[FM23] New to the National Pyramid? Me too! - Part 2 Shrewsbury Town FC

[keeper#1]

After getting promoted too fast with both Aue in Germany and Triestina in Italy.  I'm back for a third attempt in a familiar country but an unfamiliar place.

Taunton Town FC have been around since 1947 but for the first time in the club's history, they have reached the national levels of the English Football Pyramid and, as a result, this is their first appearance in the FM franchise without the need for an extended database or fast forwarding a year and waiting for them to appear as a promoted club.  

The club has modest goals.  Currently, Taunton views Yeovil Town as the club that Taunton wants to emulate and then become a club equal with Yeovil.  It makes perfect sense.  Yeovil is a club that makes perfect sense.  Yeovil is a step higher, Vanarama National League, than Taunton.  Taunton can build themselves as the Yeovil of the National League South and then compete alongside Yeovil in the Vanarama National League.

How big of a building job does Taunton have on their hands to become the Yeovil of the National League South?

The ground, in a word, is very small.  It has a real-world capacity of 2,500.  In the FM world, it has a capacity of 4,000 with a seated capacity of 400.  The grounds crew has either done great work or it's early in the season because the pitch looks to be in great shape.  Not sure we have a lot of room for expansion.

 

Well....the pitch looks like it wears out pretty quickly.  Hopefully, we don't need to re-lay the pitch every summer.  That's a big expense for a club this size.

And we need to better understand what the club considers to be stands because I'm not seeing much seated capacity here.

Next:  Manager Introduction

[keeper#1]

Manager Introduction

I'm going to make the manager after myself and thankfully zero photos of me from my US high school playing career exist and club football wasn't a thing when I played so no photos there.  So, I get to bore you with a text version of my career.  I took over the starting goalkeeper role, at my school, in 10th grade when the starting goalkeeper took a kick square in marbles and the swelling didn't go down for two months.  As an 11th and 12th grader, I was an all-conference and a honorable mention all-region (Philadelphia suburbs) goalkeeper with a goal against average of close to one goal per game.  I wasn't the tallest goalkeeper at 5'10" but I made up for my lack of size with excellent positioning and ability to read the play (which I now use to my advantage as a field hockey umpire).  Also had excellent reflexes.  However, this wasn't enough to lead the school to the conference championship as we crashed in the semifinals, both years, on penalty kicks.  I received a yellow card on one of the penalty kicks because all I had to do was take one step and catch the ball.  The referee awarded a retake.  I asked why.  His response was "if the goalkeeper catches the ball, then he must have moved early."  My response, "it's not my fault that he can't shoot."  That earned me the yellow card.  The shooter, then, proceeded to kick the ball about 15 feet over the crossbar.

I look to build my manager around these abilities.  I have no real-life coaching badges and never played past age 17 so my FM attributes will be, in a word, raw.

Doesn't get much more raw than that.  Excellent shot stopping and handling.  The weakest part of my game was distribution so it makes sense to make it my weakest part when it comes to coaching.

Next: Club Vision

 

[keeper#1]

Club Profile

75 years of existence and they don't have a lot to show for it:

1 Southern League Premier Division (2022)

1 FA Vase (2001)

6 Western League Champions (1969, 1990, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2001)

1 Somerset Senior Cup (1970)

The club facilities are in a severe state of disrepair.

The board don't have a lot overall club culture guidelines to follow just the basic lower league management guidelines of "stay within the wage budget" and "sign players U23 for the first team."  Easy enough, Mr. Sturmey.

Mr. Stumpey's 5-year plan is an ambitious one.  He expects us to go from the basement of the Vanarama League South to becoming a playoff contender is just five years.  Doable but we will need to make a lot of the right signings and play to the best of our abilities.

Almost half of the fans can be considered hardcore or core fans (48%).  We don't have a large season ticket base or social media following.  Good.  Plenty of room to grow these.

Their goals are very limited.

As expected, FM has Taunton partnership with Yeovil Town.  No loan agreement just a friendly that we host every year.

Next:  The players and staff

Edited December 20, 2022 by keeper#1

[Emerion]

Have followed your careers on here back to Middlesborough and have always enjoyed, looking forward to reading this one too, especially as a fellow Philadelphia (suburbs) native! Excited to follow this!

[keeper#1]

8 hours ago, Emerion said:

Have followed your careers on here back to Middlesborough and have always enjoyed, looking forward to reading this one too, especially as a fellow Philadelphia (suburbs) native! Excited to follow this!

