[FM24] Southampton

[warlock]

A little fillip for one of my favourite players:

Came ahead of Kephram Thuram's £42m move to Man Utd, and Antonio Silva's £58m signing for Newcastle.

[theBlackPrince]

Fantastic way to end the season with the FA cup victory, that's huge to get into Europe. Not a million off in the League, the top half finish despite the slow end to the year is something to really build on!

[warlock]

32 minutes ago, theBlackPrince said:

Fantastic way to end the season with the FA cup victory

Cheers! Always nice to pick up your first proper trophy. The money from Europe will be very welcome although, I must admit, I'm somewhat nervous at the prospect 

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

August 2025

It's been a long, complicated transfer window. Money was no problem: I started the window with around £50m available... I've ended it with £67m available. The lack of spending was not through lack of trying but I had a specific set of requirements. Generally, we needed more players who were either home grown in nation or, preferably, home grown at club to satisfy registration rules for our first season in Europe. And more specifically, the switch to the 442 system - with a double-pivot in defensive midfield and using wide midfielders rather than AMR/AML - proved to be something of a bugbear. And finally, we have a number of good young players in the first eleven and I was keen not to bring in new signings who would block their progress.

So in terms of actual wants and needs, we identified four positions for urgent recruitment:

RCB - With on-loan signing Maxim Dekker returning to his parent club, a backup to Armel Bella-Kotchap was a priority.

RB - We have a decent backup in the recently signed Mattia Zanotti, but first choice in the position was an ageing James Bree who wasn't quite up to standard, so a starter here was needed.

ST - Third-choice striker Paul Onuachu was the wrong side of 30 and could only effectively play as a TM, a role that didn't really fit the tactic.

LW - Backup Sam Edozie has bags of potential but wasn't comfortable in the role and position, so a new face here would be useful.

Of the outgoings, AM Joe Aribo had spent last season out on loan and we quickly found a buyer this summer in Sheffield United who paid an initial £16.5m. For Onuachu, no-one was prepared to make an immediate offer but Norwich eventually signed him on a loan-to-buy deal that brings us £800k this year and a guaranteed £12m next summer. Similarly, James Bree has joined Rangers on loan deal worth £750k this year and an optional future fee of £27m.

Next came two deals I didn't want. Hot prospect striker Ivan Azon left for £33m as Villareal activated his minimum fee release clause, and then - a double blow - RB Leipzig triggered star striker Seikou Mara's release clause for £36m. Suddenly we were left with just Adam Armstrong as our only accomplished striker in a two-striker system! However, after Azon's departure I'd already made an offer another young prospect:

Milosovic joins us from Stuttgart for a fee that will total just £9.5m. Worst case scenario, we should be able to turn a good profit on him, but I'm pretty confident he'll make the grade with another two or three years of development.

Also up front, I'd decided that - with European registration in mind - we would promote our best young striker to the first-team squad with a view to giving him some game time this season:

Ballard has a lot more development to do but he's quick, hard-working and a decent finisher so I'm hopeful.

But then came the blow of Mara's departure but the scouting team quickly alerted me to the availability of a possible replacement, a man who needs little introduction:

Abraham had joined Aston Villa a year ago but following their relegation at the end of last season he was looking for a move away. For a fee of £38.5, he cost us just £2.5m more than we received for Mara, which looks like a fair deal to me.

Elsewhere, we found our upgrade at RB in a young Danish international:

A fee of just £10m was enough to secure his services from FC Kobnhaven.

Our final signing was a bit left-field. When I realised we had an issue with home grown players, I set the scouts to look at any decent-looking prospects who fit the bill. And they found our replacement at CB:

Klarer played for Saints between 2016-21 and is therefore home grown at club. For a fee of just £8m from Darmstadt he looks more than capable of filling our 4th choice CB role.

And that concluded our business. We spent a total of around £64m but received £84m in fees with potentially another £40m to come. We struggled to find a possible upgrade on Edozie at LW - everyone we looked at was either not good enough or would have smashed our wage structure.

The squad, therefore, looked like this for the start of the season:

Far from world class, but capable - I think - of reaching the board requirments of a top-half finish.

And we looked great in pre-season (don't we always) but got a huge reality-check in the Community Shield where we faced reigning champions Man Utd:

However, when the league campaign got underway we looked a lot more convincing:

Let's hope that Liverpool result is a truer measure of our abilities. 

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

November 2025

Having enjoyed a good start to the new season, winning all three of our opening league games, the question was: how long could it last. "Not long" was the answer:

However, the opening game of the month was pleasing - Everton were also unbeaten and top of the table when we met. And I guess the away draw at German side Freiburg in our Europe League debut was not a bad result. But we were far from convincing in these games and the chickens came home to roost against Chelsea and Man City. The biggest red flag came against League One Fleetwood in the Carabao Cup.

This was a game we should have won comfortably but I guess their manager chose the "we have nothing to lose" team talk and they played like it:

Twice we had the lead and twice they pulled us back. And even after Armstrong bagged two late goals Fleetwood refused to lie down as Nathan Fraser scored a brilliant hat-trick for the visitors and we limped over the line. The problem with the 442 is that it was supposed to make us defensively secure, but with 9 goals conceded in 5 games and no clean sheet it obviously wasn't doing its job. At the other end, all of our wide midfielders - who had been the creative force in the previous seasons - were struggling to adapt to new positions and failing to influence games.

