Tivvy18

End of Season Competition Updates The Pride of the West Country As the permanent fixture of the National League South we watch as the names change around us but we stay put. The big news is Bournemouth have been relegated from the Premier League which means for the first time this save the South West has no representation at the top. Leagues Premier League Champions - Chelsea Champions League - Liverpool, Man City, Arsenal, Man Utd Europa League - Leeds, West Ham Europa Conference League - Crystal Palace Relegated - Bournemouth, Brentford, Southampton Championship Champions - Birmingham Promoted - Reading Playoff Winners - Blackburn Relegated - Sheffield Wednesday, Bristol Rovers, Wigan League One Champions - Derby Promoted - Lincoln Playoff Winners - Barnsley Relegated - Fleetwood, Shrewsbury, Bromley, Wrexham League Two Champions - Stockport Promoted - Salford, Leyton Orient Playoff Winners - Bradford City Relegated - Newport, Barrow National League Champions - Barnet Playoff Winners - South Shields Relegated - Dag & Red, Weston-super-Mare, AFC Fylde, Gateshead National League North Champions - Blyth Playoff Winners - Boston Utd Relegated - Nuneaton Boro, Oxford City, Gainsborough, Hemel Hempstead National League South Champions - Torquay Playoff Winners - Wealdstone Relegated - Weymouth, Hampton & Richmond, Tonbridge, Enfield Town Domestic Cups FA Cup Man City 2 - 1 Liverpool League Cup Chelsea 0 - 2 Crystal Palace Community Shield Man City 1 - 2 Man Utd EFL Trophy Blackpool 1 - 4 Derby FA Trophy Ebbsfleet 1 - 3 Yeovil Continental Cups Champions League Borussia Dortmund 0 - 1 Milan Europa League Chelsea 1 - 3 Arsenal Europa Conference League Gent 1 - 0 Frankfurt Super Cup Tottenham 0 - 1 Newcastle

The Playoffs Semi Final Don't get too excited... A better performance, a worse result. Wealdstone show the advantage of being professional and also not having played a match only three days ago. I was a bit hopeful taking them into half time at 1-1 but the penalty in the 70th minute really killed us off. The final ends up being 2nd vs 3rd which is a bit boring. If Wealdstone don't go on to win it will be an utter scandal. They finished 2nd on 101 points, missing out on the title on goal difference. Ebbsfleet meanwhile finished 3rd with only 88 points. And so ends our season... and the save? We finally made the playoffs but it ultimately ended in disappointment (and unfortunately embarrassment). To be fair I always felt this was going to be the outcome as soon as I realised we were in the bracket with Wealdstone. I can point to so many things that they had going for them (TWO 30 goal strikers, professional, the week gap between matches to name a few) and it was going to be a big ask to overcome them. I could see how we fared here would be a sign to what would likely happen next season if we did get promoted. Relegation and the sack would probably follow unless I managed a tactical masterclass. Ultimately we just weren't strong enough to realistically be in with a shout. So where to now? Four seasons into the save and all I have to show for it is a failed playoff campaign. The save is losing it's sparkle a bit as the same issues keep popping up and I'm not feeling that I'm capable of resolving them. Playing with Truro is difficult as you are really limited to who will even consider coming to you so I'm finding it difficult to improve the squad in the same way I have done in the past. It doesn't seem anyone in the South West is producing/releasing decent enough players either so the usual tactic of signing all the released youth isn't really an option. I'm still trying to work out if it is my tactics or if it is actually my players. With the way this season has gone maybe it is more of a question of the squads ability? I don't know. I think the problem is that I'm losing the momentum to keep going and the save is becoming a bit of a grind. I'm playing it but not necessarily enjoying it and I really don't want to feel like "oh got to do an update lets just throw the results up and say how naff the month has been" which I think has come across a few times this season. It could be a lot of things but I know that repeating those three games to try and work out my tactic was really not fun, particularly when it didn't seem to make a difference. Maybe when I look back on the season I will see that actually things haven't been too bad they just haven't been amazing like I want it to be. Apologies for the ramble but if I can't share my thoughts on the save in my own thread about the save, where can you? I'll finish this post off with a simple thank you to everyone who has read this so far and the comments that I've had. I hope that there is enjoyment to be found in saves like this where success isn't necessarily matching ambition.

