bowieinspace

Fm23 is out and I'm currently playing my first pre season friendly with Athletic Couple early notes: - Immediate interest in Nico Williams and Dani Vivian so they needed a new deal. - There's a few low release clauses for younger players in the first team which need to be sorted immediately to avoid risking losing them - With Dani Garcia, Ander Herrera both ageing, alongside Raul Garcia and De Marcos who can also play CM in a pinch all being out of contract at the end of 2023, a new CM to rotate with Vesga, Sancet, Vencedor for example will be important. Jon Moncayola is gettable. - Strikers as usual are an issue. Raul Garcia is old and on a huge wage, Inaki can do it but isn't a perfect number 9 and VIllalibre is just meh... Karrikaburu is gettable. - Aimar Oroz looks worth looking at again, as does Julen Jon Guerrero...certainly both worth scouting. Haven't found any other significant stand out changes yet, the youth teams are pretty weak though not much potential coming through. Unai Nunez looks to have had a bit of a downgrade, Nico Serrano potentially a bit of a downgrade also (not in terms of current ability, which has definitely gone up, but perhaps his PA has been fixed and/or tweaked...he just looks a bit more 'developed' in terms of how FM have rated him this year.

I've historically started my long term save on the beta and never had any game breaking issues from it fortunately. I'm just inpatient though I think doing a beta save is pretty sensible.

The first part has been addressed - apparently you can speak to the agent now to convince them to get back to the table

Yeah same with fending off interest in Muniain and Williams who get upset and want out of the club at the first opportunity (historically De Marcos had significant issues with that too), despite the fact they’re fiercely loyal to Athletic. Their loyalty should just be extremely high but I’m not sure it’s ever been properly set.

I've not played for a few months now - I've played FM so much over so many years I just can't keep interested for a full year (but when I'm into it I am ALL IN haha), but I will almost certainly pick up the new game and go again in November. I think 2023 should be pretty exciting for Athletic on FM but I wonder if this might come more in the January update, because while players like Sancet and Nico Williams will definitely get boosted up, the impact of this positive start to the season I'm sure will impact some player ratings a little if they keep it going. Sancet will be an interesting one simply because of the positional difference between under Marcelinho last season and Valverde this season!

Yeah definitely does have an impact. I found that it was ok once I got a couple consecutive champions league qualifications. Without that it’s hard to maintain some of the high earners for sure! Inigo Martinez in particular has such a high wage.

Consider assigning that task to a staff member like DoF or TD