Jogo Bonito

Season 2023/24 With promotion to League 1 comes a new home kit, delivered under the long-term kit deal with Macron In an ideal world everybody associated with Bradford wants the team back in claret & amber, but their decision to go with white home kits in FM22 cannot be undone Transfer business was kept to a minimum after last season's revolving door, and more players left than joined Incoming transfers Goalkeeper Ross Doohan, right-back James Brown, central defender Jasper Moon & defensive midfielder Jacob Davenport all arrived on free transfers The quartet are likely to operate as back-up players, but with weekly wages of £1500 per week or less, they all offer excellent value for money A small number of young players were added to the U18 pool just to populate the squad, but only Reuell Walters (Arsenal) is likely to progress through the ranks Outgoing transfers We released understudy goalkeeper Sam Hornby, rotation defender Luke Hendrie, and strikers Lee Angol & Tom Eaves as alluded to in my end of season report Central defender Kyron Gordon wanted to leave and was sold to Wrexham (£100k), and attacking midfielder Jamie Walker was allowed to join Bolton (£100k) Two young strikers were sent out on loan as they were too old for the youth side, these being Colm Whelan (Derry City) & Dewain Sewell (Altrincham) Squad Review Our incoming business finished on 7th July, but the season kick-off is today and the window remains open We have accepted a bid of £250k from Forest Green Rovers for Elliot Watt, so if he departs we will possibly look to replace him For the time being, we have the following 23-man squad at our disposal, plus two or three youngsters in the U18 group in mind if injury woes return again Pre-Season results We enjoyed good preparation for the new campaign, and the following results set us up for the season opener The intention is to stick with the solid system that served us well in the last few months of 2022/23 (three defenders, wing backs for width, and a defensive midfielder)

Thank you! Enjoy your European tour, two weeks sounds great. I've not yet been to Athens, but one to do definitely. Rome as we both know will be a fantastic place to finish - although you can detour to Malta one day to bring your standards down a bit

Cheers. How about trying for the Nigerian striker they just bought back to England from Germany? My Bradford update (February to May 2023) was above, but now it's time to reveal the outcome of the Play Off matches... Season 2022/23 - League 2 Play-Off Semi Final We faced Salford home and away only a short time after beating them in our 45th league match, and solid defensive work saw us through 1-0 on aggregate What you don't see here is that they had a 94th minute penalty saved in the second leg to prevent making it level in the tie with a 1-0 win Imagine the scenes with 23,463 fans at 'Valley Parade' witnessing that let-off, especially as only 251 of them accounted for the visitors pitiful following Season 2022/23 - League 2 Play-Off Final Wrexham had seen-off Lincoln on penalties to reach the Final, and whilst we hoped for a more entertaining spectacle it never worked out that way Solid defence again was our highlight, but it needed our five penalty takers to keep their nerve and see promotion delivered after a 5-3 win on spot-kicks Here is the final statistics page, with the bank balance positive again due to competition monies paid out And here is the summary of the playing squad at the end of the term, across all competitions (excludes those who departed mid-season) The four players highlighted are on expiring contracts and due to promotion, new terms won't be offered to any of them That's a bit harsh on Tom Eaves who performed well when needed and won the Player of The Season award from the fans, but we need to look to the future now Sam Hornby was only ever a back-up and has left the club in real life, whilst Luke Hendrie (son of John) is a Bradford fan but sadly not rated too well in the game Lee Angol was rarely used, and rarely fit - ruled out with six injuries in the season (the longest one being three months due to a torn hamstring) On that note, Max Clark started eight games early on and then missed the rest of the season with damaged cruciate ligaments (nine months and counting) Alistair Smith missed 25% of the season (including two months with a broken foot) and Reece Staunton (son of Steve) missed 18% with a hamstring injury of two months The end of season improvement was due to the change to a back-three & wing-backs, and the extra quality of those recruited to play there in the winter window There really won't be many additions in the summer, and more will leave than arrive as a few sales might be made We hope to recruit a second goalkeeper, an alternative right wing-back, an extra backup central defender and one defensively adept central midfielder Another striker may be added if he can be found for free or a nominal fee, but unless he goes in as 'best striker' we will just promote one of our U18 options The youngsters did well to finish 2nd in their division and the strikers were all in good form, including the over-age appearance makers Colm Whelan (10 in 8 games), Rakealan Jeffers (33 in 31+7 games), Josh Stones (5 in 9+2 games) and Mark O'Mahony (8 in 9+5 games) all show promise And on top of that we have Dewain Sewell who scored 2 goals for the youth side in just one outing, as he went on loan to Solihull Moors and was under-used there