Thank you for reading.  Where in the Philly suburbs do you live/lived?  I grew up in Wayne.  Now, I'm stuck in Albany, NY.

[willemvandoorn15]

Good luck i hope you do well.

[Emerion]

2 hours ago, keeper#1 said:

Thank you for reading.  Where in the Philly suburbs do you live/lived?  I grew up in Wayne.  Now, I'm stuck in Albany, NY.

I grew up a bit farther east than that over in Montgomery County.

[Jogo Bonito]

Until I left UK last December, I lived and worked in Taunton for 6.5 years and went to a few games so interested to follow this!

We did indeed say Up The Peacocks in office banter style quite often!

[keeper#1]

Locker Room and Staff Room

Finally, I walked out of the chairman's office and started to explore the roster and what club staff will be working with me.  Since it was not a training day, I could not meet the players since they were all at their full-time jobs.  The previous manager left a roster with the assistant manager's view of the players for me on the desk.

The team is very solid in the back.  The goalkeeper, Jack Bycroft, is here on a season-long loan from Southampton and looks to be one of the best players on the team.  The defense has some decent players especially 21-year old Jay Foulston.  But there is a glaring weakness in the back line....there is nobody who can play the right fullback position.  None of the right wing players have the defensive ability to be retrained in the right fullback position.  I'm going to need to bring in a player to play that position as I'm not comfortable using a three center-back formation.  The midfield is the strength of the squad.  We have a great midfield pairing with the veteran pair of Lloyd James and Lee Lucas.  On the right side, 21-year old Zac Smith is the starter and Ross Steam will man the left side.  Center forward is a tad weak with no standout starter.

I met with my small coaching staff which consists of just myself, my Ass Man Matt Villis, C. Sidley-Adams the goalkeeping coach and all-around coach Michael Meaker.  All are decent enough to see out their contracts until I can find someone better.  Tech wiz-kid Dave Cohen is the one-man analysis department.  I asked if I could meet with the Head of Youth Development and was told that the club does not have one.

I walked down to the scouting department only to find a bunch of empty chairs and a bunch of old Apple 2c computers that look like they haven't been turned on in years.

The medical department is a little better because it has a staff.  A very small staff just a team doctor and a physio but strangely no Head Physio.  For now, the physio already on staff is the defacto head physio.

This is the game world that I will be playing in.  Heavily biased to the British Isles and Ireland.  I've got the other big 5 nations along with Belgium and Holland (proximity to England) running as well for European balance.  Unseen, players from top clubs in Europe, South America and Africa have been loaded as well.  All the players in the USA, since I'm an American manager, have been loaded into the game as well.  This gives me a game world of around 94k.

Ryan Millington is listed as a center-back but he is a center-back who is a more natural right-back.  He puts us over our wage budget but it's a necessary evil because I need a right-back on the roster. 

[keeper#1]

3 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Until I left UK last December, I lived and worked in Taunton for 6.5 years and went to a few games so interested to follow this!

We did indeed say Up The Peacocks in office banter style quite often!

Living in the US, I had no idea this club existed until I did some research on FM23 Save Ideas and Taunton popped up. 

Only one US university, St. Peters (just outside New York City) has Peacocks as their mascot/nickname.  The university made a lot of noise in March as their basketball team made it to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Basketball tournament.  St. Peters is a really small university and plays in a conference that usually gets eliminated in the first round (Round of 64) of the tournament.

[Jogo Bonito]

I'm not sure how many people in Taunton know the club exists either

You'll be able to compete well at this level, and as and when recruits are possible there are a few South West teams like Torquay, Yeovil, Exeter, Plymouth and the Bristol sides to steal from, plus released youngsters from the likes of Bournemouth and Southampton.

Good luck in the land of Cider!

[keeper#1]

First Friendly, Tactics and New Hires

Since this is Taunton's first season in the Vanarama National South League, we are going with a defense-first formation and catch the opposition on the counter.  We open the friendly season hosting Torquay, who play in the Vanarama National League, a league above us.  A perfect chance to test out the formation and the tactics.

We are going with a 4-1-4-1 formation.  Notice there are no team or individual instructions.  I want to keep things as simple as possible.  Why?  We will only have training twice, maybe, three times per week.  I want to work on big general concepts: maintaining our defensive shape and attacking as a team on the counter.  Keep It Simple Stupid.  I don't want to overload the players with lots of instructions that they will likely forgot five minutes into the match.  Nobody with an attacking role.  Even the pressing forward has a defensive mindset.  Clog the midfield with bodies.  Win the ball and push forward as a team.  How did it go?

