andychar

Cheers Makoto! I thought this might make an interesting comparison. I am Chelsea during my Beta save and this was how Nigel Clough got on Season 1...well...I say Nigel Clough...he got sacked. The Stags currently have Wayne Brown previously of Colchester at the helm. He lead them to the Playoffs after a very disappointing start to the season. Where they obviously lost to Grimsby in the Semi. They threw away a 2-0 home first leg lead to lose 3-0 in Grimsby. Hopefully I can fair better! The standout team is Notts County, our biggest rival currently (Chesterfield will be if they get their act together and escape the Conference). County going good guns in real life only managed to finish 20th. Roll on Monday! By the way I won the League with Chelsea with Man United finishing 2nd...game is literally unplayable...

Going good guns this season! Brilliant work from the Scottish boys both in Europe and Internationally!

Was great catching up with this. Good luck in Europe. Like you said anything is good, will be good for the coef as well.

I've been debating if this save should be a Forum save or just for me. It's my main save this year so decided I needed to share the pain. I've been messing around with Chelsea during the Beta, getting used to things and it turns out...I'm a much better manager than Poch. I've been wanting to do a proper save with my hometown team Mansfield Town for a while and I've had many failed attempts. This time however, I'm determined, and being on the Forums will make me want to keep going more...cos its not like me to abandon a save... So... Mansfield Town FC are nicknamed The Stags. We have been floating around the lower reaches of the Football League since as long as I can remember. I've seen them Promoted and then Relegated the season after (conceding 97 goals in the process!). I've seen them drop out the Football League altogether. In fact it makes Luton Town's promotion to the Premier League all that more bitter for us seeing as we beat them out the Conference when we won Promotion back to the Football League in 2012/13. I've also seen them lose the FA Trophy Final with the final kick of the game against a team who are not longer in existence! Basically...what I'm getting at is...its been a rough time supporting The Stags...but its never been dull! The team had their golden period in the 70s before I was born. During which they won Promotion to Division 2 (the Championship in today's money) where they were immedaitely relegated! Annoyingly this was around the time Nottingham Forest were winning the league and conquering Europe. They reached the Quarter Final of the FA Cup in the 68-69 season with the highlight being a 3-0 win over West Ham United who boasted a couple of World Cup Winners in their Squad. They also reached the Quarter Final of the League Cup in the 1975-76 season. One of the proudest days came when they won what was known at the time as the Freight Rover Cup (now called the EFL Trophy) beating Bristol City on penalties in 1986-87. A certain David Moyes missing the cruical penalty for City handing The Stags the trophy. But enough history. Mansfield Town currently play at Field Mill (alright technically its the One Call Stadium but it will always be Field Mill to me!). It is actually the Oldest Football Ground in the Football League with Football being played there as early as 1861. 10000 seats when fully open and room to build... The stand to the left hasn't been touched for ages as they couldn't convince everybody living on the street behind to move. I believe at this point we are waiting on one old biddy to pass on and then we can build! The photo was taken from the North Stand, which is where the travelling fans sit. Which is annoying as one of our chants years ago used to be "You'll never take the North Stand"....and then they did. The team have found themselves recently constantly one of the favourites for Promotion but seemingly always falling short. Playoff Final Defeat a few Seasons ago (I went...we were awful) was the icing on the cake. So the short term goal here is getting out of League Two. With the squad I will inherit from Nigel Clough that should be very achieveable. I will post the squad in depth when the full game comes out. Basically the aim of this save is to win everything. I have no set goal. I just want to see Mansfield be the best team they can be. If that means winning the lot, then perfect. In case you were wondering the name of the thread comes from the song Mansfield Magic. Its that bad its amazing. I would recommend sitting back and listening to it at least once!

If I remember correctly from my time in Africa. The Preliminary Rounds are that lop sided that Double Digit games weren't uncommon. Never mind double digit agg scores.

Fulham Season 3 Off-Season I mean come on. I couldn't not spend money right!? I did stick to my guns however, we have a Training and Youth Facility upgrade in the Works. But I bought 3 players. Two Center Backs and another Midfielder, because, evidently I have a problem. Moroto comes to us on the cheap. He cost 14.5m (so maybe not that cheap). I wanted players who could come in and would improve, neither of our defenders have any improvements in them so hopefully, this guy will get better. Ibanez is hopefully going to be the crown jewel of the defence. Room for improvement and already good. One of the future. It does mean we have a lot of Centre Backs. There were some interest in some players over the Summer but nobody was bidding and players were getting frustrated I was offering them out. I didn't want upset in the squad so had to promise I wouldn't sell them. Yeah it was a rough Summer. Pereira, I accidentally promised playing time. Playing time I don't think I'll be fulfilling. The last signing has the chance to being the signing of the summer I think. Only 21m got me this guy. I've been buying players in the hopes they will reach their potential. But if a player like this falls into my lap for 21m I can't say no! Pre-Season was largely uneventful, Ass Man was in charge really. We are ready for the next season. I think a European Challenge is on the cards and a good showing the Champions League.

