Swaban

January Transfers In Typically, I shy away from signing players in January unless there is a player I need to replace due to transfer/injury, or I see a particularly good player has been transfer listed. This is one of those times, Christian Eriksen has picked up a nasty injury that will keep him out until March & with both Daniel Gore & Kobbie Mainoo having gone out on loan this month, I needed a cheap option to provide some midfield depth. Whilst looking for such a player I stumbled across Erick Sanchez whose contract at Mexican side Pachuca has just expired & as a result, he was a free agent & with an agreed wage of £34,500 per week is a great bit of business. He comes in as a fringe player so wont be expecting loads of minutes & we will move him on for a fee once the likes of Mainoo & Gore have developed further. Next up, we signed Andre from Fluminense. With Casemiro turning 32 next month & me not being fully sold on Amrabat, meaning im still unsure whether i'll activate the option to buy at the end of the season, DM is my biggest concern at the moment. Having built a shortlist of DM's, ready for the summer window, I was alerted to the fact that Andre had been transfer listed by Fluminense for £19,250,000. A number of clubs were interested, so I opted to pull the trigger now rather than wait until the summer. Plus if Andre performs well for the rest of the season, I can consider shipping off Casemiro in the summer if we are able to get a big fee for him. Now that we have changed formation to the 433, we are using a Pressing Forward, something that Martial is useless at, even on the rare occasion that he is called upon. Unfortunately, my efforts to get rid of him now have failed, so we are stuck with him until the summer. In order to provide Hojlund with some competition, we have opted to sign Tammy Abraham from Roma who was transfer listed for £12,000,000 & on a weekly wage of £93,000, he is paid a staggering £157,000 less per week than Martial. As a result, we've managed to solve the 2 biggest concerns (DM & ST) for a combined fee of £31,250,000 & both players combined earn £87,000 per week less than we are currently paying Martial. This is exactly the type of business i'm aiming to achieve rather than splashing big money in terms of both fee & contract for every player that we bring in.

January Transfers Out As mentioned above, Lindelof wanted to leave, due to his lack of game time. Arsenal came in with a £27,000,000 bid & I managed to negotiate them up to £35,000,000 which I'm more than happy with for our 5th choice CB. I spent a good portion of January scouting CB's in case we needed to replace Lindelof, but I have ultimately decided to change formation to a 433, which will be detailed below. Van De Beek also leaves us, having only featured in 1 game so far this season, which was a sub appearance in the Carabao Cup. I tried to ship him out in the summer to Lazio, who wanted him on leave, with an obligation to buy for £16,000,000 should he play 15 games for them, however Van De Beek rejected them, which meant that he has sat on the bench (in the training ground, as he didnt even get into the match day squads) for the past 6 months. It looks as though he finally got the message & agreed a move to Juventus for £13,500,000 Kobbie Mainoo moves on loan to Championship side QPR for the remainder of the season, as he will gain more first team football than he will here. He is one of the youngsters that I'm most excited about & Im hopefully that I can integrate him into the first team as a fully fledged member either next season or the following one. In an almost identical situation, Daniel Gore moves on loan to Championship side Millwall in order to gain first team minutes. He goes there with the agreed playing time of "regular starter" so I'm expecting him to get plenty of game time over the second half of the season

Thanks mate! how is your United save currently going? Unfortunately, I have had an issue with the save file getting corrupted, which did mean that I had to start over again I have now got myself back to the end of December (where the above post finished off) & have edited the posts to reflect the correct information & everything that has changed. Things are broadly similar, transfers etc remain the same as they were initially, so the only difference is in the results. The posts above now reflect the new save file

Ive never had one, I slate the ref's / VAR at every opportunity in press conferences. I've had plenty of warnings from the FA, but never a ban

I have used this for years & it always seems to work well, young players develop well & rarely complain about the high workload. players over 30, or injury prone never have double intensity, but everyone else does

Are you talking about Inverting the Pyramid? Written by Jonathan Wilson? If so, its an excellent book!

