erik45

January 24

Season Review.

League. 8th place, three spots above the prediction. (At the end of the season the prediction had changed and now the season preview said we would be expected to finish 16th). Avro won the league and Runcorn Linnets won the promotion playoffs.

xG-wise we over-performed a little. Scoring more, conceding more and gaining more points than expected by the stats. The aim for the next season is to be a bit more consistent, concede less goals and maybe get fewer yellow cards

I'm a bit surprised that we hade the second highest average attendance. I can't complain, very happy with it as it keeps our finances in a good condition.

Cup performances. This season was not the season of long cup runs. We did okay in FA Cup (although lost to a team in division below us), but we were not good in FA Trophy or League Cup.

Players. We had quite solid core of players in the first team, but one transfer out and couple of injuries during the spring gave us problems. We heavily rely on Jones & Reddy scoring and O'Connor assisting. I think I've never had a defender to assist 27 goals in a season! :applause: Mateus Paulo 25a and Adam McCaffrey are important members of the team, but they need to get more things done.

Debuts. Seven new players made their debut this season, four from the first intake and three from this year's. I think these are quite good numbers at this point, as we haven't had any real gems from youth intakes. Liam Hutchings 25i was the biggest surprise, as while he had the worts CA of players making their debut, he scored four goals when he took the place of injured Mateus Paulo 25a.

January 24

April 2026. Good month, but maybe not good enough? Stalybridge Celtic showed us we are not ready for a promotion battle. Then we decided not to score against Wythenshawe so we could score even more against Ashton United We are not being consistent at all, but it's not something team at this level would be.

Records. A few records were smashed this month. We had our and league's youngest player in the field as Borja Herrera came fresh from the youth intake to get some minutes. Then Robert Jones took advantage of Kiam Reddy's injury by surpassing him as the record goalscorer of the club

Final league table. Even if we were quite good this month, is was not enough to make it to the playoffs. But, first season in this league and we achieve very respectable 8th position. I'm very happy with this!

Facility upgrade. As a thank you from a great season, board accepted to increase the budget for junior coaching! We have now good academy coaching, which is excellent for this level. If we could get one (or maybe even two ) youth facility upgrades next season, our setup would be set for many years.

January 24

Youth intake 2026

Preview. As it often tells us in the lower division, this could be a golden generation! It is a five-star intake with five "elite talents" who are shown in the picture

Full list of players. Six players with 5 star potential, but only two players who have more than 1 star in their current ability. There aren't many positive personalities, but (almost) same can be said about the negative personalities. Six players from Isle of Man, but also three from Llandough - why? It's right next to Cardiff in southern Wales, not very close to Isle of Man :confused:

Anyways, I'll be signing everyone from this batch of youth. I think about 6-8 players might get minutes in the first time at some point, but we also just need more players for the youth teams. (Especially now as U18 team is in a league for the first time).

My favourites are: Joe Harris 26a, Borja Herrera 26c and Dale Charlesworth 26g.

Youth intake tracking. I have a lot of excel lists about my saves, here's one about facilities and youth development. I don't have a major reason why I follow these specific stats, I just think they are important for any player. I keep all kinds of tracking lists just for myself to see how far I go (or don't) in my saves. (Ps. the facilities are listed at the start of the season, so for example training facilities got upgraded during this season but I will make update when new season starts.

From now on, I will also keep list of all the players from youth intakes who have made it to the first team. I will publish it in season review.

January 24

March 2026. Wow, we won against Avro?? And then lost 3-0 to the team we won 6-0 in the home fixture. I love the randomness of this month! :lol: I expected to get wins from home games and one or two draws from away games, but I was certain we would lose to Avro. So, this month was a better than expected!

League table. Wait, wait... 5 points to the last promotion playoff spot?! We surely can't make it... or can we?