The Playoffs First Round A single goal in extra time as we continue to haunt Dulwich Hamlet. I think we could and should have won in normal time but a win is a win. The players are knackered and there's not long to rest for those who don't finish 2nd or 3rd. Who's our opponent in the semi finals? Now you might remember Wealdstone as being the team we played in the last game of the season. How did that go? To save any scrolling up, I will remind you. It didn't go well. But that was a meaningless match at the end of the season. THIS is our most important match of the season as it stands. Will our tired lads rise to the occasion to see us through to the final?

April 2027 League So did we do hold on? Truro are Play Off bound after we finished in 5th place. The Maidenhead match was frustrating but the 6-3 thrashing of Eastbourne and 3-0 win over Gosport was enough to make it a question of who we would play rather than if we would make it. The Wealdstone result was a dose of reality though. Against 10 men for the entire second half and they went onto score instead. Dulwich Hamlet await in the first round. Club news

Unexpected generosity! This is going to change EVERYTHING! Given the amount of money they've been throwing at me in £120k and £50k increments, clearly they have decided to throw it all at me in one go I can't believe it... Just think of all those players I can sign now! How can I not accept?! Oh... Now that's just mean... Sadly, I've known about this for years so I didn't get too excited... At least once I realised what it was. This seems to be the first time I have ever played the game on April 1st as I have never seen it for myself before. Given I'm in the middle of a possible board takeover, as soon as I saw the item in my inbox I thought that we had been snapped up by a tycoon. If anything it was very well timed and if I hadn't known about it beforehand I would probably have cried.

January, February and March 2027 League Clearly I have had enough of this save and just gave up on updating Well... maybe there is a slight bit of truth in that. Apologies for the lack of activity, I tested positive for Covid last week and spent most of it in bed or not wanting to deal with FM24. The good news is that I'm feeling better and still not wanting to deal with FM24. But here I am with a bumper update! As you can see, our form hasn't been great but at least we've not gone on any serious losing runs. I'm still not happy with how we play and I think I have come to the conclusion that we are a midtable side that is doing better than we probably should be. So where does this leave us in the table as we enter the final month of the season? We cling to the Play Offs with just four games left of the season. Apart from title chasing Wealdstone, we play teams lower down the table but that hasn't meant much this season. The trend seems to be 75 points is enough to claim 7th place. If we base things on that, we need at minimum two wins and no thrashings to lose our goal difference advantage. Doable? Yes. Hopeful? No. Club news I'd like to think it was worth the expense. At least shows some sort of ambition from the chairman... Maybe he got fed up of me constantly asking for stuff? I take it that means we will no longer be fan owned if/when it goes through. Personal Caught up at the wrong end of League One, Shrewsbury ultimately went for someone else. It hasn't gone well for them so far. Clearly they aren't aware of my reputation for being able to turn around slumps in form...

December 2026 A much better month. Wealdstone are fighting at the top of the league so the loss was expected. Aveley was an awful result against someone fighting relegation. Shipping 22 goals in the last two months has been abysmal and I really don't know what has caused it to happen. We've changed tactic to play a 4-4-2 DM which has at least seemed to have done something with our goal output. It's still not working for our forward players though so I'm still trying to get that working.

November 2026 Defending? What is that? An absolutely horrendous month. I don't even want to say that it is a case of we are getting completely dominated. Generally speaking we are good with possession but just can't take our chances. The reverse is true for everyone else. We cling to a play off spot but the chasing pack are all just one win away from dragging us into midtable obscurity or worse... At some point I am going to have to humble myself and head off to the tactics forum to ask for advice. Clearly just taking inspiration is not working!

