IndyManager

March 7, 2019

OK – struggling with Forest in the Prem – 18^th a little past midway and very much in doubt about staying up – but having a blast.

A couple of game points and then a question for everyone:

1. The VAR is too much – but I fear it may be what it ends up being like in real life. Every goal it seems, goes to review. I’ve watched some German football and they don’t seem to go to it so often, but we’ll see what it looks like. A little heavy on FM it seems to me.

2. The game action on the ME is much better to me. I see more things happen that I would expect, more choppy play, fewer 30-yard screamers. I don’t know if it was updated in the past couple of months but it looks better to me.

Now my question/moan:

I had a forward who wasn’t playing and came to me about it. I said I would sell him on (not loan him) by the end of January. He said OK and thanks. I set his sell price at 2 million, about 40 percent of what his value had been. There were two weeks left in the window. The very next day a club comes in with a loan offer, paying ZERO percent of salary and non-negotiatble. I reject. Immediately the player is mad that I didn’t keep my promise. He still has two weeks left in the window. He comes to me again, straightaway and I say I will move him when I get a fair offer. He asks how much I say 2 million, and he says OK. But n ow he’s mad and the locker room atmosphere drops.

The very next day same club comes back with the same zero loan offer, which I reject. AGAIN, He’s all mad about hit and it says he has set himself completely against me. This in turn has made the captain upset because he had been promised an improved atmosphere which was happening until this stuff.

So how have I failed to keep two promises when there’s still plenty of time left in the window.

Oh btw, the wantaway player “holds me in the highest regard as a head coach.”

I know people are unreasonable with criticisms and I really love playing the game – but this can’t be right – can it?

March 1, 2019

4 hours ago, warlock said:

I know that feeling!

Although, to be fair, my players have surprised me more often than not by overperforming.

Due to your inspired leadership no doubt. I may need to wait until January to sign a difference maker.

March 1, 2019

That feeling when you had thought your team was set up to be competitive but you look closer and realize...it probably isn't...and the transfer window closes tomorrow. That's me with Forest in season one at the too level.

February 26, 2019

16 hours ago, warlock said:

Well played mate

I think that's wise - the temptation is to buy a couple of headline players, but I think it's better to spread the money around to upgrade as many positions as you can.

After a week's break from the Mansfield Town save, I've been playing through the early fixtures in the Championship and we're way out of our depth now - too much success too soon. Most of the squad are still rated at L2 level, and more than a few have actually declined and my coaches rate them as no better than VNL level. The transfer window was a serious struggle and it was all I could do to put together a 22-man squad, let alone improve on quality. I think I'm going to take the opportunity of managing someone with a bit of money (might be time for a crack at my annual Man Utd save!) until the next FM update before returning to the EFL for the second half.

In the meantime, I'll be following everyone's progress here. KUTGW guys!

While there is plenty of room in the budget, the whole team seems to realize this as well as they are all coming to me in search of a new deal. I have been able to land Jake Pitman on a permanent deal, and re-signed a few others. Holiday is just beginning following our championship win (oh by the way...), So we will see about any incomings. There's transfer money as I said, but now I start to feel attachment to the team that on promotion. One thing for sure: Staying up will take heavy lifting.

February 25, 2019

I can send screen shots to you later, but what ends up as a very improbably scenario (to me) has played out and this Nottingham Forest team has won promotion to the Premier League with five matches to spare. From the time Cash was injured, I was able to add two key members of the starting XI, a left back from Man United U23s and Bobby Carroll from Everton. Both have been absolute stalwarts for me, although Devine is a bit of a prat when it comes to his attitude (he’s still upset with me that I didn’t strengthen the squad enough during the January window, one of my promises to him. I thought between him, Carroll and Nico Williams, a striker from Athletic Bilbao who I brought in on loan, I had done plenty, but he still says he wants out even though we achieved the objective). He needs to come around. Anyway, we went on an incredible run of form from January on and I can’t really explain it. I did take advice of someone on here to tweak the roles and duties of your players to maximize their suitability, so that may be part of the reason but I’m still very surprised at my success.