Im currently using this Pep inspired 3241. Creates a lot of chances & is surprisingly solid defensively given that we have no fullbacks

Are there any particular books you'd recommend, either about Ajax, or football in general

I started my own save this week, 'll update once i finish season 1

I'd go for Juvenes, but thats because i prefer to build up a smaller league, rather than compete in an already top 5 league (once you get promoted to Serie A)

Theres one on steam already mate - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3077146150&searchtext=

December A busy December, see's us play 8 games across 3 competitions this month. In the Champions League, we drew our final game of the group stage 0-0 with PSV, a game in which we had nothing to play for having already qualified in second place. We didnt start a single player from our strongest line up in this match, both to give experience to youth / playing time to the rotational options, and giving our starting 11 a well deserved rest. We finishing second in the group & have drawn RB Leipzig, in the next round. Bayern Munich, who topped our group, draw Celtic. We also played Arsenal, in the Carabao Cup Quarter Final. A game which we lost 3-2. Whilst it would have been nice to progress further, this is the least important competition in the calendar (unless you win it of course!) so I cant say im too gutted to be out of it. In the Premier League, we picked up 10 points, from a possible 18. A tally which see's us once again somehow retain second place. However, City are extending the gap at the top, which currently sits at 6 points & they also have a game in hand. Rasmus Hojlund got injured this month, a dislocated shoulder which will keep him out of action until the end of February. This is particularly disappointing, as our backup option is Martial who cant stay fit & will finally leave the club this summer, albeit on a free transfer as we are letting his contract expire. I am going to attempt to offload him in the January window for any money that I can get, where I will look to bring in a back up striker to provide competition to Hojlund on significantly smaller wages that Martial's £250,000 per week. Victor Lindelof has been complaining about his playing time for the past month or two, as I like to have a stable defensive partnership I tend not to rotate my CBs too often. If a decent offer comes in for him in January, I will let him leave. If not, he will almost certainly be leaving in the summer anyway, as £170,000 per week is far too much for our 5th choice centre back. I'm currently experimenting with using a 433, rather than the 343 that we've been using up until now. If i opt to change to the 433 on a more permanent basis, I will not look to replace Lindelof however if we do continue with the existing 343, we will need to replace him.

November We started the month off against Plymouth Argyle, in the Carabao Cup, where we handed starts to Mainoo, Hannibal, Hansen-Aaroen & Amad Diallo. It was possibly too much, too soon for the youngsters as we found ourselves 1-0 down until the 80th minute, when Anthony Martial, who for once is fit, came off the bench to bag the equaliser. We went on to penalties & thankfully our quality helped us through the shoot out. In the Champions League, a win against Antwerp & a loss to Bayern Munich meant that we are guaranteed second place in the group, behind Bayern with the final game still to play. As there is nothing to play for in the final match against PSV next month, we will once again look to our promising youth players. For the second month in a row, we pick up 4 points from a possible 9 in the Premier League thanks to a draw against a strong Aston Villa side 7 a 1-0 loss to a very poor Wolves side who, despite taking 3 points off of us, still find themselves in the bottom 3. Somehow, we still find ourselves in second place after dropping 10 points in the past 2 months.

wow! Cheez3y spanks Young Boys, you all saw it!

October A mixed month see's us win both of our Champions League games meaning both ourselves & Bayern Munich have 7 points, from a possible 9 & both Antwerp & PSV have 1 point each. With 3 games to play, we should be confident of qualification, barring any disasters. In the Premier League we only picked up 4 points from a possible 9 thanks to a 1-0 loss against Nottingham Forest, which was particularly frustrating, which was then follwed up with a 0-0 draw at home to West Ham thanks to a Scott Mctomminay red card in the first half. I'm keen to integrate youth into the team, with Kobbie Mainoo & Hannibal both receiving a good amount minutes so far. We will also look to bring in players such as Amad Diallo into the squad when we can afford some additional rotation. With 10 games played, we drop to second in the table, 3 points behind Manchester City. Elsewhere, Everton have managed to overcome their -10 point penalty & currently sit on 2 points, which sees them only 3 points short of escaping the relegation zone