Torquay scored both their goals on corner kicks.  They were not able to break down our defense in open play so that's a plus.  Giving up two goals on set pieces in a negative.  In the second half, we were able to spring the counter twice to tie the game.  Even when focusing on the counter, we out-possessioned Torquay 55-45.  That's good because we weren't just hunkered down in our own half absorbing pressure.  On the downside, we gave up a lot of shots but it was a lot of low-quality shots (0.085 xGA/shot).  We had higher quality shots (0.101 xG/shot) even though we had fewer shots.

After a couple of weeks, the CVs rolled in for the scouting and Head of Youth Development roles.

We offered positions to the names in orange.  Bryant and Haley accepted positions.  Haley is our new Chief Scout with Bryant working under him as a scout.  I'm waiting to hear back from Russell and Black about the Head of Youth Development position.

[keeper#1]

August-September 2022

The full-on counter attacking strategy worked well for the first two matches gave hope that this system could work as our go-to tactic for the season.  The next four matches showed us that might not be the case.  The goals completely dried up...one goal in four matches and zero goals from open play.  The defense did the best that they could since we only allowed five goals in those matches.  It's hard to win when you don't score.  You can draw but it's a tough ask on a nightly basis.

September started out with more of the same.  Defense under constant pressure.  Goalkeeper not in top form.  To play this counter attacking style, I need everyone on the defense to be in top form.  Right now, we aren't in top form.  I need to score some goals and take the pressure off the defense.  I made a switch to a more progressive tactic and get the ball away from our goal.  If we hold a lead, I'll switch back to the counter attack tactic late in the game to hold the lead.  We debuted this formation in the FA Cup where we could use the matches as match practice with the tactic when we come back to league play.  It took all 210 minutes to knock Plymouth Parkway out of the FA Cup but those 210 minutes were beneficial as we got six badly needed points against mid-table sides Chelmsford City and Bath City.  

Those six points pulled us out of the relegation zone and into 18th place.  I'm heartened by our defense which has allowed only 12 goals in the 11 matches but on the flip side, we've only scored 11 goals in 11 matches with five of those 11 goals coming in the last two matches.  Six goals in nine matches is not a good recipe for success which is why we switched up the formation.

With a lot of matches, we've been able to get a lot of players a decent amount of minutes through squad rotation.

Head of Youth Development

Jamie Russell will be our Head of Youth Development until we find somebody better as we move up the league ladder.

[willemvandoorn15]

I hope it goes better, at least youre not in relegation places, im sure you can climb your way out.

[keeper#1]

November-December 2022

First full month using the more progressive 4-3-3 formation and we only dropped one match.  Nine points from a possible 12.  Won every match where we scored.  Advanced in the FA Trophy to put a little money in the bank account and keep us in the black.  Two shutouts.  Great month.

Another great month with the 4-3-3 formation.  Four straight clean sheets after some defensive hiccups in the first two matches in December.  Braintree was a back and forth match.  Braintree took an early 1-0 lead.  We took a 3-1 lead into halftime.  Braintree scores three straight to take a 4-3 into the last ten minutes of the match.  We score in the 80th minute to tie and in stoppage time to win 5-4.  That magic didn't transfer into the Hampton & Richmond match.  12 points from a possible 15.  Another win in the cup.  Staying in the black.

We've moved into the playoff places after taking 21 points in the last two months.  Far away from the relegation zones.  Battling for a playoff place.  Everything has been going great over these last two months.

This is what have been using to attack the opposition over the last two months.  Almost everybody on a support duty.  A pressing forward to harass the crap out of the opposing back line.  Two inverted wingbacks to give us a line of three with the defensive midfielder when we have possession which makes it really hard for the opposition to get past us when they gain possession.  They can try to either pass through us or pass over us which is also hard since our defensive line drops off when out of possession.

Player of the First Half is 34-year old midfielder Lloyd James: 11 goals and 3 assists

Defensive Player of the First Half is loanee Jack Bycroft: 1.04 goals allowed per game and 73.1% save percentage

Loving the potential look of this youth intake.  So many A ratings. 

[keeper#1]

January-March 2023 Update

January was a decent month for us.  Three wins and draw from the five league matches.  We took a big loss in the FA Trophy when Scarborough Athletic pants us 4-1.  We struggled offensively scoring only five goals in the overall six matches.  On the bright side, the defense was solid allowing the same five goals in the six matches.  Four of the six matches were shutouts.  We rode our defense to obtain success this month.

