_Ben_

It's all over the shop but I know that FM calculates possession in a different way, or, at least, it did. Therefore, I wonder if it is something that I just need to keep comparisons within the game for. We're now pressing more than we ever have done so I'll see if I get a change from the usual 5/6 that we recorded previously.

Tough season! I saw the first league table and hadn't clocked it was the halfway point but I can now breathe a little easier! What are the plans for the summer and into next season? Is it a total revamp or just some consolidating from learning points?

I think this window and your previous dilemas, all of which I agree to, by the way, are perfect for the course you want to take this. You may be able to challenge for the title if you splash that £116m but I know you'll lose the heart and soul of this save and probably be a little bored in a week or so. I'm continuously finding myself immersed in your story-telling and take huge inspiration from your posts!

Awesome! Looking forward to seeing these ideas...

My old foci felt out-dated and gave me a very broad search criteria, with little identity or alignment with my recruitment targets. Therefore, I've used a similar formula as with my players to generate a suitability rating for my scouting team, looking at the harmonic mean, five times, to create an overall percentage rating. I'm looking for scouts who are able to judge ability and potential but also those adaptable to new countries, disciplined with their work and determined to produce results that can benefit the sporting side of the team. Then, with those still at the club following a raid of other teams, I tried to prioritise sending a scout to the area where they have knowledge - through their first, or additional, nationalities. When that ran out, I just assigned scouts to countries that mean 95% of the twenty one leagues (Scotland and Cyprus remain) are now covered by my scouting team with the remaining staff then being assigned more generic but still focused recruitment jobs across the continent and globe. This new move sits alongside an even more driven academy approach as we are losing around €30m a year and are needing to stay afloat with wholesale changes each summer. The 4231 shape continues to evolve but I feel like it's the direction that is the most suitable for the team, the players I have and my overarching style of play. We're recording the second most dribbles per game, fourteenth least passes in our box and, actually, still have the lowest OPPDA in the league - a sign that we're not entirely gegenpressing our way through things, just yet! There is still a considerable amount left to improve on and I think that we need to continue to work on creating those high-quality chances but it's a move in the right direction! The happiness around our tactical direction largely mirrors my happiness around our league form. We've got through highs and lows and pretty much everything in between - taking points from Bayern and Leipzig but then coming away with nothing against Werder and Dusseldorf as well as a poor draw with relegation-battling Heidenheim. I've been able to - and somewhat forced to - rotate my attacking five considerably as the season has gone on, with long term injuries for Boniface and then a repeated set of short term knocks for the likes of Pejsa, Duran and Krassnizter. However, we've fared pretty well and have been able to make the BayArena a bit of a fortress of late. --- Really (and I mean really) concise one from me here but necessary to catch back up and enjoy a bit of Saturday afternoon FM-ing!

Yeah - I think that the link between performances and progress is quite tight this year. Really hard (and rightly so) to find the right level and the right ability. I will stay at Bayer for the remainder of my time, probably, but the problem with Duisberg is that they're currently bottom of the league and my hot prospect striker has two in fifteen with an awful rating. I'm just trying to find a 3.Liga club but, as you say, this could be a decent middle ground even if you've put me off ever having a competitive reserve club given the bugs everywhere! I like your new HoYD but, given the success you've had this season, wonder if you're potentially looking just that bit too deep? I know it's a marginal gains business and you want to improve everywhere, but you've brought through a high number of quality youngsters and have reached a high that I don't think many would be able to - do you think you're already over achieving? Absoluetly not a criticism but I know, for me - as soon as I had a bad intake with Caers, I'd want to rip it all up and start again!

I just want to say that, despite creating and using my own skin, this is the one that got me into this and this is the marker for us all to aim for. The one thing that really got me was the bookmark popup and what I could then do with it... This is just a test but the ability to create popups like this is completely new to me. I can create them in areas where I pre-allocate spaces but have never cracked the actual free standing element of it. --- I also love the hidden ID 'copier' - that is genuis!

Yes. I know. But you don’t have to paint the picture that I’m some beast that shoots down your ideas when I have, repeatedly, offered support and guidance, taking on board your feedback to develop my skin. You’ve attempted to paint a bad picture of me and my work for no reason. As for the issue - it is likely skin related but, as I’ve told you numerous times, you must restart FM24 as I’ve made significant changes to person properties.xml that only take effect when that happens. If it still isn’t working on my skin and the default skin, the issue is your end. Otherwise, it’s something I will look at when I have time.