September September was a busy month, seeing us play 6 times, across 3 different competitions. In the Premier League, we picked up 9 points from a possible 12, due to our first league defeat, coming at home against Tottenham, which wasn't all too surprising given that we had played Manchester City the week before, where we won 2-0 & then kicked off our Champions League campaign midweek with a 2-2 draw away to Bayern Munich, two tough fixtures immediately before the Tottenham game meant that we were forced to rotate players in order to reduce the risk of picking up injuries. To end the month, we faced Sunderland in the Carabao Cup, we gave a number of youth players a start here, including: Kobbie Mainoo, Hannibal & Hansen-Aaroen, with 16 year old Shea Lacey also making his debut, as he came off the bench with 20 mins to go. They rewarded our faith with a 3-0 win, which sees us face Plymouth in the next round, where we will once again provide opportunities for our promising young players. With our starting 11 feeling fresh, due to half of them not playing a game since we drew to Bayern Munich 10 days ago, we demolished Burnley 8-2, with both Bruno Fernandes & Marcus Rashford each bagging a hattrick. As a result, we find ourselves top of the table, with 7 games played. 1 point above Newcastle & 2 points above rivals Manchester City.

Pre-Season We had a strong pre-season, where I organised a number of friendlies against weaker opposition in order for the players to build both morale & fitness. For me, they are far more important in pre-season than facing tougher teams. We played 8 friendlies & had a perfect record until we met Elche in the final game, so rounded out pre-season with a disappointing loss just a week before the season opener against Bournemouth. I gave them a bollocking in the post-match team talk, so hopefully they're fired up for the game. August - The Season Begins Our first competitive game of the season, see's us travel to Bournemouth. We were keen to bounce back from the defeat against Elche a week ago & that's exactly what happened! A look at the match stats below, shows that the 1-2 scoreline flatters us. A draw would have been a fair result, but if we are to be a top team then we need to be able to take points from games in which we play poorly. It's early days, but i'm happy with the system so far. We played Antony as a striker, due to both Hojlund & Martial being injured, with Rashford playing behind him as a Shadow Striker. Antony was class, scored both of our goals from his only 2 shots on target. Next up, we were at home to Everton, a look at the stats shows that we dominated the game, created far more chances and managed to bag 3 goals despite both of our natural strikers currently being injured, with Jadon Sancho & Marcus Rashford making it 2-0, before Amad Diallo grabbed a third, shortly after being subbed on. The final game of the month see's us travelling to London, to play Chelsea, a step-up in competition from the matches we've played so far & it was tough! Chelsea played very well, but despite them going 1-0 up within the first 10 minutes, we managed to squeeze a 1-2 win thanks to a Marcus Rashford brace. A strong first month to the season, see's us pick up 9 points from a possible 9, we unfortunately managed to keep 1 clean sheet from the 3 games, however 2 of our starting 3 CB's are new signings in Todibo & Guehi with Onana in goal. Hopefully, once they've had a bit more time playing together, we will be able to tighten that up.

dethroning Young Boys should be a good challenge, as they always seem to dominate the league in my saves. Plus theres always the option for some childish jokes to be made!

