[FM23] Wonderkid Wolves

[xray1324]

Current Honours
4th Place Finish in First Season
Carabao Cup Final in Second Season, second Final (both lost) in Fourth Season.

5th Place Finish in Third Season and Fourth Season

Rules
I have to sign only players either 25 or under.
English players and Portuguese players are the main targets for signings.
Youth has to be given a chance, and in cups especially we must use a rotated side with a focus on youth prospects that look ready for the occasional chance in the first team.

Milestones
Win the title once.
Win a domestic cup once. (FA Cup, Carabao Cup etc.)
Win the Champion's League once.
Get into the top 6 at the end of the season once. (Done in first season)
Get into the top 4 at the end of the season once. (Done in first season)
Concede the least goals in a season. In the Data Hub, we should be a team that other teams have to work to break down. (Got the 2nd least goals in the league in the third season, so nearly did it.)
Win the title three times on a trot.

Last Year's Wolves Save

 

Manager

My manager this year will be an untried Portugal Manager who took over the role of manager on the 27th of June 2022. He came into the role at the age of 46 years old, he has a 2 star reputation,  he is on 49k p/w, and the tactic I will be using initially at-least will be a 4-2-3-1, with 2 DMs.

 

Tactic

This is our starting tactic, but will be something I want to improve. Eventually I do want to switch into using CWBs. This isn't our set in first 11, that will be decided later on.

Edited May 19, 2023 by xray1324

[xray1324]

Something I thought was pretty interesting.

[xray1324]

July 2022 Results (Friendlies)

So, we did decently in the pre-season. Mostly tried to give rotation around and try as many players as possible, and tried to net in Joao Gomes as a potential RB for our future. Offensively we were great, scoring many goals with many different people scoring, but defensively we seem to be a little fragile against lesser opposition, which is weird. Hopefully this isn't also the case when the season goes on.

[xray1324]

August 2022 Results

Mendes starts the season off with Wolves finishing 8th so far in the league with 2 wins, a draw and 2 losses. Man City is expectedly at the top, surprisingly enough Arsenal is struggling, same with Newcastle. The top 4 opens with Man City, Brighton, Man Utd and Liverpool. Brentford and Leicester are the other two teams, and Crystal Palace are just above us. 

 

Transfer Window Closes

So we've got some big exists apparently coming up, and there are a few players that we're rumoured to sign. I'm actually considering Maddison as our starting AMC and at 25 he fits the bill to someone we can sign, and he's English. Alex Scott is also someone we could sign if we get money in, but we're not going to sign Jose Fonte as he is quite a bit over the 25 year old age max we're allowed to sign. I'll update you in a bit probably.

[xray1324]

Oh, and I just want to say we moved to a new tactic after the first 3 results to try to get some results in and it appeared to work!

[xray1324]

Transfer Deadline Day Update

In essence we were unable to go for either of the rumoured players that I wanted. No one came in wanting to buy, so in the end I had to go for Cole Palmer, a 20 year old English Wonderkid with Premier League potential. His main role will be CAM undoubtedly but he can play at the right wing and the left wing, along with technically in midfield, but we don't use any CMs. I'm hoping he will do well for us, and if he does extremely well to make us want to pay the release clause Man City gave us to sign him permanently, we may just. That clause standing at just short of 50m. Right now he's only in the range of 26m-38m, so right now I don't think I'll go for it. He does want to start regularly which hopefully shouldn't be a problem.

Edited March 4, 2023 by xray1324

[xray1324]

September 2022 Results

With 2 wins out 3 with a surprising loss to Fulham who are 13th, we are doing well. Two clean sheets too, which I am very happy with. 

We are 7th in the league for teams conceding the least goals. Not bad for a first season.

 

Data Hub

This is showing we are doing very well both offensively and defensively.

 

Neves New Contract

With Ruben Neves's contract expiring in a year's time, I decided to try to get him onto a new contract, and we succeeded. He isn't on too much of a massive wage, and I managed to get a release clause he wanted out of his contract.

[xray1324]

October 2022 Results

We manage to hold onto 6th, surprisingly enough. Rough start to the month but we came through with some more wins. Cunha's turning out to probably be a quality option at LW.

 

Data Hub

This is not ideal.

[xray1324]

November 2022 Results

Better month defensively, albeit only 2 league matches. We still hold onto 6th, which honestly in our first season at charge so far we're doing well.

 

Data Hub

Well, that's better than last month. Okay defensively instead of shaky.