Unwilling to make a radical change in shape this early in the season, I did some reading and found @MattyLewis11's excellent career thread at Villareal last year. He had started with the flat 442 also, but quickly moved to a 4222 (or 424) shape with the wide players in the AM line. Which confirmed my thinking, so that change was made. And paid immediate dividends:

Six games played in October, no defeats, two clean sheets and - more importantly - AMs Bardghi and Edozie on the scoresheets with generally much improved performances. I'm hoping the change will also benefit Mitrovic, one of our better players last year but who has been the squad's worst performer this time, averaging 6.4 in his last 5 games.

November will be a test of our ability with another 6 games including Premier League matches against Man Utd and Arsenal, and a Europa League tie against Athletic Bilbao. But it has been a decent start to the season:

 

[SteinkelssonFM]

It's a great shape, one which I am certain will bring you lots of joy. Try and focus on your best attacking player and look to slightly tweak supporting roles around him to maximise impact. 

[warlock]

26 minutes ago, MattyLewis11 said:

It's a great shape, one which I am certain will bring you lots of joy

Cheers Matty! Certainly bringing me joy at the moment:

[Carambau]

Wow! Wonderful win against United  You are in great form right now - I hope you can keep it up. How is Klarer doing?

[warlock]

4 hours ago, Carambau said:

How is Klarer doing?

Ah, I noticed he's playing for you too . He's doing fine - definitely 4th choice of the CBs but we're playing so much football this season he's getting plenty of games, especially lately. RB Zanotti missed the whole of the month injured so Klarer has seen quite a bit of action as a makeshift IFB and done okay.

I could really use a right-sided utility defender - our left-footed CBs are pretty good at LB, but there's no-one who's even 'accomplished' at RB.

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

November 2025

Coming off the back of an undefeated October we were quietly confident but faced a tough schedule this month, starting with the visit of reigning Premier League champions Man Utd - who had, let us remember, given us an utter spanking in the Community Shield.

As already spoilered above, we beat them and beat them comfortably. We made a couple of changes to the tactic - one major, and one minor. The major change was a shift from 'positive' to 'balanced' mentality, which makes the team a little more cautious in approach with fewer defenders  pushing up early. The minor change was to turn off 'play out of defence', a switch I use often against teams that like to press high. Midway through the first half we were still dicing with death and passing it around our back line so I also told GK Restes to stop distributing to the CBs and instead go long to the flanks, bypassing the press altogether. Worked like a charm.

Against Arsenal, it didn't work at all. The Gunners swarmed our defence from the first whistle, penning us into our own final third and raining shots on our goal. It's a testament to Restes's shot-stopping that we didn't concede 5 or 6. At the other end we created nothing. Sometimes you just have to accept it's not your day.

We redeemed ourselves in the remainder of the month, clocking up two more league victories and another win in the Europa League. 

The strike partnership of Abraham and Armstrong continues to excel and young Dom Ballard has made the most of his cameo appearances. The switch in tactics is also getting the best out of our wide players with Edozie, Bardghji and Mitrovic all on the scoresheet this month, and also seen us climb the table:

In terms of individual performances, RB Jelert leads the league in assists, Armstrong is third for goals, and Abraham is joint-second for PoM awards:

December will be the usual meat-grinder with 8 games in 4 weeks and Newcastle and Chelsea probably our toughest opponents, although both of those games are at home.

[warlock]

Clean sweep:

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

December 2025

Mrs W is away on business this week so much FM has been played... another month in the books:

Not bad in the grand scheme, but something of a comedown after our recent stellar form. We should have beaten Leicester but in the event were lucky to get away with a draw, thanks to Armstrong's very late equaliser. Against a resurgent Newcastle - now managed by Zinedine Zidane - we produced a better display, taking the lead and then keeping them at bay for the remaining hour.

The games against Leeds and West Ham were frustrating. Both are engaged in avoiding relegation and should have been comfortable wins but we struggled at both ends of the pitch, but two points was better than two defeats. Mixed feelings about our Carabao Cup exit against Chelsea... on one hand, I was disappointed by the performance; on the other, I'm happy to avoid the extra fixtures in the new year. And we saw out this year with two better showings against lesser opponents, securing wins against both Brentford and Forest. 

Overall, we consolidated our position in the European qualification spots, even occupying the pinnacle for a brief period (and if we win our game in hand we might do so again):

And so to the January transfer window where some business will be done. Among a number of surprises in store will be the departure of our one-time No1 goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu. I wanted to keep him, both as backup and to push Restes for the jersey, but when given the chance he has been absolutely terrible. His average rating for the season so far has been 6.3, yet he has constantly complained about wanting more game time to secure his Irish national team position. In the end I was sick of his moaning and offered him out, and immediately received an offer from the Saudis. But in his place I believe we've found a definite upgrade. All to be revealed next time...

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

January 2026

The January transfer window was largely a story of sinners - moving on the bad apples and deadwood while trying to replace them with young talent. By and large, I think we did okay.