Transfers Out Varane leaves the club, in what is the first piece of transfer business of the save. Saudi club Al-Nassr came in for him & after some negotiation, we settled on a fee of £65mio. This was an offer too good to pass up given his weekly wage & proneness to injury as well as providing us with the necessary funds to replace him with somebody younger, cheaper & more inline with our philosophy that we are trying to establish at the club. Daniel Gore, who is one of the most promising youth players at the club, goes out on loan to Championship side Huddersfield. At 18 years old, he is ready for first team football, however I cant provide him with that here. We will watch his progress closely this season as he is one of the players I hope to integrate into the first team squad over the next couple of seasons. In After shipping Varane off to the desert, we were now in urgent need of at least a CB. Having spent more time that I care to admit, clicking through scout reports, I managed to whittle my shortlist down to just 2 names. Marc Guehi of Crystal Palace & Jean-Clair Todibo of Nice. Palace proved to be unwilling to negotiate on the fee they wanted for Guehi which meant that I decided to focus solely on Todibo. Nice were more willing to do a deal & as a result, Todibo, becomes our first signing for a fee of £45mil. He also agreed to a wage of £73,000 per week. So not only did we pay £20mio less than we got for Varane, but we are also saving £277,000 per week in wages. Which over the 2 years that Varane had on his deal amounts to an additional saving of £28,808,000 on top of the £20mio. A good deal all around. Having already signed Todibo, I was alerted to the fact that Guehi was unhappy about being priced out of a move to United by Palace. After weighing up my options, I decided to go in for him again. Palace wanted £60mio for him, a huge fee considering the financial difficulties that we may find ourselves in over the next couple of seasons, however I opted to go for it given that they allowed me to structure the deal in a way that saw us pay £10mio up front & the remaining £50mio over the next 3 seasons. Whilst this goes against what I had discussed earlier, in my desire to buy players outright, rather than saddle ourselves with additional debt, I felt it worth it in this instance. Both Guehi & Todibo are 23 years old, so could feature at the heart of our defence for many seasons to come. Additionally, at a wage of £115,000 per week, we managed to snag both Guehi & Todibo for £162,000 per week less than we were paying Varane and being a combined net spend of £40mio taking into account the £65mio we got for Varane.

Tactics Usually, I am very much in the camp of creating your tactic / system to fit your squad. However, given the changes to the match engine / positioning etc this year, I am keen to play a 3 at the back system, which is something that I almost never do as I usually favour as 433 or a 4231 (presumably like 95% of other FM players) As a result, I have taken an alternative approach. In order to try and move away from the United of the past decade, who have become synonymous with much that is bad with modern football, i've decided to instead start with the system & then shape the players to fit it. Initially, this will primarily impact our wide players, due to the fact that we won't be using them. Their choice will be simple, accept playing in a new position, or collect your P45. Below is how the system currently looks, however we are yet to play a preseason game, so I'm sure there will be a few tweaks between now & Premier League opening day. Transfer Targets Given that we have opted for a 3 at the back system, I am going to need another CB, as we currently have 5 senior CBs at the club (one of which is Johnny Evans, who is senior in both senses of the word). Typically, I like to have 2 players for each position, so that I could rotate the full 11 should I feel the need. Unfortunately, we don't have a youth player capable of stepping up, so we will have to turn to the market. With a transfer budget of £6mio, we need to either sell first, or opt for a loan signing. Varane, Maguire, Lindelof & Evans will all likely leave the club within the next 2-3 seasons, meaning that we will need an extensive rebuild at the back over the next couple of years. At present this is my main area of concern. Kobbie Mainoo & Hannibal have both been promoted from the U21's to provide midfield depth, meaning we are ok for this season, even if we shift Donny Van De Beek. Aside from this, Anthony Martial will be leaving one way or another, whether we sell him, or allow him to leave for free next summer, meaning that we will need a striker who can compete with Rasmus Hojlund. I don't anticipate this being a concern until at least January, given that Martial is injured on day 1, shocking I know, so will be difficult to move on.

As somebody who has recently discovered the "history of Rome" podcast, by Mike Duncan & currently binging my way through it, this has come at a perfect time for me. I'll definitely be following this!