Seriously - what is your issue?!

Congratulations! Are you in a position to spend all £10m of that? How big is your scouting setup at present?

That's interesting and really good to hear, to be honest. Similarly, my board are expecting quite a slow rate of progress so maybe I should just seek to give out more youth minutes. What is Lozano's personality? How has he been rating? I'm finding that so much is linked to performance at the moment for the development of my youngsters. I had a couple of players at Bochum who were playing poorly one season and barely progressed but came on leaps and bounds in the following year, when we went up. Obviously, there is more to it than that - age, suitability for the first team, better coaches, tactical adjustments etc etc but it was something I noted. We don't have a B-team, no, but - at the end of each season - I get asked if I want to form one. The issue is that, unlike your B squad, they'd start in the fourth or fifth tier and would take ages to reach a level that was of any use to me, with them not being able to play above the third tier anyway. I have an affiliate - Duisburg - in the 2.Liga and I think that they're a solid choice to send my youngsters to, whilst giving the rest opportunities - sporadically - in the first team until they are able to hold down a place at a decent level. EDIT: On your youth intake. To you, does it feel a little underwhelming? I think that, looking at Aguirre, Mourino and Lozano and then back at that crop, there feels far less top end talent but - also - the players don't quite feel as well-rounded as previous intakes. Maybe that's just me and I know you're the right person to address that if it is an issue for you, too!

Always had a soft spot for Italy, and - in particular - those from the southern part of Italy. I will be following this closely: good luck!

It's a massive job but I'm loving it! Feels very similar to that step to Atalanta last year but I hope that, this year, I spend a bit more time with the substance element of building this club. Nowhere near a title, it's been all Bayern, which makes the end goal even sweeter. Yeah. He's really impressed me even if he's asking for a transfer because I decided to move he and Pejsa to 'Squad Players' - the latter has dropped it but he hasn't, yet. He's got one goal and four assists from his first three hundred and twenty-five minutes in black and red. Yes - I've given him full control, using the 'Add as transfer target' feature to decide the price (obviously, I know the ball park figure as I've scouted) and then then the contract. I felt that, with the absence of what you mention Dan, there are going to be ridiculous demands - like him giving the lad below a base wage of €14k p/w and a rise to €41k after 25 games. He's fifteen! If that was me, I'd absolutely be giving messages that 'the new contract has made him complacent' as I'd have a significant nest egg by the time I would be twenty. What is more - twenty five league games for us isn't even that much. I'd give him a couple of years on loan then some time off the bench before giving him a wage not too from halfway towards my self imposed €100k p/w limit. But I do think that, once I'm better at building my shortlists, I'll add in the max contract and then the squad status bit - especially as I'm fine tuning. To be honest, my lie has probably worked out for the best as it brought them more interest in joining us in the first place!

Oh, far too deep! I'd first put both players through the comparative tools to see if there is significant discrepancy between their suitability to play for Bayer. If there is nothing really there, then it'd all be down to watching as much football as I can of them and looking at what they do well and what they don't do as well. Of course, there comes the element that not all teams play the way I do but I can get a decent idea of how they interact with other players. Recruitment tends to take weeks and months and I tend to write notes down as I go along. To be honest, it's part of the reason why my business normally gets done so early in the window, because it's been ongoing for so long. The next step, for me, is to use the DoF more in this process. I've just given him the chance to do the actual signing from a single-player list but need to progress that to allowing him to work through a shortlist, as is probably more realistic than how I'm doing it.

Yeah, I'm finding that the academy has somewhat underperformed but did produce this gem, who sadly moved on before I took charge: I'm really trying to focus on development of the youngsters that we do have! I have garnered a lot of interest in the background of Bayer since taking over and must say that I do like the club model.

Love your work and the passion you put into our writing but I love this result more than anything, else! UTV!

