[[FM20][FM21][FM22][FM23] Calcio]

Hey everyone, currently managing Napoli and in the summer transfer window of my 2nd season and wondering if people can help explain the non-EU registration rules to me. I thought I knew what was going on with them but clearly not!

I had a message to my inbox saying I could only sign the first non-EU player I signed from abroad after I had already arranged a deal for Julian Aude. He is under 22 so won't need to be registered but will he still count as taking up a non-EU slot? And if not will his non-EU status matter by the time I do need to register him due to his age? Zambo-Anguissa left after his loan finished and Jesus and Ghoulam both left on free transfers - I'm assuming this doesn't affect my ability to sign a new non-EU player and I will have to sell someone else (Elmas, Osimhen etc) to register a new one?

Thanks for the help! Trying to plan the rest of my window and it's messing with my brain!

[[FM22] Newcastle United F.C - Richest club in the world]

2 hours ago, Billy0810 said:

Just finished January in my first season, currently 12th in the League- Im not really too bothered where we finish this season. Going to try some different tactics for rest of season and try and find one that works. 
 

Made some signings in January, hoping alves and zlatan will be good leaders with their experience. Tried not to make loads of common signings just to make it interesting( Couldn’t resist Mbabu with HG status)

Looking ahead to season 2, I’ve got Onana (gk) and belotti joining for free. Still looking for a left back, 2 Centre Mids, winger and a young striker to develop. If anyone’s got any suggestions they’ll be much appreciated

I've just started my 2nd season and picked up Tyrell Malacia as a LWB and he's done decent for me so far. Benjamin Sesko also joined as an option up front and looks amazing for an 18 year old. Other ins for me:

Season 1:

Vlahovic, Kondogbia, Bennacer, Ginter (January), Dest, Lisandro Martinez, Callum Chambers

Season 2:

Oumar Solet, Stephen Eustaquio (free), Bright Arrey-Mbi (free), Onana (as well as Malacia and Sesko)

So basically raid RB Salzburg 

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

3 minutes ago, bendixkunert2 said:

Try to bring in some South American talents, develop them and sell them on for massive fees. That's how I did it with Ipswich. And then I was able to strengthen the team overall.  I had the same issue with the financial gap and still have and still I'm not a title contender but at least consistent top 6 finishes.

This is a REALLY tough league for teams like that, so I don't really understand how people are winning the league after 3 or 4 years with similar teams. Have to hope sponsorship deals improve over time to increase the transfer budget because the orginial top 6 are all spending 100M for 1 player.

I’ve been looking for some hot prospects to bring in and develop, mostly been picking them up from Eastern Europe so far as they’re much cheaper than what I’ve found in South America but no one to sell for huge amounts yet. I could probably try and move on a few of my better players now (Alena, Cook, Zirkzee or Wind) for big money and reinvest but I’m not sure if I’d get the kind of fee needed and then the replacements might not be at a price to make it worth it. The money and increased reputation from Europe/trophy wins would be a big boost as well for me.

Yeah it baffles me seeing people do that. I know I’m not the best at building world beating tactics but I can build a good enough one or bring in good enough players to get me so far, I’m sure other people are just better at the tactical side of things and finding the right players, I can get a bit lazy with scouting potential signings sometimes. The transfer fees are outrageous and it’s not even just the top 6 any more. As mentioned Palace spent a bucketload on one player despite finishing 17th on goal difference, Fulham are spending £40 million+ and West Ham are apparently bidding up to £100 million on a player too. Our financial status is “Rich” as there’s not debt and we’re raking in the premier league and tv money but transfer budget is such that unless it was a position that desperately needed strengthening and rest of the squad was fine I wouldn’t really be able to spend more than £15-20 million. It’s a frustrating position to be in

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

Not posted in here for a while but thought I’d drop in a little update and maybe get a bit of advice. No screenshots as I’m currently just on a short break at work but might post some later.

Now completed 5 season with Millwall and the last 3 have been successful ones in the Premier League. We’ve finished 9th, 7th and 9th. I was disappointed the 7th place finish didn’t get me into the Euro Cup 2 but I honestly have no idea how qualification for that works, it looked like 7th place would get it for me until about 25 games into the season and then it just disappeared? 