The real strength of this team has been guys who were signed or loaned in from Premier League team. Here is my typical starting 11:

GK: Jack O’Rourke top young GK who I convinced to stay as long as we won promotion this year – other teams were coming in for him. He was on the roster when I took over

Right Center Back: Alese – a loan signing from West Ham.

Center Back: Diego Polenta – on the squad when I took the job. Previously want-away but when we clinched the elevator ride to the top he was signing my praises in the press.

Left Center Back: Matthew Bevis – a loan signing from Arsenal with terrific numbers.

Right Wingback: Neco Williams – Signed from Liverpool U23s after a loan stint with us last season (not to be confused with NICO Williams, the striker

Left Wingback: Reese Devine of Man United, twice as good as the previous left back I was using until January.

Central Midfielder: Pangio Tachtsidis – no way I’m getting that name right without looking it up. He is a holdover from real life I believe. 33 but still going strong…except when he’s injured.

CM: Bobby Carroll – my personal MVP. Never seems to have a bad game.

CM: Jake Pitman – Loan signing from Liverpool, or George Yeboah, promote from the youth squad who has been quite good. Another holdover named Brennan Johnson has also been good but he was injured shortly after Cash went on the shelf.

Forwards – I rotate among four of them, Nico Williams, Jack Clarke, signed as he was out of contract at Leeds; James Wilson – holdover from the squad I inherited; Evan Guessand – a good purchase from France last season.

I think the key for me has been to use my scouting to aggregate new players better than what the AI does for my competition, and to have decent team depth for when guys take knocks, such as cheap transfers from Belgium and Scandinavia on my back line (plus ancient Danny Baath (also aging well like Polenta and Tachstidis.

I was promoted after midnight last night, but now I want to spend some time looking for new buysd. The board has doubled my payroll for next season and given me a 40 million pound transfer budget, so I’m guessing I will need to buy smart from abroad. I have signed a couple of stinkers at strikers, one from Spain and one from Germany. I didn’t pay much for either but still, I hate that they were almost total duds.

I’m going to have to break some bad news to a few squad players (or more than a few) about not going with us to the Premiership. The pattern for me in this save is to fight relegation and finish respectably in season one of a division, and then excel in the 2^nd year. I’m under no such illusion about being anywhere close to doing this for next season in the Premier League. My Cup exits (3-0 to Liverpool in Carabao and 4-0 to Arsenal in the FA) were proof enough that I’m light years behind. We’ll see what the future brings, but for now I guess I should try to pip Southampton for the Championship title.

February 23, 2019

On 14/02/2019 at 18:27, DefinitelyTaylor said:

There's some decent players in the mix, I'm a big fan of Matty Cash irl. Definitely a few areas that need to be improved if you want to push on. However, with the situation you've described, it seems like that will require some clever business. Best of luck with that.

T

@DefinitelyTaylor - I have become a big fan of Cash as well. He's a big part of why we were able to move top of the table just past the halfway point of the season. But in a vital 4-1 in over Middlesborough, this happened:

Makes me wish I wasn't committed to not reloading saves.... Wish us well Matty - we're going to need all the help we can get to make the playoffs now (and if we don't make it, I'm going to have some "splaining to do to about five guys I talked into joining us at Forest.

February 22, 2019

This may be the wrong thread as it is mostly complaints, but just wanted to say I am really enjoying this version of the game. I've played off and on since I think CM'02 and I think the intricacy in this is the best I've experienced. I know the ME video isn't always the most realistic looking, but I've always understood it to be an artist's rendering of sorts. Doesn't need to be perfect.

Thanks for many many hours (and counting) of great fun.

February 20, 2019

This is my squad after 12 league matches and 3 in the League Cup:

and the lower half:

So far, I've been able to use four players promoted from my youth team last last season or this season, and sign a number of young players either on loan or ( most) by transfer. Those are the two philosophies that I've promised to keep, and as the table in the mid-October international break (season 6 of the Save, 2nd with Forest) shows it's working out alright:

We went to the break following a 4-0 pasting of Derby (is it called the Derby Derby?) That youth team promotee George Yeboah scored twice with free kicks and it's a high point of my time with Forest.