Building from the previous post about developing a style here at Bayer, I also want to really rationalise my decisions about where the players come from. I have long stayed away from central Europe, feeling that there are often far more flair players in South America or fair more rough diamonds in Africa but, fitting in with the board's objectives, I think that there is a real bonus to shopping a bit more locally. Right now, the Bundesliga is the fourth most reputable league in Europe and , because of this, talent is exceedingly expensive, as it is from any of the other leagues of a similar standing. Whilst I do need to get into the mindset that - at this level - the €10m signing is akin to the €500k signing in Sweden and a €70m sale is also akin to a €10m sale tere, I think that there is significantly better value at a number of leagues that - unlike Africa - are loaded within the game and can give me a fully detailed set of statistics as well as a better pathway for player development and the added bonus of modeled youth leagues so that I can identify talent at an even younger age. Particularly interesting to me are those neighbouring nations - Poland, Czechia, Austria and Switzerland - as I feel that the language will be relatively easy to pick up if, in nations like Austria, they don't already know German to, at minimum, a basic level. I will look to reshuffle the recruitment team over the next six to twelve months to ensure that I have sufficient coverage in terms of nationality of my scouts so that I am able to send them to these countries and they already have strong understanding of it. My target costs are between €5m and €15m because that should skim off the bottom end but also keep signings manageable as we will still have to accrue income from players sales to fund them. Those player sales, across the next years, will likely be these players who are then able to move on for a profit, which is exactly what the board wants. At present, the squad is shy of German talent but, in the longer term, I envisage that the only incoming German talents will be those who are too good to say no to or those that are young enough that they are able to spend one or two years within the youth side and, potentially, become home-grown at the club. This should allow opportunities for a steady stream of German talent from within to work alongside those players brought in from lesser European nations. This is not moneyball; that term has been banded far and wide and, the origins of which have largely been forgotten. This is targeted recruitment within set focus areas, again looking to recruit the following type of players: Players Under 23: The board want me to sign U23 players for the first team so it seems a no-brainer that the target area is between 15 and 22, meaning that I can identify, scout, watch and bide my time to get the best deal for a player before he really hits his peak. This does add extra importance in keeping the experienced heads as well as identifying any 30+ players still at their peak who can add that level of been there, done that to our young squad. Strong personalities: I want to become serial winners here at Bayer and, to do that, I need the right mentality. I will look to recruit and develop good personalities and even reject poor personalities if I don't feel I have the tools to develop that player. Versatility: I want to recruit players and develop players who can play across a number of roles, ensuring a need for rounded players who can attack and defend. Decisions, Determination, First Touch, Pace and Technique: In trying to build a slick, vertical footballing system, I feel that these five attributes are key to our playing style so will look both recruit with and develop into these attributes. WIth those parameters in place, I felt energised heading into the summer and have completed my planned business nice and early, leaving me very happy with the outcomes. Following Ipswich’s bid for Simons and an amicable departure where Hlozek agreed a move to the Middle East, I had €38m to spend but had removed two really high earners from the wage bill, yet created two quite big holes within my first team squad. One of the things that I have been enjoying utilising is the 'Team Report' for clubs who have been relegated or, opposingly, teams who have good academies. Krassnitzer fell into the former category. Relegated at Admira Wacker, his stats don't look amazing but there needs to be (from me, mainly), a more holistic approach to this; Thomas' goals scored percentile is above 50%, meaning that, whilst my eyes aren't drawn to a long, green bar, he's still scoring better than half of the players based on data collated from the top twenty European leagues. This context, then added to the fact he hasn't been played as a striker and that - in the two games I watched back - his team are so, so so, bad at retaining the ball, he's actually doing pretty well at completing any dribbles, accruing any xG and is a pretty good player. Originally, I had identified Thomas Lackner as an emergency replacement for Hlozek as he attracted some interest in January. However, that contextual understanding was used again, as Lackner was involved in nine of their thirty-six league goals: 25%, whereas Krassnitzer was involved in ten of their 22: 46% and has eighteen goals over the last two seasons where Admira have finished seventh and twelfth, where they succumbed to relegation. Additionally, Krassnitzer - found after his relegation - was available for around 12.5% of the cost that Lacker would've been given a relegation release clause. This transfer window has been the first where I've completely handed this over to my DoF for signing the players and this is where my first mistake has been made: despite very much being a 'project player' - he's been brought into under the promise of being a star player and, whilst his wage demands are low, the minutes required to keep him happy will be a concern once he sees that I'm not able to, nor want to, make this a reality. My largest outlay of the window - €9m - went on Stepan Pejsa from Sparta Prague. Originally found by my scouts, his stats are phenomenal for a team a who ran Slavia all the way in the domestic competition. Again, my DoF decided that he'd be a star player but I do see him as a