February was a tough month.  The offense completely dried up.  This put pressure on our defense.  They held firm until we played Dover.  They completely overran us.  Out of possible 15 points, we only claimed six.  We started to slide down the table and out of the playoff places.  Our first bout of difficulty since we switched to the 4-3-3 progressive passing formation.

We suffered another loss to Tonbrigde Angels.  Then, our defense came back to life.  Three straight shutouts leading to three straight 1-0 wins.  Lloyd James was on fire scoring five goals in the four matches.  Four straight victories shot us back up the table and firmly back into the playoff places.  No relegation for us this season.  Great month.  

With just six matches remaining, we are four points behind first place Oxford City and seven points clear of Hungerford Town to fall out of the playoffs.  We are definitely going to be in the playoffs barring a complete collapse in the last matches of the season.

Lloyd James is making a push for league player of the year.  17 goals from the midfield along with five assists.  Jared Lewington is doing his best to keep up with 12 goals but after those two, the goal scoring drops off quickly.  Ollie Chamberlain is our main set-up man with 11 assists.  A small roster but we are fit and always ready to play.

[keeper#1]

2023 Youth Intake

A very good class.  Three elite talents and four more top talents.  The intake has a lot of depth seven good talents who, given the right situation, can provide us with low cost reserve players.  

The only thing that could have been better is the personalities but since we get the leftovers from all the other clubs, it's not terrible.

Steven Rhodes 23A, once he overcomes his determination issues, can become a very good player for us.  Can play all across the backline.  He's not the best header of the ball so center back is not a good idea.  More suited to play on the wings.  A tall full-back is something that would hard for opposing wingers to deal with.

Tom Arends 23B is a natural central midfielder that I'm training to be a defensive midfielder because of the "comes deep to get ball" trait.  I want my two central midfielders to push up into the attack.  The defensive midfielder is the link between the defense and the midfielder, it makes sense to have him play closer to the defensive line and have him pass the ball up to the midfielder.  Not very strong.  Kid needs to spend some time in the weight room.

Chris Moore 23C is a good defense-first left back who is an excellent marker of the opposition.  Smaller than Rhodes on the right.  Moore presents a different problem for the opposition.  Knows where he needs to be before he needs to be there and is willing to stick his nose in the fight.  A solid option at the back.

Fabio Santana 23D is a tall center back who is better suited to be a defensive midfielder.  Not very good in the air but his teamwork and work rate are off the charts.  He will run for days and can handle the rigors of the 46-match Vanarama National South schedule.  A nice addition to the club.

Gabby Lukins 23E is a painfully slow left back who could slide inside if we need him to.  Strong in the air.  One of those potential multi-position depth players that the roster will need going forward.

[keeper#1]

2022-23 End of Season Update

A tough month as we are definitely starting to feel the lack of depth at the club.  Our guys are just getting tired and we are having a hard time finishing off matches.  The offense is still there but the defense is just falling short at time.  The Chelmsford City match was a mess.  Our starting goalie, Jake Bycroft, got a red card for handling the ball outside of the box.  We battled to tie the game 2-2 but the defense just could keep the Chelmsford offense at bay and we enter the playoffs on a down note.

We entered the first round of the playoffs with a home match against St. Albans City.  We opened the scoring late in the second half but the defense could not keep the St. Albans attack at bay and we had to go to extra time and then penalties.  Backup goalkeeper Lloyd Irish stepped in the shootout stopping three St. Albans shots to allow us to advance to the semifinals.  In the semis, we jumped out to an early 1-0 lead and then proceeded to **** it all away after that.  We crash out in the semis, 3-1, to Ebbsfleet United.

A 5th place finish is above our projected 9th finish from the beginning of the season.  We were not that far off the champions 84 points.  We can definitely push for the playoffs once again.  I just need to find the right depth signings to keep our squad fresh throughout the season so we aren't gassed come playoff time.

Oxford City brought the offense in the playoff.  A 4-0 win over Bath City and a 4-2 extra time win over Ebbsfleet United see them join Havant & Waterlooville as the clubs promoted to the National League.  Dropping down from the National League will be Boreham Wood, Dorking Wanderers and Wealdstone.  Coming up from the regional premier leagues will be Billericay Town, Chesham United and Hayes & Yeading.