Potential concerns: Sunderland have begun sniffing around my defender, DIego Polenta. He's happy playing for us at the moment, and back into the core social group and as a team leader (I stripped him of the vice captaincy during his hissy fit and nobody said a word about it), but I'm keeping a close eye on this one with January approaching.. Another concern is that I have the classic FM glut of strikers, with yet another coming in on Jan. 1. I may loan two out in January, probably Swan and the 18-year old Daryl Adams, whose finishing #s don't indicate he would be effective, but he's had some good moments in front of goal already for us, scoring in his debut last season, scoring 24 for the U18s last year and 7 in the preseason for the first team this season. But it's hard to get him games at the moment so I may loan him, having already tied him up with a long-term contract.

I realize I'm just a quarter of a way through the season, but it's shaping up to be an interesting ride.

February 19, 2019

2 hours ago, DefinitelyTaylor said:

I can understand that, although if he's playing well, then you have to keep him around! Great start so far though and hopefully that can continue.

@DefinitelyTaylor that's the thing. I use 3 center backs and he's definitely in the top three. Game memories are shorter than mine though, so maybe it will be OK.

February 19, 2019

Well I never would have predicted this after 10 league matches:

As you see on the left we just had great comeback win at home, the third time that has happened thus far. Our only loss was a heavy one to Brentford away with most of our 2nd choice players in midweek. We also lost 1-0 to Liverpool in the 3rd round of the League Cup. Oh, and @DefinitelyTaylor, Polenta has decided he likes us after all now that we're winning. He's playing well too, but part of me still wants to sell him to some team in Uruguay...

February 17, 2019

Hey a quick bit of advice for me please. I mentioned about my center back wanting away to Southampton. As it turns out, the squad are supporting ME in this. He's now listed as having no social group and before matches, feedback tells me some of the players are having trouble being motivated because he is the captain. (actually he is vice captain but the captain has become kind of a fringe player for me). I know all about the problems with changing a captain, especially mid-season, but I wonder if this scenario means it would be worse to NOT change him. There is literally nobody supporting him in this and I've seen my support level grow overall in the team to Excellent.

Should I give him the hook as vice captain (he's still just about my best defender)?

February 17, 2019

So actually I secured survival in The Championship with Forest just one match after m;y previous post, with a draw. Something about the cominbations of matchups with the teams between mine and 22nd position made it mathematically possible. I was relieved of course, and we ended up 16th overall which was fine with the board.

One thing I've probably been guilty of a lot as an FM player is being in too big of a rush between seasons. I made a point this time to take a long look at the squad, at options for staff, training, tactics down to set pieces routines, and of course, player recruitment. I want season six of my save, and season two with this club, to be a bit of a breakthrough.

I was given a little bit of money to spend, and combined with the conclusion of Hal Robson-Kanu's million-plus contract, it gave me some real flexibility because, while the board is looking for a top-half finish, I'm looking for the playoffs. For the first time in forever I skipped the welcome back team meeting and so far, with no ramifications.

I had made four signings in the second half of last season, with the players coming in at the beginning of the June transfer window. I brought in Neco Williams, the right wingback who was on loan with me from Liverpool last season. I signed Elijah Dixon-Bonner, also an ex Liverpool youth, Anthony Hortigan, formerly of AFC Wimbledon but wasting away at Blackburn Rovers in the save, and Jack Clarke, the in-demand Leeds player (IRL) who was out of contract in the save following loan spells at Luton Town and Portsmouth.

But in my quest to have two reliable players at each position, I knew I needed to make some decent loan signing still. I also knew I didn't want more than five as that is the matchday squad limit and I've been tripped up by that in the past. I ended with deals to bring a couple of players back who had helped last year, including West Ham defender Ajibola Alese, Everton left wingback Lloyd Spooner and Crystal Palace utility player Sean Robertson. For new loan signings, I brought in 18-year old Arsenal defender Matthew Bevis and the one I'm most excited about 20-year old Liverpool midfielder Jake Pitman.