At the close of the January transfer window we had 15 league fixtures remaining of the 2022/23 season, and we had edged up to 8th in League 2 A busier than desired transfer window saw a bit more quality added in defence, and Mallik Wilks brought in to boost the attack Most of those new players had been here in January though, and the results were less good than expected February kicked off in similar fashion with three draws from the first four games, our inability to win remaining a major frustration But eventually the tighter defence (three central defenders) and decision to play Wilks as one of two strikers rather than wide, began to pay dividends A run of six straight wins took us through March and in to mid-April - a sequence unthinkable since the start of this campaign Another reason we clicked was the arrival of teenage Irish left-back Alex Murphy in January, the youngster has been performing superbly at left wing-back The run of wins was ended by Lincoln (3rd) and Leyton Orient (2nd) but we recovered well to those results with a big 5-2 win at fellow Yorkshire side Harrogate Game week 45 saw the visit of Salford (5th) in a quirky day of fixtures that saw all of the top eight sides playing against each other A Play-Off spot had been secured when beating Harrogate, but the 2-0 win against Salford was important so we could finish above them (home 2nd leg advantage) We rounded off the regular season with a win at Barrow and claimed 5th spot - a two-leg reunion with Salford now awaits Given where we had been for much of the campaign, finishing 5th has to go down as good - even though our pre-season hopes were aimed at automatic promotion Now that we have the defence and wing-backs all in good form, we'll be confident of having enough quality in midfield and attack to see us through But a sense of realism remains, we only have a 25% chance of progress and Lincoln, Salford and Wrexham will all have similar belief in themselves The final table looked like this, with Bristol Rovers lifting the title and Leyton Orient and Crewe going up with them automatically Stevenage and Scunthorpe were very much cut-off and relegated with little resistance put up We'll do another update to show how the Play-Off campaign goes, as these games have not yet been played For now, let's get those 'Valley Parade' scarves, flags, flat caps and rattles at the ready...

Thanks @Dong21 yes that's very true about how satisfying such a period can be if you come out the other end. Things did improve at Bradford with a three-at-the-back system, helped by a small upgrade in player quality and a massive drop in significant injuries. A settled side, like at the end of 2021/22 when I first took over, and at the start of this season, seemed to make a massive difference. An update will follow. Sorry for lack of comments on everyone else's games when I last posted my update. Limited time, even less limited posting time these days. Congratulations @warlock for a comfortable title-winning season. I'll start the EPL countdown clock To everyone else, I hope you're all enjoying your various careers which I've only been able to skim through so can't make detailed comments on unfortunately.