Expectations The board expects us to qualify for the Europa League, in reality I am aiming for Champions League qualification in the first season & will consider the season to be a failure if we don't manage it. They also want us to reach the knockout stages of the Champions League as well as the latter stages of both the FA Cup. Whilst I'm keen to have a decent run in the Champions League, due to the prize money on offer, which will go a long way to easing our concerns over both the debt & bank balance, the Premier League is our main focus to ensure that we qualify for the Champions League again next year, I feel that consistent qualification over the next few years is vital in our aims to ensure that the club is debt free, this includes transfer debt too, so where possible I will ensure that new signings are paid for upfront, rather than in instalments. The season preview has us finishing in 5th place, a result I will judge to be a failure, should this happen. I'm not anticipating to make any first team signings this summer either, so it Wil be very much down to the current crop of players to fight for their place at the club. The Squad As mentioned previously, whilst there are no doubt a number of talented players in the squad, some of them are vastly overpaid in my view e.g. An injury prone, albeit excellent Raphael Varane on £350,000. Casemiro who again is an excellent player, but at 31 years old & a wage of £300,000 per week, is unlikely to have a long term future at the club, given the way that we are heading. Jadon Sancho is another one, who whilst being a great player, is currently paid £275,000 per week & as much as I'd like to say I am impartial, his IRL antics are very much clouding my judgement, so unless he both agrees to reduced wages & puts in some stellar performances, we will be looking to get rid of him in the coming seasons. I am keen to avoid bringing in lots of first team players all at once because I think it's unrealistic (unless you're at Chelsea). Whilst I have left the first transfer window on, I dont plan to buy any first team players unless a good offer comes in for a player that I then need to replace.

As a United fan, I often find myself returning to managing them in each iteration of FM, particularly when IRL results are poor. Seeing United struggle on the pitch makes me want to fire up FM & put them back in their rightful place, at the top of the table! In the post SAF era, United have lost what I would consider to be the "United way" spending far to much money on stars, only for them to flop. Underperforming for the club, despite how good they may have been at their previous club e.g. Pogba, Sancho, Lukaku, Sanchez, Di Maria, the list goes on, and on, and on. In this save, I want to move away from signing players such as these & focus on developing players the right way, something we have struggled with in recent years. The aim is to primarily sign younger players, 23 & below, developing them in to top class players ourselves, rather than paying a premium to a club that has already done this for us. With that said, this isn't a hard and fast rule, there will be exceptions. Should a top player become available, at a price I deem acceptable and will actually fit into the system I am playing, then it would be stupid of me not to go for him due to an arbitrary rule that I have put in place. Manchester United have become synonymous with poorly run football clubs. Giving out huge contracts to sub-par players, meaning that they then struggle to offload said players as no other club will match the wage that they're currently on. This is something that I will be looking to change ASAP in getting rid of as much of the deadwood as possible, ideally through selling them on but if not, we will allow contracts to run down e.g. Anthony Martial, who having been at the club since 2015 is finally in the last year of his bumper £250,000 per week contract, having not played a full 90 minutes for United in over 3 years now! If we are able to offload him at the beginning of the season, I will do, if not I will allow his contract to run down & leave on a free next year. We are currently spending £4,802,554 per week on wages. A figure which is far too high, particularly given some of the players that we have. A look through the squad shows that we currently have 16 players earning above £100,000 per week, 9 of which are paid at least £200,000 per week. So there is plenty of room to reduce this spend over the next couple of years. The top earner at the club is Raphael Varane who earns an eye watering £350,000 per week! Whilst he is undoubtably an excellent player, he is very much injury prone & at 30 years old, this will likely only get worse. Unless a big offer comes in for him, it is likely that he will stick around for at least the first season (ideally on a new contract, with reduced wages) & alongside Lisandro Martinez, feature as part of our starting CB partnership. Aside from United's on the pitch struggles, it is well known that the club has been saddled with debt over the years, thanks to parasitic owners. An era that is hopefully coming to an end with Jim Radcliffe buying a stake in the club (hopefully this happens in game too!) United's are currently £552mio net debt & have monthly loan repayments of £11mio mean that I will look to be careful with both the transfer spend, and the wage bill. The financial projection also makes for some grim reading. We currently have £229mio in the bank, however we are predicted to be £56mio in the red by the end of the season, £193mio by the end of next season & £276mio in the red by the end of the 25/26 season. We have a lot of work to do here, but we have time to achieve it & a couple of high value player sales will go a long way towards helping with this!

Are you using the 343 formation? Or is this just how it looks in possession?

It is not made by SI, as they are not able to due to licencing. the real name fix is community made