First out was GK Gavin Bazunu. He had struggled to make the step up to the Premier League but I wanted to keep him as backup to first-choice Restes. As his performance levels went down, his moaning went stratospheric and I was glad to see the back of him when Al-Duhail offered £14.5m for him. Since we paid £14m plus clauses for him I expected the board to moan about the fee but the transfer passed without comment.

It was a similar story with backup LB Romain Perraud - inconsistent but expensive. We couldn't find a transfer for him but Rangers are paying us £120k a month for a loan deal. AMC Carlos Alcaraz was a good prospect who didn't fit any of our tactics and never developed so he's gone on loan to Werder Bremen with an optional fee of £12.75m, while third-choice LB Ryan Manning joins Burnley on loan with a future fee of £11.5m. CM Joris Chotard, a player I really liked, was moaning about playing time and a new contract so he was shown the door, joining  Villareal with an optional future fee of £38m. Finally on transfer deadline day Dortmund triggered CB Marton Dardai's release clause in a £25m deal.  That brings our total transfer income for the season to £125m.

Incoming deals were largely like-for-like replacements. As a backup GK I was delighted to secure the services of Dennis Seimen:

A fee that might eventually reach £16m was enough to make him a Saint. He was happy to accept backup status, and has the potential to become our long-term No1 in future.

At LB I was happy to sign a player who comes in as first-choice for the role while young Spaniard Juan Larios develops:

For £13.5m from Italian side Hellas Verona, Doig has all the attributes we need and still has room to improve.

With Chotard out at DM we were able to bring in a genuine upgrade, a player who has been on my radar from the start of the save:

At just £6m from Bodo/Glimt he's also an absolute bargain.

Finally, with CB Dardai leaving on transfer deadline day it was lucky that I'd already identified a couple of potential replacements and we quickly moved to sign this man:

For £17.5m from Man City, Doyle is another bargain who looks ready for Premier League football and still has the potential to get better. A solid defender with the dribbling, passing and vision to play the ball-playing defender role we use.

That brought out season spending to £93m, a transfer profit of £32m. So despite my best efforts, we still have an available transfer budget of an astonishing £90m, with a surplus of £90k a week in the wage budget.

Meanwhile on the pitch there was football to play... an awful lot of football:

We've played 16 games in less than eight weeks and I'm pretty astonished we've able to play at anything like our best. But it was a month of ups and downs - a fantastic win against Liverpool at Anfield, a terrible performance in the FA Cup against Championship side Burnley that added a replay to our workload, and a lacklustre defeat to Bournemouth before ending with two excellent wins in the Europa League that saw us finish top of the table with 7 wins and a draw from our 8 games:

February seems like a bit of a holiday after recent months with just 6 games to play in 4 weeks but they are tough games: we open the month with a visit from Chelsea - who we haven't been able to beat in five encounters so far - followed by an FA Cup tie against Arsenal, then league games against Man City and Spurs before we finish with games against West Brom and Fulham - the latter two look easier on paper but we've already suffered a number of defeats against sides involved in the battle for survival so I take nothing for granted.

[Carambau]

Seimen! You got a wonderful keeper for years to come now  

Some strange results though indeed... but it shows you can beat the top teams nicely  

Edited February 23 by Carambau

[john1]

Wow what progress so far

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

February 2026

This was the month where the grind eventually caught up with us. The schedule of two games almost every week through the winter months meant we were unable to play anything like a settled side through injuries and the need for constant rotation. We still pulled off some remarkable results but we couldn't keep it up:

We were fantastic against one of our bogey teams in Chelsea - a goal from Mitrovic just before halftime seemed to break them. We scored another two early in the second half and then ran riot towards the end.

The FA Cup tie against Arsenal was one of those incredible games FM throws up every now and again:

Literally end to end stuff. We eventually stretched out a lead before halftime but Arsenal came back strongly, then they conceded a penalty, and late on young CB Callum Doyle tried to block a shot and only managed to deflect it into our net. So it was back to our place for the replay where we managed to bag another four goals but, thankfully, held them to a brace.

Then came the wobble. The match away at Man City was a game too far and we looked exhausted before the kickoff. A 1-2 defeat could have been much worse and we left with our pride intact. But we had nothing in the tank for the visit of league leaders Spurs. I hoped a week off before our visit to struggling West Brom would allow us to recharge, and we looked good after taking the lead inside 30 minutes. But we could produce nothing else and allowed the Baggies a late equaliser.

Who knows what happened against Villa in the FA Cup? Yes, I asked for an end to the poor form; yes, they're a Championship side now, but the lads went out like a pack of ravening wolves and ripped them to shreds. I don't think the fact that Villa are now managed by David Moyes can explain it, but it was certainly a morale booster for us. In comparison, the game against Fulham was a routine victory we were heavy favourites to win.

The two defeats this month, together with the two in January, have had a dramatic impact on our league position. From second place and a good chance to reclaim top spot, we're now hanging on to 6th by our fingernails:

March opens with a trip to Old Trafford and ends with yet another game against Arsenal. In between we have the knockout round in the Europa League... with plenty of lesser clubs still in the competition we have been unlucky to draw Lazio.

Beware the sides of March, eh?

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

March 2026

A bad month by any measure, although performances were not as bad as the results suggest:

Against United we pretty much matched them blow for blow, but Rashford grabbed a goal after half-an-hour and we just couldn't find an equaliser.

