. Our vision was clear, we have to recruit with a small budget and use data to find undervalued players capable of playing our way. Our title win is evidence we did exactly that. Now, we must go through our squad and find the weakest positions and players. We have to always be improving because we are not nearly as strong as the rest of the league.

This is what we have to work with this summer. It is very likely we spend all of our budget again this summer. I have been thinking of hiring Rangnick as DOF but he is far too expensive and doesn’t want to join. I like the idea of hiring a knowledgeable DOF and giving them the freedom to find players he thinks would fit Rangnick would be the ideal candidate because I know exactly how he likes to play and it’s identical to our philosophy. More on this later.

We have managed to have a very good transfer window this past summer. Jack Harrison, Neal Maupay, Francis N’Gakosso (newgen), Nuno Tavares, Denso Kasius and Patrick Berg. All signed with the intention of starting and instantly improving the first team. Given our squad is far below the standards of teams like Man Utd and Liverpool, I am signing players with the intention of them immediately improving our first team, but also with the plan to improve on that player within 2 years. And continue to repeat this until we have a world class squad.

Winning titles is the name of the game but I want to also have a squad that could compete with the likes of O-zil to the Arsenal’s Benfica side. World class players from front to back.

Analyzing where to improve:

Now it is time for me to identify new player signings, who should leave, get a new contract, etc.

We have to make decisions on 8 players who’s contracts are expiring next summer. Cummings, Price and Murphy are all academy players who I like so they will be staying. Sibbick, Oulare and Amallah are three I have no intention of resigning so I transfer list them. Sibbick and Oulare are current Barnsley players in real life and unfortunately they have not been able to make the jump to the premier league. Amallah I signed my first year in the Premier League and he has been underwhelming. We have reached the end of his two year stint, so on he will go and I will improve upon his squad position.

Phillips and Woodrow are question marks at this moment. Woodrow is probably my favorite player but he has hit 30 years old and had a pretty poor second half of the season. He is also wanted by Norwich so if they come in with a reasonable bid I will accept it. Phillips also is a solid backup CB but he is constantly getting unhappy and wants to play more. He is wanted by Watford so if they make a good bid I will sell him on.

Contracts are sorted, so now we have to look at how well we fulfilled our club philosophies. Let’s look at our pressing data:

High Pressing/Defensive Actions:

At a quick glance you can see we concede far fewer than the average, intercept more than the average, attempt more tackles than average and foul well above average. Our tackles won ratio is worse than average though. Suggesting we may not have very good tacklers of the ball. But this information in isolation is nothing so we need to try and find out why we aren’t winning more tackles.

The forwards tackling ratios aren’t available in data hub so I had to make a custom view to see how they fared.

For whatever reason, the tackles attempted is not working…? Either way, we can see their winning percentage and how many tackles won per game.

Looking at this information it looks to me that we are average at winning tackles but we have a few stand out players who bring the average down. Joel Bagan, Alberto Moleiro and Neal Maupay have very poor win percentages. I expect it from my forward minded players and creatives but not my defenders. I appreciate Bagans efforts but he simply is not winning as many as he should. He’s actually the worst in the league at winning tackles. His place in the squad will be reassessed as a result.

Other than that, I’m happy with how my fullbacks are tackling. Nuno, Kasius and Brittain all rank highly. Looking at the numbers, it leads me to believe that my fullbacks and wide players see the most action in the game. So I don’t think it could hurt to continue to improve these positions with harder working players. These players don’t need to be the greatest tacklers in the world but they do have to work very hard and apply pressure in a fluid manner. I already have my eyes on one winger in particular. 

His development seemed to have stalled at Arsenal and wasn't getting game time, so we were able to sign him for cheap. He fits the mold perfectly, he works very hard and is a team player and has a lot of speed mixed with a fair amount of aggression. I expect him to fit in well. With the rise in our reputation, we have seen very talented players interested in joining. We also signed Menino from Palmeiras and he looks like a great player. 

It's important to spend the money we are given because our depth isn't ideal. Especially considering we're a Champions league team now. 

Future of Tactics

I have made the decision to go back to the traditional 4-2-4 shape and remove the 10 position from the tactic. I originally introduced the 10 to accommodate Woodrow into the team but after a poor second half from him, I don't feel I can trust him to be a starter anymore. The only issue with this is that we haven't signed a new striker. We have Maupay joining permanently from Brighton but other than that, it's Woodrow and N'Gakosso. I predict Martinelli will get a lot of games as striker as the season wears on. I may also revisit my original tactic from our season in the championship. 