[xray1324]

Youth Intake Preview

Well, this is seemingly an excellent intake. Mainly defensively are we being filled though, which may be good actually.

[xray1324]

December 2022 Results

We're holding onto 6th, but only just really. Brentford somehow haven't lost a game!

 

Transfer Window

So the thing is, the winter transfer window has just opened now. Unfortunately, despite us overachieving, what do the board do when I ask for a bigger transfer budget and a bigger wage budget than 2.5m and 20k p/w to spend? Say that's more than enough for us and we should be able to reach our targets on that. So here's what we're going to do, because I do want to make some signings. We do have some names currently in the squad who we can sell who aren't doing well, and aren't good enough for us, the main ones I can think of here and now are, Daniel Podence (2.5 stars ca), Toti (just doesn't fit our system as he's just not a BPD). We may sell others if we get offers.

[xray1324]

January 2023 Results

Actually honestly a really good month defensively, managing to get to the Carabao Cup Semi Final is a big achievement. Though we're up against Liverpool twice in Feb, so that's going to be fun. I don't think we'll get past the Semi Final. Plus we're also 6th in the league the least amount of goals conceded, which is good.

 

Data Hub

Unfortunately we've gone back to shaky.

 

Winter Transfer Window

In

Alex Scott

The first player we signed, who looks like a solid player already, can play in all 3 midfield positions and even at RW, he's a very versatile player, and to top it off, he's an English wonderkid, so it will help us with homegrown rules!

Jean Clair Todibo

Todibo was a signing I had to make, I had to get someone who would excel at being a BPD and a defender in general. He's only 23 and his physicals especially are really great. He might cost a lot in wages, but it's alright. He's good. Plus, he's a tall defender too who can jump high. That's really good.

Nmecha

Basically a fairly cheap option that turns out he's really good in a lot of areas, he's also extremely versatile which I value a lot. A bonus is he's really good at penalties.

Out

What enabled us to spend so much was the fact that Man City came in for Traore, we tried to talk him down since he had just got a new contract really, but unfortunately he got unhappy. I didn't want us to sit on an unhappy player with a big offer in for them, so I had to accept. 

[xray1324]

February 2023 Results

Rough start to the month, but to Liverpool it's a little bit expected. Then, we managed to concede 0 goals for 3 matches on a trot winning heavily over Brighton and Southampton. Also, CUNHA is now the 3rd top scorer in the league, and probably 1st at the club.

5th for least goals conceded, nice.

 

Data Hub

This is good, but I'd like better than quite decent defensively.

 

Awards  (yes we finally got one)

5 goals in 3 appearances, nice job.

[xray1324]

Youth Intake

Well, a far cry from it being a 5 star intake like advertised. At least one of our talents though is portuguese!

Matt Harris

Carrick Cresswell

Matthew Humphries

Ian Curtis

He actually looks pretty good already for a 15 year old.

Artur Pereira

 

[xray1324]

March 2023 Results

We managed to move up into 4th with only 2 points seperating us from 5th and 6th, it's truly something. My first season in charge and we're already overachieving this much.

 

Data Hub

Brilliant!!

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by xray1324

[xray1324]

[xray1324]

April 2023 Results

Very bumpy in the league, but we're managing to hold onto 4th place with purely GD holding us over. I'm really happy with this season, and hopefully we can do the same next season, with a bit of luck and some investment we may just be able to.

 

 

[xray1324]

Positions to Improve (In)
Backup Young GK (English or Portuguese hopefully)
BPD (We have 1 really good defenders, I would like two)
DLP DM (We have only 2 really good DMs at the club and Moutinho is leaving at the end of the season, so I would like to have 3 DMs we can rotate around and have others fill in the role too)
Left Back (Jonny isn't really good enough in the left back position in my opinion, and we have 1 good Left Back really in Ait-Nouri. Hugo Bueno after Jonny is our third choice Left Back but ideally he'd be going out on loan next season, funnily enough Right Back is actually fine with two solid Right Backs, and I'd like to try Lembikisa as third choice Right Back next season, with him being 19, and I could probably retrain him to also play Left Back, and he can play DM too which is interesting)
Left Wing (Inside Forward, I'd really like to get us a really good Inside Forward at the club to make us much more threatening at the left side.)
Right Wing (Winger, honestly I'd like to get a really good Winger at the right who could give us something extra from the right like Traore did.)