Old man Lloyd James led the team with 21 goals.  Jared Lewington was second with 14 goals but nobody else had more than seven.  Definitely something to look into during the summer signing window.  The wingers Ollie Chamberlain and Ross Stearn led the team in assists with 11 and eight respectively.

A little dip in the core supporter group which was picked up the family group of supporters.

Given about 1k more per week to spend in the wage budget but I'll looking to keep the wage budget around the 4.5k/week that I spent this past season.

[keeper#1]

Summer 2023 Update

The summer started with the release of eight players.  The biggest name on this list is center forward Jared Lewington who was second on the team with 14 goals last season.  Ollie Chamberlain, our starting right winger and leading assist man, was also released.  The other names on the list were reserve depth players who did not do much when they saw the field last season.

Coming into the club are six new players.  We started to fill the holes at the center forward and right wing positions which the acquisition of center forward Martell Taylor-Crossdale and right winger Adam Wilson.  We added some midfield depth with Adam Wilson and completely overhauled the goalkeeper position by bringing in Beau Hudd, backup, and Harry Allen, starter.

We added three more players in late June/early July.  The left back position got two new signings in Morgan Dance and Joshua Lett.  Harvey Woods is a forward who will push Taylor-Crossdale for the starter job.

All of these moves leave almost in the same position that we were last season.  Last season, we were picked to finish 9th.  This season, we slide up two spots into a predicted 7th place finish.

I scheduled a bunch of friendlies against U21 squads to raise some revenue, scouting and competitive matches.  Frome Town was scheduled to be a confidence-building friendly headed into the league schedule.  The preseason did it's job.  We've gone unbeaten in first five league matches.  Adam Coomer has been a highlight in the midfield with three goals.

Our 3-2-0 record is good enough for 5th place and in the thick of the title hunt.  

[keeper#1]

September-October 2023 Update

September was a fantastic month for Taunton.  We played with attacking freedom scoring multiple goals in every match.  We were not depending on any one player for goals.  Lloyd James had four.  Adam Coomer added two.  Adam Wilson chipped in two.  Martell Taylor-Crossdale scored five times including a hat trick.  Just lots of attacking options.  It was a joy to watch.  The defense was just as solid allowing only four goals in five league matches.  My goal is always to keep the goals against below 1.00/game and we are doing that.  The Metropolitan Police were no match for us in the FA Cup as our reserves ran them off the pitch.

Another solid month even though with the scheduling quirk which saw us play Hemel Hempstead three times in eight days.  Two of those matches were in the FA Cup where we forced a replay after they got the first goal.  A Morgan Dance penalty kick was all we needed in the replay to advance to FA Cup proper where we will make a five-hour drive to Rochdale.  After the FA Cup ordeal, we jumped back and picked up our league form where we left off.  In September and October, we played eight league matches and went 7-1-0.  This team has a chance to win the whole thing if we can keep this level of form going.

We are in the pole position on November 1.  We've got a little separation between ourselves and Dulwich Halmet in second place. It will take a really extended poor run of form for us to fall out of the playoff places and a relegation is already completely out of the question.

Everybody has been getting playing time and they have playing well.  Almost everybody has an average rating over seven.  Martell Taylor-Crossdale has led the way with 10 goals.  36-year old Lloyd James has been in top form with five goals and chipping in six assists.  Right back Jamal Sule has led the team in minutes played. 

[keeper#1]

November-December 2023 Update

A busy month which led to our first loss, int he FA Cup to Rochdale, and a lot of ties as we rotated the lineup bunch to accommodate the two games per week schedule.  We still sit in first place but we lost a lot of our cushion that we had built up in the early days of the season.

Just a terrible month.  We were dealing with an injury crisis at the center back position which caused us to move some of full backs inside and play rotation options in the wide positions.  It did not go well.  Couldn't defend and when we could defend, we couldn't score.  Just a brutal month to watch.  Nothing worked.  All that hard work which we put in at the beginning of the season has been wasted and we need to fight to regain it.

We've fallen to 5th place and now sit five points behind Hampton & Richmond for the league lead.  We are closer to falling out of the playoffs than we are to first place.  Very disappointed with the last two months.

It looks like we have a decent intake coming through in the spring but, like last year's intake, it's very defense focused.

[keeper#1]

January-March 2024 Update

January and February were tough months especially February where we only got one win.  The lack of goals was getting tough to deal with and we were not getting results so I switched things up to a 4-2-3-1 formation which had limited success.  We only got one win in three and that was only match where we scored.  So at the beginning of March, I switched back to the 4-3-3 formation that we had played the majority of the season with.  Then, the results started to flow again.  We had an undefeated month -- something that we had not seen since autumn.  I started to feel better about the squad.  Hopefully, this season, we will move into the playoffs with some momentum.  We need an April like our March.