It's been a while since my last post which saw Bradford sat 3rd in League 2 at the end of August 2022 Expectations were high at that point, and we were convinced that automatic promotion would be on the cards The reality has been completely different, and the smiling face profile picture is a complete contrast to the tale of woe that follows... It's fair to say that things have been terrible, with so many disappointing results and literally everything conspiring against our side We concede a number of penalties early on before setting our stamp on matches and end up just chasing a game We concede long range screamers from players who should not be capable, and we concede frequent late goals to drop vital points At the other end, we hit the bar and post an unbelievable amount of times - and we have endured torrential injury problems that just never let up It seems unlikely, but much of this can be traced back to the 10-month injury caused to left-back Max Clark after just eight appearances As a result we became unbalanced, weaker in defence and less effective when attacking Of course there are ways to fix these things, but when we address one thing, something ese comes back to bite us In truth, despite the chopping and changing of formations (forced) and personnel, we just haven't been good enough We are now out of all cup competitions (a blessing), and need to turn some of these draws in to wins - we just don't claim victory in enough games The below performance graph shows we have been battling to stay in the top half, and we have not been in the PO spots for literally months now 8th is as high as we have been for ages, so even that position is papering (thinly) over the cracks The strikers all started the season well, but all stopped scoring at around the same time Defensively it's not been a horror show, but it's not been good enough either, and we need to improve in defence, midfield and attack The transfer window was therefore much busier than expected, although it hasn't made much difference to results so far Incoming transfers Picking up forward Mallik Wilks from Hull was a massive coup, but we had to pay a big wage of £4k per week to secure his services He can play a wide-right attacking role or as a striker with a partner, but we haven't yet seen the best of him at Bradford Teenage left-back Alex Murphy has been brought in to take over from Foulds who has been very disappointing when deputising for Clark Ireland also delivered two young strikers - Colm Whelan has been added as one for the future, and Mark O'Mahony was only 17 and is doing well for our U18 side Winger Dion Pereira was signed after a stint on loan last season (the club wanted him to sign IRL before going for Harry Chapman) The final three additions to talk about all add quality, experience and defensive strength which has seemingly been badly needed Paul Digby drops from League 1 to fill the void as a defensive midfielder (we allowed winger Gilliead to go in part exchange) Meanwhile, Callum Connolly & Jordan Thorniley can both expect to start in central defence as we now plan to try three at the back Outgoing transfers Before the turn of the year we allowed a couple of players to leave on loan as they were too old for the U18 team and we have no U23 side In the January window we allowed Vernam (just one sub appearance), Dhanda (just one assist in 9+9 games) and Gilliead (the need of Digby was much greater) to leave Central defender Cousin-Dawson will also depart in February as he heads to Forge FC in Canada for a fee of £30,000 Other news Doncaster approached Assistant Manager Mark Hughes some months ago to take on their vacant manager role Despite the £200k compensation deal agreed, we asked him to stay and he surprisingly agreed to do so We did however lose Stephen Gent since then, with Millwall paying £115k compensation to steal our Chief Scout So far we have been unable to pay enough wages to the only person identified to replace him, so we are just operating with two regular Scouts currently We now have 15 league games of the regular season to break in to the PO spots The ongoing horrific injury list (will share details at season end) and long-term lack of form makes this quest very unlikely Having said all this, it's been nice to experience a challenging season It wasn't expected to be like this, but at least it's given some real challenges and tests for a change

Following on from my previous post, there was little more business done at Bradford before the transfer window closed ahead of the 2022/23 season Liam O'Neil was allowed to depart for Rotherham (League 1) for a fee of £10k within weeks of arriving on a free transfer This was in order to keep some realism as he had recently signed a new deal at Cambridge IRL and so was not actually a true free agent that we could have signed We also tried to re-sign our released midfielder Levi Sutton as he signed a new Bradford contract last week IRL, but so far he isn't interested in a return So the only additions were a couple of teenage strikers on free transfers for the U18 squad, as we only had one youth striker on the books The pair came from different footballing backgrounds but Josh Stones (Harrogate) and Dewain Sewell (Aston Villa) both seem to have good potential On our books are Elliot Watt and Charles Vernam, who have both been offered new City contracts IRL (as yet unsigned) If either of these leave the club then we will replicate this in the game by moving them on at the next available opportunity This leaves the following 24-man first team squad at our disposal for the start of the new season Gordon, Daley-Campbell, Clark, Smith, Thorpe, Cannon, Dhanda, Bradford (had to be done), Eaves & Olaofe are the ones who are not present day Bradford players IRL Pre-season went quite well, with a 4231 formation being used until late on when we switched to a 4312 formation The season proper didn't start too well with Barnsley dumping us out of the Carabao Cup in Round 1 And the opening league game was another loss as Northampton came from behind to defeat us 2-1 Since then, however, we have chalked up four straight wins and looked fairly decent to surge up the table The best result was the 2-1 win at relegated Lincoln, who we would expect to be favourites for promotion this time around You will see though that we needed a very late goal from sub Jake Young (90+2) to turn a respectable draw in to a delightful victory The performance graph shows how we bounced back from the slow start, and hopefully this momentum can be maintained

