Swaban

Transfers Out We expected a number of players to leave at the end of the first season, as we start our rebuild . The big news is that Anthony Martial leaves us, I always knew that we'd need to buy a new striker with Weghorst going back to Burnley after his loan expired. I was unsure what to do with Martial, as at £250,000 per week he is paid far to much to be a rotation option, which left us with 2 choice: keep Martial as our first choice striker & bring in a budget friendly option to compete with him, or sell Martial & buy 2 strikers. With 1 year left on his contract & him being unwilling to take a pay cut to sign a new contract, likely due to the excellent season he has had I was leaning towards trying to move him on this summer so that we could get a transfer fee out of him. When Bayern Munich came in with a bid of £40,000,000 I snapped their hand off. We are now in the market for 2 strikers. Donny Van De Beek also leaves us, he was a player I was keen to let go as he didn't really have a place in the squad. Even when Bruno Fernandes got injured, we opted to move Eriksen forward into the AMC spot, with Sabitzer & Fred competing for the deeper midfield role. Somewhat surprisingly, Barcelona we're interested in him & came in with an offer of £22,500,000 which we managed to negotiate up to £28,500,000 David De Gea was let go on a free, we opted to not extend his contract. We did try offering a contract on reduced terms prior to signing Robert Sanchez but he still wanted over £200,000 per week. He has since joined Osasuna, where he earns £53,000 per week. Prior to his awful display against City I would have happily hung on to him for that kind of money. However no I just wanted to see the back of him. Dean Henderson was the only one of the four keepers we let leave at the end of the season that we managed to get a fee for (the other keepers to leave were De Gea, Heaton & Butland) . He isn't as good as new signing Robert Sanchez and I'm not willing to to pay a backup keeper £120,000 per week. He moves to Fenerbache for a fee of £9,000,000 Eric Bailly's loan to Marseille was made permanent for a fee of £8,500,000. Given we were paying him £100,000 per week I would have been happy with any kind of fee for him. Hannibal moves to PSV for £9,000,000. He's a good young player, but I just dont see a way into the first team for him. As a result, we decided to cash in rather than cling on to him and stifle his development Alex Telles moves on to OGC Nice for a fee of £2,000,000. Much like Bailly I'm just happy to get him off the wage bill. If he stayed at the club, he'd be third choice Right Back on a wage of £100,000 per week In addition to these, we also see a number of young players (plus Phil Jones) leave either for small fee's plus a percentage of future profit or on a free having not extended their contracts Incoming Transfers to follow!

End of Season 1 Competition Results We finished third in the league, behind both City & Liverpool. We did manage to win our first piece of silverware in the form of the Carabao Cup The FA Cup was won by Liverpool, who knocked us out in the Semi Final. They beat Chelsea in the final & Graham Potter was sack immediately after the game. Napoli went on to win the Europa League, having knocked us out in the round of 16 Real Madrid beat Liverpool in the Champions League Final to win it back to back making it 5 times in the last 8 years & setting themselves up for the threepeat as they did between 2016-2018 Team of the Year Team of the year is dominated by league champions Manchester City who make up 5 of the 11 players. Luke Shaw & Anthony Martial make the team, however Marcus Rashford is unlucky to miss out to Southampton's Mislav Orsic despite having more goals (8 vs 6) assists (9 vs 6) and a higher average rating (7.21 vs 6.84) Individual Stats Anthony Martial, who has had a wonderful season, finished as the 3rd highest goal scorer in the league, 4 goals behind joint winners Haaland & Salah having players 4 games less than Salah & 2 less than Haaland Jadon Sancho finished as joint second in the Assists table, level with De Bruyne & 3 behind Allan Saint-Maximin despite only playing 22 league games as he was rotated regularly with Antony on the right wing. De Gea finished second in the golden glove, behind Alisson. He would have almost definitely levelled Alisson's tally if I had played him in the final game of the season against Forest however after his performance against City, which all but handed them the league title I felt that he didnt deserve to play for the club again. Casemiro finished with an impressive 15 yellow cards & 1 red this season, from a total of 25 league games. Team stats We finished as the second highest goal scorers in the league, 3 behind Liverpool & 1 ahead of City. We had the most shots in the league at 805. The fans want to see attacking football & it looks as though they're getting their moneys worth We are third for shots against, Its nice to see that we are able to be somewhat defensively solid whilst still playing expansive attacking football Continuing with the theme of being defensively solid, we find ourselves joint first for clean sheets (22) & in second place for fewest conceded (23) with Liverpool ahead of us

