[FM24] CDs, BOTs, and Unkindness – FC Isle of Man

[erik45]

January 2027. We were trailing 0-2 at half time against Workington, but somehow scored four in the second half?! Then a boring loss, but a good draw against Clitheroe, who were leading the table at that moment. Same can be said about Wythenshawe Town, who we surprisingly won! Of course, after couple of good results, we lose to a team well below us. 

Table. We are in pack of 9-10 teams who fight for the playoff spots. Our team is not ready for a promotion, but you never know what happens next.

Award. I criticised our attack in the last month's post, they took it personally. Target forward Jones got 6+1, but Reddy was even better with 6+4 (although one missed penalty).

Upcoming fixtures. Almost a relaxed month as we have only 5 games. Hanley Town is in the relegation zone, all the others more or less mid-table. Three wins is the goal.

[shd34_216_42]

8 hours ago, erik45 said:

Transfers out. We loaned out one youth player, but to my great surprise we lost two players from the first team. Camrada loss hurt, but he was more of a cover than a first team player  (for WBR and BWM roles). But losing Neil Parker can be a disaster. He was one of our absolute bests + the only keeper who had more than 1 star in CA. He decided to move to Newton Aycliffe where he gets paid, good for him.  But the team is a league below us, feels weird that 1) they can pay money and 2) Parker would want to move to a league below us.

85 euros/wk is probably more than what he would have made in appearance fees with you, and the club reputation tends to be very inconsistent that far down so it's possible their reputation is close enough to your team.

I'm actually surprised that you aren't able to offer proper semi-pro contracts, and more so that more people haven't left given the non-contract situation.

[erik45]

9 hours ago, shd34_216_42 said:

85 euros/wk is probably more than what he would have made in appearance fees with you, and the club reputation tends to be very inconsistent that far down so it's possible their reputation is close enough to your team.

I'm actually surprised that you aren't able to offer proper semi-pro contracts, and more so that more people haven't left given the non-contract situation.

If I remember correctly, he was one of the few who made over 100 €/game (most players get 20-30 €) and he was starting all games, so I would say the income difference is not big. But on the other hand, the semi-pro contract protects you from injuries and other absences.

I'm also wondering when we are able to offer those semi-pro contracts. We have very good bank balance and it has been that way through the season, so I would guess we are close to the point when we can offer better contracts.

[erik45]

February 2027.  This is good. This is very good! Leek Town game was a thriller. HT were were trailing 2-0. Then they stopped playing and we scored three. But they decided to go and score two more and won the game (as they deserved to). Every other game was ours, even if just in the game against Hanley Town we were dominant.

Table. Now it starts to look like we really are one of the teams that have a chance for playoff spot. The five point gap is nice, but one or two losses and there will be multiple teams catching us.

Player stats. I'm showing this just so everyone can see why we are doing so well as we are now. Reddy and Jones are on a hot streak, long may it continue! 

We now have three coaches! I used the additional spot to hire a GK coach.

Job interview. This is not realistic. We have been playing a bit over the expectations for couple of seasons, so it is understandable that other teams would be interested in to interview me. But a team that is fighting for promotion in League 1? Hell no... I declined the interview and informed the press that I don't want to leave my position as I enjoy it here.

Finances. We are now past the half a million mark! At least for now, we haven't needed to have long cup runs to keep doing profit. One important factor in this is the fact that we are getting home crowds of ~1000. I've been asking for youth facility upgrade, but the board keeps saying that we are not in a financial position that would allow the upgrade.

Upcoming fixtures. Six games. Bootle is second in the league, so I'm really looking forward facing them at home. Other than that, we just need keep grinding points to stay in the playoff spots. Winning at home, drawing away would be perfect, but I don't know if we can be that consistent. 

[erik45]

Youth intake 2027 

I was planning to post this after March update, but I just couldn't hold my horses. LOOK AT THIS:

15 players with five star PA is amazing (but not unheard of), but I've never had a youth intake with all the players having at least 1,5 CA?!?!?! 

McCrory 27a, Scott 27c and Morris 27g might be starters straight away - and theoretically ALL the others have a chance of making it to the first team. (In practice I think the five players last in the list won't make it as they have lower CA plus bad personality). I'd expect about half of the players getting minutes already this season. The challenge is that if I introduce that many players in such a short time, the team cohesion will take a hit.

My favourites.

McCrory 27a will challenge for the starting spot for the P/AF role straight away. He has maybe the best player in front of him in the pecking order, Kian Reddy, but I bet McCrory will get his chances. He has amazing pace for this level, his personality is okay, although his mentals considering goalscoring need to get better.

Draper 27e is ready to fight for the BWM spot in the starting line-up. Jamie Doyle has been playing there quite well, but as he is taking a lot of yellow cards, Draper will get his chances to show what he is made of.

Morris 27g is our new starting keeper. We lost our star keeper earlier in the season. His backup (Blackmore 26f) has been okay, but he is nowhere near the level of Morris. I think Morris is the only player who will actually start in the first XI straight away, others will get chances from the bench.

Youth intake tracking. Better facilities gives us better players - who would've known?  Remember, our JC is now excellent and YR Average, the stats in the spreadsheet are from the start of each season. I also have added youth intake date column to the spreadsheet as I want to see how it changes as seasons go by.