Incredible recovery, great story & genuine congratulations

I too have found hard to have time on FM22, but we finish work at 2.30 pm for the next three months due to summer hours so hopefully might fit in a little more. I will look forward to your updates when the time comes @warlock Sorry to hear this. I wonder how long my laptop will survive too, the heat doesn't seem to help it. Hope to see you around soon. Too many updates for me to comment on but clearly very good work at Bolton and Rochdale, and good luck at Barnsley & West Brom for the new managers there. A gripping story at Willand and one that is a real test of character. Working under those conditions is a real test, but I'd say you are coping well and so far just above the drop zone so hope it continues that way. Perhaps one bit of luck with a striker (or keeper) might make enough difference. After a lovely trip to Rome and a less than lovely return to work (way too busy), I'll look to get some progress with Bradford as 2022/23 pre-season has just been completed and the start of League 2 awaits. An update will follow in due course.

Thanks mate, we will see. Who are you managing these days?

That is strange. I wasn't even able to get him on a pre-contract as my board wouldn't allow me to pay him £7.5k per week. The issue was my board rather than anything else, but hope he has done well for you at Parma. IRL he is very likely to be at a new club in La Liga next season, he had a good year and is quite sought after it seems. I had a good time with Parma in FM21 which I wrote about on this forum. Now I just content myself with buying Parmalat yogurts and milk over here

Cheers, I did leave them in better shape yes. 'Appen you're right about Yorkshire. Thanks mate. Yes two decent seasons, the first one was way over expectations, the second was a bit patchy but ended up quite well. Time to start my first EFL save of FM22 with Bradford. I've only managed Palermo & Valencia in this edition so far, less than 4 seasons IIRC.

Cheers I can't take credit for the news headline style though unfortunately. I may consider posting in such fashion if it's not too time consuming, but this is pure crop & post from the official website as these were all real life moments that I was able to replicate in my game. @Ronaldo Beckhamand @Parmiethanks for the good wishes. @CityAndColourTruth is that I assigned him there myself when I changed the chairperson. I didn't want to cut Sparky rom the club as I feel they're about to have a good season IRL with him in charge. I actually wanted to make him DOF as it didn't feel right to have him assisting me, but for some reason could not do that and had to crush a bit of his ego and use him as my right hand man instead. @warlockThanks also, hopefully I might get a season or two out of it. And I still wanted to manage Plymouth, Cardiff and another foreign club (Feyenoord possibly). I doubt any of that will happen in time! Sorry to hear about your laptop woes, I do wonder how mine will cope with a 46-league game slogathon as it struggled with the two month WC break with Valencia. Anyway, hopefully it can be sorted and you'll be back amongst it soon.

So with the 2022/23 season ahead and the new Macron kit deal & designs in place, here is how The Bantams will be looking under new boss Brad Ford The 24,000 all-seater stadium with season ticket holders exceeding 12,000 gives the club enormous potential to progress beyond this level Note the captain O'Connor (who played every game since Ford's arrival) is one of the soon to be out-of-contract players in the squad In fact, his time at Bradford was soon over along with a number of other players Some decisions made (Cooke and Sutton primarily) mirrored how the club were said to be handling their actual contract renewals Sutton has since signed a new deal IRL so we will see if we can convince him to come back - if not, it's his loss really Had the facts been known at the time this started, he would have been retained at the expense of Liam O'Neil (who has now signed a new deal at Cambridge) At the time, that wasn't the case for O'Neil, but we are already too far in to try and undo these two decisions New contracts were given to striker Lee Angol and Bradford-born left-back Matty Foulds to mirror real life decisions taken by the club Other moves that mirror transfers done IRL are confirmed by the reliable club website below Only one of the six loan men was retained, but this time he'll be playing under a permanent contract Jamie Walker - loan turned permanent (free transfer at end of his contract with Heart of Midlothian) Jake Young - free transfer from Forest Green Rovers Harry Lewis - free transfer from Southampton Matthew Platt - free transfer from Barrow And the new arrivals were met with more positive claims from the club via their website For now, here are the other transfers made, both in and out Moves have been decisive and early, so you shouldn't actually expect to see much else from the club as Sparks comments were made a few weeks ago