Over two legs, the tie against Lazio could not have been closer. In Rome they took a 2-0 lead into the interval but we came storming back and led 2-3 after 75 minutes and were looking good for the win, before they got one of those magic penalties in the 94th minute to get the draw. At home we took the lead in the first half but couldn't extend it. Lazio created little until, in the final minute, they somehow scrambled an equaliser. So the game went into extra time and we had nothing left to give. With 5 minutes left on the clock, Lazio found the winner and we were out of the competition.

 

However, worse was to come. The next day I was confronted with a small-scale squad rebellion, with half a dozen players led by Abraham "outraged" that I had failed our season goal of reaching the Europa League quarter-final. When I mildly pointed out that it wasn't entirely my fault, I managed to win over about half the group but Tammy was having none of it. I'm the manager, I'm responsible.

We were not a happy camp when Arsenal turned up for the last game of the month, but the football gods had decided we were due a little late luck. The two teams largely cancelled each other out before Jesus gave the visitors the lead after 84 minutes but, with virtually the last kick of the game, Gonzalez found the net after Arsenal failed to clear a corner.

The bright spot is our FA Cup quarter-final win. We face Crystal Palace in the semis, but with Spurs and Chelsea in the other tie, I'm not confident of our ability to retain the trophy. Which is a shame because it might be our best chance of getting back into European competition next year. Our league position is precarious:

We have a game in hand but we're much closer to Arsenal and Chelsea below than to Liverpool and Newcastle above. Of the top sides, we only have Newcastle left to play and most of our run-in is against teams in the bottom six. But as we've seen so often, those clubs battling for survival are often the toughest opponents. I'm hopeful, but not confident.

[Carambau]

Unlucky against Lazio! Now fingers crossed for the remaining league games  

[warlock]

Quite the turnaround from our tiff last month:

[Jogo Bonito]

Just catching up on your progress. The squad seems to have had some good additions since I last checked in and despite some difficult moments, all in all this has to be seen as a very good spell in charge here. Good luck in the remaining eight league games and in the FA Cup!

[warlock]

3 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Just catching up on your progress

Hey buddy, thanks for dropping by. There have been some ups and downs but broadly the trend is up so I've got to be pleased.

[Jogo Bonito]

5 minutes ago, warlock said:

Hey buddy, thanks for dropping by. There have been some ups and downs but broadly the trend is up so I've got to be pleased.

Absolutely, you have every right to feel pleased with where you have taken Saints to this point. Bridging that gap to the PL in a very positive manner!

[warlock]

Don't think that Reading avatar has escaped notice... something you'd like to say? 

[Jogo Bonito]

Just now, warlock said:

Don't think that Reading avatar has escaped notice... something you'd like to say? 

Haha. So much could be said about them, most of it negative! 

[warlock]

1 minute ago, Jogo Bonito said:

So much could be said about them

Wondered if you might be pushed into saving them, virtually speaking 

[Jogo Bonito]

8 minutes ago, warlock said:

Wondered if you might be pushed into saving them, virtually speaking 

Well...

[warlock]

Weird situation at the end of season. Brentford are mired in the relegation battle:

While also involved in a European final:

So they could go down to the Championship as Europa League champions 

 

[Jogo Bonito]

8 hours ago, warlock said:

Weird situation at the end of season. Brentford are mired in the relegation battle:

While also involved in a European final:

So they could go down to the Championship as Europa League champions 

Not good at multi-tasking are they 

[warlock]

3 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Not good at multi-tasking are they 

I posted earlier about Villa struggling in the same way last season - reached the latter stages of the Europa League but were relegated from the PL. It was something I was worried about, but we just about managed the extra workload.

In the end, Brentford escaped the drop on the final day, but lost the Europa League final (which also means that we were knocked out by the eventual winners... a slight consolation).

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

End of season, 2026

By the end of March I felt the need for more tactical tinkering. Our league form had been terrible but one specific problem had emerged - the poor form of Roony Barghji at AMR. Perhaps we'd pushed him too far too soon (he's still only 20 years old) but from late February he was a passenger in the side, only managing one goal and two assists in the three games we played against Championship opposition and a rock bottom West Brom. Against PL opponents he had a rolling average rating of 6.4. That meant I had little option but to move Adam Armstrong back out there instead of up front. That in turn left us shorthanded for strikers, so it made sense to drop the second striker down to AMC, where we - just - had the personnel to cover.

During our bad run I'd been constantly tweaking TIs to little effect. Finally, I decided to simplify everything and dropped all of the in-possession instructions. It worked, spectacularly:

The Wolves game was the first to employ the new 4231 and performed okay against a side battling against relegation. After that our formed improved dramatically and we certainly got the best out of Armstrong. Our best performance of the run came against a Newcastle team pushing hard for Champions League qualification:

Armstrong gave us the lead after just 3 minutes, en route to a brilliant hat-trick, but the whole team were fantastic.

And we carried that form into May:

After the Leeds win we had climbed to 3rd in the table with an outside shot at the title but then, unfortunately, we ground to a halt. Against West Ham we were without both Armstrong (exhausted) and Abraham (injured), as well as Gonzalez, our best AMC who would miss the remainder of the season with a muscle tear. 