Even if we had the best youth intake in regards of CA & PA that I have had in years, the key attributes are actually worse than in the last season's intake. I'm not sure why I follow just these stats, but it's fun to have some attribute tracking going on.  

I'm happy that we have 9 players from Crown Dependencies (all from club's hometown Douglas, Isle of Man)!

 

[erik45]

March 2027. Bad start, good end. Buxton game was tight, but Bootle absolutely kicked us out of the park. They've been near the top for the whole season but it looks like they've known found another gear. I was getting a bit worried what would happen after that game, but the team responded magnificently! Three wins and a good draw against a team that last season beat us 3-0 on their home turf.

Table. We are very much in promotion contention! Four games left and we need to keep points coming. Probably we end up being somewhere between 4th and 7th.

Youth intake update. I just couldn't post once about the intake, because it was so good. Here I want to show just how good the new players are. These are all the players who have CA of 2 stars or more. 55 % of these players are from the latest intake.  Four of them made their debut already in March. McCrory 27a got to take a penalty against Padiham which made him the youngest goalscorer in FC Isle of Man history!

Upcoming fixtures. Four difficult games, we need to keep on getting points. I would guess that anything north of 8 or 9 points is enough to get us into playoffs, but we want to win every game to make sure we get there. it isn't easy, as we only play once at home, but it shouldn't be impossible.

[erik45]

April 2027. This month was...perfect?? I thought we had very difficult fixture list, but the guys didn't care! We weren't as dominant as the scorelines suggest, but we were really good! Only worry is that our poacher Kian Reddy has stopped scoring, but this month we had surprisingly many players contributing.

Table. Winning all the games meant we made it to the playoffs!!! Our position is the same as in the beginning of the month. Home advantage for playoffs would've been nice, but I really can't complain too much.

Playoff semifinal preview. Away against Clitheroe has not been an easy fixture for us. A lot of goals is to be expected, hopefully we can find the way to score more than they!

[erik45]

Playoff semi final. Well, we didn't get anything happening in the game. We had excellent chance when the game was 0-0, but their keeper saved it. That worked as a wake-up call for Clitheroe and from that point onwards they dominated the game.  It would've been nice to get promoted now, but I'm not too worried. I feel next season we are going to challenge for the title! 

Season review coming up next!

[erik45]

Season review.

League. We were expected to finish 16th in the league and the board wanted us to avoid relegation. We did much, much better. I'm really happy with the season, even though we couldn't win promotion. Next season we should much more consistent (and better) as we have more players who are capable of playing at this level (thanks to this year's youth intake).

Cups. Nothing to write home about. For the next season we wish to get more home draws

Players. Here's a list of all the players who played in official competitions for us (and two players who were on loan elsewhere). Fans voted Robert Jones as the player of the season, and they're not wrong, but for me the player of the season is Liam Hutchings 26i, who took over the DLF spot when two of our attackers retired. He won't be playing there too much next season, as we have better players (read: Ben Scott 27c) waiting in line.

Tracking of players from Crown Dependencies, British Overseas Territories & Youth Academy. Most of our players from CDs or BOTs come from Isle of Man or Gibraltar, but this season we debuted players from Bermuda and Montserrat!  I forgot to update the games column for this chart, but remembered to do it in the youth player tracking.

I don't know what I do with the youth player tracking, it's something new I'm trying. This season whopping 11 players from youth academy got their debut. Blackmore 26f played the most (as he was the replacement for the GK we lost early in the season), but he is already replaced by Morris 27g who is hopefully our number 1 for years to come.

[erik45]

Pre-season. Good warm-up for the real stuff. Harrogate are League 2 side, so there's no shame in losing to them. Guernsey is our Crown Dependency frenemy who we've met every pre-season, the record is now 1-1-1. Four players from the academy in the scoresheets, that's a positive signal!

Season preview. Same division, new expectations. Last season we needed to avoid relegation - ended up as fourth in the league. This time we are required to get to mid-table positions - could we battle for the title already?

The cup expectations are contradictory. Be competitive doesn't mean anything concrete, but still it's importance in two cups is "required". 

 

Board culture. This is what board is expecting us to do in the field. Most of these have been there from the first season onwards, but one addition was made during the summer: develop players using the club's youth system. At the moment we have 21 players in the first team roster, 12 of those are from our academy.

Facility upgrade. As the board had new culture expectations about nurturing youth players into the first team, they decided to put it all in for youth development! 

This puts us financially in the red for the first time, but last season we made a profit of ~200 k€, so I think we should be back in black in no time.

 

Transfers. We didn't sign any players, as the players available at the moment aren't better than the ones we have coming from the academy. Players who could actually go straight to the first team don't want to relocate to Isle of Man (unless they get a full-time contract).

Moving out of the team were three players, two as permanent transfer, one as loan. I show Joe Harris 26a's profile as there's one thing really standing out from it: the valuation! Stockport County are in the League 1, I don't see Harris 26a making it in that league - and neither does Stockport as he got only a youngster as his playing time. But maybe he will get better (Stockport has good training facilities) and we can get him back to the club later on.

Reputation. This felt weird. We are doing better season by season, but reputation goes down?  I hope this doesn't mean decrease in home attendances! We are still 0,5 star reputation (while the manager Pherick Ramsey has 1,5 star reputation already!