Thanks! Yes the numbers are skewed by the fact he takes the corners and free kicks from the right - but he did make quite a few in open play too. He was actually an orthodox left-back in a 4123 formation (one DM, two MC, with my IF (left) and AMR supporting the AF in attack. The right back Porro had similar attacking ability but didn't seem to create quite as much number-wise. I imagine that's partly down to the IF on the left (Guedes) moving inside and allowing Gaya to bomb in to the space on that side. Porro had a right-footed winger ahead of him and probably supported behind rather than beyond.

@hasdgfas A solid start, if not spectacular. But that's a good response to relegation and I'm sure a few tweaks will get you flying. Meanwhile, I'm settled in to the dugout at my first EFL club of FM22. Unfortunately it's not an original choice for these threads, but Hartlepool just didn't seem to be the right one in the end even though I freshened up the kits I made for them. I quite liked these simple kit designs and colour combos, but it clearly wasn't meant to be. Instead of Hartlepool, this is where I landed on 4th April 2022... At the time of Brad Ford's arrival, Bradford were 8th in League 2 with six league games of the 2021/22 campaign left However the club had lost three of their last four fixtures, and promotion chances were slipping away The welcome came from re-appointed ex-Chairperson Julian Rhodes who was reinstalled at the expense of German custodian Stefan Rupp The official website delivered the news of Rhodes return, which was later confirmed as being more than a consultancy role Rhodes hoped to oversee a return to better days, as he had been in charge during the club's Premier League era Mark Hughes was moved in to an Assistant Manager position after informing the club that he wanted to use his experience in a less-pressurised role Managing Director Ryan Sparks remained in his role, and would probably contribute more than Rhodes on day-to-day duties Sparks assured the new boss and the supporters via the club website that the budget would be decent regardless of how the 2021/22 season ended The reality was that there was no transfer budget at that point, but Sparks had another announcement to make on the club website That one gave good vibes, as he announced that the club had signed a lucrative new kit deal with Macron for the start of the 2022/23 season The end of season run-in was already covered a few days back so we won't go over that again here in detail Just to recap, a 5th-place finish was achieved through solid defensive displays - but an extra time own goal handed Walsall a 1-0 win and promotion in the PO Final The good news for Ford is that of his 28-man first team squad (plus two away on loan) the majority could be cleared out almost immediately Six players were at Bradford on loan, and most would not be retained The vast majority of the permanent players had contracts about to expire, and underperformance made those decisions quite easy to make A few more would also be pushed out of the door, leaving Ford with the exciting task of assembling his own squad ahead of the new campaign The fact this needed to be done via the free transfer market was not a concern, the manager knew he could bring quality in without needing a transfer kitty The club remains an attractive option at this level, and the generous wage budget (for League 2) was what Sparks had earlier been alluding to The new regime also knew that the reputation of Mark Hughes would play a part in attracting new talent - but another media release took this one stage further This is a wrap for now, but more news will follow as the Bradford City rebuild gets underway

Bordeaux is a great choice of club, going through some awful times - obviously only on a football scale, it's a only a game etc. You've made progress, steadied the ship and agree with what has been said above about surely maintaining your Ligue 1 status. Of course, given my spell with Lorient in FM before , I would have preferred you both to stay up! Good luck in restoring some pride to the wine region club.