Transfers. Our player gets signed by team in Vanarama! :eek: He was our backup keeper and even made 4 appearances in the league, but I didn't think he would've ever been a regular for us. I was surprised to see Aldershot snatch him, but I'm happy for him as he actually gets some money now

Injury. Last month we lost one starting striker to injury, now we lost another one... Mateus Paulo 25a hasn't been too efficient, but he is a youth product of ours, so he gets the nod before the 35-olds. The average age of our current attacking trio is over 33, let's hope they want to show people one more time why they've had such long careers

Upcoming fixtures. Somehow we still have a (marginal) chance of making it to the playoffs, let's do it! As we have 2 out of our 3 starting attackers injured, but maybe somebody else will take a bigger role in the final third..? Who it could be, I really don't know. I think we need 15 or at least 13 to make it to the playoffs, so the chances are very slim.

January 24

February 2026. Okay, this is better. 8 points from 5 games means we are no longer fighting for the playoff spots, but I feel like we have steadied the ship. Leek Town loss was very much deserved, I don't think we created any good chances in the game. Also, leek is one of my favourite vegetables, so if I had to lose to someone, I would lose to Leek.

In the last game of the month the team gave me a nice gift for my 100th game in charge of the club.

League table. We are right where we should be based on the team's performances. 11 points to playoffs, 13 points to the relegation zone.

Injury. We lost the spearhead of out attacking trio. At this point Kian Reddy was leading the goalscoring charts as he had scored stunning 22 goals in 27 league games. His back-ups are both 35-olds who are planning to retire at the end of the season, and they didn't score in any of the four games they played in this month...

Finances. Financially, we are stronger than ever. The upwards trend on bank balance seems to be even stronger this season than on the previous one. A bit surprising, isn't it?

Upcoming fixtures. Now we just need keep grinding on. Avro game is definitely the most difficult, they look like winners of the league already. It's also the first time I face an old player from our team, as they signed Dean Pinnington from us earlier in the season. I would be happy with home wins and an away draw or two.

January 24

Our 34-old back-up defender started making noises earlier this season about his playing time. I asked him to settle for the role of a squad player, he wasn't happy about it.

Now I got a message about "pressure building on Ramsey". As he was not too important for the team and on a non-contract, the easy decision was to release him. I did it so quickly his "revealing interview" didn't get published until the next day, when he was already a free agent :lol:

The story in three screenshots:

January 23

Nice start to the new year!

January 2026. Clitheroe game was crazy fun even if we lost it. After that it was much more boring, but I'm relieved our losing streak didn't get any longer.

Table. Six points from six games is not good. We are saying bye bye to promotion playoffs.

Transfers. We get bids to our players all the time, but I've been ignoring them as about 95 % are rejected by the players. They're free to leave as they are on non-contracts, but it would be very nice of them to stay with us

Losing Dean Pinnington was a real shock, I hadn't even noticed Avro offered him a contract. Pinnington came to the during last season and conquered the starting position as CM (a), playing 41 league games in total. I can't be mad at him, I might jump the ship if league leaders came offering a starting position in their team.

On a more positive note, we had our first loan deal done. Reed 25o is a 2,5 silver star striker with low PA, but it's nice to see loans happening at this level.

Facility upgrades. We have better facilities than ever before, woohoo! :cool: From poor to basic, we are moving to the right direction!

Upcoming fixtures. February is the month we steady the ship. Top half finish is what I'm aiming for, so we need to start winning (and drawing) matches to stay there.

January 23

December 2025. 5 games, 9 goals, 10 conceded...only three points gained We apparently decided to use all the goals and saves in the first game of the month. Lancaster were bottom of the table, so win was to expected, but so were wins against Uttoexeter and Ashton, who also were in the relegation zone.

Table. We lost a lot of ground in the battle for the playoff spots. Couple of wins and we go up by one position, couple of losses and we might be 14th.

Finances. No upgrades asked yet, but we are doing steady profit so I will be meeting with the board in the second half of the season.