much stronger player than Krassnitzer at this point in time. A little too slight to be a lone striker, I intend to use him as a like for like replacement for Hlozek out on the left wing, cutting inside once he has learnt enough of that position for this to become available. At Sparta, he played as part of a front two with a big strong target man, which, to be fair, Boniface could be - should I need to change my style at any point. However, I envisage a combination of his Technique, Dribbling, Flair and Agility making him a really difficult player to mark but need to secure his transformation into a wide man is done carefully at his young age. Again, trying to replace those not fitting with my DNA for those who are, both Neuer and Porciani moved on for a total of €4.5m, whilst I spent that, and a further €4m on two replacements, who meet the versatility requirements allowing me to have less players within the first team. Javorcic arrives from Dinamo with a decent record of ball retention and positive passing and - again - not a bad set of stats defensively, hugely skewed from playing for a strong team that really doesn't do a lot of defending! Pacy enough that he'll assist with our high line and mentally strong, this time, my DoF got it right that he will indeed be a squad player for us, probably backup for Ozdemir at right back, initially. I like that he can play as a holding midfielder, too. The same can be said for Christoph Bauer - a €4m signing from 2.Bundesliga champions Mainz. Whilst not really fitting in with my transfer identity, his stats - like Javorcic's - are somewhat skewed due to little defending and comes into the squad in an area where we do not have the luxury of several promising youth players right now. Yuki Minami is my last planned signing of the window and another project player, initially coming in to learn from Boniface in the striker role. At 5'7", he's slight but quick, agile and very technically strong offering me more options in terms of creating counter attacking, ball carrying forwards. His stats in Japan have been great but I am well aware that there is a significant difference between the quality of players he's played against at JEF United to those he will face in the Bundesliga. Part of my journey, as well as with transfer fees, is to realise that a set of attributes that I used to rate highly in the 11-14 category, are now the same as those in the 14-17 category as those are the levels I am facing week in, week out. The youngster does have the right base to work from and I look forward to see what I can do with him. --- Overall, I'm really quite happy with my first team squad for the current season and, now that I'm up and running with my plans, I think that I can focus on the planned transfer business of replacing like for like as the seasons go on - starting with the aging players of Krecja, then Tapsoba and Boniface. Obviously, I need to contend with players who are pinched from my club or those who are not performing well enough, but that is why I have built (or, at least at this point) envisaged, my recruitment policy, which can now go out and identify shortlists of players worth keeping an eye on. My aim is to have ten to twenty players per position that could be viable targets for the club. In addition to that, I hope that, over the coming years, I can cement a clear pathway for youngsters to move into the first team. One thing that I have been doing of late that I'd previously brushed off is attending the weekly staff meetings. I've been reading and listening to my staff's interests in changing individual foci (of which I ignore for youth team players following the monthly rotation - as spoken about in a post, I think, I wrote when I was at Bochum), but then also looking at what they have to say about player development. Previously, I'd never consider loaning players under 18 out, but, given that our affiliate - Duisburg - are in the 2.Liga and my staff believe that certain players are good enough, I've allowed five young players to move there. They're not predicted to do amazingly well in the second tier but there is a good opportunity for football - in particular for Schulz and Nikolic, of whom I have the highest hopes. Not a huge area for writing here but I'm playing with something and I like it! I've felt that, in the past, we've been quite stagnant at times going forward, so, therefore, want to look to commit more forward whilst still keeping a 3box3 shape. One of my biggests areas for inquiry has been around the role of Ferhat Duran, one of my best players. His ability to fire off long shots has been great and he lacks any kind of defensively ability, but, playing him as an MC - even on attack - meant that he wasn't getting into that Zone 14 enough. Moving him to the AMC role with a SS(a) role is also really interesting for me, given that he has a trait of comes deep. I want to watch and observe how he uses that to find space before arriving late in the box, another trait not necessarily considered for this role. With the new elements of positional play here, I like that he and Boniface can interchange their sides but it does mean that I've gone for wrong footed wingers, rather than more traditional inverted wingers in order to allow some more stretching of the play, although the use of 'Fairly Narrow' for our attacking shape will also sit them narrower but, in essence, keep them wider until later on in the transition. That means that I have to utilise a link up midfielder and, to do that, Hannibal will become the Volante. Whilst I do not really have a right back capable of doing it, I can also move to a mirror image of this and use a HB(d) instead of a DM(d), allowing a wing back - Hagiwara - to overlap. As a team, we'll need to push even higher up and move the press - which isn't particularly incessant - slightly higher to alleviate balls over the top from more creativite players. It's early days but I'm enjoying what I've been seeing in pre-season from it! --- I've been all for the past week or so and have, as such, spent hours staring at FM! I'm completely invested in this save but I do expect to see a decrease in both playing time and posting time as I try to make a return to the real world over the coming days! I hope you've enjoyed the three updates in three days!