I know mate, thankfully he will be leaving the club shortly! We are looking to strengthen the squad in the summer if we can find good value in the market. I am however very aware that the other top teams in the league will also be strengthening too

We gave it a good go, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. We go again next season

May 2024 Heading into the final month of the season, we sit top of the league. 3 points ahead of Liverpool who do have a game in hand and a better goal difference. Whilst Liverpool will almost definitely win the league should they win they 5 remaining games, It's up to us to ensure that we do the same to either capitalise on any slip up they have or to overcome the +2 goal difference at which point we could still win the league even if they do win all of their games. First up, we played Chelsea & 2 goals for Anthony Martial, who has been unreal all season wasn't enough. a 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge is a huge blow to our title chances. Southampton are up next & we respond exactly as I'd hoped for. Thrashing them 4-0 with even Weghorst chipping in with a goal. The penultimate game of the season see's us travelling across town to the Etihad, where we play rivals & villains of this save, Manchester City. They turn us over 3-1, in what is the final nail in our league title hopes for this season. A look at the stats has me absolute furious, not only should we have won based on the numbers, but outgoing David De Gea finishes the match with a 5.9 rating, 2 of the 3 goals should have been saved. His performance was inexcusable, he will not play for the club again. With our final game of the season, at home to 20th place Nottingham Forest we find ourselves 3rd in the table. 2 points behind league leaders Manchester City & level on points but behind on goals difference with Liverpool. With City playing 14th place Leicester & Liverpool up against 18th place Bournemouth, we need to win our game, and for both City & Liverpool to not win. We beat Forest 2-0, still too angry to look at De Gea we give a debut to Jack Butland in goal, who manages a 7.30 rating. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough with both City & Liverpool winning their final game of the season meaning that we finish 3rd in the table. If i'd have been offered 3rd place at the beginning of the season, I'd have likely taken it. However the way it happened, I cant help but feel disappointed, particularly as this now makes 10 seasons in a row that we have failed to finish above City in the league. There will be somewhat of a rebuild in the summer, a number of players will be moved on, however I'm expecting the starting 11 to largely remain the same next year barring any big offers for players or some good value in the transfer market. However we are starting to see a couple of ageing players in the line up who we will need to start thinking about replacing over the next year or two e.g. 30 year old, injury prone Varane, 31 year old Casemiro & 31 year old Eriksen

Some of those values are insane, DM Luke Jackson already valued at upto £41,000,000 at 16 years old! If we weren't involved in a title race going into the final games of the season, I would be giving a few of those lads their debuts. I'm sure we will find a way to give them a game next season

April 2024 As we move into April, I'm greeted with this news piece. Who says Football Manager is unrealistic? April has been a tough month, with 8 games this month (7 in the league as well as the FA Cup Semi Final) the congested fixture list is starting to catch up with us as we are beginning to pick up more and more knocks as players are having to play at less than 100% fitness even with additional rest/recovery sessions added into the training plan. These past couple of month have highlighted the need for me to bring in rotational players who are of sufficient quality if we are going to continue to compete in 4 different competitions each season. Dropping points against Brighton & Villa meant that we were unable to capitalise on Liverpool also dropping points. As a result we find ourselves 3 points ahead of Liverpool however they have a game in hand over us & a better goal difference. With 4 games of the season left to play (5 for Liverpool) the title race really is going to go down to the wire, im addition to this, City are only 3 points behind so they are by no means out of the race. Liverpool also beat us 3-1 in the FA Cup Semi Final where they face Chelsea in the final. On a more positive note, with 5 games still to play Leeds have already been relegated, with a mere 18 points from 33 league games.

Thanks mate, Im somewhat confident that Christian Eriksen can do a good enough job in Bruno's absence, I must admit though I am slightly concerned about Fred / Sabitzer filling in as the DLP. Time will tell

Youth Intake! An exciting youth intake, with a number of players who look like they could become top players if we manage to nurture them properly. We have also ended up with a decent mix of nationalities too, we have a couple of Welsh & Scottish players, as well as Simon Kyambadde from Uganda, Vinicius de Lima of Brazil & Riccardo De Keyer of Belgium. Welsh DM Luke Jackson looks to be the pick of the bunch, he's good with both feet & is Fairly Professional. I have high hopes for him. Scottish Striker Robert Murray, isnt too far behind him but is Unambitious, meaning we will have to get a decent mentor to train that out of him. Simon Kyambadde, Riccardo De Keyer, Ethan Walker, Jake Hart & Michael Peacock all look promising.