The FA Cup final was always going to be tough, made tougher by the continued absence of Abraham and a bad day at the office for our back line. Finally, against Forest we played as though the whole team had checked out for the summer. But we had done enough to qualify for Europe again, sneaking in to the Conference League and overperforming our pre-season expectations of just a top-half finish:

And some outstanding individual performances:

A shoutout to Tammy Abraham who added 28 goals to Armstrong's tally.

Generally, we're looking good for next season:

The key requirements are a new CB to replace Bella-Kotchap who has refused offers of a new contract and will depart imminently, and a backup for Gonzalez at AMC. I'm prepared to hold fire on Barghji's position in the hope that he can develop in line with his potential. I'm also hoping for improvements at AML from Mitrovic and Edozie. Our other important business will be to fend off Saudi interest in Abraham, and to keep hold of Restes.

Edited February 25 by warlock

[warlock]

And no sooner had I posted the above then this arrived in my inbox:

I think it's because Man City had a Europa League place for winning the Carabao Cup but then qualified for the Champions League by finishing second in the PL.

[SixPointer]

On 18/02/2024 at 02:40, warlock said:

Milosovic joins us from Stuttgart for a fee that will total just £9.5m. Worst case scenario, we should be able to turn a good profit on him, but I'm pretty confident he'll make the grade with another two or three years of development.

Catching up bro. He was a machine for me at standard liege last fm for two seasons then sold him for a fortune and where he flapped at a couple top German clubs

[SixPointer]

On 25/02/2024 at 17:57, warlock said:

Sinners & Saints

End of season, 2026

By the end of March I felt the need for more tactical tinkering. Our league form had been terrible but one specific problem had emerged - the poor form of Roony Barghji at AMR. Perhaps we'd pushed him too far too soon (he's still only 20 years old) but from late February he was a passenger in the side, only managing one goal and two assists in the three games we played against Championship opposition and a rock bottom West Brom. Against PL opponents he had a rolling average rating of 6.4. That meant I had little option but to move Adam Armstrong back out there instead of up front. That in turn left us shorthanded for strikers, so it made sense to drop the second striker down to AMC, where we - just - had the personnel to cover.

During our bad run I'd been constantly tweaking TIs to little effect. Finally, I decided to simplify everything and dropped all of the in-possession instructions. It worked, spectacularly:

The Wolves game was the first to employ the new 4231 and performed okay against a side battling against relegation. After that our formed improved dramatically and we certainly got the best out of Armstrong. Our best performance of the run came against a Newcastle team pushing hard for Champions League qualification:

Armstrong gave us the lead after just 3 minutes, en route to a brilliant hat-trick, but the whole team were fantastic.

And we carried that form into May:

After the Leeds win we had climbed to 3rd in the table with an outside shot at the title but then, unfortunately, we ground to a halt. Against West Ham we were without both Armstrong (exhausted) and Abraham (injured), as well as Gonzalez, our best AMC who would miss the remainder of the season with a muscle tear. 

The FA Cup final was always going to be tough, made tougher by the continued absence of Abraham and a bad day at the office for our back line. Finally, against Forest we played as though the whole team had checked out for the summer. But we had done enough to qualify for Europe again, sneaking in to the Conference League and overperforming our pre-season expectations of just a top-half finish:

And some outstanding individual performances:

A shoutout to Tammy Abraham who added 28 goals to Armstrong's tally.

Generally, we're looking good for next season:

The key requirements are a new CB to replace Bella-Kotchap who has refused offers of a new contract and will depart imminently, and a backup for Gonzalez at AMC. I'm prepared to hold fire on Barghji's position in the hope that he can develop in line with his potential. I'm also hoping for improvements at AML from Mitrovic and Edozie. Our other important business will be to fend off Saudi interest in Abraham, and to keep hold of Restes.

Another good season to build upon! Transfer plans look set in stone already. Any signs of the next J-W-P in the academy?

[Carambau]

On 25/02/2024 at 17:57, warlock said:

Sinners & Saints

End of season, 2026

By the end of March I felt the need for more tactical tinkering. Our league form had been terrible but one specific problem had emerged - the poor form of Roony Barghji at AMR. Perhaps we'd pushed him too far too soon (he's still only 20 years old) but from late February he was a passenger in the side, only managing one goal and two assists in the three games we played against Championship opposition and a rock bottom West Brom. Against PL opponents he had a rolling average rating of 6.4. That meant I had little option but to move Adam Armstrong back out there instead of up front. That in turn left us shorthanded for strikers, so it made sense to drop the second striker down to AMC, where we - just - had the personnel to cover.

During our bad run I'd been constantly tweaking TIs to little effect. Finally, I decided to simplify everything and dropped all of the in-possession instructions. It worked, spectacularly:

The Wolves game was the first to employ the new 4231 and performed okay against a side battling against relegation. After that our formed improved dramatically and we certainly got the best out of Armstrong. Our best performance of the run came against a Newcastle team pushing hard for Champions League qualification:

Armstrong gave us the lead after just 3 minutes, en route to a brilliant hat-trick, but the whole team were fantastic.

And we carried that form into May:

After the Leeds win we had climbed to 3rd in the table with an outside shot at the title but then, unfortunately, we ground to a halt. Against West Ham we were without both Armstrong (exhausted) and Abraham (injured), as well as Gonzalez, our best AMC who would miss the remainder of the season with a muscle tear. 