Solidly sitting in 5th place just like last season.  With seven matches to go, first place and the automatic promotion seems a bit out of reach.  What we can do is push Dorking and Boreham Wood for 4th and 3rd place.  4th place would give us an opening round match against the 7th place.  3rd place would give us a bye into the semifinals and some much needed rest.  I'd prefer the rest over the home match and the portion of the gate that goes to the road club in the semifinals.

The struggle to score goals has been in a direct correlation to the decline in Lloyd James game.  The 36-year old is struggling to keep up with the pace of the game.  Opponents are targeting him in their game plan.  As soon as he gets the ball, the opposition swarms him, the ball is turned over, and our attack turns into an opposition counter-attack.  Without James in the lineup, our offense has stagnated and we don't have a consistent third scorer to pick up the slack if Taylor-Crossdale is not scoring.  We are still a solid squad but just a little less solid than we were at the beginning of the season.

[keeper#1]

2024 Youth Intake

Our intake got downgraded from average to below average between December and April.  Only three top talents and a bunch of depth "good talents."  Not a great class and no one worth of an individual breakdown.

The intake gets even worst when we look at the players a little more closely especially at their personalities.  Not a great group from a personality aspect.  Three "unambitious" players in the top seven.  Only one really positive personality and that's James Watts 24A.  Just not a great group.

[keeper#1]

April & May 2024 Update

We opened the month with a tough loss to league leader Dulwich Halmet but found a way to bounce back against Bath City.  The big breakthrough came against Chelmsford.  The offense really clicked and we rolled that momentum into the Farnborough match.

The first match against Dorking was battle to see who finished in 3rd place and received a bye into the semifinals and who finished 4th and had to go through the opening round match.  We squeezed out a 1-0 win which earned us the home field advantage for the semifinal.  Another match against Dorking and we went to penalties before coming out on top.  On to the final!  A pair of quick fire goals midway through the second half was enough that we needed to defeat Hampton & Richmond and we earn promotion to the Vanarama National League!

Dulwich Hamlet earn automatic promotion as league champions.  Hayes & Yeading, Worthing, Hungerford Town, and Farnborough all go back to the regional premier leagues.

My efforts have rewarded with the Manager of the Season award.

We had a lot players see significant minutes this season.

Offensive Player of the Year: Martell Taylor-Crossdale (22 goals, 3 assists, 7.09 average rating)

Defensive Player of the Year: Jay Foulston (86% tackles won, 80% headers won, 5.97 interceptions/90)

100 seats and 16k bank loan (uhhh....thanks?)

Another 1% swap between our core and family supporter groups.

The board has increased my wage budget by 2k to 7.5k/wage

However, that will be the next manager's job as I am off looking for greener pastures.  A number of League One and League Two clubs brought me in for interviews toward the end of the season.  But there was enough varied interest for me to go out on my own and see if a bigger club would be willing to take a gamble on a manager getting his UEFA B Coaching badge and just one promotion to his name.

[keeper#1]

Fresh Start - Welcome to Professional Football

We make the drive up the M5 to Birmingham before hanging a left onto the M54 to arrive at Shrewsbury.  The club finished 21st in League One which relegated them down to League Two where I will be tasked to bring the club right back up.

The goalkeeper position is both thin and poor so this will be an offseason priority.  We need a capable body in net.

Right back is a position of strength.  We've got a good attacking option with Ashby and a more defensive option in Boateng.

Three good choices at center back and a young option in Jay Williams.

Left back is another position of need.  No viable options in the squad planner and the youth academy is pretty thin as well.

Tom Bayliss is the best player on the roster and he is likely on the move because a) we need the money and b) he wants to play at a higher level than even League One.  After that, it's another thin group.

However, attacking midfield is in a strong position.  A good veteran option backed up but a couple of young and hungry players.

Right forward is a position of need but not a high priority.  A couple of decent but unspectacular options at the position.

Same goes for the left forward position.  Combined, the wing forward position is a place where we need depth not top end talent.

Center forward could be a position of strength provided Daniel Udoh is willing to come back from loan and play in League Two.

The toughest thing about this roster is we have a number of players who want to go elsewhere.  Thankfully, they are willing to give me a little bit of time to see if some club truly wants them and if not, if they would be more open to staying at Shrewsbury.