Upcoming fixtures. This season starts already in July, as we head to Ossett United in the FA Cup. They are in the league below us, so we should be able to get a win there. Now as our bank balance is negative, we really need the extra income from the cup games. 

In the league we have a challenging start. All but Stockport Town have been in the playoff battle for the last two seasons (Stockport Town is a newly promoted club).

[erik45]

August 2027. FA Cup started really well as we showed Ossett United why we are in a higher division than they are. After that, games were much more even. Against Rossington Main, we deserved to win the first match, but they were better than us in the replay.

 

Table. Not the perfect start we wanted, but not the worst either. The worrying thing is that Avro, who got promoted two seasons ago and were relegated straight away, look like ready to fight for the title again. We can't let us get too far away from the top if we want to be in contention for the title.

Injury. Losing our only target man didn't make this month any easier for us. We switched from DLF(s) - P(a) - TF(a) to DLF(s) - P(a) - PF(a). Not the most dramatic change, but now there are less crosses towards the right-side forward.

Transfer offer. I show this just because this is the first offer from a Championship side. No money yet, but there won't any expected before we can offer proper part-time contracts for the players.

 

Finances. After starting the expensive youth facility upgrade, we've had negative bank balance. It looks like we could be already before the end of the year if the match day income stays at the current level.

Upcoming fixtures. Just four games in September (there were just two before the FA Throphy match and re-scheduled Victoria game). Why so few games? Anyways, really difficult games. We lost to Clitheroe in the playoffs and both Mossley and Northwich have been really good sides in the last few seasons. The wild card of the month is Warrington Rylands, who got relegated to the division.

[shd34_216_42]

On 27/01/2024 at 03:30, erik45 said:

If I remember correctly, he was one of the few who made over 100 €/game (most players get 20-30 €) and he was starting all games, so I would say the income difference is not big. But on the other hand, the semi-pro contract protects you from injuries and other absences.

I'm also wondering when we are able to offer those semi-pro contracts. We have very good bank balance and it has been that way through the season, so I would guess we are close to the point when we can offer better contracts.

85/wk is roughly 4,420/yr, so in a 20-team league in your tier that compares to a minimum of ~4,100 for a non-contract with 100 appearance fee. (I'm counting the 38 league games, the first FA Cup game, the first League Cup game, and the first FA Trophy game.) Of course there's still appearance fees for semi-pro contracts, so assuming something like 25 appearance fee that means somewhere around 5,445 on wages and appareance fees alone. That might be significant enough to relocate, although obviously the game doesn't model cost of living and other factors.

Your reputation probably went down because you have what is likely a relatively high reputation level for your league, so those "upset" losses/draws take away up to 1-2 points at a time. It's not much, but it adds up over time. Reputation does have an effect on attendance as well as season ticket and ticket prices, but at your level it's probably going to be a minor impact at best, and really the only fix is promotion so I don't think you can do much about it.

[erik45]

September 2027. Not too many games as we had even time to play a friendly. Maybe it helped, as before the friendly we were awful, after it awesome!   The losses and draw were all against difficult opponents and we just didn't know how to get our defence to function. One reason for that was we lost our starting keeper to injury in the first game, the back-up didn't deliver.

League table. Not the month we wanted, but maybe one we deserved. If I want to find something positive, that the gap between us and promotion spots is very small. Clitheroe is a very good team right now, let's hope they don't run away with the title.

Upcoming fixtures.  One more cup to do as we head to Kidsgrove in the league cup. Our focus is very much in the league. We have games against two teams we are yet to face in this save, Whitchurch and Squires Gate. I would be very happy with ten points, I don't care about the league cup right now. 

[erik45]

October 2027. I said in last month's update I would be happy with ten points. I got exactly that, but still feel like could've done more. We deserved a win against Whitchurch, but couldn't score. Then we played four excellent games and won then all! In the last game we faced Trafford, who are last in the league without a win. I don't know what happened, but they were much better than us and we were lucky to save a point.

League table. Clitheroe has found an amazing form, while rest of the top half is quite even. We are close to playoffs, but so are many other teams.

Finances. We had only two home games, but still made a nice profit this month. We are getting out of red soon!

Upcoming fixtures. Four in the league, one in the cup. Difficult set of games, I would say us being favourites just for the first two. Six points or more and win in the cup is what I'm looking for.

[erik45]

November 2027. Well, I was looking for six points and that's what we got. I thought we will win the first two and a have a chance on the third game. But we had no chance in the first two, but then ended up winning two after those. The worrying thing is the amount of goals we concede. I'm not going to change anything in the tactics yet, but if this continues I might have no choice.

League table. I think we are where we deserve to be. In the xG table we are a few spots higher. I think we've been good, but not playoff spot good. We are mostly playing well but in almost all games we have very weak moments where our opponents score 1-2 goals.

Upcoming fixtures. We played against 4th and 2nd in the last two games of the month and now we host the league leaders. If we want to get to the playoff spots, we'd need 12+ points. It is not impossible, but we need to concede much less than in the previous months.

We will also get our youth intake preview in December, let's hope for an excellent intake!

[erik45]

December 2027. Christmas came early!  We started the month with an amazing against league leaders Clitheroe and then continued to win games. Only four goals conceded is really good for us, specially comparing to the previous months. We had a good chance to win all the games, as we were leading Buxton 2-0 after 16 minutes, but we just couldn't hold on to it.