Our play style is going to remain the same. The more I read and see written about Rangnick, the more I feel compelled to adapt his philosophies. The key for me is to try and create something original that is distinct to Barnsley. I don't want to be a carbon copy of another manager. 

Thats all for now. Thanks for reading. 

[HanziZoloman]

Wow great achievement @Pattric_b congratulations! The stats now look interesting especially what you identify with them.

keep up the good work!

[Guest]

Just wanted to say having finally got through the thread what a wonderful job you have done laying this all out and the Q and A with Matt, it's been a brilliant read.

[Pattric_b]

5 hours ago, HanziZoloman said:

Wow great achievement @Pattric_b congratulations! The stats now look interesting especially what you identify with them.

keep up the good work!

Thanks, also forgot to mention that after the patch, I noticed we press better but it seems like it drains more of the players stamina. So the need for quality depth is even more important now it seems. 

2 hours ago, Crazy_Ivan said:

Just wanted to say having finally got through the thread what a wonderful job you have done laying this all out and the Q and A with Matt, it's been a brilliant read.

Thank you Ivan 

[Shirts]

Love the two signings you made. Reckon Martinelli will fire for you! How much did you end up paying? 

I've had a busy summer wheeling and dealing. After the board gave us 58m to spend, I brought it another 50ish for players who had been sulking because of playing time or were upgradable. 

That allowed me to take my calibre of player to the next level:

The aim was to ensure all were under the age of 25 while scouting those with more technical attributes such as first touch, passing, vision, flair etc. as we look to enhance our passing game.

My favourite signing who I'm expecting big things from is Goncalves:

Though in my first few games I haven't quite figured out how to best use him.

A thicker squad will also be required for the greater demands European football will bring. 

As for the group, it's one which I'd hope we can progress through but won't be easy:

Good luck with the new season!

Edited December 11, 2021 by Shirts

[KingRoyston]

Best thread produced on this forum in the last few years - great job.  Really interesting to see how you use the data to make decisions for squad building. 

[Guest]

OP a great thread again btw, I enjoyed the tactical transformation and how you laid out the changes. Well done!!!

[nexting]

This is such a great thread. I'm doing something similar with Swindon 

[Wolf_pd]

If you are missing some posts. I have done some general housekeeping to keep the thread nice and tidy.

In the meantime, keep enjoying the game and posting threads like this 

[HanziZoloman]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb nexting:

This is such a great thread. I'm doing something similar with Swindon 

Brought Swindon up back in FM19 Same Squad from down to Championship. 
Had some nice lads, Jordan Turnbull, Luke Wolfensen and who is this Great Defender from their Squad .. ah namens … 

[Pattric_b]

6 hours ago, Shirts said:

Love the two signings you made. Reckon Martinelli will fire for you! How much did you end up paying? 

I've had a busy summer wheeling and dealing. After the board gave us 58m to spend, I brought it another 50ish for players who had been sulking because of playing time or were upgradable. 

That allowed me to take my calibre of player to the next level:

The aim was to ensure all were under the age of 25 while scouting those with more technical attributes such as first touch, passing, vision, flair etc. as we look to enhance our passing game.

My favourite signing who I'm expecting big things from is Goncalves:

Though in my first few games I haven't quite figured out how to best use him.

A thicker squad will also be required for the greater demands European football will bring. 

As for the group, it's one which I'd hope we can progress through but won't be easy:

Good luck with the new season!

Some good names you brought in. I looked into signing Goncalves also but he was too expensive for us, I see him as a second striker. 

We managed to grab Martinelli for only 15m. Judging by the pre season, I think he’s gonna have a very good year! I also begged the board to sign Zaniolo but he was too far outside our budget. Maybe next summer. 

Like you said, squad depth is a must now that you’re in Europe. The amount of games mixed with how we play, it’s going to be dangerous and potentially a lot of injuries. 

Good luck with your upcoming season!

5 hours ago, KingRoyston said:

Best thread produced on this forum in the last few years - great job.  Really interesting to see how you use the data to make decisions for squad building. 

Thanks man I appreciate it. The data hub is certainly limited compared to real life data, but it can tell you if your team is successful in producing your vision on the field or not. 

3 hours ago, Crazy_Ivan said:

OP a great thread again btw, I enjoyed the tactical transformation and how you laid out the changes. Well done!!!