I think I’m reaching the end of this save for now. I want to be able to make that next step and get into European competition but feel like the gap is just too large, especially when teams around me are all spending £30-40 million on players. I have a decent budget but if I want to improve the squad rather than just one position I can’t be spending that much. As an example, Palace have spent £55 million (rising to £70 million) on one player, my record spend is £16 million. I just feel like it’s becoming a bit of a slog and the players to take me to the next level just aren’t available or are out of my price range (or would require a huge wage which I’m not particularly happy to pay).

Anyone have any suggestions on ways to almost revitalise the save to keep the motivation and interest? Not sure I can take another season of being close to a European place for a decent chunk of the season before falling away, or just boring mid table nothing to play for through the whole season.

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

My second season in charge of Millwall has now finished. Last time I posted we were nearly at the end and locked in a promotion battle with West Ham and Leeds. Or at least I thought it would likely just be the 3 of us.

We secured a strong 2-0 win over Leeds to put us in an excellent position to finish in the automatic promotion spots as we sat ahead of them with a game in hand. We lost easily to Wolves (as expected) in the FA Cup. Unfortunately this was followed up by a 1-0 loss away to mid-table Hull whose goalkeeper was man of the match. At this point, Leeds started to drop points with a little more frequency and Middlesbrough were picking them up. A frustrating 0-0 draw with Boro followed the Hull defeat, again a match we should have won (another MotM performance from the opposition keeper). And suddenly my fixture list didn't look so friendly, having to visit QPR and entertain West Ham in the run in.

An excellent 3-0 win at QPR and then winning our game in hand away at Preston didn't put us in a position of any more comfort as Boro were still hot on our heels while West Ham were opening up a gap in 1st. Leeds at this point seemed pretty out of it and were destined for the play offs. We went into the derby match with West Ham top of the table and one win away from the title. We kicked off at 17:30 while Boro had won earlier in the day so a positive result was vital to keep us in control.

This is now my favourite result. Forget the Leeds match, forget beating West Ham away from home earlier in the season. This was the one. Wallace getting sent off was a huge blow. I thought he'd made a brilliant tackle but no (won the ball but I guess it was off the ground or whatever) and losing him for the last couple of matches was going to be painful as he's been far and away our best player this year. Mahoney came on following the red card and I was stunned at what followed. He's barely played all season as I don't particularly think he's much good, he hasn't really performed when given a chance and he's also been injured more often than not (he picked up a season ending injury in this match). But my word the free kick he took to equalise had me bouncing. It was beautiful. And then the 94th minute penalty to deny our rivals the title (for now at least). I couldn't believe it. We just needed to match Boro's last two results to go up by virtue of our superior goal difference.

But of course we can't do things easily. An incredibly frustrating 0-0 draw to Sheffield Wednesday, while Boro won (again) meant we would need to win against Reading in our final match to guarantee promotion. If Boro dropped points then we could as well but I didn't feel confident of that happening. In the end I didn't need to worry as we thumped them 5-1 rounded off with a stunning goal from McCarthy our back up right back. Boro also drew 1-1 to see us up comfortably.

End of Season review in the below spoiler.

Spoiler

Been handed a £34 million transfer budget and £425k per week wage budget so room for manoeuvre there. Squad is going to need lots of strengthening. Bialkowski will probably be off as he wants to leave once a replacement is brought in, need a new RB, at least 1 CB, probably a couple of new midfielders and an AML. This is gonna be tough. 

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

Just a quick little update as we come towards the end of the season as I'm very excited about where this could lead.

First, remember when I said we wouldn't be signing anyone in January? Well forget that. Ferguson handed in a transfer request due to not playing (although he didn't end up leaving) and left back was a position I needed to strengthen so in came Domagoj Bradaric from Lille.

Very happy to bring him in for under £2 million. He needs a bit of work defensively and has mostly been used against the weaker teams because of this but he seems to have great potential. Seems a good way to make a decent profit and get us set for the future a bit better.

Now for why I'm so excited. Our form has been excellent since...well November really. It didn't feel that impressive at the time but looking back in 26 matches we've only been beaten twice. Since losing to Cardiff in the middle of January we are currently on a 13 game unbeaten run. A lot of these have been 1-0 wins but should have been more.