League table. We are second in the league!  It is very thight below us, but it's looking good at the moment. Clitheroe are still the clear favourites for the title, but they are not an unbeatable side.

 

Finances. At the beginning of season I made a guess that we would be back in black around the turn of the year. Not a bad prediction!

Upcoming fixtures. A good old hahaha month. Most the opponents in January are in the playoff contention, so a lot of "six point" games. Based on our form, I would say the most difficult opponent will be Warrington Rylands, who are in the relegation zone atm. I just haven't had a good game against a side in relegation battle for a while.

[erik45]

Youth intake preview. I forgot to post this with the December update. This is looking really good. Goalkeeper is not a must at the moment, but full-backs and a centre-back really are.  On top of good potential, I'm happy to see we will get many players to the centre of the pitch: 3 DCs, 3 CMs and 2 STs. 

[erik45]

January 2028. Unbeaten month in December, but something very different for the new year. We knew we had a really difficult schedule, but still... 5 points from six games is not enough. What makes it even worse is the fact that we controlled the games and created more chances and xG than the oppostion. The only game we deserved to lose was against Bamber Bridge, but there we somehow kept the score even.

Table. Such a woeful month means we dropped from second to eight.  One major reason for our form can be found from the picture below:

 

Training. On a more positive note, our players have been training really well! Every week I try to remember to praise all the players who got training rating of 8.0 or more. At the moment of the screenshot, 10 first-team players achieved that, and none of the players were below 6.5!

Job interview. AFC Wimbledon from the Championship offered an interview. I think it's very unrealistic, but if I had more of a journeyman save, I would definitely taken the chance to coach them. Now, I did not attend the interview.

Upcoming fixtures. We have really good chance to get back on track as we face five teams who are all below us, Vauxhall being the best with 12th place. We are playing well, but not getting the results at the moment. If the luck gets on our side, this should be five wins. I just hope we are in a better position at the end of the month.

[erik45]

February 2028. The first game was painful, but after that we found both our shooting boots and the goalkeeper gloves!  I'm also very happy with the attendance numbers!

Table. This means we are getting close to the playoff spots. I'd say the top three have almost confirmed their place at least in the playoffs. Then there are five sides battling for the two playoff spots that are left - and we are one of those teams.

 

Transfer. We lost our starting DLF less than two weeks after he turned 17... He hade been really good this season and had a lot of PA, so I was sad to lose him. 

Murphy 27d is the guy who got his chance when Scott 27c left - and he really took it! It took him 20 seconds to score  

Development. Our best player McCrory 27a is getting better every day. He is also the first player who has more value than 0 €. I think his value will be 0 € when he turns 17 as he has a non-contract. He has scored 13 goals in the league so far, hopefully we can keep him for some years!

Upcoming fixtures. A tough month as we face teams in positions 8th, 9th, 12th, 2nd, 1st and 19th. Wins at home, draws away? That would be nice. 

We will also get the next youth intake, can't wait what it will bring us!

[erik45]

March 2028. LET'S GOOO! Five wins from six games is amazing! From the last 10 league games, we've won 9. This month something changed, as we scored fewer, but also conceded less than previously. The only change I made to our tactic was to change our goalie's role from SK(de) to G(de). Workington were really good and I hope they win the league so we don't need to face them in the playoffs (if we get there).

Table. It is still very tight. We have a theoretical chance of winning the league, but our realistic goal is to remain fourth. There are four teams below us who still have a chance of going past us and we face one of them next month.

Upcoming fixtures. Last league games of the season! If we can get a win from the Silsden game, we have a very good chance of getting to the playoffs. We need to continue at this level of playing to get to the playoffs. It would need a miracle to get a home advantage.

Before playing the next month's games, I will post about youth intake. Last year, all the players from the intake had at least 1,5-star CA and 15 of 16 had 5-star PA. It is almost impossible to top that, but could we get something similar, please? 

[erik45]

Youth intake 2028.

A golden generation you say?  Let's see all the players, so I can tell if I agree: 

I do agree. Big time. Jesus, this is an amazing intake again!! 

We have 13 players with 5-star CA, that's soooooo good. Then we have three players with 3-star CA, those players will get playing time in the first team soon! The best defenders and Goodman 28a are going to go the first team straight away.

As a cherry on top, we have a player who is born in Isle of Man AND has British Overseas Territory Montserrat as his 2nd nationality!  He has the worst CA of the intake, but I don't care. I will find at least one official game where he will get minutes, he is a true island player.

Here are (some of) the best players from the intake:

 

Squad unhappiness. Day after the youth intake some of the more seasoned players came to me to talk about the lack of sufficient quality in squad depth... they clearly didn't go to see the U18s game against the youth intake team!  I promised them to develop youth players for the first team, let's see if I can deliver! 

[erik45]

April 2028. Yes, yes, yes. Three clean sheets, three wins. In the only loss, we created much more than the opponent, but they were really, really efficient.

Table. Final results are in, and we are once again fourth, for a second season in a row. We were really close of getting a home advantage to playoff semi final, but we are not complaining. Clitheroe clinched the title on the final day. They were leading the league for most of the season, but almost choked in the last two months.