 

2 hours ago, nexting said:

This is such a great thread. I'm doing something similar with Swindon 

Thanks again guys. I’d be very interested to see how you’re getting on with swindon and how you have them playing. 

[Pattric_b]

Building on Last Season and Keeping the Title:

The new season is here and has so far brought fresh faces, new challenges, a takeover approach and new tactical systems. From my first season, we have been building up to this, which I believe is going to be the start of an era of dominance for Barnsley. We won the title last season, but we were very fortunate to do so. This season we must build upon that unlikely success and cement our place as a top club in England and Europe.

With our title victory, we saw a boost in our club's reputation. This allowed us to sign better players. Now that we’re signing great players, I want to play even riskier. I want to look back on the first tactic I used when we were in the championship.

When I started the save, I didn’t intend to play with this formation. I wanted to play a 4-2-4 from the get go. I used my better judgement though and opted for a possession style high press tactic. It worked to perfection. 

Now we are in the premier league and possession isn’t something I’m concerned with. I can take that first formation and turn it into a much riskier and exciting 4-2-4 by moving one central defender into the striker strata. This enables us to press even higher up the pitch with our wingbacks starting further forward.

It also provides much more support for our wingers, who get overlapped by our wingbacks all the time, creating overloads and giving our opponents a very hard time. The tactic above is what I use when I'm at home or playing a weaker side away. There is still a gap in talent between us and the top teams, so when we're away from home, we have to make slight adjustments. 

Having our wingbacks higher up is too adventurous when we play against top teams. So this is my usual change to balance it out more in our favor. 

When we played United away, I used my initial tactic without making many changes. I put our loss down to the fact that United has an incredibly expensive and talented squad. So losing to them isn't out of the ordinary. Then, when we played Southampton away, I noticed our wingbacks were constantly out of position and Che Adams, of all people, was trashing my back line and giving them problems from the get go. That's when, at halftime, I dropped my wingbacks, and we salvaged something from the match. From that point on, I went into most away games with a flat back line. The results have been very positive, as you can see. We also won the Community Shield, which is nice. 

The biggest issue is now with the most recent update, I've noticed my players getting fatigued a lot quicker than earlier versions of the game. So having squad depth is paramount. Unfortunately, we don't have good enough squad depth to give our better players a rest. This is presenting an issue for us already in the early season. I will have to strengthen the squad in January even though I don't want to.

Obviously the results have been good, but we have had one player stand out above the rest and I'm very excited about his future at the club. 

I'm trying to contain my excitement about this guy because last season I did a whole write up about Woodrow finding his form. He then had a god awful second half of the season and couldn't find the back of the net to save his life. But N'Gakosso feels different to me. I think this kid has a lot of potential and will far exceed Woodrow's potential. I plan on detailing what I'm doing with our youth academy at a later time, but this is one example of a young player we signed for cheap that looked undervalued by the game. He's now 19 years old and has scored 14 goals in 9 appearances. That's world class level. None of our other youngsters have so far had an impact like him, but that's the point of having an academy. Continue to develop the players at a young age so they can make a seamless transition into the first team, like Francis has done. 

Trasnfers:

We had to make a few decisions on our current squad. Sometimes you have to sell players, even if you like them. I didn't enjoy selling Rashcl to RB Leipzig, but the bid was too good to turn down. Amallah was a simple decision, as I basically accepted the first bid that came in. 

Looking at our new signings, we signed Maupay permanently. Brought in Menino for a club record fee and signed Neco Williams for free. Not listed on here because I signed them before the restart day is Gabriel Martinelli and Felix Uduokhai. Originally, Neco was signed in for depth but he has been a phenom since he joined. He's averaging a 7.97 in the league with 7 assists in 6 appearances. Felix has also gotten off to a great start, considering he's in a new country. In a perfect world, the board would give me 150m to spend and I could sign enough quality players for depth. But even in a virtual world, Barnsley's world is far from perfect. 

New Look:

Before I end this update, I wanted to share our new look for the new season. 

I used an application called 'kitbasher' that will essentially create new kits for any team and give you a .png file to upload to the game. It floored me by how cool this was, so I thought I'd share my result for Barnsley's kits. 

They also give you 3D .png files so you can see the kits in the match engine. 

Just wanted to share because I figured a lot of you guys would be as interested in this as I am. It improves the immersion for me and keeps the look of the club fresh, which is nice. 

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

[Guest]

Great update and great recommendation re: Kits