[FM24] West Ham United: Hammer Time

[stevemc]

Welcome to the West Ham United Football Club thread

Club Details

Status: Professional

Reputation: National

Nickname: The Hammers

Founded: 1885

Owner(s): David Sullivan (38.8%), Daniel Kretinsky (27%), Vanessa Gold (25.1%), J Albert Smith (8%), Other (1.1%)

Current Manager: David Moyes

League: Premier League (England)

Captain: Kurt Zouma

Squad Personality: Professional

Rivals: Tottenham, Millwall, Chelsea

Legends, Icons & Favoured Personnel:

Stadium: London Stadium

Capacity: 62,000 all-seater

Training Facilities: Great

Corporate Facilities: Top

Youth Facilities: Great

Youth Level: 1

Junior Coaching: Good

Youth Recruitment: Good

Finances: Rich

Transfer Budget: £24m (plus 100% of sales)

Wage Budget: £2,252,420 p/w (using £2,137,934)

Media Prediction: 9th

Trophy Cabinet:

Edited January 12 by stevemc

[stevemc]

Reserved.

[stevemc]

The Players

First Team Squad

 

Under 23's

 

Under 18's

 

The Staff

Coaching, Recruitment and Medical Team

 

Edited January 12 by stevemc

[stevemc]

Objectives and Vision

 

Why manage West Ham United...?

Rich club, in Europe, James Ward-Prowse on set pieces, Paquetá/Bowen/Kudus at attacking midfield...  

 

Edited January 12 by stevemc

[stevemc]

Anyone enjoying a West Ham save this year?

I created this thread because I've ended up taking the West Ham job in 2029 after a career with Chesterfield, Burnley Tottenham and Real Madrid - I left Real after one year because to be totally honest, it's boring. I think I'll end up staying at West Ham for a while now, they finished 14th and their squad is old so needs a rebuild, but they also have a Chinese tycoon owner, he's been there two years and the only decent thing he's done is build a new 84,000 all seater "Bobby Moore" Stadium, ready to open in about 6 months time.

The Premier League also has new Tycoon owners at Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United, so top 4 is actually a challenge.

This season the board want a mid-table finish, so I'm using this summer window to reset the club and start afresh, sign youth and build a team for the future and make a start on correcting their home grown player status ready for when we do gain qualification into Europe in the future. 

Quite a few of the original players are still there, but most are unhappy so will have to leave. Kurt Zouma is homesick, Lucas Paqueta wants to leave, as do Nayef Aguerd, Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal. I'll keep an aging Jarrod Bowen around for a season or two, but I'm on the fence regarding Edson Alvarez as he's worth around £80-100m so might be worth cashing in for the rebuild. They also have a number of other old players on high wages, they've recruited poorly and they're in a bit of a rut.

I've managed to talk world-class midfielder Mohammed Kudus into giving me a season and world-class midfielder James Ward-Prowse is still here and will remain captain.

I've got around £90-120m to spend, hopefully raising extra via player sales to give me around £200m+, and reinvest that mostly in quality under 23's and a couple of wonderkids.

I'd re-done all the staff, the compensation was around £10m in total to cut loose most the staff they had in place as part of my deal to leave Real Madrid, although I've kept on Mark Noble and Tim Steidten but now I've recruited world class staff in every other area including Head of Youth Development and Scouting - under 18s staff are now filled up with Model Professional and Model Citizen staff too. Roy Keane, who's been my assistant throughout my career, decided to stay in Madrid, so I'm looking for a new assistant manager.

Edited January 14 by stevemc

[stevemc]

West Ham: Season 2029/30

Having taken the West Ham job in the Summer of 2029, their squad needed a massive overhaul, a squad full over older players, overpaid on bloated contracts but have a tycoon in place with modest initial expectations, I decided it was a good move after one very easy and very boring season at Real Madrid.

I set about reducing the squads age and wage bill, which wasn't too difficult as most of the players were unhappy and wanted to leave. So out went the likes of Richarlison, Nayef Aguerd. José Gragera, Arijanet Murić, Largie Ramazani, Robert Renan, Lucas Paquetá, Ebrima Colley, Samed Baždar, Viktor Đukanović, Adam Obert and Kurt Zouma. Taty Castellanos was unhappy but rejected every club so after demoting him to the under-21s, he left in January for Fulham for £18m.

Maxime Estève was already pre-agreed to join before I joined, but he's been excellent, so much so I offered him a new contract in January to extend his stay. In terms of incomings I brought in younger players of the right profile and personality to take us forward, with an eye on Home Grown status too, considering the board only wanting a mid-table finish, it gives us a season at least of growing them, so in came:

Goalkeepers: Takayoshi Kanno, Spike Brits, Colin Gibson

Centre backs: Graeme Gebbie, David Braddock

Left backs: Jonas Krüger, Juan Ignacio Ávalos

Midfielders: João Veloso, Jorge Alberto Salinas, Javier Nadal, Marcos Figueredo

Attacking midfielders: Santiago Figueroa, Dijon Kameri, Danny Idskou, Andrew Minghella, Nathan Simcock, Shea Lacey

Strikers: Roald Hoogstrate, Enmanuel Ramírez Riascos

I decided to keep Kamil Grabara, Sergio Carreira, Mohammed Kudus, Gianluca Prestianni, Jarrod Bowen, Edson Álvarez and James Ward-Prowse around the place for the first season. After all that, I went through all existing contracts to remove all the silly bonuses and clauses that were in place.