Record. We got really close of scoring 100 goals, could we reach it next year? Even though I felt we also conceded a lot, we had the sixth best defence! More about these things in the season review.

Injuries. During April we lost two of our starting strikers. Jones has been pivotal for us from the beginning, as he is basically the only one capable of playing target man. Or so I thought... when looking closer at our new youth prospects, I noticed that there was one player who had relatively good attributes of strength, bravery, jumping reach, heading and finishing. He's not the tallest, but at least in previous versions of FM I've had good success with a bit shorter target men (my best target man ever was 183 cm tall). Here's our new target man, Gethin Jones 28e:

 

Transfer offers. I think our new intake has caught the attention of teams in Vanarama...   These are all 16-years old, so I can decline all the offers, but as soon as they turn 17, they can choose to leave. If some team offers proper money (and re-sale clause), I would be tempted to do that just to see their value in a better team.

Playoff semi final. We face Mossley, who have been with us for all the years, as they got promoted the same year we did. For the past two seasons they've been a really difficult team for us, but I'm confident our good form continues and we can properly challenge them. I would put Mossley as favourites, but just slightly.

[erik45]

Playoff semi final. F**k this. It looked like it's going to be a cagey contest and when we scored the first goal I felt we had a really good chance of advancing.

Then our yellow card machine Jamie Doyle did the unexpected and got a second yellow. He's had 11-15 yellows every season, but only once before he has gotten a red card. And now it was time for the second red...

After the red card, we changed to a less attacking system. We still wanted to keep the ball to control the tempo of the game. We didn't get things working until some tweaks in the second half. Then we had one chance to equalise - and Murphy 27d took the chance beautifully!

I was mentally preparing for extra time. I didn't know how our players had energy for that. But then, at  90+3 minutes, Mossley's Bridgman scored a volley goal from outside a box...and that was it. We lost in the playoff semi finals. Again.

[TelcontarTargaryen]

Next season for sure...

[erik45]

18 minutes ago, TelcontarTargaryen said:

Next season for sure...

Yeah, we are in a good position for the next season if we can keep the best talents. This season we only lost one player from the first XI (two players the season before), so it's looking good!

The only worry is that reputation declined a bit in the beginning of the season, I don't know how much that will affect our ability to keep players.

[erik45]

Season review. We did really well, if you consider we were expected to finish 12th. We got to the same place as last year, but the underlying numbers are much better now (e.g. xGD almost 12 points higher than the season before). I think the main thing was that we got more consistent as the season went on.

We don't know what next season brings, but if we can get just a bit better OR luckier, we should be in the title battle. 

League & xG table. We conceded too many goals, but other than that, this season was a success. The important thing to point out is that we were quite close to our xPts, so we didn't rely on luck. Clitheroe and Workington were just a bit better than the rest, so they deservedly got promoted.

 

Awards & records. We have first awards for a player from the academy as McCrory 27a was selected as the young player on the season as he finished as our top scorer. 18 goals in a season is not amazing, but he shared much of the playing time with our former #1 striker Kian Reddy.

In the list below, we have all of our academy players who debuted this season.

 

Transfers. This was very much one way traffic. No transfers in, 4 loans and 5 permanent transfers out. I would've needed Scott 27c in the promotion run and I didn't like losing Harris 26a, but all in all we didn't lose too many important players. A lot of teams are circling around our best talents, but let's hope they want grow together with the team.

New contract. As the board was happy with my season, I took that as a hint to ask for a contract extension. My contract was up at the end of the next season, and the board agreed to get one year extension, with an extra +1 year clause if we get promoted.

[erik45]

Pre-season & season preview.

Reputation. We are now back on track of getting a better reputation after a small decline a year ago. This should mean e.g. we have more chances of getting good players from youth intakes.

Expectations. Top-half finish, that's pretty much it. I expect us to fight for the title. Or I was until late July... more about that in the next screenshots.

Transfer offers. This kind of view is a weekly thing during pre-season. I even offered better non-contract contracts to some players to make sure they are very, very happy. But was it enough? Not with all.

Transfers out. We lost two of our most important players at the same time. How is it even possible?!  This game is so frustrating at the moment... fortunately we have quite good prospects waiting in the U21s, they just need to step up sooner than I expected.

Season preview & key players. We were expected 7th before we lost McCrory & Cameron. McCrory was in the media dream eleven. Even after these unfortunate transfers out, we have slightly better odds than last season. So, there is hope!

Manager development. I show this as I noticed the personality of Pherick Ramsey has changed from balanced to fairly loyal! I think the coaching and mental attributes are really good for this level. I have no idea how level of discipline is so good, especially as I can't fine anyone yet.

Finances. After last season was used to recover from the last youth facility upgrade, we are now back in a strong financial position. I'm not expecting many upgrades this season, but I might ask for a training facility upgrade if we have more than 0,5 m€.

Pre-season friendlies. Bradford City was the only opponent that plays on a much higher division than us - so that defeat was expected. We ended the pre-season with a totally chaotic 9-4 win, I don't know if I want to see more or less of that during the season.  

Upcoming fixtures. The almost traditional start of the season: extra preliminary round of FA Cup, where we host Whitley Bay who play on the same level as us. After that we should have relatively easy start to the league, but you never know what is going to happen. 

[shd34_216_42]

Time to make some money in the FA Cup.