The board or someone was nice enough to schedule a training camp in Switzerland, and it seemed like I had a longer preseason than normal. Between new players and a youth squad that was starting to look pretty impressive, I was able to put together three separate starting XI groups and schedule 13 friendlies, rotating the lineups so nobody played in more than six matches. Also during the preseason, I was able to:

1) Bring in four trialists, two of which I signed; 2) confirm I had two first team players from my youth ranks, midfielder George Yeboah and striker Daryl Adams, and 3) jettison my two biggest moaners from the previous season, Kadeem Harris and Sam McQueen.

With those two gone and suitably replaced in the team, I had a much better cohesion and locker room atmosphere.

I'm still working on one more incoming, a center back from Belgium named Axl Buyse. We opened at home against league favorites Swansea City and striker James Wilson scored a brace to give us a 2-1 win. Morale is doing well and I feel we will be in the promotion fight with a shout.

But then, team leader and starting center back Diego Polenta, was the subject of a transfer bid from recently-relegated Southampton. I rejected it despite the puke-face agent's warning that his client would become unsettled. When the player approached me afterward I was glad to see the dialogue option that showed the exact reason why - I'm not selling him to a club in my save division and help them while hurting my team. He said that was unfair.

Now, pardon the editorial comment here because I'm on record as saying I like this version of the game and appreciate that in the end, there is no perfect simulation of IRL situations, but still:

This is a 32-year old player, my captain, team leader and all that. He's one of my highest paid players and as a group we are finally getting somewhere. Would he really be that likely to have his head turned by a club that just got relegated, AFTER the transfer window has closed and the season has started? So far his Morale is only down to "Okay" but after what happened last season with the other two, I'm expecting a built-in meltdown that is going to hijack what we've tried to do. (Editorial comment over)

So I've got 29 in the squad, with a handful permanently set on U23 duty. I'm hoping we can put together a decent League Cup run to go with league fixture congestion to keep everyone happy re playing time until January when I should loan a few players out. Here is my squad and I'm looking forward to spending this rainy afternoon beginning the 2023-24 campaign in earnest.

February 15, 2019

Here is the table I failed to paste in this morning. As you can see, we don't have as much separation as you might thing for being 14th. Hopefully a couple more good results tonight will put me in the safety zone.

February 14, 2019

3 hours ago, warlock said:

Final day and ourselves, Portsmouth and Barnsley go into it level on points and separated only by goal difference...

We did this:

A thoroughly depressing performance, and I was contemplating the playoffs.

Portsmouth and Barnsley did this:

Resulting in this:

My nerves are completely shredded. I'll do a season roundup when I've recovered

@warlock - congrats on winning league one.

February 14, 2019

2 hours ago, warlock said:

Robson-Kanu, Bridcutt and Batth must be nearing pension age in that save! But 14th in April must surely be safe .

Arghhh, copied the table screen shot and forgot to paste. We're not so far clear of 22nd that we couldn't still bottle it, but it would take some doing. Batth is still doing a job for me but R-K and Liam are usually in the stand at kickoff (edit: at this point of the season and after loan signing Aloese for the back and Guessand up front).

February 14, 2019

Here's a look at my Forest squad at this point of the season (2022-23). We finally put three games together without a loss, 2-1 wins over Aston Villa and Newcastle, and a 2-2 draw with Cardiff. You'll see we've used rotation a good bit with the heavy fixture congestion before the World Cup mid-season break. But now it's one match per week almost always so the team basically picks itself. I've got the one major injury, the left back McQueen who broke his leg after wanting away to Blackburn. Blackburn?!?!?! Serves him right.

Starting to feel a little safe in the table. Despite being well under the payroll budget, the club is increasingly referred to as being debt-ridden and the board keeps reducing the amount of transfer revenue I can use on player signings. Means I'm less likely to sell anyone at this point,even thought this group of players seem a bit edgy with one another (supposedly they love me, but I can't get much of a rise from them whereas my Port Vale players would walk barefoot through broken glass for me.

February 12, 2019

Muddling along as those has been a hard team and season re squad management at Forest. We have finally produced some decent results including a vital 2-0 away rivalry win at Derby County to push us to 15th, but we are still just five points clear of the drop with 13 matches remaining.