The FA Cup final was always going to be tough, made tougher by the continued absence of Abraham and a bad day at the office for our back line. Finally, against Forest we played as though the whole team had checked out for the summer. But we had done enough to qualify for Europe again, sneaking in to the Conference League and overperforming our pre-season expectations of just a top-half finish:

And some outstanding individual performances:

A shoutout to Tammy Abraham who added 28 goals to Armstrong's tally.

Generally, we're looking good for next season:

The key requirements are a new CB to replace Bella-Kotchap who has refused offers of a new contract and will depart imminently, and a backup for Gonzalez at AMC. I'm prepared to hold fire on Barghji's position in the hope that he can develop in line with his potential. I'm also hoping for improvements at AML from Mitrovic and Edozie. Our other important business will be to fend off Saudi interest in Abraham, and to keep hold of Restes.

Pity about the FA Cup Final, but nice finish in the end! Keep it going  

[warlock]

4 hours ago, SixPointer said:

Any signs of the next J-W-P in the academy?

Not really like-for-like but I reckon this kid will be a superstar midfielder:

Two u21 caps for Slovenia already.

Been a difficult transfer window with about 10 days to go - about half the first-team squad are wanted by Saudi clubs or top European teams, and we've already lost a couple of players to activated release clauses. But we're still not reputable enough to bring in big transfer targets. Money isn't the problem - started the window with a £66m war chest and it's now up to £134m . Poor scouting is the real problem; in the first two seasons I was getting nothing but recommendations for actual and potential Championship players. This window it's all 5* potential 18-year-olds who would be great in the long term but are currently rated Tier 4 or 5 level. We already have plenty of those in the youth squads.

Onwards and upwards, eh?

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

August 2026

So... another transfer window closed, another season underway, and quite a lot to talk about. In terms of outgoings a couple were already confirmed before the end of last season as LB Ryan Manning made his move to Burnley permanent for £11.5m, and striker Paul Onuachu joined Norwich for £12m. I though CB Bella-Kotchap would not return to the club but it turned out he had another 12 months on his current deal, but he was quickly moved on to Marseille for £24m.

Then the sharks began circling. Our star GK Restes had been linked with a move to Saudi Arabia but no offers were received but completely out of the blue Spurs triggered his release clause and he was gone for £32.5m. I had made several offers of a new contract to try and get that clause removed or raised but he refused all offers of talks. Much sadness.

Another unexpected offer whisked away another of our top prospects as Lazio snapped up backup RB Mattia Zanotti for a shade under £20m, quickly followed by a release clause bid for star RB Elias Jelert. I made a panicked offer of a new contract and, happily, he accepted but at the cost of breaking our wage structure. He becomes our highest earner by far on £86k a week (but with no release clause). Finally, late in the window, Everton and Nice came in for CB Christoph Klarer. We moved quickly to sign a replacement before agreeing a deal and he choose the south of France and left for £19.75m

With a bunch of youngsters and no-longer-wanted seniors leaving on loan, our transfer income for the window was £102m.

Transfers in began before the end of last season. There were constant rumours and media stories about Saudi interest in CB Alessandro Buongiorno so I moved for a new left-footed defender:

Pirola joins us from Salernitana for a fee that may reach £17.5m. A good all-round defender, he should be a reliable option at LCB.

Our top priority was a replacement for Restes between the sticks. We have Seimen as backup and he should be the long-term solution, but he's not quite ready for prime time yet. Equally, I didn't want to spend a fortune bringing in a newcomer. I think we found the right balance in Marco Carnesecchi:

Not the quickest or the best distributor of the ball, but he should do a good job for us until Seimen is ready to take over. As he cost us just £6.5m from Atalanta, he has good sell-on potential if he doesn't want to stay as long-term backup.

To replace Zanotti as backup RB we returned to Italy and found a very similar player:

Missori cost us £6m from Sassuolo and has already shown himself capable of doing the job.

To replace Klarer at RCB we were short on time and short on options. I eventually decided to splurge big money on a long-term target:

Very quick for a big man, Omobamidele has all the right attributes and I'm sure will quickly prove to be worth the £38m we paid Forest for his services.

Having covered all the urgent gaps in the squad, I could turn attention to the reinforcements that had been identified last year. The first of these was a better backup to Gonzalez at AMC. One player stood out among the scouting recommendations:

Nyheim was a genuine bargain at just £5m from Molde. His attributes look great, he has a resolute personality, and I love the confidence of a 20-year-old who argues with officials. He came in and made an immediate impact with 2 goals and 2 assists in his first four starts, and already looks to have made that AMC spot his own.

Having wanted more reliable cover for Abraham up front, I wondered if we could find a decent striker who wouldn't endlessly complain about playing time. I think we found a solution:

Nino hasn't developed as well as was expected at the start of his career but he was happy to be rescued from the Spanish L2 and I'm confident he'll be an able backup while young prospect Jovan Milosevic continues his development. His wages are rather more than I wanted to pay, but the £5.25m we paid to Albacete made him a very affordable option.