January I wasn't planning anything until Al-Hilal came in with £65m for Edson Álvarez, he was excellent for me but became unhappy when I rejected their first bid, leading to 8 players becoming unhappy too that's I'd not let him go, so after agreeing to £65m and his getting his £800,000p/w contract I went back into the market for Manchester City's 18-year-old 6ft7in Korean defensive midfielder Park Jae-Min for £12m and Villarreal's Delfí Cervera for £69m, along with a couple for very young British players Joe Gorman, Tony McBride and Daniel Dionisi for the under 18's.

We finished the Summer and January window with a net spend of +£68m.

Squad complete, we were 16th at the end of October due to a horrific run of fixtures against Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham, Chelsea, Liverpool and Newcastle United. Portsmouth dumped us out of the Carabao Cup on penalties too. After that we settled down and found our groove, morale raised and we are currently 2nd in a very tightly contested Premier League at the start of February, likely we'll drop but we may end up with a 4th/5th place finish. Mohammed Kudus has been exceptional and is the leader of this new West Ham team.

We've also moved into our new 84,000 all seater "Bobby Moore" Stadium, first game was against my ex-club Burnley, beating them 4-1.

 

Already planning ahead for the summer with a new number 1 goalkeeper and right-back looking likely. An elite striker is also needed if we qualify for the Champions League.

Edited January 21 by stevemc

[stevemc]

West Ham: Season 2029/30 - Complete

Solid season in the end, despite a rough start, we put a great run together to finish 3rd in the league and pick up the FA Cup. I was hoping my former club, Spurs, would miss out on Champions League qualification so I could pinch Benjamin Šeško off them, but it wasn't to be  

 

I did a cracking job on reducing the wage bill though...

 

We we're dominant in the FA Cup final against Manchester United too, despite our poor form towards the end of the season:

 

Good first season with the Hammers, I rejected summer job offers from Arsenal and Manchester City as I'm enjoying this tycoon West Ham save.

 

West Ham: Season 2030/31 - Start
 

It was clear that I needed to strengthen defensively this summer, and add a couple of top-quality players into this young team, especially with Champions League football coming, so first port of call was to go back to Spurs and sign world-class goalkeeper Dennis Seimen for £60m, who I had previously at Burnley and Spurs. In terms of top-quality additions, we also picked up world-class players Eliesse Ben Seghir for £83m and Chouaib El Amrani for £62m. Finally address the right-back position with the signing of wonderkid Kenneth Rodriguez from Arsenal for a bargain £14m, and the defensive midfield position (someone who can actually put their foot in!) in the shape of Malthe Horslund, the Danish wonderkid for £7m. The remainder of the window was made up of youthful additions; Sam Redding, Zdravko Šubarić, Daniel Ayala, Nelino Campuzano, João Victor, Darryl Scott, Ben Ashby and Solon Katsikias.

To offset the above, and our £193m transfer budget   we said goodbye to Sergio Carreira (£33m), Kostas Tsimikas (£11m), Jarrod Bowen (£35m), João Veloso (£45m), Maxime Estève (£16.25m) and Gianluca Prestianni (£63m). Academy graduates Enriko Koci (£11m), Gabriel Michaelis (£8m) also left the club. Marcos Figueredo was homesick and returned to Argentina after one year with us (£6.5m).

Overall I'm really happy, one position I failed to fix was an Elite striker, simply because I don't think my reputation is in the place to attract the level of striker I need that is available, so next summer, that will be fixed, hopefully Benjamin Šeško!

We started the season off with a good win the Community Shield:

 

But the Champions League draw has been harsh on us; Stade de Reims, FC Red Bull Salzburg, Barcelona, Juventus, NK Maribor, Celtic, Inter Milan and my former club Real Madrid C.F.

Edited February 3 by stevemc

[stevemc]

West Ham: Season 2030/31 - Complete
 

Good second season in charge at West Ham, tinged slightly by losing the FA Cup final to a below-par Chelsea.

Overall, we finished 2nd in the league, improving our points total by 7 from the season before but Arsenal were relentless, gaining 101 points, almost impossible to catch but I know exactly what I need for next season to close that gap; a world-class centre back and a world-class striker. Having said that, I think that was a freak season for Arsenal.

 

We did win the Carabao Cup, domination over Manchester City - City are awful now, fully a mid-table Premier League team. They still have Haaland but I presume that's due the insane wage he's on, rest have got old, retired of jumped ship.

 

As I mentioned before, had a shocker in the FA Cup final against Chelsea, I messed up the team meeting double-clicking by mistake, then messed up the team talk, I knew we'd lose after I'd demotivated them, and we did. Properly disappointed we couldn't win back-to-back FA Cup as Chelsea are really poor now too.