If I'm inspiring someone to play the game then I must be doing something right! Thank you for that feedback. I know the save isn't exactly a thrilling story of straight promotions but I think this is part of the charm of challenges of Dafuge saves. You find somewhere that you end up connecting with for some reason and then you just start identifying with them. Honestly if it wasn't for the extra story telling part of this save and doing this thread I think I would have abandoned it long ago. I'd definitely recommend the Dafuge challenge. Despite my continued lack of success with it, it's the sort of save that gives me the most enjoyment playing the game. Hope whoever you end up choosing provides you with a good story however long it lasts.

October 2026 League A decent month though I still have concerns about our inability to convert chances. FA Cup As expected we lost to Dag & Red. Can't complain as we were second best for most of the match. Finances October began with another cash injection which took us finally to an 'okay' rating. I took little time to pester the board yet again about various improvements. To my surprise I eventually got 3/3 accepted. The training facilities has pretty much drained our finances and we are back to being insecure. I can understand why this is considered insecure as our net debt now sits at £438k. Knowing my luck this is where the board decide to stop injecting cash as a matter of routine.

September 2026 League The worrying signs have started again First we stop being able to take the chances and then the defence starts to fall apart. At the moment I would say that we don't deserve to lose the matches in the sense that we aren't taking our chances and the opposition are. FA Cup Two easy ties against lower league opposition. We took the one chance we needed at Farnborough but it was late on and we should have been home and dry by that point. Next up is against National League strugglers Dag & Red where I wouldn't write us off just yet but I'm not hopeful of going much further. Finances Still listed as insecure and the board aren't considering some upgrades because of it.

Just making a note to say that I've now reported my finances being listed as 'insecure' as a bug. I don't want to diminish the save at all but it feels like the board pumping in £120k and £70k consistently is due to us being rated as 'insecure' and now it's impacting my ability to ask for improvements. I'm still hoping I've just missed something and it all makes perfect sense. What that would be at this point I'm just guessing but I've had saves before FM24 where I've been deep in the negatives and still rated as 'okay.'

August 2026 League It seems to be a feature of this save that we tend to have a really strong August. Our second XI managed to get two wins against Aveley and Enfield, though it needed substitutions to kick them into life a bit. The Slough result was very pleasing as we came back from 3-1 down to dominate them at half time. I'm not going to say anything but recent experience suggests that this will be as good as it gets for the season. Transfers Parker has come in to replace Hall. Wood is now our second choice ARM and Patten comes in to offer some cover at DM. I'm still feeling a bit light at the back, though, so I will hopefully secure another back up DC if I can.

Preseason 26/27 At least the results improved as we went down the leagues. Though the Derby win, I think, shows that we haven't necessarily been playing badly. Transfers Biggest news is that our best defender has left and currently going into our first game of the season we are short at the back. Not ideal but hopefully a replacement is just days away from being confirmed. This is the current list of signings. From my wish list: Maciocia comes in at DM, Donelon our new DL, Covolan our new keeper, Stevens comes in at AMR and Purkis is now our main man up front (though not the physical striker I wanted). The bookies have us at 8th. We were initially 4th but we have clearly not impressed as much with our transfer dealings. The main takeaway is that we should be challenging for the play off spots and that is what I want to do as a minimum. Finances We continue to be rated as insecure even though we now have more money in the bank then at any point this save. No net debt so I continue to have no clue what is going on here. I know the board are investing heavily to keep us running but I don't get how the rating is worked out as the threshold seems to increase each season. I may report it as a bug at this point because something seems off to me but I could well be wrong here. We are potentially down to spend just under £450k on wages this year. It's getting to the point where I am spending more than I realistically would like to but I think it needs to be done to take us to the next level. This is our fourth season at this level and we have not even had a shot at the play offs yet. World Cup He's only gone and won it. On penalties too! I have no idea what would happen if Southgate did actually win the Euros and a World Cup IRL. Lord Southgate? Maybe he finally learnt and that's why he's had so much success?