Youth intake preview. It's not looking too rosy. 4,5 stars is excellent, but on the other hand one position with C and everything else E or worse is...bad. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the preview, but this tells me not expect players who would go straight in to the 1st XI.

Upcoming fixtures. Six games, but only one midweek game :thup: Clitheroe is 2nd in the league, so away game against is going to very difficult. Mossley and Widnes are in relegation zone and both games are at home, so we should be winning them. The last three games are more balanced in regards of expectations, but let's see what happens.

January 23

November 2025. All-in was the theme of the month. League leaders Avro were too good for us, but the all the other games were much more even. We even had our first big win as we beat Atherton Colliers 6-0! :eek:

League table. Even if the results were all over the place, we steadily stay in the last playoff spot. Pointwise, the top is further away from us than last month, but so is the relegation zone.

One reason for varying results was the injury of Neil Parker, our best goalie. Losing the starting keeper is bad, but what makes it even worse is the fact that the back-up is 17-old, who's CA is 1 star... although he did keep clean sheet in his last game before Parker returned.

Finances. It's all looking good. Let's see if we can afford more improvements.

Records & Awards. Kian Reddy was on fire in October! He scored 8 goals, four of those in one game. The 6-0 game was also our biggest win so far

Upcoming fixtures. In December I'm hoping we find some stability (and points.) We are now out of all cup competitions, so league is the only focus.

January 23

October 2025. Well, well, well, this is looking much better! We are still conceding, but we also scored 2 or more goals in all our wins. We keep our last cup run alive as we won a scrappy game against Mossley.

League table. This looks nice. I'm quite sceptical, but if we can keep up getting on average 2 points per game, we are playoff bound. The more important thing is that the gap between us and relegation zone is already 11 points.

Finances. Nice, nice. Let's hope this is going to be the trend for years to come. I might be dropping finance part off from the monthly update if it is going to be like this every month

Upcoming fixtures. Next month is going to be tough. We face league leaders Avro + 5 other teams in the league. We also have league cup game against Wythenshawe who are second in the league.

January 23

September 2025. Oof.... well, there goes both of the cup "runs". The loss against Newton Aycliffe really hurt. But we didn't deserve much from it, even if we had a goal disallowed in the 92th minute which would've taken us to a replay at home. If the cup run was horrible, it wasn't much better in the league. We won against other promoted team, but then it was downhill. xG told us being "better team" in all games but the one against Widnes, but I think xG flattered us.

League table. Even after this month's results, we are in a good position. Five points above relegation and at the same points as the team in last playoff position. If we could concede less, we should be able to get a respectable position at the end of the season.

Facility upgrade! The board didn't allow me to ask about youth facilities or coaching, so I went and asked them to upgrade training facilities. First they said no, but after a brief discussion they accepted so we wouldn't be left behind our rivals (which we don't have according to the club info ).

Finances. I asked for the upgrade because of our strong financial position. Now I might need to wait until the next season for next upgrade, as we won't be having big bucks from the cup.

Well, we have one more cup we can go try to win! The league cup starts and we face Mossley who we already beat in the first league game of the season. On top of that we have four league games. I'm really waiting for the game against Leek Town, just because I absolutely love the name! I think it is the only town I know that is named after a vegetable.

January 23

August 2025. The second season started even. better than the first one! We needed replay against Whickham, but after that it was (almost) smooth sailing from win to win. If you look at the scorers of the replay against Whickham, you might notice we got our first goal by youth intake player!

Mateus Paulo 25a played so well he was awarded as Player of the Match. He's been playing in DLP (s) role. We have two players in that position already, but both of them are 35-years old, so we will need a replacement soon.

I will keep a list of all the players from youth intakes to see when they made their debuts and how are they doing later on.

League Table. The league table looks like this after the first month. Avro has started very well, but so have we. I'm not expecting us to be fighting for the title this season, but if we can keep the best players, we might have a chance for playoff places.