[erik45]

July/August 2028. Goals, goals, goals! We scored two or more in all the games, that's the start we wanted!  But then there were two games where we conceded way too many. We should've won Whitchurch easily and we didn't deserve to lose against Staveley, but these things happen. Underlying numbers are quite good, so I'm not worried.

@shd34_216_42, looks like we have at least some kind of FA Cup run going on! 

Table. We've been scoring and conceding, no dull days at the office.  Let's hope we find a bit more consistency against weaker sides, they seem to be the problem for us at the moment.

In-form player. When I was worried about losing our two best players, I was expecting us to take some kind of hit in the both ends of the field. I think the defence is the same as last year, but something wonderful happened in the attack. What happened? Kian Reddy found the form of his life!  I guess he wanted to show me we don't need those youngsters searching for glory.

Transfers out. Last month we lost two of our best, now we lost two more (maybe not the best, but still good). One more player from the first XI and another who was really, really close of making it in our team. But when big teams come knocking, there ain't much I can do. The sad thing is we don't get any sell-on clauses, but maybe something from the solidarity mechanism (or whatever it is called).

But I'm not too worried losing these players as it looks like the players staying in the team are even hungrier of showing their capabilities  

Finances. Over 2,000 spectators in the cup game (in July) and two other home games makes our bank balance look very nice. Hope we can keep this track so we can afford facility upgrades this season.

Upcoming fixtures. Three in the league + two in the cups. I think there will be more games if we advance in the cup(s). I don't care too much about the FA Trophy at the moment, but I really care about the FA Cup. We didn't get the kindest of draws as Mossley are a good side from our division. In the league we face Stocksbridge Park Steels for the very first time before, they got promoted last season.

[shd34_216_42]

Looks like home games in the FA Cup are way more lucrative than away games, shows how good your attendance figures are compared to other teams. The drawback is potential fatigue from the extra games, but the money potential makes it worthwhile. 

FA Trophy is worth caring about for a few rounds at least, although obviously it's second priority.

[erik45]

September 2028. League  - FA Trophy  - FA Cup 

I think we got exactly what we deserved. In our wins we were convincing, and in our losses we were the second best. I'm not too happy dropping from FA Cup, but our focus is the league. Only two games, but we won them both, no complaining.

Table. Two wins means we move to promotion playoff spots! It's still very early in the season, but if we can keep up with the 2 pts/game pace, we should be in the positions 1st-5th.

Career-ending injury. Our loyal left-back Kevin O'Connor got a serious injury in the game against Stocksbridge Park. I don't know if any back-up can get close to O'Connors assist number. When I've been managing the team, O'Connor has assisted whopping 88 goals in all competitions, averaging over 20 assists per season!  I hope he doesn't retire as I want to give him a proper farewell game at the end of the season.

Finances. It is looking good, steady flow of income.

Upcoming fixtures. Six games means we need to do some rotation. We don't have too many solid back-up options, but I think we are going to be fine. We are not interested in league cup, so there we will use as much rotation as possible. The first two games might be the trickiest, but at this level, you never know.

[shd34_216_42]

Does Kevin O'Connor have coaching attributes? Would be a nice way to honor his contributions if that's an option.

[erik45]

15 hours ago, shd34_216_42 said:

Does Kevin O'Connor have coaching attributes? Would be a nice way to honor his contributions if that's an option.

That's an excellent idea, I hadn't thought of that!

He doesn't have coach attributes, but I was able to send him to a coaching course. I thought that would actually be quite realistic, sending an older player with long-term injury to get his coaching badges.

But, it didn't go as I planned, see below 

I even tried to appeal it, but the board literally said "In future, please do not waste our time with things like this." 

[erik45]

Retirement. This happened sooner than I expected, but I can't say I'm surprised. I tried to sign him back as a staff member, but he was asking wages of 350 €/w... 

[erik45]

October 2028. Good start, bad end.  We won the the games I thought to be difficult and lost the "easier" games. Padiham game was especially stupid loss as they scored with their first two shots and then we took a red card... Witton Albion absolutely shut us down, we had our first shot on goal at 79th minute (which we scored).

 

Table. Three wins, two losses is not the best form, but at least we are still in the top group.

Upcoming fixtures. No cup games left, so quite quiet month as we have no games mid-week. WD&C is the only game I think we should be clear favorites, the rest are very much 50/50.

[shd34_216_42]

55 minutes ago, erik45 said:

That's an excellent idea, I hadn't thought of that!

He doesn't have coach attributes, but I was able to send him to a coaching course. I thought that would actually be quite realistic, sending an older player with long-term injury to get his coaching badges.

But, it didn't go as I planned, see below 

I even tried to appeal it, but the board literally said "In future, please do not waste our time with things like this." 

At least you tried.

To be fair, he's definitely not worth 350/wk as a staff member at your level, so sadly the right move is to move on. Might be interesting to follow his post-playing career though.

[erik45]

November 2028. This really was No-vember... We didn't get anything done. I don't know if it is losing O'Connor or what, but we can't get proper chances at the moment. In the Stalybridge game we scored 4 goals in the first 20 mins - and then stopped playing. They were really close of equalising, but in the end we held our ground. All these teams have been in a good form, but still, four points is not enough.

Table. We dropped a lot of points and that means we are outside of playoff positions. If there's some silver lining, it is the fact that we are still just 5 points from the top.