Fulham Season 2 2023/24 That FA Cup exit to Bournemouth hurt, lower league opposition. It means that in 10 years told when I win the Quadtruple the headlines will be "Yeah but remember 10 years ago when you lost in the 4th Round of the Cup lol". Good aggregate win against FC Koln keeps us going in Europe. We have a good draw as well. In the league we are plodding along nicely. We still have top 4 ambitions. Too many draws. Way too many dropped points in the league now means the Top 4 is gone and we are looking at a fight just to keep the European places. Olympiacos gave us a scare but a later "winner" for us. Real Soceidad was a great tie. It actually went to Extra time but we smashed them all over the park in those 90 minutes to secure a surprise Semi Final place. We haven't played anybody massive which has helped. By the time we played Soceidad we were on fully "eggs in the Europa League basket" mode. We went into the final game against Arsenal knowing avoiding defeat would see us secure European football next season, unfortunetly we fell short. We finished 8th. Now the big one. As you can see, another Extra Time showcase saw us knock off Lazio and qualify for the Final of the Europa League and my God it was a good game against Levekusen. We started slow. Conceding in 3 minutes, luckily it woke us up and Evander equalised less than 10 minutes later. It was a nip and tuck first half with both teams creating chances. Schick scored just before the half which gave me a big half time team talk. We huffed and puffed for the half, survived some scares but kept in the game. It was looking like we were going to just fall short. Up stepped Vinicius, who has had a brilliant season. He grabbed an equaliser 87th minute. Boom! Extra time we go. We are kings of extra time! But this time it was us on the back foot. We kept them at bag and 30 agonising minutes later we were staring at penalties. Both teams scored their 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th penalty. It was down to sudden death. Who would blink first? It didn't take long to find out as the 6th penalty was the deciding one. We won the ruddy thing! I didn't want to spoil the surprise that as we know with the Europa League comes a Champions League berth. Absolutely amazing. Now I remember saying I was happy with the squad and I wouldn't be spending much if anything... *Gulp*

Two new Elite Youth Prospects. My Keeper from last season has been on loan at Bath all season and is progressing nicely. The other striker has only just turned 17 so not been able to loan him out. I am going to use the money we save by hopefully not needing to buy anybody in the Summer on Youth and Training Facilities.

This is the column that worries me. 7 players with Minimum Release Clauses for Clubs in a MAJOR European Competition. All of them are for way more than I spent on the player so if worst happens then its good value. But some of them (Rieder) are sitting right in the wheelhouse of their transfer value. Most cases I couldn't remove it, so I've tried to maximise when possible. With me not really looking to strengthen the squad much during the Summer. It might be a good idea to reevaluate these contracts and maybe increase the wages in order to get rid of those clauses. UPDATE* Rieder has signed a new contract. Wasn't able to get rid of the clause but its been increased to 88m Farias the same, still a clause but its now 60m. Much happier, and now over wage budget haha

Current look at my squad suggests I need to invest in the defensive side of things. I have this Youth Prospect currently out on loan at Bath. He seems the natural successor to Leno. Leno being the only player over the age of 30 in the entire squad. With everybody else being 28 or under. I have 5 seasons after this one to win the League. I think we are on course.

Quinn Sullivan becomes the last player I can sign under the rules until the opening of the Summer Transfer Window. Honestly I think I'm more than set with Midfielders and Attacking Midfielders. This kid is 19 years old. I don't think I need to buy anymore players for a while. I am happy with the side and confident I can be challenging in a few years time.