My main winter signing, Evan Guessand of Nice, scored his first goal in that one so I'm a bit relieved I have to say the game has gotten much more intricate in so many ways. There are still some counter intuitive moments with player interaction, but overall, it's a much better and more enjoyable game.

February 9, 2019

It's probably been discussed on these boards by people who started playing earlier in the FM '19 cycle than me, but I've now run into the 2022 World Cup and while I've scheduled some friendlies, it is going to be a boring time IRL. It dawned on me late why we were playing so many midweek games. Especilly for the 46-match leagues, that is going to be one grueling schedule, with a big gulf in the middle. I hope I am able to balance training, rest and friendlies properly during this time.

After a decent run of results here lately, we've moved a bit clear of the relegation battle. My board is asking for just that.

February 8, 2019

7 hours ago, robterrace said:

Isn't that a song from Robin Hood?

Why yes it is, and I see from your sig you are a Forest expert. I'd ask for some inside help but in Season 5, I see exactly two first team players who are on the current roster IRL. TWO!!! I might also add that the squad sucks air, quality-wise, and I have way too many players over 30. I'm looking at it as players have three months until Jan. 1 and everyone is on audition. The board want me to develop youth players and I can see why.

February 8, 2019

23 hours ago, warlock said:

Yeah, developing well with first-team football. Just did this:

And that win takes us 15 points clear of Carlisle at the top!

On 07/02/2019 at 07:14, DefinitelyTaylor said:

@IndyManager: What an incredible rollercoaster of emotions you must have felt during that game, especially. If there's a perfect way to achieve playoff final glory - it would be something like that. A clear show of passion, desire and determination. Congratulations on achieving promotion to the Championship.

@smplfc123: Christ, you've drawn the short straw there, indeed. Good luck in those important fixtures and hopefully you can report that you've managed to keep your job. I would be very annoyed at the players for their 'couldn't care less' attitude towards the back-end of the season.

@warlock: I love that choice, as Mansfield are a great club to go with. I'm familiar with Healey too and I totally understand why you want to utilise him - he's an absolute legend for Non-League careers. Glad to see you've brought in MacDonald, as he spent time with us last season and scored a 96th minute equaliser vs Wrexham in a 3-3 on NYD (loved that!). Walker has been an absolute revelation and has a great chance of progressing as a player, both here and irl. His success has definitely benefited you and the team and it's great to see you leading the pack going into the second half of the season. Full faith in you to keep that going, despite patchy form lately.

@jonathan44: Glad to hear you've started well. Some impressive signings there, in particular Xadas. Keep it going!

@Dong21: Welcome back, I was just wondering where you'd got to! A shame to see you not performing as brilliantly as you may have hoped, with signings like Dahoud letting you down, so far. I'm surprised by that, in truth, as I thought he was a fantastic piece of business and, quite simply, a steal. The Europa League campaign has gone well and you should be able to get through on the final matchday. I expect you to turn your season around though - you have too much quality as a manager to let your team roll over and go down!

Was offered and accepted a job in The Championship - happened on October 5 actually. It's an intriguing prospect and taking the job reminds me of a son I heard long ago..."every town...has its ups and downs..."

February 7, 2019

So after thinking about it for a good bit, I decided to resign as Port Vale manager. The biggest thing for me was it seemed so unlikely to do any more with this club, despite having won promotion from League Two to the Championship over four seasons. The players were united in thinking we were going back down, and after comparing wage budgets with other Championship clubs, it seems likely they are correct, as some other Championship teams have more than 5X our budget.

So I resigned in mid-June and after doing a couple of interviews, one of which seemed to assume I had resigned because I had failed at Port Vale (Hellooooo???? We just got promoted!!!!). I took a three-week vacation, with no jobs I was interested in being available. I am expecting as the season unfolds some opportunities will come up, but I did notice that last season nobody knocked on my door the way they had in the seasons before. We are now in September, and so far, not a sniff and not a job opening I am interested in. We will see what transpires, but I certainly hope I have not shot my career in the foot.

@warlock @DefinitelyTaylor

February 6, 2019

Ah yes, there have been a few of them.