Finally, I noted that we had problems with AMR Roony Bardghji last season but I was prepared to give him the chance to prove himself. But with money burning a hole in our transfer budget I decided to make a move and bring in another option:

Carboni joins us from Napoli for £7.75m and I hope the competition with Roony will push both of them to greater heights. If they both excel, so much the better as we look to find a long-term replacement to Adam Armstrong, who turns 30 in the new year.

Despite my best efforts, we haven't made much of a dent in that transfer budget. We spent around £80m but still ended up with a huge budget of £108m. I'm happy to have turned Southampton into an English version of Benfica, finding and developing young prospects who can be sold on for massive profits, but I'm also aware that at some point we'll have to keep our best players if we're to achieve the kind of success everyone at St Mary's wants. For now, I'm optimistic about our prospects in this coming season.

[Blarney]

Looks like a lot of quality moves, hope they work out for you.

[Blodyxe]

Shame about losing so many good players to release clauses, but you brought another set of ballers who could get you far in EL. Also, any interesting home-grown guys to scavenge from relegated teams?

[warlock]

3 minutes ago, Blodyxe said:

any interesting home-grown guys to scavenge from relegated teams?

I was kinda hoping Brentford might go down for that reason but was pleased they survived (they're my local team ). Otherwise there wasn't much available in the positions we needed targets for.

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

August 2026 pt2

With the transfer window closed, let's take a look at our early form.

The board expectations are that we record a top-half finish, and reach the quarter-final of the Europa League, while playing "attractive", "high tempo", "possessive" and "defensively solid" football . 

The squad for the first half of our campaign shapes up like this:

Team performances have been pretty good to start the season, with the obvious exception of our opening game against Bournemouth:

New signings Nyheim and Nino have settled in quickly, but some players have been well below the required standard - Abraham has started all four games but has no goals, no assists and an average rating of 6.45; Roony has 1 start and 3 sub appearances but no goal contributions and an average rating of 6.5. Patrick Berg and Ludovit Reis have been bang average and, together with Shea Charles, are not doing enough to guarantee automatic selection, but all three are "concerned" by their lack of appearances.

On early results it's looking like another tight competition - after four games only leaders West Ham have an unbeaten start (3 wins and 1 draw). September will give us a better idea of where we stand as we face better opposition in Arsenal and Everton, and kick-off our Europa League campaign.

[SixPointer]

Nyheim looks a baller! What a bargain 

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

October 2026

After a good start to the season I was looking for us to build a strong run of form. While we're not tearing the league apart, we are piecing together a series of results that leave us well-placed going into the brutal winter months:

September saw us progress in the Carabao Cup, record a win and a draw in the Europa League, and secure 5 points from 9 in the Premier League. The match against Reims aside, we were less than convincing in most games but 6 games without defeat is not to be sneezed at.

Arsenal, home or away, is always a tough challenge and I fully expected us to lose this one. But we escaped with a fortuitous draw after Odegaard gave the visitors an early lead, thanks to an own-goal from Saliba. I'd identified Everton as another hard game this month as they were among the early front-runners, and again we rode our luck to take a share of the points. A Calvert-Lewin hat-trick gave the Toffees the lead until 3 miutes from time when Abraham grabbed his second of the game to claim the draw.

In October we found another gear:

Against stronger opponents I'm using our usual strategy of lower lines and a strong counter, and it's working well. When City came to St Mary's we completely FM'd them:

Away at Newcastle, once again they had the possession, the shots and the xG - but we had the goals:

And against Spurs it was a similar story. If any of our forwards could have hit the target we'd have nicked this one as well but the point gained was very welcome.

This season's Sinners and Saints so far...

Saints include new boys Omobamidele, Pirola and Carnesecchi who have helped us to the third-best defence in the league. In midfield, Valentin Carboni has also made a good start to his Southampton career, and up front Fer Nino has helped cover for a slow start by Abraham with 3 goals and an assist in 4(3) appearances. But wearing the shiniest halo is youngster Nyheim - 6 goals and 3 assists in his first 11 appearances (3 off the bench) make him not just our top scorer but also our most important player.

Sinners - and there are more than a few - include Adam Armstrong, the player of the save until this season but his form has collapsed, recording a 6.6 rating in his last 5 starts. DM Ludovit Reis seems to have had his head turned by rumours of Saudi interest and is below average when he plays, and AMC Gonzalez, who should be battling Nyheim for the starter's spot, seems to have given up. But the most annoying sinner is Roony Bardghji...  he has two goals from 5(4) appearances, which is okay, but he only bothers in the second half after I've torn him a new one in the interval team talk. Otherwise he just drifts through games, misplacing passes, not making forward runs or tracking back. He has the lowest average rating of the entire squad.

But there's this:

With a quarter of the season gone we have the slightest grasp on top spot, although Arsenal have that game in hand. November will be interesting: we'll face Man Utd and Liverpool - the latter, now managed by Simone Inzaghi,  sit in 14th place - and we end the month against Brentford, who are one place above Liverpool. A chance for more points?

 

Edited February 29 by warlock

[warlock]

11 hours ago, warlock said:

Liverpool... now managed by Simone Inzaghi,  sit in 14th place

No spoilers but Inzaghi was sacked after the match. A few days later, this arrived in my inbox:

Thanks, but no thanks.

[Houdini777]

Been lurking for ages on this forum and gave this a read before I registered! Great save so far, hope you create a real legacy with Southampton!