Fulham Season 2 Mid-Season Update It is January 1st 2024 and we are just over halfway through season 2. The start of the season felt very much like when I first took over. We couldn't put two wins together but seeing as we played United, Arsenal and Liverpool all away I can be forgiven. We started terribly in Europe thanks for a lackluster performance against, on paper at least, the easier team in the Group. The next two months saw a change in fortunes. We got going finally. Big wins in Europe but us back on track to qualify and we were where we expected to be in the league. We hit a rough patch, we dominated against Newcastle, one of those games. We were 1-0 up against RB Salzburg before going down to 10 men, we couldn't hold on and Chelsea...well...Chelsea destroyed us and we were lucky it was only 1-0. Still in all 4 cups though and we went into our last game in the Europa League knowing a win against Maccabi Tel-Aviv and we were through. December was a long old month and we were finally being punished for having a small squad. I trimmed it massively. We will play European Football after Christmas. Comfortably coming second in the end. We will play 1. FC Koln in the Playoff round after they dropped down from the Champions League. I thought it could have been much worse. We bowed out of the League Cup on penalties. Axel Tuanzebe left the day after the lost to Everton and his last kick for me was missing the penalty that knocked us out. Don't let the door hit you on the way out! League form was good. We finished the year with contrasting performances. We were awful aganist City but amazing against Liverpool. Go figure. If the season ended today we would be on the outside looking in for Europe but amazingly we are only 3 points off a Champions League place, and looking at the fixtures I think we have had out harder part of the season already. Lets do this. One transfer already in. He joins us for 5.5m. Another CM. We have loads. We need defenders. Only issue is we only have 1 more signing we can make and the squad is already bare. So we can't afford to really lose many players over the January window.

Made several changes to my side away to Arsenal. Thought "I'll Instant Result it, get it out the way" Fraud mode activated.

Its an unforgiving game sometimes.

Fulham Season 2 This draw could have been better, could have been worse. We should at least have Europe after Christmas I think. Tough start to the season with some tricky fixtures. Good performances in the wins. 2 draws were we were lucky to get anything and the loss...well...we have halved the last loss at OT so we are moving in the right direction! I think this is where we are going to spend most of our season hovering. Not expecting much. Just get those players progressing in the right direction.

Unbeaten in at least 5!

Fulham Season 2 Community Shield We started Season 2 with a glorified friendly against Arsenal. Thing is we have to win 10 of these for the challenge so lets give it a go eh. Yep cool. Not annoyed already at all.

That's it. Build him up for failure! Yeah that's more like it. Go get them Farias! I should mention Farias has a 48.5 release clause to teams in the Champions League. That one could come back to bite me.

Life is pain

Fulham Season 2 I've done Pre-Season in Season 2. I'm very unlikely to make any more transfers so here we are... Transfers Once again I've spent this window thinking I was losing my starting LB. He's still here, but I've got his replacement lined up ready. 15m from Rangers and the last of the Mitrovic money. The big one for me. 29m. He comes with an 88m release clause but he is somebody I want to keep for his career. Amazed I managed to get him as I assumed he's be hot property. 5.75m is a bargain for this player. We had Manor Solomon on loan last season but his contract was up and we managed to snap him up on a free. Delighted as I thought he was great for us last season, gives us plenty of options. 7m for Tah. As you can see most of my signings have been to shore up the defence, its the one aspect of the team I'm worried about. 5.5 for an Argentinian Wonderkid. I'd be amazed if we can keep him. Another signing I'm delighted with. 6 more new signings. So I can get another in come January, question is, will I need to. Squad Team is too big for my liking. Actively trying to get rid of Graterol and Cavaleiro. Might be interested in offers for Palhinha as he just doesn't fit well into what I want. Tactics The Future There are two players who came through the Youth Intake that look like they will be fantastic. It was brilliant getting a keeper in. Because worse case scenario with this guy is, he can sit on the bench for the next 20 years and I can really cheese the rule of them only needing to be in the match day squad! One thing is for certain, the beards on these 16 year olds are impressive. So that's everything caught up. We are predicted 11th, which I think I'll happily take. A nice European run and a Season of Growth.