Season 2022/23 - Part 3 The last update at the end of October 2022, saw Valencia sat 5th after 15 league games & having qualified from the CL group with one game to go The dead CL rubber in Germany at the start of November didn't really matter - especially as a two-month break for the World Cup followed our defeat However the return in January didn't go too well after a promising start, even if only one of the three losses was in La Liga The Copa Del Rey campaign saw us fall at the very first hurdle to our affiliate club in the second tier - rotation or not, that was unacceptable The transfer window closed with no arrivals or departures as nobody was prepared to take the players we didn't want off our hands The only deal struck in fact was that the loan of Maxi Gomez was terminated just before the transfer deadline The Uruguayan striker hadn't scored a single goal for us last season, but had bagged 18 in 22 games on loan at Osasuna so we wanted to give him another chance Two goals on his return to Valencia was sweet and despite the 2-2 draw with Real Betis, it was a nice welcome home for Maxi February was a much better month as we went undefeated in four league games and managed to hold Liverpool to a draw in the Champions League home leg Defensively the month was much improved with only one goal conceded in those five fixtures, but the lack of a goal in Europe made us big underdogs for the return A point at home to then-leaders Villarreal at the start of March, and a comfortable victory over Cadiz teed up the European encounter nicely But The Reds were much too strong for us at Anfield, and we can't have any complaints about being dumped out by them The next outing was another tough one, but a really good display earned a convincing 2-0 win over Barcelona to keep us in contention for a Champions League slot again Those hopes took a dip as April started with back-to-back defeats, but we fought back well to claim three valuable wins including over Atletico Madrid By now it was a straight battle between Real Madrid and Villarreal for the title, with barely a point separating us, Barcelona and Atletico for 3rd-5th Luckily May gave us some slightly easier fixtures, and despite a loss at Getafe we won all the others to comfortably take 3rd The win over Real Madrid showed we could do well on our day, and that day saw us cement 3rd spot and them lift the trophy at our Mestalla Stadium The last game of the term was against Espanyol, who we relegated despite a strong rotation and implementation of several teenagers to our side The performance graph shows a much steadier run in the second half of the season, but don't be fooled by the gap to 1st & 2nd as we never had a sniff really Paco Alcacer was top scorer again with 22 (19 in La Liga) but left-back Jose Gaya won the fans award and was voted Spanish player of the season The high average rating and Player of the Match awards were justified, even if a large number of his 18 assists were from set-pieces Financially the club improved due to European funding, not that the board gave any budget at all until after the season closed off Below are the player stats across all competitions, with 48 games played in total during the year Domenech and Isco have signed pre-contract deals with cash-rich clubs in the Middle East, whilst Tejon & Diakhaby are about to sign new ones to stay It's been a fun two years at Valencia, finishing 2nd & 3rd in La Liga, making them 'more Spanish' again and improving the club financially But Mario Kempes has just retired as Chairperson and been replaced by a random Lithuanian businessman, so it's a natural time for me to pass on the baton too Thanks for reading, and sorry it's been so slow just to get two seasons completed Adios amigos y hasta luego...

You haven't seen the Maltese on a night out, it's by no means a certainty

Thanks mate. Believe it or not, I've never been to mainland Italy myself - only Sicily, and Corsica (yes, I know it's French really and just close to Italy). My small team at work sees me sat between two AS Roma fans, and we have a public holiday and an extra concession day this coming Monday & Tuesday so a small group of us are heading off on Saturday. I really hope it is Eternal, and that it remains alive after our visit. Good to hear you have enjoyed it on your trips there, I'm sure I will too.

Yes, I am quite sure (but may still be wrong ) there were no transfers made. I've completed my second season at Valencia now so the League 2 reveal is edging closer (although a long weekend to Rome may delay it being posted). Yes I do agree, having a different date and challenge is nice, especially as it's not much different to where we now are in real time. Congratulations for the stroll that took you down Promotion Road with Forest. Hopefully the 2nd season will give you more to focus on! You need some curve balls like the one directed at Willand for @CityAndColour. Tough times indeed!