Congratulations on the league win! How are RB approaching their summer? Is it a ‘throw money at it’ approach to getting the title back?

How are you finding giving youth players minutes now that you’re a ‘bigger team?’ I’ve always been able to develop and prioritise youth in smaller leagues but, now that I’m at the top end of Bundesliga, I feel that they are noticeably out of their depth and aren’t playing well enough to develop. Is your ‘B’ team the bridge that I am maybe missing?

Really enjoying your writing style. Hope that you’ve been able to turn around the fortunes of Venlo!

Yeah- it’s really annoying. I need to update the fake files for the recent patch to get Brazilian names back so I may add ‘Maik Schulz’ to the banned names list file that sits in there, alongside some other well-known German names! If that doesn’t work - I guess that I’ll be drawn to use the editor to - at least - remove some of the four ‘Schulz’s’ I had through this intake and give them other names contained within the DB. Not ideal - but a pretty straightforward workaround.

Up until a week or so ago, I didn’t know the ‘Die Werkself’ was linked to Bayer. I’ve not long taken over them too and hope to, one day, emulate your successes. How have you found them as a club? How is their academy performing?

Just caught up on this and don’t think the ‘grind of the 3.Liga’ will be a forever problem! You’ve started really well! Assuming the plan is built around promotion this term?

Just a short one to wrap season nine up for me but one that has given me a lot of ideas and excitement going forward! League round ups, for me, are very difficult when I've not been in charge for the whole season. I'm unable to really dig into team and player stats because half of them are generated under a different manager, who, certainly in this case, had a different ethos and style. That being said, the past seven games have been a great indicator of just what we can do, if I get things right. We're still a bit unsteady in certain areas of our game and do look likely to concede quite a few more goals than we actually do. At the other end, we can be a little unconvincing, to say the least, with a far-too-regular occurrence being an xG total of less than, or close to, one. That being said, we're making some great progress and I am excited to see - statistically - how things are matching up to the playing style that I'm spending a lot of time watching live. With some mandatory purchases from loan deals, I am already starting to get an idea of just how much I'll have to play with in order to make this squad mine over the summer! I saw this amazing blog by Andy (@TacitcalFool on X) and immediately felt like I'd been missing something! Gone are my days where I spent endless hours on Excel, calculating things that I've now skinned into my game but also gone are the days of really being able to calculate what I want. Now that I'm a little more knowledgeable around the building of certain formulae, I have been able to create more complex calculations to do this. Above, you can see the grading of my squad, split into positional areas and a calculation that I can now use going forward to recruit and also identify those who may be more suited to my style. As Andy mentions in his blog, a higher percentage score here doesn't immediately indicate a better player, but does show me areas where I can build upon or where things such as individual foci, mentoring or even smarter recruitment could allow us to improve. Building on my recruitment strategy of young, good personalities and from local non-big 5 leagues (plus Japan and other parts of Asia, which has - historically - always served Germany well), I have created a percentage score for the fit with the Bayer DNA - which encompasses the aforementioned non-attribute areas as well as First Touch, Determination, Decisions, Technique and Pace as I aim to create a dynamic and intelligent team. A harmonic mean, multiplied five times (so that I can better punish those with extreme attributes (see how Schulz drops by 24 points on this scale because he has the top speed of a fridge) then gets multiplied by an amount three times - called the multiplier - with 1 being the greatest, on each area I rate as important. These figures are my own interests or, for the personalities, areas that I've garnered knowledge on and are by no means either set in stone or factually correct. I can then create some nice little exportable profiles, too, as seen below: Whilst it does not replace a statistical view for signing and developing players, it does give me a nice idea of who is most suited to what I'm trying to build here, it does, immediately, show that I have some players who are just not suited to the team; Neuer and Porciani lack the technical ability to make it, whereas players like Boniface and Krejci are older. That doesn't mean to say that I shouldn't be keeping them but it does show that they are maybe not the players who I want to have here long, long term as they'll be unable to contribute. Again, the bias for German youngsters means that my best rated player is actually a youngster out on loan: Archie Reckert. Whilst I believe he will be great, it is purposely there to make me aware of their fit, not their overall quality. I'll be taking this suitability score into the summer transfer window and applying it to my incoming and outgoing signings, hopefully moving the club closer to the ideology that I have!

This feels like some kind of post-apocalyptic word where the Schulz family are taking over the world... And that is just the 'Maiks'