The highlight in this was the 1-0 win AET against Premier League Fulham in the FA Cup. Made all the sweeter by the fact that 1) we fully deserved to win and 2) Tom Bradshaw scored the winning goal having not scored in 13 matches prior to that. This was the one moment more than any, and the 5 minutes following his goal where we saw it out so professionally, that had me pumping my fists like Jurgen Klopp. We now face Wolves at home in the quarter final (I thoroughly expect to get absolutely battered but it adds some extra excitement to the season)

There's been times in this run where it hasn't felt as good as it should have because of results elsewhere. Around February I had pretty much given up on any chance of automatic promotion because Leeds and West Ham have been so good and whenever I had the chance to move to within a few points of them we seemed to drop points.  But now with 38 matches played, West Ham top the table with 85 points, Leeds sit 2nd on 82 and we're right on their tails with 81. And guess what? They both still have to travel to The Den. Leeds are up next and I don't know if I've ever wanted to win a match more.

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

Finally back playing again, went through about a month without touching FM, partly for fear that it would all fall apart when I did, but also just occupied with other stuff. 2nd season has been going incredibly well so far, much better than I expected.

We currently sit 4th in the Championship, 5 points behind an automatic promotion spot in mid-January. Really all I wanted was an improvement from last season and to be firmly in the top half. 

Jed Wallace has been outstanding and definitely a huge part of why we've been doing so well. Other than that it's been hard to say why we're doing so much better so far. Players like Brewster and Smith-Rowe haven't been the game changers I wanted them to be (athough Brewster has started to get some more goals). Struggling to get good performances from my AML whoever is playing there but everyone else is doing pretty well or having productive spells. I think Max Kilman has actually been a key part of our improvement. He's not been as obviously great as Wallace has but I feel his composure on the ball has helped a lot as last season I remember seeing Cooper and Hutchinson dawdling for ages and being robbed and giving up a chance or goal.

The West Ham match was a definite high point. We got absolutely battered for the most part (they have pretty much their whole squad from relegation) and managed to get the win. The low point was the 4-4 draw with Derby. 2-0 up at half time, 3-0 pretty soon into the second half before a total collapse to be 4-3 down. Thankfully managed to snatch an equaliser, but I was not happy.

Unlikely to make any additions in January just because I don't think the quality is available to me right now and I'd rather see where we end up this season than add a championship level player somewhere if we get promoted and more become available. Tried to get Dzenis Burnic on a free but he turned me down for Hannover I believe, think he would have been great. As much as promotion would be a great achievement I don't think many of this squad are capable of making the step up but we'll see where the season takes us and go from there. Now here's hoping I can avoid the collapse that hit me last season

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

Season 2 with Millwall has begun following the end of my night shifts. Pre-season and the transfer window was spent revamping the staff at all levels and trying to upgrade the squad. On the staff front, coaching levels are now either the highest average or close to across the league which I'm happy with. The number of coaches and scouts allowed by the board increased over the summer which was a nice surprise as during the previous season they had reduced the number of coaches and physios.

Transfers shown above. Pretty happy with my business. Selling Thompson for £10 million feels like a better bit of business now than it did at the time as Villa have already transfer listed him for less than they paid me for him! May keep an eye on it and try for a cheeky loan offer in January. Signing Brewster on loan allowed me to offload Bodvarsson who barely played last season. Very happy with bringing in Emile Smith Rowe as AML was a position that needed more quality and his versatility will be a big help. Really wanted to bring Garner back but apparently I'm an adversary of Solskjaer so United wouldn't even consider it so Molumby was brought back on loan and Palmeiro was added late in the window to improve depth in midfield. Had to adjust my transfer budget to allow for more wages but still a few million left if something is needed in January.

3 league matches played and one in the Carabao cup. We've started very well which I'm hopeful we can continue a bit longer this season than last. The one disappointment so far has been losing to Cardiff despite absolutely dominating from start to finish. Should really have one by 3 goals but just couldn't finish. Trying not to throw too many new signings in at once to begin with so it's mostly been the same players as last year with Smith Rowe and Kilman the regular starters but trying to get Carbonell and Brewster into the first 11 over the next few weeks.

Hoping for a good season this year, would be nice to challenge for the play-offs and at the minimum be secure in the top half. As long as we avoid our dreadful run from January of last season I think we should be able to manage it!