Transfers to Make (Out)
Sell
Chiquinho
Conor Coady
Dion Sanderson
Hayao Kawabe
Bendeguz Bolla
Ryan Giles
Bruno Jordao
Matija Sarkic
Pablo Sarabia (for gods sake he's 31, he might be good but I've effectively used him as an impact sub. Not sure I'm going to transfer list him though.)
Raul Jimenez (he's 32 and same thing here really around the middle of the season with Cunha becoming really good for us he's become an impact sub, despite scoring 16 goals in 30, I don't want to rely on an old man who's only 3 stars rated. Not sure if I'm going to transfer list him though.)
Loan
Hugo Bueno
Joe Hodge
Joao Gomes
Fabio Silva (I accidentally didn't have the portuguese league loaded first season so he's not developed at all! I want to loan him to a championship side hopefully.)

 

Budgets

This is good, especially since I do have a list of players I'm looking to sell which will bump these up higher. It's not ideal though considering we've just qualified for the Champion's League, but I'm happy enough with it considering we'll have 400k in the wage budget to spend at the end of the season.

 

Qualified for the CHAMPION'S LEAGUE

So, this is a massive achievement. Doing this in our first season ticks off a few milestones actually.

 

May 2023 Results

Well, we've done very well. We've managed to get to the top 4 in our first season, and Jose Sa has excelled and got 20 clean sheets tied with Ederson. 

Cunha and Jimenez have reached 16 and 17 goals each. Jose Sa has prevented 13 goals on average a match.

Ruben Neves had 100 key passes.

Ait-Nouri had 126 dribbles to his name.

 

Awards

This has been a truly excellent season.

 

End of Season Review

An excellent season.

 

I'll continue this post in a second post as I'm running out of space to post images.

[xray1324]

Supporter Profile

 

Board Expectations for Next Season

 

Manager Profile

2022

2023

[xray1324]

Oh come on!

[xray1324]

New Contract

I am now a 3 and a half star manager, so I'm really happy to still be here!

[xray1324]

July-August 2023 (partial August) (Friendlies) Results

We did okay I guess in pre-season, an unexpected loss to St. Pauli, managed to beat SV Werder fairly easily, and Wolfsburg we just couldn't finish, and then we beat Galatasaray 4-0.

 

Transfers

In

Okay, so I was able to get 3 signings in with the extra budget I was able to get. I still have a little bit more but I can't really spend much now. Cunha was already coming anyways.

Thierry Rendall Correia

Yeah, he's on fairly large wages, but he's a solid player and is now likely first choice in both left and right back.

Hugo Guillamon

Admittedly he looked better in the scouting report, but he's fairly solid. I might demote him to squad player as the season goes on as there are players better than him ahead of him.

Matheus Cunha

Surprisingly enough he's actually dropped down to a 3 star rating. Despite last season being our second topscorer.

Gavin Bazunu

Bazunu fills the young GK position I wanted to fill. If he does well despite being 21, he might become first choice before too long, as our main GK is now 30, but doing well.

Out

There are quite a few players we're still trying to get rid of, and hopefully you'll see them at the deadline day update.

 

Finances

These are our finances now, and we are in the red, but some Champions League action will definitely help that. 

[john1]

What an excellent first season with Wolves Some decent signings you have made but not sure about Guillamon signing

[xray1324]

2 hours ago, john1 said:

What an excellent first season with Wolves Some decent signings you have made but not sure about Guillamon signing

He's actually been pretty good so far, though he was someone that was definitely better in the scouting report than when we had signed him. I know right, though? Really chuffed with it, honestly the best I was hoping for was top 6 in the first season, though it might help us a bit with money being in the Champions League. I'll try my best to do well this season too. First month he's got 3 assists in 4 games and averaged a 7.5 rating.

[xray1324]

Champions League Group Stage

Fairly tough group all things considered.

 

August 2023 Results

In the absence of Cunha early on Nmecha has done really well, scoring 6 goals in 4 games. Though, admittedly, he isn't too consistent at it, but I'm happy considering he's already outscored himself from last season.

 

Pre-Season Deadline Day

In

Nketiah

Simply put, he's a squad player, who can play in a few positions at a decent level. He's fast, and that's the main thing.

Out

I'm so glad to finally be rid of Conor Coady who was at this point taking up 60k wages on a Championship aging player.

[xray1324]

September 2023 Results

Okay, so not a great month. We're still battling for europe, but I get the feeling my tactic has stopped working a fair bit, so I'm going to change for a bit.