It may well just be me, but I feel that just posting links to hundreds of youtube videos, rather than documenting your save on the forum in a way that everyone can get involved in goes against what a love about this forum. I personally wont watch these videos & if i did want to watch youtube videos of a save, id head over to youtube. I come here for written content. Again, this may just be me being miserable, but I feel that this is a place for written content rather than promoting your youtube channel

March 2024 First up, we faced Manchester City in the FA Cup & what a game it was! If we were playing pretty much anyone else, I would have likely rotated in order to rest some key players due to the congested fixture schedule of still being a part of 4 different competitions. However, with it being City, we decided to play a full strength team, with the exception of Varane, who is out for 2 weeks having picked up a knock last month. He is replaced by Maguire, who had an excellent game. We dominated the game & our finishing was impeccable, with Anthony Martial bagging 4 goals and 2 assists (please don't adjust your television set) all from an xG of 2.23! At the beginning of the season, I was unsure what to do with Martial, we need to bring in another striker next season, however he is paid to much to sit on the bench as a rotation option. So it was up to him to stake his claim to be our number 9 & he has certainly stepped up! So far this season, he has bagged 26 goals & 3 assists from 30 games in all competitions. After a 2-1 defeat away to Napoli in the first leg of the Europa League Round of 16 left us with it all to do. In the second leg, we were poor for the first half, conceding a further 2 goals, meaning we unfortunately left ourselves with to much to do, even after 2 injury time goals from McTominay & Maguire to level the score we were unable to overcome the deficit from the first leg. To make things even worse, Bruno Fernandes damaged his cruciate in the match, meaning he's not only out for the rest of the season, but will also miss the beginning of next season. he has been our highest rated player this season, with an average rating of 7.40 over 30 matches, picking up 12 goals & 7 assists. This means that I will likely move Christian Eriksen forwards into the AMC spot & have Sabitzer & Fred take on the deeper role At the end of March, with 27 league games played, we find ourselves second in the table, behind leaders Liverpool on goal difference. We do however sit 3 points above City and have a game in hand over them

Transfers Having decided at the beginning of the season that David De Gea would almost definitely leave at the end of the season, I've been scouting & monitoring a number of goalkeepers since July in order to find the right level of quality : price ratio. Due to us needing to replace a number of players over the coming years, as well as being conscious of the finances I didnt want to spent £50,000,000 on a new keeper, particularly as De Gea will be leaving for free. By the time we reached January, 28 year old Dominik Livakovic of Dinamo Zagreb was at the top of my shortlist. A release clause of £6,000,000 meant he looked an absolute bargain with my scouts grading him as a quality signing. However, when it came to the contract negotiations, he was absolutely adamant that he was to be a "Star Player" which I was unwilling to offer him. As a result, negotiations broke down & we didnt progress any further with him. Second on the list, was Robert Sanchez of Brighton. Who my scouts believed that we would be able to get for around £14,000,000. We managed to talk Brighton into accepting £11,500,000 plus 10% of future profit & with that, we print off De Gea's P45 & put it somewhere safe, ready to hand it over to him in the summer. This also makes it very likely that Dean Henderson will be moved on in the summer, as at £120,000 per week, he earns double that of the new man whilst in the opinion of both myself and the scouts, being no better than him. Not only do we get a good keeper for a reasonable price, but a wage of £60,000 per week for Sanchez means that we save £315,000 per week from replacing De Gea. This means that we will have effectively made back the transfer fee of £11,500,000 in a mere 36 weeks. Sanchez joins us in the summer, as I didnt want to pay for both him and De Gea for the remainder of the season. Good business all round. We also sign 16 year old goalkeeper Woody Williamson from Ipswich for £500,000, he will also join us at the end of the season. At 16 years old, he is definitely one for the future. A look through our youth teams highlighted a lack of quality young keepers & for a fee of £500,000 if things don't work out with him, we are almost guaranteed to make a profit on him in a couple of years time. Youth Intake Preview Quite possibly my favourite day of the season and what a day it is! my HOYD is touting this years intake as a potential "golden generation" which at Manchester United means it could well be something special! Whilst we've definitely been underwhelmed by such predictions in the past, Im hoping that my HOYD's ability, along with the facilities we have at our disposal means that this is a somewhat accurate representation of what is to follow later in the year. January - February 24 A busy couple of months, with 14 matches played across 3 of the 4 competitions that we currently find ourselves in. A strong league performance, where we extend our unbeaten run to 10 league games. However 4 draws in that time, means that we still find ourselves in second place, with Liverpool 3 points ahead after 25 games played. City however, have now slipped to third. They sit 4 points behind us in the table & 7 behind league leaders Liverpool. In February, we pick up our first piece of silverware, beating Brighton 2-0 in the Carabao Cup final! Whilst the board felt that the competition wasn't important, I was more than happy to win something & get the first trophy of the new era into the cabinet.