Champions League was a crazy one, we just got out of the group stage, made the play-off, won, got a couple of favourable draws and before we knew it we were in the final  I'd already beaten United home and away in the league and knocked them out the FA Cup so fancied this one, and in the end it was easy, looks tight due to the last minute penalty (which was never a foul) but it was never really close.

 

We did all that off the back of being shrewd and spending wisely, coming out top in the profit/loss table too, despite us now having a tycoon owner, he's never really blown his money erratically but that'll will go out the window this summer, I'm planning on spending BIG on two world-class players to lift us up to close the gap in the Premier League:

 

I've now also just entered the Hall of Fame as I aim to get to the top.

Edited February 3 by stevemc

[BadAss88]

Nice career what tactic are you using? 

[stevemc]

1 hour ago, BadAss88 said:

Nice career what tactic are you using? 

I have three, all based on a 4-2-3-1 but swap depending on home/away and type of team.

[stevemc]

West Ham: Season 2031/32 - Start
 

Following on from here I'm now entering my third season at West Ham, and felt I was only two world-class players away from winning the title, so that's exactly what I've addressed this summer.

In came 21-year-old elite centre back Gianluca Petrazzuolo for a mere £175m, been following him for years from Milan's academy, wasn't interested in leaving until this summer, he's exactly the defender we needed...

 

Followed by the current best striker in the world Benjamin Šeško for £330m, I bought him from Spurs having originally signed him for them back in 2026. He's 28 and in his peak, experienced, and started the season with 11 goals in 10 games, he's an animal, and perfect for the way I set up:

 

We did recoup £189m this window too, but we have a Tycoon owner, so doesn't really matter   The board objectives this window were to spend the available transfer budget, sign high profile players and increase commercial revenue - all of which will be achieved by thsee two transfers.

I think these two signings will be enough to win the title, but we'll see. The squad is in brilliant shape, with our wages sitting on a modest £3,500,000 p/w compared to other clubs in the league too...

 

We are currently in October and unbeaten in all competitions, top of the league by 3 points, and 5th in the Champions League. We have an EFL 4th Round tie with Portsmouth approaching, after Benjamin Šeško bagged a hat trick against former club, Tottenham, in the 3rd round, sending them back home with nothing. The stadium is also being expanded by a further 5,000 seats taking the capacity of the Bobby Moore Stadium to roughly 85,000. We also won the Super Cup in the most uneventful football match of all time, 1-0 against Manchester City:

Edited February 5 by stevemc

[GSTG]

How do you setup your 4231 ?

[stevemc]

As I mentioned above, I have a couple of variants of it and change depending on opposition/match.

[stevemc]

West Ham: Season 2031/32 - End
 

Following on from here the two marquee signings basically enabled us to win everything.

Having already started the season winning the UEFA Super Cup, we won the next available trophy, Carabao Cup, on penalties against Manchester United - in truth, this was nearly a case of me being FM'd in a game we dominated yet United scored two (from corners would you believe...) and somehow managed to get through to a shootout, luckily we came out on top.

Back-to-back competition holders.
 

 

We wrapped up the Premier League with 7 games to go, it was a no contest - Benjamin Šeško picked up the Golden Boot with 26 goals as we scored 122 goals in total, we came out 1st in all the main season stats:

All this whilst being very strict on the wages too:

 

We followed that up with a convincing 3-0 mauling of Arsenal in the FA Cup final (my 2nd FA Cup in three seasons) - you'll notice Declan Rice in our team after he became available in January, the board bought him for me from Arsenal  

 

Finally, lifting back-to-back Champions Leagues (my 4th in five seasons) with a 3-2 extra time win over Everton, who are a very good team - Benjamin Šeško again proving his worth...

 

On to the summer now, this team can get better, and I can also make the odd improvement so we'll see what comes...

[stevemc]

West Ham: Season 2032/33 - End
 

Following on from here once again we've had a season of winning basically everything  
 

Started off as Community Shield and Super Cup winners...

 

Followed up by retaining the Carabao Cup for the third time on the bounce:

 

The Premier League was closer than it looks, Arsenal folded with 3 games to go which opened up the gap:

Retained back-to-back FA Cups with a win against former team, Tottenham:

 

Followed up with with our third Champions League in a row with a win against Atletico:

 

I knew I was going to leave at the end of the season as I've achieved all I can here, but stayed around to pick up the World Club Cup, and another Community Shield and Super Cup

 

After stepping down, Manchester United sacked Luis Enrique so I've applied for that job, as I aim to top the Hall of Fame - currently 4th behind Carlo Ancelotti, Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola...

[Tom Jameson]

what skin are you using?

[stevemc]

58 minutes ago, Tom Jameson said:

what skin are you using?

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/579179-fm24-backgrounds-by-stevemc-full-downloads-available-now/

[Tom Jameson]

29 minutes ago, stevemc said:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/579179-fm24-backgrounds-by-stevemc-full-downloads-available-now/

thanks!