It doesn't help that half of our back 4 that we're forced to rely on due to injuries currently looks like this. Jonny is outright now not a great player for us. So both Kilman and Jonny will likely be sold January.

 

New Tactic

(Temporary?)

 

[john1]

Decent start to the season, apart from being mauled by Southampton Surprised you have sold Raul Jimenez. However, decent signing in Eddie

[xray1324]

1 hour ago, john1 said:

Decent start to the season, apart from being mauled by Southampton Surprised you have sold Raul Jimenez. However, decent signing in Eddie

He turned 33 and was 2 and a half stars ca, he surprised me that he declined that fast. We're actually struggling a bit right now with an injury crisis lol

[xray1324]

October 2023 Results

Our finishing is very inconsistent. I've moved back to our old system mid-way through the month though.

[xray1324]

Finances

So this happened. Somehow.

[xray1324]

November 2023 Results

Well, obviously we got trounced by Man City. We could've lost by less, sure. But, I'm mostly happy with this month. We haven't really conceded much beyond that game, and we're doing fairly okay. Only thing is we're not really scoring. Nmecha has stopped scoring outright, and he's mostly our best striker. But he's inconsistent.

 

[john1]

Not doing too badly in league and Europe

[xray1324]

2 hours ago, john1 said:

Not doing too badly in league and Europe

We're probably going to be out in the group stages to be completely honest, but there's an outside chance of us qualifying lol

[xray1324]

Well, bad news.

Well, this has happened. I might not make it to next season.

[xray1324]

Youth Intake Preview

Well, *****.

[xray1324]

December 2023 Results

After the shocking loss to Norwich, we switched to a 3 DM tactic using 2 DLPs and 1 Half Back, which seemed to have mostly positive results, especially in the league, and getting us into the Carabao Cup Semi-Final!

 

New Tactic

 

Winter Transfer Window

So, who are we going to sign? Well, we definitely need reinforcements in both CB and DM, and I will be looking to offload Jonny and maybe a couple other players. 

 

Board

Fortunately due to the upturn in form, we are now at a B- instead of a C.

[xray1324]

January 2024 Results

First things first, we're doing fairly decently in the league. 11 clean sheets in 25 games for Jose Sa, not bad, not bad. However, we're now through to the Carabao Cup Final! We've been doing well defensively recently too, only conceding a handful of goals really.

 

Transfer Window

In

Quite a few in this month.

Alberto Moleiro

Quite the steal, at only 20 he's pretty good already. 4 stars of potential and plenty of room to grow.

Costing us only 140k, his value has skyrocketed, and he has skyhigh potential too. Someone to keep and eye on, and he may be able to play at striker and in both wings.

Mateus Fernandes

Another cheap youngster, though all 3 of these guys have demanded Fringe Player. So, next season I'll have to manage their playtime or hopefully reduce it. His potential is the highest at the club probably now.

Arda Guler

A wonderkid at only 18 and he's already a good premier division player. He can also play DM along with right wing and behind the striker as a AMC.

Rico Lewis

So, we needed depth in areas, and Lewis was available for loan. He's pretty good honestly for depth, and he has potential to grow. Though, Man City want 46m to sign him permanently, so I might not end up spending that, but he can fill in 3 positions for us pretty effectively.

Filippo Mane

BPD, right back and DM. He can fill in all spots, so if his potential gets fulfilled, I will be able to sign him from Dortmund for a small fee of 5.25m.

Anel Ahmedhodzic

Fairly cheap player and he fills in a squad spot to be a BPD. Replaces Kilman, who I was not fond of.

Out

Kilman is leaving for just short of 5m at the end of his loan deal with Crystal Palace.

[xray1324]

February 2024 Results

To be completely honest, we've had a bit of bad form recently, and I was hoping to switch to my new tactic at the end of the season. But I think we need to just to save my job.

 

New Tactic

This was supposed to be used for next season, but it still will be, just we'll use it until the end of the season too. We were fairly strong defensively with the 3 DM set up, but we weren't scoring goals. This should fix it.

[xray1324]

Youth Intake

So, not many top talents, but the one that's immediately right up there in potential is Aston Blankley.

Aston Blankley

Definitely needs to grow plenty, but he looks pretty decent in a lot of attributes.

Sean Griffiths

Fairly decent prospect.

Gary Wright

His attributes are mostly *****, but he has good determination and teamwork along with vision and work rate. Passing is good too.