[warlock]

22 minutes ago, Houdini777 said:

Great save so far, hope you create a real legacy with Southampton!

Thanks mate - I hope so too . As I'm sure you've noticed, my current tactical approach is heavily influenced by Unai Emery so feel free to chip in.

I've been playing through since the last update and should get to the January window tomorrow, so there'll be a major update soon.

[Houdini777]

7 minutes ago, warlock said:

Thanks mate - I hope so too . As I'm sure you've noticed, my current tactical approach is heavily influenced by Unai Emery so feel free to chip in.

I've been playing through since the last update and should get to the January window tomorrow, so there'll be a major update soon.

I'm sure you'll get there! Great foundations at the club, a superb youth academy in particular! Can't wait to see who you sign, if I can think of any tweaks I'll let you know! I think Luton away is a hard game and then Ajax in europe is well... Ajax, despite this season! So, we'll definitely see more of how his tactics work as the real life season comes to a close!

But yeah, amazing save so far and I hope it continues well into FM24's life cycle.

[Stuniverse]

Just caught up on this.

What a great job you're doing at Southampton, @warlock

Nice one. Keep up the good work!

[warlock]

Sinners & Saints

December 2026

At the end of October we were on a long unbeaten run, with a tenuous hold on first place ahead of Arsenal, who had a game in hand. That situation lasted about a day after the last update as the Gunners picked up the extra 3 points and returned to the summit. Despite our run of good results I was continuously tinkering with the tactic - nothing major, but minor tweaks to address a number of things I saw in games. The first issue was that our form felt precarious. Even in games where we won by a good margin, it felt as though we were just a mistake away from disaster. And there were lots of mistakes - almost all our problems were of our own making.... underhit passes, passes to a team-mate who was well covered, lazy balls out of defence that went straight to the opposition.

That version of the tactic was marked by a total lack of in-possession instructions, so I started to add them back in, one at a time - shorter passing, narrower width, a slight drop in tempo. I'm not overly concerned about possession stats, but I did want us to have more control of games. I'm happy enough with 45-50% of the ball because we still carry a good threat on the counter. But against the likes of Arsenal and Man City it's easy for that figure to drop to around 35%, and it's difficult to do anything when you only have the ball a third of the time and most of that in your own half.

The other issue was offensive efficiency. There were many games that we dominated but were wasteful with our finishing, so I added back in 'work ball into box' and 'dribble less'. The tactic was a work in progress through November but the signs were encouraging:

Liverpool manager Simone Inzaghi was in trouble before our game, with Liverpool well down in the bottom half of the table. But we drove the final nail and he was fired the next day:

I'd guess Liverpool played the game on either 'attacking' or 'very attacking', attempting to blow us away with a barrage of shots but just seemed desperate. Their only goal came from a corner to level it up on the hour. On the other hand, we were resolute in defence and chose our moments to attack. Having taken the lead in the 80th minute, we endured another onslaught and then picked them off on the counter to put the game beyond doubt.

A week later we faced Man Utd at St Mary's and did even better:

The score makes it look like a walkover, the stats tell a different story. Worth recording the stellar performances of GK Carnesecchi, too.

So after those unexpected victories I was left extremely dischuffed by our performance against Brentford. The Bees had been in and out of the relegation zone all season and this looked like our easiest game of the month. I don't know whether it's complacency, a lack of fight against underdogs, or something else, but this wasn't the first time we've struggled against "lesser" opponents. But I resisted the urge to make further changes to the tactic and went, with some trepidation, into the traditional brutality of the December schedule:

To my amazement we emerged unscathed, despite having to rotate the playing 11 almost every game. And everyone played their part: Abraham has recovered something of his best form, Fer Nino continues to prove an able backup, and we're getting goals from all over the front 6. Our bright young stars, Carboni and Nyheim, continue to shine.

All of which has cemented our place at the top:

Forest and Wolves are doing surprisingly well, Liverpool have managed to haul themselves up to 12th while Newcastle are down in 14th and Chelsea sit one point above the relegation zone.

On the eve of the transfer window we have a ton of money available (£108m) but how much we'll need to spend depends - as always - on offers for the current squad. I have a particular dilemma with backup GK Dennis Seimen - he wants first-choice status but he's not yet at the level of Carnesecchi, but he's wanted by Valencia and Hoffenheim and is making wantaway noises. Other potential problems include CB Callum Doyle (wanted by Leverkusen), DM Juan Sforza (Real Madrid), and defenders Josh Doig and Lorenzo Pirola, both targets for a bunch of Saudi clubs.

I said at the start of the season, at some point we have to transition away from being a selling club. These are all players we should be keeping.

There may be trouble ahead.

 

 

[Stuniverse]

4 hours ago, warlock said:

All of which has cemented our place at the top:

Everything seems to be going very well, @warlock

4 hours ago, warlock said:

I said at the start of the season, at some point we have to transition away from being a selling club. These are all players we should be keeping.

There may be trouble ahead.

Oh, I spoke too soon… 

I know that feeling all too well from my current Norwegian save.

Good luck 🍀⚽️🤞

[warlock]

1 hour ago, Stuniverse said:

Oh, I spoke too soon… 

If it's not one thing, it's another