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

First season with Millwall finished, and it was very up and down. Started the season fairly well, albeit slightly inconsistently but would have been more than possible to get into the top half and that's what I was hoping for at that stage.

And then everything just fell apart. I'm really not sure why but it did. I guess looking back it had started to go a bit sour into October and November but we were still playing reasonably well in matches, just struggling to get over the line or having someone sent off stupidly and then not being able to recover. But December it got worse and January was awful. The Luton game we battered them just couldn't get the ball in the net and everything after that seems pretty self explanatory. Was genuinely worried at that point the slide would continue until the end of the season. Fortunately managed to pick up a few hard fought wins and then turned it round a bit. Ended up in 13th which was fine considering what happened in January/February!

James Garner was fantastic on loan and I'd love to bring him back in again. Jed Wallace was also very good and was pretty happy with Tom Bradshaw in the end as well. A few more goals would have been nice but that's probably more down to me being not great at building a tactic or system given I haven't played for ages. 

Transfer wise I brought in Pedro Chirivella on loan from Liverpool in January to add another body with Ryan Leonard departing to the MLS for around £800k. It was also a slightly sneaky move as I'd been looking in January at who would be available on a free come summer as I wasn't expecting much of a budget for transfers so thought I could have a look at him and maybe convince him to stay on. Agreed a deal to sign Alex Carbonell on a free from Valencia as he seemed worth a punt.

Finally managed to offload Jiri Skalak to Rotherham for around £400k (contributing to his wages still but less than half of his previous £16k per week!) and Smith will be leaving too, potentially just on loan but gets some money off the wage bill. Max Kilman and Chirivella will be joining on free transfers from Wolves and Liverpool and will hopefully add some higher quality while in possession, particularly for coming out from the back. Expected most of my dealings from then to be loans or more frees but then Villa came in for Thompson and I was able to get £10 million for him. Would have liked to keep him but felt he'd cause a fuss if I rejected and £10 million is a lot of money (record transfer). Now trying to weigh up what I do with that money. Definitely need another midfielder or two but will try for Garner on loan again. Left wing is lacking in quality so that would be my ideal area to strengthen but not sure on who just yet. Would also love to bring in another striker to compete with Bradshaw. Would love to bring in Nketiah or Brewster on loan but Brewster isn't even showing up on my player search so assume he would have no interest or is unavailable and Arsenal want me to contribute more of Nketiah's wages than the board will allow so it's back to the drawing board. On nights for the next 3 nights so plenty of time for me to think about who/what I want haha

 

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

@Jogo Bonito yeah Wallace and Cooper are definitely two of the better players to start with. Wallace in particular has been very impressive, pretty much everything good we’re doing goes through him. Bradshaw and O’brien are decent up front in moments but not as consistently. Molumby has been pretty good so far for me, although I’ve maybe not used him as much as I should. Starting to look at who might be available for free during the summer as don’t anticipate having much of a transfer budget but can shave a bit off the wage with loans expiring and clearing some of the weaker or unhappy players out. Terminated Steele’s loan and had an offer for Leonard who has hardly played which is worth around £800k overall which I’m more than happy to take and run to the bank with!

[FM20: The English Football League thread]

Started playing during the free fortnight as I suddenly had a lot more time on my hand (being unable to visit girlfriend or go out with anyone aha) and had some decent saves on old versions of FM with Norwich and Huddersfield bringing them up from Championship/League 1 so decided to go for that again to start with.

Went with Millwall as they’re my dads team and seem like a decent challenge. Currently sat in 13th of season 1 after 20 games. Been very up and down, almost every time a win a match or win well we then go away from home and perform awfully. Was doing a little better earlier in the season until Alex Pearce kicked up a fuss cos he wasn’t playing enough then hit a bit of bad form.

Hoping to be able to stick around mid table and maybe get up to just outside play offs by the end of the season. Definitely do not want promotion as the team is nowhere near good enough (which makes the whole promotion thing kind of a moot point). Only signing over summer was James Garner who has been great, going to try and offload Matt Smith and maybe Bodvarsson in January and then reevaluate in the summer. About to go up against top of the table Bristol City away from home so expecting to get absolutely trounced!