[xray1324]

March 2024 Results

We've done alright this month with the new tactic, though losing to Brentford is not a positive, but seeing how we didn't concede any goals in league games, I'm happy. We're in 10th, but we're not really doing as well as we did last season. Nowhere near, and I might not keep my job at the end of the season.

[xray1324]

Sa is out till the end of the season

Guess I'm relying on Bazunu now till the end of the season.

 

April 2024 Results

We finished the month struggling in 11th. 

 

Dynamics

I'm going to do a team meeting to help this, but this isn't good.

[xray1324]

New Tactic

To try to get results to try to save our season, we've changed tactics.

 

[xray1324]

May 2024 Results

So, Nmecha finishes as the tied 2nd best scorer in the league, and we finish in 9th with 15 wins, 10 draws, 13 losses. Our new tactic seemed to help us to return to high-scoring, and we'll be sticking with it for next season.

 

Budgets

Okay, this is pretty nice, despite the fact that we are 90m in the red.

 

End of Season Review

We hope to do better next season, is all I have to say really!

 

Supporter Profile

 

Board Expectations for Next Season

 

[xray1324]

Well then... (I made a promise to use youth and apparently I didn't fulfill it?)

Edited March 12, 2023 by xray1324

[xray1324]

We're somehow no longer 90m in the red!

[xray1324]

July-August 2024 Results (Friendlies)

Well, apart from that result against Strasbourg of all teams, we did well in pre-season. Our new tactic is working well, and I hope we'll do better than last year this year.

 

Preseason Transfer Window

In

Joao Rego

A portuguese youngster with plenty of room to grow into a first team player. His attributes look decent enough already at 19, but he's not first team level. 

Roony Bardghji

At 18 he is a wonderful signing, and his value skyrocketed. He is already going to be a pretty important player for us, unfortunately we don't play DMs anymore with the new tactic, but he can play on the right naturally.

Guilherme Santos

Another portuguese youngster coming in cheap. His attributes look pretty decent too, and he looks to be a star in the making, and he might become one later in his career with that potential.

Fabian Rieder

At 22 he's a long term replacement for some of our slightly older players that might want to leave this season, for example Ruben Neves. Hopefully he does well when he plays, but for now he's a squad player.

Martim Fernandes

He was signed to be our long term right back replacement, though we'll see how that goes. At 18 he has plenty of potential and he looks like a cracking player.

Musa Barrow

He's our big money signing of the season, seeing how we were given a big budget I felt it was wise to spend on a really good player that should be able to score goals. He can play both as a left winger, as a amc, and as a striker. I want to use him mainly as our starting striker atleast for this season.

Out

Pedro Neto left mainly because he was 24 and wasn't looking to make good on that potential. Other players left as offers came in or they were in last season of their contracts, didn't want to lose them on a free.

[xray1324]

August 2024 Results

Unbeaten in the league is a good start to the season with our new tactic working wonders defensively. We need a little more offensively though. I'm happy to be sitting at 4th in the league considering last season we finished 9th with a lot of inconsistency.

 

Preseason Deadline Day

In

We got 3 players in, 2 youngsters, 1 a useful squad player from Liverpool!

Curtis Jones

Curtis Jones is an extremely versatile player, who can play at potentially 5 positions we play, so he is likely to get plenty of game time. Sure, he might be 23, but I'm sure he'll grow more, if not he'll be an extremely useful squad player for us!

Rafael Luis

A youngster who at 19 has plenty of room to grow, and hopefully will grow into a star midfielder for us. He's attributes are pretty good and so is his personality.

Joao Neves

Similar story, his attributes are good and he looks to become a versatile player for us filling 4 spots and potentially a star player in there. Gone straight to Famalicao.

[xray1324]

September 2024 Results

We've currently conceded the least goals in the league early on. Obviously this might change later on, but it's very encouraging. We're just struggling to score many goals really. Sometimes we'll beat a team 3-0, or others 1-0. We're sitting in 6th, which is very exciting for our third season managing Wolves.

 

Awards

4 of our players got in the Team of the Week.

[Captain_T]

Realy interesting story! I enjoy reading.

[xray1324]

3 hours ago, Captain_T said:

Realy interesting story! I enjoy reading.

Thank you so much, I hope you continue to enjoy it as I update it! I apologize for the delay in updates recently but I am getting busier with real life stuff, but I'm doing my best to do 1-2 updates a day. I'd like to complete a season in a week, but I'm not too sure if that's currently possible haha.