February 6, 2019

As for bizarre injuries, an American baseball player a few years ago.had a nightmare about.spiders of which he was deathly afraid, and started running in his sleep and crashed into a mirror. another player pulled a muscle.in his neck by sneezing.

February 6, 2019

3 hours ago, warlock said:

Not really, but I can tell you what has happened to me across various saves. As a club your reputation will take far longer to increase than you think and you'll find it hard to attract the players you rate as Championship quality. Mostly (and perhaps realistically) everyone will expect you to go straight back down, so you'll still be fishing in the same pool of players you had in L1. When I took Barnsley into the PL I still couldn't attract anyone of decent quality.

As a manager, I think your reputation increases more rapidly (depending a lot on what badges/experience you chose at the beginning of the save). So if you're thinking in terms of another job you might well get offered a more settled Championship team.

Some responses to your other points: footballers being what they are it's entirely possibly that a player would sneak into the weights room for a bit of adhoc body sculpting. As for team meetings, you rarely get a unanimous result. If you get the majority on your side, that's OK. If you call it wrong and the majority are against then a quick bit of back-tracking usually sorts it. And I don't think it's unrealistic that players react badly if (in their view) you're putting a lot of pressure on and holding them to impossible standards - in game terms there's a big difference between fighting bravely against relegation and avoiding a relegation struggle.

Anyway, congratulations on a job well done, and we'll be looking forward to your next updates, with a new club or not.

Thanks. I see your point on the player meetings, not so much on the weights, but basically it tells me there is no way to avoid injuries.with certainty.

February 6, 2019

Well it was a roller coaster even within the evening. We started out continuing our run of poor form (no in-betweens for this team it seems – it’s either feast or famine), losing at home to Coventry City 3-1 and then away to Luton 1-0, to make it five league losses in a row. That had us in 5^th position and four points out of automatic promotion (but four points ahead of eighth position, which of course is out of the playoffs.

I called a team meeting and the reaction was all positive. So for our final home game we had Scunthorpe, but could only play them to a scoreless draw, which cost us any chance at automatic promotion, and kept us two points ahead of 7^th.We finished the regular season at Mansfield and drew with them 1-1. Mark Delaney, one of my two main January signings, scored in the 85^th minute to earn the point, although we were already going to keep a playoff berth. The point instead took us to 4^th in the league table at 80 points.

Emotionally I was pretty down (yes, for real) and basically had resigned myself to not winning promotion. Nonetheless I went over everything in my tactics and training to make sure I wasn’t missing any instruction could hurt us by being given, or not being given. I should add here that I have been addled all season by conflicting tactical advice given by one of my coaches and my assistant manager (who won’t be returning).

Despite press and social badgering re my sticking with the 4-4-2,which is what has gotten us to this position after all, I stuck with that, playing a cautious mentality for the road leg of the playoff semifinal vs. MK Dons. The team managed a 1-1 draw in that opening leg and looked more like themselves, including an opening goal from Joseph Adjei, my other big signing in January, who had been shut out until that point. In the return leg at home we dominated (a term I mostly avoid, but we did) with Nathan Broadhead and Lucas Green-Birch scoring the goals in front of a stellar defensive effort.

That led to a 20-day wait before the final (don’t remember this in real life at all). I focused on striking the balance in training, wanting of course to avoid injuries (more on that later).

The big day vs. Burton Albion at Wembley came and perhaps with the help of some pre-match hiccups (more on THAT later as well), we fell behind almost immediately, surrendering in the 1^st minute. Burton added a second later in the half and we were down at the break 2-0. I didn’t lambaste them at the break, but reminded them how big of an opportunity it was. Still, it looked bleak as we remained down 2-0 after 70 minutes.

Then seemingly out of nowhere everything changed. Harry Clarke scored a great goal from outside the area, and in the 75^th minute, team captain Ben Whitfield thundered home a penalty to draw us level. “Maybe we are going to go up,” I started thinking.

In the closing of minute of regulation, optimism shifted back to despair as Tayo Edun managed to pick up a second booking and a dismissal, meaning we would be playing the extra 30 minutes a man down. “So this is how we stay down,” I then thought. I brought in Mathias Kait to fill in the midfield slot, sacrificing a striker and going to 4-4-1, switching to cautious (from positive) and trying to hang on for penalties.