Stadium expansion. ...or maybe not so much of an expansion as overall capacity has been decreased, but at least we have more seats now!

Finances. We are doing so well that I will be asking some improvements as soon as I am able to ask them

Next month we (might) play the matches that were postponed because of new games in cups. Mossley is in the same division as we are while Newton Aycliffe is in the one below us. Both are winnable ties, but let's not get cocky. It will be a busy month, especially if we get through in one or both cups.

January 23

New season, new league, same old FC Isle of Man!

This season FC Isle of Man will make its first appearance in Northern Premier League, Division 1 West! To get us fully prepared for that, we played a closed-door friendly against U21s and five friendlies against English and Northern Irish teams.

As one can see, the results were mostly very positive, although the Guernsey loss really annoyed me. Anyways, the team is ready for the new season, fully fit and in positive spirits!

Expectations: Season preview tells us we should be many teams fighting for top half finish and that's also my personal aim for the year. I was about to show the board's expectations, but this interesting message popped up before the season started:

Even before the first league game, the supporters are saying we failed the objective of finishing top-half. Well, they might be a bit too eager to judge, so let's play the season first and then see what happens. Fortunately, this message didn't trigger any reaction from the board, so I should be safe for now. The board is expecting mid-table finish.

Transfers: There was only one transfer move, in or out, during the summer: we brought in Isle of Man born midfielder Jack Camarda on a free transfer. He actually played for us in 22/23 season, before moving to Dunston (who are on the same level as we are now). Camarda will be rotational option for BWM, DLP and RWB roles.

Financially we continue on the same path. If we get good money from our cup games, I will be asking new facility/coaching improvements soon.

Upcoming fixtures: We start the season same as last yer: by having pre-pre round of FA cup! Whickham are one level below us, so we should be small favourites, even if it's. an away tie. Our journey in the new league starts against teams who are also predicted in the big lump of mid-table sides. We end the month against Cheadle Town who were promoted with us last season (and are predicted to finish last... )

January 23

14 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Mark McConnell had been offered a new contract by someone, (despite the fact that I'm in charge of that), so I withdrew the offer and terminated his contract.

Euan Dunn is the rubbish old bloke so I have terminated his contract too.

What I have noticed is that 1 of our Coaches has been capped by Scotland.

Leon King plays for Rangers in real life, but I've never heard of him. (Then again, but limited knowledge to Celtic and isn't even that great then).

I'm late to the party, but you and @BML made the choices I would've made as well! I maybe could've chosen McKenzie over King as a new coach, but that just my bias towards coaches that doesn't have good coaching badges, which might be a bit unintuitive My youth only(ish) style of playing is not only about the players, but also about the staff. I prefer coaches with no badges (or national level badges) as they have more room for development.

January 22

Season Review

I don't know how it "took a little while to get going" when we were unbeaten in the first 14 competitive games and lost only 3 games before Christmas (compared to 6 between Christmas and end of the season).

North West Counties Premier Division: Win

The league table was already in a previous post, so I want to use this post to highlight our excellent cup runs.

North West Counties league cup: Win

FA Vase: 5th round (loss vs. Milton United are were on the same level as we.)

FA Cup: 4th Qualifying Round (loss vs. Harrogate Town, who got promoted to League Two)

Without the cup runs, the first improvements to our facilities and youth coaching wouldn't have happened, so let's hope we continue on the same path next season!

Financially we are in a relatively strong position. As players might be asking more money for appearances, we need to be sure to balance that out somehow.

Transfers in: We made surprisingly many signings, but only Parral and Pinnington had important roles in the first team (+ McKinnon, who has signed before I did).

Transfers out: Before the youth intake, we had only 18 players in total at the club. Monks, Ronald and Hook were true benchwarmers, so losing them didn't affect the quality of the team, but McKinnon was important in our defence rotation.

Before turning the page for the new season, we got some exciting news about our facilities!

