KlaaZ

If I'm losing out on promotion to the Serie A, it will be because of these games (and we've had a LOT of them so far).

2021-2022: January transfer window As confirmed earlier, Araujo joins the club. He replaces Danilo, who leaves for Pumas as he wasn't playing much. We also sign the son of an infamous defender, Daniel Maldini, with the prospect of making the move permanent for a fee of 5.25M. They do have the option to buy him back though.

League table

Season 2021-2022: Mid year review Serie B We're halfway, and after a shaky start things are looking up. The good news is that we were unbeaten in the first five games but the downside was that three of those games were draws. Indeed, we were not finishing off the games where we were the better team, dropping quite a few points in the process. To make things worse, we lost two out of the next four games, at home against Lecce (again dominating the game) and away against title contenders Benevento who scored the winner in the 91st minute. Things have picked up after that and we even managed to keep a clean sheet in our four last league games, grabbing 25 points from out last ten games before the break. This leaves us in third place, tied with Benevento for second and two points behind Brescia. The good news is that our new signing, Amalfitano, has been excellent as a Mezzala. Our youngsters are also doing very well and it's surprisingly a few older players (Pandev, Buffon) who are playing below expectations. Vazquez was in the same boat but is improving now that I've moved him to the right wing. Coppa Italia We narrowly beat Lecce 3-2 in the first round and then completely played Sampdoria off of their own pitch but didn't get the reward we deserved.

These kinds of games are really starting to annoy me, I dropped points at least six times in this fashion, and now it's an early cup exit. Might as well play without a goalkeeper, Buffon's been surprisingly embarassing so far and Colombi, his backup, isn't faring any better.

Turned the triangle around in midfield for a tricky away game against Ternana and got a very satisfying win, may have cracked the code.

Right, on the attacking side I'm fairly happy now, my goals scored also pretty much reflect my xG (23 vs 24). I still face glaring issues in defense though. I've got an xG against of 11, but I've conceded a whopping 15 goals which is 30-40% more than expected..

Season 2021-2022: Transfer news Parma have already done a boatload of transfers at the start of the game, for a wopping 23.5M in total, which left me with about 4M in transfer budget. Because of a very pessimistic forecast which would see us in the red before long, I decided to be very conservative with that money. We bring in one midfielder, Romain Amalfitano, on a free transfer after he was released by Al-Faisaly, as we are short on attacking profiles in the central midfield. And after the transfer market closed, we also arranged the future transfer of my former Bodo/Glimt favourite, Tomas Araujo, in a deal that can run up to 2.9M.

Fair point. I'm just not sure how to change that though. I can free up the IW's or the FB(A) on the flanks, but their crosses usually result in these chances. I think (I'll check later) I usually average about 0.10 xG per shot, which isn't too bad I believe.

Almost forgot to answer your question @Johnny Ace, the chances are not long shots but a lot of headers straight at the GK.

After reaching what I feel was my limits in my Norwegian adventure, I was looking for something in a bigger league, more to the south. Italy has a lot of great clubs that have been financially mismanaged in recent years, and Parma is one of them. After enjoying a great spell between 1989 and 2004 with a runner up place in the league in 1997 under Ancelotti, three domestic cup wins and two European cups. Unfortunately, the club went into administration in 2004 and although it seemed rehabilitated at some point, went bankrupt in 2015. The situation was so bad that the administrators even had to put up some of the hard earned trophies for sale. Parma restarted in the Serie D in 2015 and after skyrocketing back to the Serie A, unfortunately got relegated in 2021. This makes them the favorites to become Serie B champions and take back their rightful place on the highest level. The squad, after a first assessment, actually has an amazing mix of experience and young talent. With Buffon (born leader), Pandev (model professional) and Danilo (perfectionist), they have three very strong personalities in their ranks. At the other end of the age list, Botond Balogh, Vasilis Zagaritis, Simon Sohm and Lautaro Valenti are youngsters with a lot of potential. I haven't managed in Italy since FM15 or 16, when I took over Roma in a journeyman save, so this will be a very new experience for me.

Thanks for all the input. The CWB was indeed a miscast it seems. I swapped him around for a FB(A). Made a few other changes and it's looking slightly better now. I may still play around with the striker, maybe going for a scorer rather than a creator (thinking poacher).

If it's a transfer that was already arranged at game, the cash will already be in your balance and you'll not receive anything extra afaik.

The CWB would provide an attacking overlap over the IW, and the IWB would provide cover whenever the CM(S) leaves his position. In any case, I've tried making things a bit more conservative by dropping the midfielders to the DM slots and using a WB(S) and a FB(S) instead, but my results are still wonky and I'm currently sitting in 7th place with only 9 out of 18, including my first home loss against Lecce. An undeserved loss based on chances and xG, but I tend to drop a lot of points in games where I have the upper hand, as shown below. I'm not sure what else I can do really, I'm playing well (although my chance creation could be better) but I can't get the results I feel I merit.

I started a new game with Parma, who are the main contender for promotion (and winning the league) in the Serie B. I'm three games in and after a narrow win at home against Vicenza, I dropped points against both Pordenone and Ascoli. As these are all teams that are predicted to finish on the lower side of the table, I'm a bit worried about this. There's a consistent pattern of a striker drawing one of my CD's out and a winger getting into that space, on the inside of my full back. It happens both on the left (where I play a more attacking CWB) and on the right (with an IWB on defend duty). I've tried fixing this by being more aggressive as I have the impression that my defenders are tracking opposition strikers without actually challenging them whereas Pandev on my side is always under constant pressure and being tackled off the ball), but this has largely made no difference. Considering I need a lot of chances to score goals for some reason, this is going to lead me into trouble if I don't fix this soon with the expectations of winning the league and all. If anyone has any ideas about how to shut things down more properly, I'm all ears.

Decision is made, and it's not from the list above. I'll start writing soonish, hopefully, but here's a big hint: (Former) players include Buffon, Zola, Crespo, Cannavaro and Baggio.