But rather amazingly, we actually dominated the extra time. My loan signing from Brighton, Bojan Radulovic, got behind the defense to run onto a long ball, and slotted past the keeper to give a 3-2 lead. Near the end of the first 15 minutes, Broadhead hit a beautiful free kick into the top corner to double our advantage. Burton scored one in the 2^nd 15 but it was ruled out for offside, and before you knew it my boys were on the platform celebrating promotion!!!

Defender Matthew Platt and club legend Tom Pope were singing my praises in the press. The board said all kinds of nice things about me, as did the fans. Then I was named League One Manager of the Year. Loan signing Tayo Edun was voted player of the year, with 24-year old Broadhead the younger player of the year and Mathias Kait the new signing of the season (he and Edun basically rotated the more defensive central midfield spot, with Clarke and Aidan Barlow doing the same in the attacking central mid role. It was Edun and Clark who were first choice when we were only playing one match per week. I ended up having two strikers as my leading scorers in Jamie Thomas (20 goals) and Lucas Green Birch (14). Ben Whitefield set a club record for assists with 14, having played all four midfield positions over the course of the season, but mostly at left wing.

The board has already started putting on the brakes re finances for next season in The Championship. The payroll is higher but there is basically no transfer money. Preseason hasn’t begun and in fact, the transfer window hasn’t opened yet, but I am wondering if this might actually be the best time to step down. Can anyone out there still reading this tell me about reputation and how it works. Has whatever credit I get for winning promotion (and being named Manager of the Year) been applied to me within the game engine yet?

Any help with these questions is appreciated.

Now I want to share a few complaints here – and please take these in the context of someone who is grateful for the progress we have been in our society, economically and technologically, that I can spend multiple hours, almost daily, playing a game for entertainment and enjoy how realistic it often seems. Despite my reference to emotions above, I never lose sight that this is a game. I also don’t think the following are bugs, just ways that maybe the game could be improved in a couple of fairly glaring incidences.

I think the injuries are actually more realistic than they’ve ever been in the game, especially the little niggles throughout the season. No doubt that is very much like real life, BUT, (and like Tina of LL Cool J fame – this one is a big ole BUTT). Before my final league match and then again just before the playoff final, I had key player hurt themselves with the old FM favorite of overexerting during weights training.. Thing is, we weren’t doing any Physical training at that day’s sessions, and in fact for the latter example, THERE WAS NO TRAINING for that day and the day before. No training at all. I think this old standby can be done away with and there should at least be a provision to whatever causes an injury to pop up in the game engine, that if there is no training, a player shouldn’t get a training injury. Maybe you want him to hurt his back getting out of his car if you’re after something fluky, but this one was pretty irritating last night considering how careful I was to set up the training to avoid injury.

The second thing is team meetings. I have had an excellent relationship with the players throughout, and I’ve worked for this. More than half of the players talk about their high regard for me as the reason they enjoy playing. But when we had a team meeting before the playoff final, I encouraged everyone to seize the moment and take the opportunity. More than half the squad got up in arms about it and said I shouldn’t remind them how big the situation is, and in the end, everybody’s mood seemed to go down. Is that a realistic scenario for such a team meeting on a big occasion?

Following the big win, with everyone sky high in morale, I do the obligatory meeting about next season. I tell them all to enjoy the break and hopefully they will be back to help us fight against relegation and hopefully we will have some new faces around. The reaction again, from more than half of the team, is that I’m off my rocker and no way are we going to avoid the drop. Seriously, would players say that? Because in real life my reaction would probably be to get a new group of players.

Anyway, the first bothers me more than the 2^nd, but it seems like both could be tweaked.

So pardon the long update. I’m happy at promotion, hopeful some minor changes can come about in the game engine, and seriously contemplating whether this is the right time to move on from Port Vale and try to break into the big(ger) time.

(I want to point out to the board that in real life, Port Vale just lost their manager and are facing fan protests at the ground. I don't see that option in the interface. :-) )

Thanks for reading.

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Posts posted by IndyManager