Fulham Season 1 I was terrible at taking screenshots here so everything will be from the Season 2 start! I took over Fulham not in a horrible position. 19th (obviously) but only 1 point away from safety. The goal was simple, just survive. Nothing else mattered. Annoyingly (as I'm sure you've all found out) you play one game in the league before its the World Cup! My first game was away to Spurs. Lovely stuff. We got beat but I saw shoots of promise. I was as happy as possible with a defeat. (I lied, we beat Plymouth in the Carabao Cup the game before but it didn't seem nearly as exciting). December saw us march on it a competition I had to interest in. We won a relegation 6 pointer before getting absolutely demolished. More cup heroics before another humbling defeat against Leeds. Chelsea scored in stoppage time to stop us picking up a huge morale lifting win. We continues to impress in the Cups and were only 90 minutes away from Wembley. FA Cup is important and we were lucky we had 2 good draws. This continued in the Fifth Round with a home draw against Bournemouth. Still, survival was far from secure. At this point the bottom 2 had been left while there were about 10 teams who were both looking at Europe and looking over their shoulder. We were busy in January. I made a difficult decision of cashing in on interest for Mitrovic. West Ham offered 46.5m and I thought that was too good to turn down. Axel actually joined us in November to shore up the defence. Paul was bought in as a back up LB as there was interest in my first choice LB at the time, he didn't leave and hasn't left as of writing this. As you can tell by the screenshot. Dummett has left. We paid 475k for him, he played 3 games and we sold him for 625k. Just call my Lord Sugar. A free transfer. At the time I wasn't happy with my keeper Leno. So he was bought in, didn't set the World alight and now its back to Leno number 1. He is my 3rd choice keeper as my current back up is the only 1 who is currently Home Grown! I can talk in hindsight about this one. I thought he would be better than he actually is. He scored on his debut against Chelsea and that was the peak really. In and out the side. He cost me 7.5m and I regret it! Signing of the Season for us. He played mainly on the wing which meant Vinicius could play up front (who had a belting second half of the season). For 15m I was delighted with this one. Last but no least, 14m and a bright bright future. I am hoping I can build around Fabian. 6 new signings. Just within the rules. We just couldn't get anything going. No consistency. We were keeping ourselves in with a shot of survival, just not able to pull away. The Palace game was probably the game where we showed what we could do. Then March happened. We were shaky against Bournemouth but we were suddenly in the Quarter Final of the FA Cup. Time to get serious. Liverpool away was a smash and grab while the following 2 home games were fully deserved. Two games where we played to our full potentially and finally I thought it had all clicked. And boy had it clicked. 3 wins against the teams around us then a win against City which would be the start of their derailment. They were 7 points clear at the top before we played them. Wolves away, I played a weakened side because it was Semi Final of the FA Cup at the weekend and I wanted to give it everything. And what a game of football it was! Back and forth, both going hammer and tonuge but amazingly we came away with the win and a place in the Final. Newcastle stood between us and the first part of this challenge completed. Two shaky results to finish the month but at this point relegation was in the rear mirror and we were actually chasing a top 7 place. The season couldn't have finished any better. Its amazing, you can pinpoint the performance and result that turned this season from a relegation battle into.... A 6th place finish. Don't get me wrong. 57 points isn't a huge amount but I'll take it. We just had the FA Cup Final to get through and a chance to turn Conference League into Europa League. And breathe! I thought it was going to be one of those games when Isak scored against the run of play but we were behind long, then 12 minutes later we were leading. We soaked up a lot of pressure towards the end of the game but we held on and amazingly. We had WON THE FA CUP. It means we can now focus on turning this side into one that can challenge for the title!

I didnt take the screenshot of the table but its Fulham for me! Currently in March.

Euro 2036 Qualifying Kosovo (a) This is the big one! The only Country we can tick off the list this year! I assume we are going to be heavy favourites... No more than at home to Slovenia and that was a tricky tie in the end. Lets not take anything for granted. Changes needs as fatigue has played a factor. Campbell (Sam) and Morrison at the back with Hickey now fit to play. O'Hare comes in for Lowry and Kamara starts against of Laidlaw. Doak and Munro start despite not being 100%. April the 1st. Please don't make a fool out of me. We have been dominant but a 1-0 lead only at the half. An early second will calm some nerves. Good to see Kamara on the scoresheet. Munro has been quiet since the change of tactic I think. We survived a big scare early on with the goal chalked off. We thought we had it in the bag when Kamara score but that was ruled off. When the second did go in it was a killer and we really took control. Laidlaw is flying with the new changes. Long may it continue. Maximum points and another Country ticked off.

Euro 2036 Qualifying Slovenia (h) A tricky game to start the campaign with. We don't have our best squad but we should have enough to start strong. Confidence is nearly at a all time high. We are odds on favourites. Shows how far we have come in the 13 years I've been here. I mentioned earlier how Hunter was the biggest casualty of the change. He does not suit our new playing style at all. Hickey isn't fully fit so Ramsay goes to the Right and Tidser starts on the left. Gemmell picked ahead of O'Hare and Hunter. Banged and broken before we have even started! Its been poor and we are struggling without some key pieces in this line up. We wil call this one job done. A much better 2nd half from the lads. The first goal was a bit lucky, bounced around, hit Laidlaw and trickled in. The second was from a set piece. 3 points in the bag and a clean sheet for the 16 year old.