Thanks lads, hopefully we can achieve success whist keeping the finances somewhat under control!

August 23 - December 23 full disclosure, I have already played through to March before deciding to post about this, so the updates for the first part of the season will be less details than they will be once we've caught up as I didnt take screenshots etc so am having to do them retrospectively. Whilst there's no doubt we've got a strong squad, or more specifically a strong first 11. We get off to a flying start, which has exceeded expectations so far. A 2-1 defeat away at Southampton in August had me concerned as we dominated the ball, but couldn't finish the many chances we managed to create. We managed to turn things around & remained unbeaten in the league until November, winning 11 in a row in the league! Despite this unbelievable run, at the end of December, we find ourselves second in the league, 1 point behind Manchester City & level with Liverpool, only ahead on goal difference. This just shows how competitive the Premier League is at the moment. 17 games in and we have only dropped 8 points yet it is still not enough to sit top of the league. Should the form continue exactly has it has done for the rest of the season. We would finish on 96 points & still find ourselves behind City who would be on 98.

Transfers In We make 1 signing in the summer window, 21 year old Mohammed Diomande comes in from FC Nordsjaelland for a fee of £4,300,000 & is loaned back to his former club for the season. At the end of the season we will make the decision as to whether we integrate him into the first team, or send him back out on loan again. Out The only player of note that we see leave is Anthony Elanga. If im honest, I planned on keeping him around until January, letting him develop in the U21's whilst keeping him as an option in case we pick up an injury to any of our attacking players. However, when Borussia Dortmund offered us £22,000,000 along with a 10% future profit clause I felt I couldn't turn it down. Aside from Elanga, we saw a number of youth players leave that wont make the grade at United, whilst the fee's / wages saved are negligible. This does mean that with less players in both the U18 & U21 squads, our stronger players will get more game time & hopefully develop faster. 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. We also had some tougher friendlies against the likes of Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid (De Gea testimonial) & Barcelona to see how we compare to the top teams. So far, Im very impressed with the squad.

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 dont manage it. They also want us to reach the latter stages of both the FA Cup & the Europa League this season. Whilst I'm keen to have a decent run in the Europa the Premier League is our main focus, meaning that I will rotate players in the cup competitions, particularly in instances where we play a top half team in the league either side of the cup fixture The season preview has us finishing in 4th place. A result that I would be happy with this season, with a view to build upon that once we've managed to get rid of some deadwood & bring in players that will fit our system better & are on the right side of £200,000 per week in wages. The preview also has rivals City as overwhelming favourites to win the league this year, a gap which I will be looking to close ASAP. 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. Jadon Sancho on a cool £350,000 per week, De Gea on £375,000 who we will almost definitely let leave at the end of the season, unless he's willing to sign a new deal at closer to £150,000. An injury prone, albeit excellent Raphael Varane on £350,000 then last but not least Harry Maguire, on £200,000, his agent may well have pulled off the heist of the century. I will be looking to phase out players that I consider to be overpaid, not good enough & the wrong side of 30 (where possible) over the first few seasons. I am however keen to avoid bringing in 10+ players all at once because I think its unrealistic. 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. Tactics I've decided to somewhat try to emulate Ten Hag's tactical approach for a couple of reasons. First of all, because It fits in with a lot of the players we currently have at the club & secondly, because I enjoy his football. I have a good idea of my preferred starting 11. When everyone is fit, the only positions im not fully set on are Right Back, with both Dalot & Wan-Bissaka being good options competing against each bother as well as Right Wing, where I will have Sancho & Antony competing. Other than this, the remaining positions practically pick themselves when we have a full squad. We then have our second 11, who will provide rotation options Transfer Targets I dont intend to buy any first team players in the first window, as Im intending to at least get to January with the current squad before we make any changes so that I have time to assess the players properly & address the most glaring weaknesses first. My initial thoughts are that we need a goalkeeper, as I will almost definitely not renew De Gea. I'm not looking to spend £50mio on a new keeper, so will be looking for the right player that can come in either in January or at the end of the season for a fairly small fee. We also need another Striker. Martial is a decent Deep Lying Forward, so im torn as to whether I bring in a young player/back up for him or whether we bring in a top striker to take Martial's place. If we do the latter, then it is likely that Martial will be moved on, as £250,000 per week is far to much for a backup striker. However, we will be giving him this season to stake his claim for the starting spot in the following seasons. Weghorst is unlikely to be kept on past the end of the season. Im keen to bring in another Centre Back, Maguire will likely be moved on within the first 2 years as he's not good enough to be a starter & £200,000 is to high a wage to be a rotation option. Varane will also likely only be here a couple of years due to a combination of him being injury prone, as well as his wage. at £350,000 it is more than I am likely to pay any player, regardless as to how good they are.