Sorry for the slow response! I'm not sure how he looked before as I've never managed him. But a short term deal seemed worth my time given the low wages and 'quality' that he may serve up occasionally. Thanks for the endorsement, even though it has taken me ages to reply! It was a low risk move when I needed some extra support in the ranks. In more surprising news, and after my laptop really struggled to 'continue' through the two-month stop for the 2022 World Cup, I have finally completed season 2 now. The update will be written up and posted in the next day or two, hopefully.

Sympathies to Bolton for a brave fight against relegation. Unlucky at Oldham for another narrow miss, but still doing very well. And congratulations at Swansea for a fine season and promotion. I've completed the 2021/22 season, my first EFL campaign of FM22 Now you're all wondering how that happened so fast and so quietly, right? So it's confession time... I took a new save by loading Canada as a playable league. And started in England on 4th April 2022 at the start of the CPL season. I had to re-load about 6 times to make sure the team I wanted to manage was not in the PO spots, and finally managed to get them starting from 8th place in League 2 with 6 games left. I wanted to start a little lower than that, but this was looking like the best option I would get. A little bit about the club? Using this method of start date means the squad is the original one, no transfers made. But the team I am managing had a ridiculous squad depth of 28 senior players plus another 2 out on loan. The maximum number of players you are allowed to register in League 2 is 22. The squad also included 6 loan players, although the maximum you can use in a match squad is 5. And they had lost 3 of their last 4 league games. It seems they needed both a new manager and also new controllers at board level, but the short-term focus was on the last 6 games. I had a reasonably good start, with a really tight defence masking a lack of goals being scored. I nudged the team up to 5th courtesy of DWWWLW results in those 6 games. The first two wins were 1-0 with a 90th minute winner and 2-1 with an 86th minute leveller and 90th minute winner. It showed some spirit, but luck played a big part too. I mentioned the defence, and that sequence of 6 games saw only 6 goals for and 3 against, so you could say it wasn't particularly exciting to watch. The play off games came and went, a 0-0 draw away and 1-0 win at home (80th minute winner when it was looking unlikely) booking a place in the final. The play off final itself was 0-0 deep in to extra time, until my left-back scored the only goal of the game after 100 minutes. Unfortunately, it was an own goal and it was a 1-0 defeat that would bring another season in League 2. The cause wasn't helped by the 6 loan players deals ending on 31st May - and the PO final was 4th June. The word shambles springs to mind. On the plus side, of those 9 games in charge, 5 had been clean sheets (6 if you only count the first 90 minutes of the final) with only 3 goals conceded (or 4 if you wish). With 6 loans already expired, I am excited to know that a further 12 players are out of contract (all of them will probably leave), and another 4 or 5 contracted players can probably be sold or packed off on free transfers to other destinations. I'm very happy to be given the freedom to improve the quality of the squad, even if my recruitment drive will be aimed at free transfer players due to budget (none). The loan market will be avoided completely. Earlier I mentioned new ownership being needed too. I can't promise to deliver on that, but some sort of change can definitely be revealed soon.

So true! I've not even completed four seasons in total since the BETA was launched Great commitment to plough through those seasons at Bolton & Oldham. @warlockNo surprise to see you plundering points with Forest. But hopefully you're enjoying your time there. @smplfc123I'm enjoying your story with Swansea. A shift in approach will keep things interesting hopefully. Best of luck for 2024/25. I've hit a bit of a brick wall with Valencia as my laptop really struggled to get through the two month break for the 2022 WC. After what seemed like (real) weeks of just pressing continue and waiting for it to progress day by day (it seemed like minute by minute, it was so slow) I've finally stumbled in to January now. However, through no fault of the club or save, it hasn't really been 'fun' doing that so I need to get the enthusiasm back to finish off season 2022/23. The thinking time whilst hitting continue in the last few weeks has given me a chance to decide what appeals next though, so some positives there at least. And I have come up with something that hopefully will give me a decent run at my first EFL save of FM22. In fact, if it goes well, I still have three teams lined up using the same start point. But it will be one at a time, so no bold statements that I will actually get time to manage all three

Congratulations on the Cup win and good luck for what lies ahead.