Goal50 2028. I just wanted to show this because Kai Havertz is just funny to me. I think he is a good player and can get even better, but not Vini/Haaland/Mbappe level good.  Arsenal had 8 players in the top 50! 

Upcoming fixtures. Seven games is a lot, but maybe we can use them to turn our form. Leek Town has been playing well lately, so it's a tricky start for the month. No major injuries and more than 12 points is what I'm looking for.

[erik45]

Upgrade. We are not close to getting youth/training facility upgrades. so I got impatient and asked for an upgrade to our youth recruitment. After a short discussion the board agreed with me! This was just less than two weeks before the youth intake preview, I don't know if the upgrade already "counts" to this intake.

Youth intake preview. More players to the attack and midfield, that's really good! Last season we had 4 A's and the rest C or worse. Now we have 3 A's, 1 B and then C's or worse.

[erik45]

December 2028. This is excellent! If we disregard the last game, I would say this was a perfect month. When we score, we score a lot, but when we struggle, we struggle really much. We were a bit lucky this month, we needed to rely on Kian Reddy's monster performances, he scored 10 goals this month! 

Table. We move up! But we are further away from the top, because Mossley's form is just something different at the moment. Take a look at their last two months in the league: 

Poacher. As Kian Reddy got his place in the starting XI back, he has been unstoppable! 10 goals this month, 27 in total, that is just crazy. If he stays healthy, he should be able to go for 40+ league goals! 

Upcoming fixtures. All the teams we face are on the bottom half of the table. This should be five winnable games, but sometimes we really have struggled against teams in the relegation battle.

[erik45]

Transfer out. Less than three weeks after turning 17, Gethin Jones 28e gets his first offer from a pro club... and he takes it. Harrogate Town are bottom of the League 2 and Jones 28e only got a youngster contract. I knew I would lose him at some point, but losing him so soon and with a deal that doesn't make too much sense to him... feels bad.

Jones 28e had been really good in Target Man (At) position. There's only one possible replacement for him and it is 33-year old Robert Jones, who has started to decline. I think he will do an okay job, but this is a downgrade. Maybe youth intake will bring us a new target man?? 

[shd34_216_42]

120/wk is probably something you couldn't compete with anyways.

Out of curiosity, are all the players on other teams in your division on non-contracts as well?

[erik45]

2 hours ago, shd34_216_42 said:

120/wk is probably something you couldn't compete with anyways.

Out of curiosity, are all the players on other teams in your division on non-contracts as well?

This is how the league's salary page looks like. I couldn't fit all the teams, but you get the picture. All the teams above us have at least one player with a part-time contract. Warrington Rylands and above are the teams that pay to most of their players. Stalybridge Celtic has been in this division for five years but somehow they still can have a wage budget of 1 m€+/year. They have seven players who earn more than 1000 €/week!  

I haven't tested what asking for professional status actually means. I think we are in a financial position where we should be capable of offering part-time contracts to our best players, but I don't know how I can ask for that.  I don't want to end up in a situation where we need to offer contracts to all the players, we just can't afford it yet.

 

Edit. 

No option for part-time contracts.  And when asking about the board I can only ask for going from semi-pro to pro. I think we need to get better reputation/promoted so we can offer something.

Edited February 10 by erik45

[erik45]

January 2029. Tough month. Kian Reddy lost his scoring boots and it felt like we've been relying on him too much.

Table. We are still in playoff spots, but it is very tight. Few losses and we can be down to 10th, few wins and we might be 2nd in the league.

Transfer out. Another first team player heading out... he is 7th 1st team player who decided to leave (and all of them have been our youth products). There really isn't anything I can do to this until we can offer proper part-time contracts. 

Upcoming fixtures. The pace we are losing players is really hurting us. With the team we had at the beginning of the season, we should've been favourites for all these games, but now... I don't know. We are still in the playoff spots, but our form is not good enough to keep us there. We need 9 points or more to stay there. We have a chance to win the home games and maybe get something from the away ones, so it is not impossible.

[erik45]

February 2029. Oh... this is even worse than the previous month.  We deserved to against Avro and get something from the Witton game, but luck is not on our side at the moment.

Table. At the beginning of month, we were fourth. Now we are five points outside of the playoffs. 

Injury. Last month we lost our only target man Jones for two months, now we lost our best poacher. He hasn't been scoring that much this year, but we still need him to lead the line. More about losing players in the screenshots below:

Transfers out. Two more players from the first XI leave us. Lonsdale 28b was not amazing, but did the job, but Jatta 28n had the best CA in the whole team. Nine (!!!!!) 1st team players lost in the last ~8 months. As I have made such a strict transfer policy, there just isn't any good quality players to fill the gaps. Let's hope youth intake will bring some light to this darkness.

If someone has ideas how I could be able to offer part-time contracts to players, I'm all ears!

Upcoming fixtures. If we want to get back to the playoff battle, we need to win most of the games. The first two are extremely difficult. Well, all these games are, it is very tricky month. I would put us favourites against Vauxhall and Stalybridge. I would be happy with 12 points, but I think we need to get more.

[shd34_216_42]

If you can't offer part time contracts, you probably have to get promoted or actually keep a high overall balance (which means not asking for facilities upgrades).