In something of a change of pace from my usual saves, I've decided to take over Manchester United, in the hopes of being able to restore them to their former glory & to cement their position as the best club in Manchester, over their noisy neighbours. As we are all no doubt aware, the club has so far failed to reach the heights that they enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson who many, myself included, would call the greatest manager of all time! Since his retirement in 2013, Manchester United, have failed to win the league. In fact they have failed to win much of anything, at least by United's high standards. Over the previous 10 years, United have won a Europa League, FA Cup & Carabao Cup (not including this years Carabao Cup that they have won irl this season) by comparison, Manchester City have dominated English football, winning 5 Premier League titles (orange line in the graph below), an FA Cup & no less than 6 Carabao Cups. City have also finished above United every year since Sir Alex's retirement Over the past Decade, 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 (a prime candidate of this is likely to be De Gea who earns an eyewatering £375,000 per week). In addition to this, I will be looking to make smart recruitment choices when we do dip into the market, something with United have struggled with over the past decade. We are currently spending £4,775,000 per week on wages. A figure which is far to high, particularly given some of the players that we have. A look through the squad shows that we currently have 21 players earning above £100,000 per week, 8 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. Although Premier League clubs effectively have a licence to print money, a quick look through United's debt makes for worrying reading, £750mio net debt & monthly loan repayments of £11mio mean that I will look to be careful with both the transfer spend, as well as the wages. The financial projection also makes for some grim reading. We currently have £133mio in the bank, however we are predicted to be £72mio in the red by the end of the season.

good luck mate, looking forward to this!

23/34 stats A look through some of the stats for the season shows that our self-imposed tiki-taka style is working well, with us having the 3rd highest Pass Completion, Pass Completion % & possession in the league. It goes without saying that Celtic & Rangers are the 2 teams ahead of us in all of these stats. As mentioned previously, we have the smallest stadium in the league, with a capacity of 2,000 (the next smallest is relegated Inverness CT at 7,750). We sold this out for every home games this season, with an average attendance of 100%. With a current bank balance of £1,355,842 I haven't bothered asking the board to expand the stadium. Hopefully we can earn a bit of money through playing in Europe & then convince the board to expand.

May 2024 With 4 games to play, we sit 2 points above Dundee United in the battle for Europa Conference League qualification & we still have to play them in what will be a vital match in deciding who qualifies. We pick up a point against Dundee United, in the first game of the month which had me worried, given that our final 3 games come against Hibernian, Celtic & Rangers where we could very realistically pick up 0 points. A draw against Hibernian & defeats to both Celtic & Rangers see's up pick up only 2 points in the final month of the season, from a possible 12. Thankfully Dundee United had just as poor an end to the season as we did, meaning that we've done it! Europa Conference League qualification in our first season back in the Premiership! The board set our initial season budgets at £28.500 per week wages, a mere £3000 per week more than we a currently spending & a transfer budget of £1,690,000. We are going to have to be smart in our summer recruitment to strengthen the squad with these budgets. When you compare our wage budget to the rest of the teams in the division, it becomes very clear that we overachieved this season. We have the lowest budget in the league at £1.21mio per year despite finishing 5th. When you compare that to the teams around us, I think we can be very proud of our efforts for the season. I am however worried that once the transfer window opens, other teams in the league may come calling for our players, some of which we may struggle to replace given the wage budget we have.

Thanks mate!

As somebody not familiar with Vitor Oliveira, what is the premise of the challenge?

I love this idea, Ill be following along & may even have a go at this once I get bored of either of my current saves (Queens Park & AC Milan)

looking forward to this save. Hopefully you can emulate El Loco

April 2024 With 3 points from our final 2 league games before the split into championship/relegation groups, we ensure qualification into the championship group. We remain in 5th position, 4 points above 6th place Dundee United who we are competing against for entry into the Europa Conference League Qualifying Rounds. We suffer a 1-0 loss to Aberdeen in our first Championship Group match, however Dundee United are beaten 2-0 by Rangers to preserve our 2 point lead over them in the table & with it, our European dream lives on. We are also offered an interview by Montpellier, who find themselves in 16th place in Ligue 1. 1 point from safety, again we reject it as we have done so with the others.