First of all, the board decided to add some seating capacity to comply with league requirements.

And then the board surprised me by accepting to improve both youth category rating and junior coaching budget! :cool: Now junior coaching is at adequate level, which is more than I wished for at this point of the save. Now we just need to make sure it doesn't create too much of a financial burden for the club.

January 22

10 hours ago, shd34_216_42 said:

I see you've discovered the glory of youth intakes in the lower tiers.

It's a shame you can't win the FA Vase anymore, but honestly I think you would rather be promoted.

Yeah, it would've been nice to win FA Vase at some point, but I'm usually very bad at cup runs, so it was a great surprise to me even to win the league cup

At least promotion gets me one step close of being able to offer proper contracts to players (but we are not there yet).

January 21

Yeah, yeah, yeah, que no pare la fiesta - don't stop the party!!

We do the double! We controlled the match from start to finish and deserved the win. This was our last chance to do it as next season we have new cups to conquer!

After the cup win, there was something new at our Club Info page:

January 21

We did it, we are the champions of North West Counties Premier Division! :cool:

April 2025. As the results tell, we didn't do it without some troubles. After Chadderton win players might have felt too comfortable, so of course we lost the next two games. We had over 1,000 people in the last home game ready to celebrate winning the title, but things were not meant to be.

As Cheadle Town won all their games in April, we needed at least a draw from the last game. 34-old showed how to make things happen as he scored a hat-trick in the last game as we cruised past Litherland who ended up in the bottom of the table.

In the end there were two points separating us and Cheadle Town, who went and won the promotion playoffs. We scored loads of goals, but also conceded a lot.

If we look at the xG table, it tells somewhat similar story. West Didsbury & Chorlton can count themselves very unlucky, as their xPts were better than ours, but they finished outside playoff spots. 20 out of 21 teams overperformed their xG and underperformed their xGA which is not unusual in lower divisions in Football Manager.

While we were playing the last games of the season, we also got our first youth facility upgrade done. We have now even better facilities than before: basic youth facilities, woohoo!

The last game of the season is a big one as we have chance to get our very first cup title!

January 21

Youth intake 2025

The most interesting day is here as we have our first youth intake!

What to expect? This was the preview from December:

5-star intake but no position with players better than grade D. I really don't know how that can be five stars.

These are the players we got. We have only three players over 0,5 stars, but on the other hand, quite many players with 5 or 4,5 star potential. My favorites are Mateus Paulo, Ayrton Bowes and Aaron Kelly. They don't have the best personalities and I'm not expecting any players to develop too much at this level. But even small development can make them important for the first team. Mateus Paulo will get some playing time soon, but I'm thinking to utilize him as DLP (s) as I don't use CAMs.

Now that I'm looking at these "top talents" I think only Mateus Paulo has a real chance of making to the first team. But you never know, as we have so few players that one or two players leaving changes things drastically.

I'm giving contracts to 15 of the 16 players. In a "normal" situation I would be stricter, but we really need bodies and many of the lower quality players are born in Isle of Man, so I want to keep them. Only Chidi Akanni is released, as his potential is so low even if he reaches it, he won't get to the first team (+ he doesn't have a good personality, but that's an issue with most of the players ).

January 21

March 2025. We keep on winning! Losing to Ramsbottom was bit unlucky. Lower Breck has been our bogey team this season. They've been in the relegation zone for the season, but we only gained 1 point from two games against them... Anyways, good results mean that we're closer than ever of achieving promotion!

We are in such a good form, that winning the league is a real possibility! This is the first month that I actually am thinking that we are the favorites now.

Even though promotion is very close, some players are not happy. The four players mentioned in the message are all key players for us, so I need to keep them satisfied. I would be happy to strengthen the team, but there just aren't any good players wanting to join us.

Slowly, money keeps on rolling in. We might be asking new improvements soon!