At least you have Stalybridge Celtic to make you feel better, at that level of spending compared to the rest of the league I would expect nothing less than automatic promotion. (I'm guessing Vauxhall and Stalybridge are actually professional rather than semi-pro.)

Do you try to offer a new contract when teams bid on your players? This may be the closest thing to a solution that you have.

[erik45]

7 hours ago, shd34_216_42 said:

Do you try to offer a new contract when teams bid on your players? This may be the closest thing to a solution that you have.

I have tried it with multiple players, but I see no difference as they might still leave. There are often more than 10 offers/week on our players and those don't stop even if I offer a new contract, so I just haven't bothered offering new contracts with most of the players. With key players, I have tried to offer new contracts. They might accept the new contract and then move to a new club when the next offer comes. 

So, I really need the promotion so I can offer part-time contracts, but now we are in this vicious cycle where we lose players who are capable of playing this level before they can achieve promotion with us. Maybe I need to focus on players with high loyalty..?  I never had this kind of exodus before, and I've done multiple youth only saves in low-level divisions.

I think another challenge is that things happen so quickly and unexpectedly. As we get offers all the time and most of those players reject, we really don't know when a player might leave. This season we lost 5 first team players between late July and early August. That just made everything really unbalanced for a month or two. Then we lost four more 1st team players in Jan-Feb. We can adjust, but just not that quickly.

[erik45]

Youth intake 2029. We have new best player in our team!  Loooooads of potential and quite a bit of current ability as well. I'm very happy with this, even if the personalities are not the best.

All the players from England are from the Isle of Man, a bit weird, isn't it? My favourites from the intake are (obviously) Ger Fagan 29a, Juan C. Plunkett 29d and Sam Spooner 29f. Here are their profiles:

If I have to make predictions, we will lose Fagan 29a in August 2031, Plunkett 29d in December 2030, but Spooner 29f might stay a bit longer if he's not the starting keeper by the time he turns 17. All this would obviously change, if we would get promoted and we could offer part-time contracts.

Youth intake tracking. We have as many 5-star potential players and players with more than 1 star CA as we had last year, but when looking at my "key metrics" this year's intake is a bit better. Curiously, we are also getting our intake earlier. The sample size is still really small, but it is interesting because there hasn't been major changes in our reputation or league position.

Youth candidate game. I just wanted to show this screenshot because I think this is some kind of bug. I hadn't signed any of the youth intake players, but somehow they didn't play for the youth candidate team.  It seems this was the case also last year, but not the year before. Weird.

[erik45]

March 2029. Disaster. Before the month we still had a chance of making it to the playoffs if we can get in form. But no. These games were mostly 50/50 games, but the luck is not on our side, not at all. Positives from this month are the goals from our new star striker Ger Fagan 29a.

Table. We are a mid table side with a relegation form. Things need to change at the end of the season.

Tactical desperation. As our 4-3-3 narrow system stopped bringing results, I tested something more boring for the last three games of the month. We got luckier, but the numbers behind the score got actually a bit worse. I will go back to the old system and re-think tactics in the summer.

Record. As Fagan celebrated his debut by scoring two goals, he became the youngest goalscorer in the league and in the club. Hopefully this is one of the many records he will crush!

Finances. I wanted to show this to bring some silver lining to this awful spring form. Even if we are not scoring and winning, we are still making nice profits every month. I think I will start saving up and maybe at some point I'm allowed to give part-time contracts to players.

Upcoming fixtures. Three games left of this awful season.  The board and the fans expect us to get a top-half finish, so we need some points from these games. The away game will be tricky, but I think we have a chance of winning the home games.

Edited February 11 by erik45

[erik45]

April 2029. Well, we were not awful and we ended our season on a positive note. The more experienced players carried us over the finish line.

Final standings. In the end our four points from the last three games was not enough to finish in the top-half. Season review next!

[erik45]

xG & xPts table. We were a bit poorer than expected goals & points, but not far away from that. Most teams score and concede more than they are expected to, but we were very, very close to the expected numbers. We were very close to the top in December, but after that we lost our form and never got it back.

Team performance tracking. When looking at how we did this season compared to the seasons before this, we were worse. Actually, this was our worst season so far. Only 1,4 points/game, although in the cups we were alright.

Board expectations. The board was not happy that we didn't finish in the top half, but there were no consequences. At the end of the season they decided to scrap almost all the objectives and focus on youth development. I'm happy with that! We just need to find the way to keep the youth for some time so we can develop them  

Finances. Financially very strong year, as it has been the trend throughout the save. I'm not planning to use any of the money, just waiting for the part-time contract option.

Transfers. In the first picture are all the transfer that happened this season. We didn't sign anyone (as all the players willing to come to the Isle of Man were sh*t), but we lost so, so, so, so many players.  Even after the season had ended, three players left the team. Of all the players who left, 11 players had an important role in the first team. Even if we get very good intakes, we just can't lose this many players each season.

Award. Kian Reddy was the top scorer of the league. He scored 25 of his goals in the first half of the season, then everything fell apart (not Reddy's fault). I really hope he can find his form during the summer!

New coach. Thorpe has the record of most appearances for FC Isle of Man. As he informed about his plans to retire, I decide to offer him a coach contract. He's a very good coach for this level and I was happy to see him accept such a low offer   He has a good mentality, maybe some of the players learn something from him!