Last games of the season. In April we have four league games. If we win two of them, we've guaranteed league win! After the league has ended, we have our first cup final at Highbury Stadium, home of Fleetwood town.

January 21

February 2025. Well, we can't win them all, can we? The start of the month made me question our capability to challenge for the title. Especially the 3-4 loss to Cheadle Town hurt. But after that, team decided to start playing again and three nice wins ended the month.

Even after some hiccups, we are holding to our position at the top of the table.

More upgrades!

Financially we continue on the same positive path. As we get a new youth coaching upgrade, we might see some increase in expedintures.

Next month we will have our very first youth intake...and seven games! We have a chance to gain place in the League Cup final as Prestwich Hays visit us in the semis. They're just above relegation battle, so I would consider ourselves small favourites for the game.

January 21

January 2025. Things are going well. REALLY well! We won all the games, but on top of that we are scoring crazy amounts of goals. I'm used to scoring 1-2 goals per game in FM, this is all new to me

I'm really happy not just with the cup wins, but also with the win against City of Liverpool, who were just behind us in the league.

Because of our excellent form, we have not only topping the league, but also created a four point gap between us and Cheadle Town!

The win against Ramsbotton United guaranteed that we passed our very first vision objective!

More first time successes: Manager of the Month and Player of the Month! Kiam Reddy has been an excellent poacher for us, scoring almost 30 times in all competitions.

Financially we continue gaining small profit every month.

All the positive news made me brave enough to ask contract extension already in January. On top of that I also asked to start my first coaching course - and surprisingly the board thought all this was a good idea!

Next month the busy schedule continues with seven games: five in the league and two in the cups. The league games will probably decide if we still have the possibility to win the league as we face teams in 3rd, 6th, 2nd, 12th, and 5th. :eek:

January 20

December 2024. And there goes the unbeaten run. Against the bottom of the league... Other than that, the month was quite okay.

The xG story of the first league loss of the season was quite even, but only after our red card. We were leading the game until 80th minute and drawing until 94th, but in the end we lost.

We are still holding on to our second place in the league. There's seven points between us and the teams outside of playoff spots, let's keep it this way!

To enhance our chances, we also made a new signing! Dean Pinnington, born on Isle of Man, will slot right in to our starting XI (as soon he learns to play CM )

I also got the preview of our youth intake. At the moment, we just need more bodies. If the bodies are for left back, midfield or attack, even better. I had my hopes up, because sometimes at this level you get crazy good intakes for no clear reason...but maybe not this time.

The first facility upgrade gave a hit to our bank balance, but we are steadily keeping a positive balance.

We start the new year by heading to Liverpool. We also meet two teams from our division in cups, I'm hopeful we get to continue our good cup runs!

January 20

November 2024. Good results just keep on coming! I really don't know why, because we're playing quite well, but not that well. Ramsbottom game was frustrating, because nothing, absolutely nothing happened in that game. Look at the opposition's pass map, it tells all the action you need to know...

We are steadily climbing up the table. The board expects us to finish in the promotion playoff positions and so far it looks like we have a good chance of achieving that.

Next month we have no cup games, but we compensate that by having six league games. Can we continue our unbeaten record in the league? (Hint: no )

January 20

October 2024. Well, the game of the season (so far) was very much deserved loss to Harrogate Town. We concede a lot of goals, but we just keep on grinding results! Big - or tall - reason for our wins has been target man Robert Jones. Top scorer, highest average rating and most POTM awards, not bad.

Comparing our results to this table, the win against Cheadle Town and draw against Glossop North End might be very valuable for us at the end of the season.

I forgot to screenshot the finance page this month, but maybe the next picture tells something about the club's financial situation:

We have our first upgrade, let's gooooo!!! :cool:

Next month we continue with 5 league games, 1 FA Vase game and also enter the North West Counties League Cup. West Didsbury & Chorlton should be the toughest test as they lead the xG table.

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Posts posted by erik45