anagain

Congratulations on getting the Barca job. Time to win that CL you so deserve. Old squad though, I can see why you got some youth in in the window.

Yep, I wish I could get through more seasons. I'm keen to try new countries and just get further in time. I'd like to see where the teams I build end up in 10, 20 or many more years. To be honest, I'm not all that hampered by time. I do work a full week and getting older and working weird hours can prompt more sleep, but it's mainly the way I play that makes my saves so slow. After doing it my way for so long I'd find it hard to play matches faster. I was just kidding with the "it's the best way to play". I do often wish I could get through saves faster. I sometimes think I'll skip an FM and carry on with my save. That never happens though. I'm too easily hooked by the new things in each FM.

You have a day and a half to surpass my date reached... It is the best way to play.

December 2024 - Getting Back To Our Best Before we get on to the football this month I've seen my name get circulated quite a bit this month. This has led to press speculation that I am linked with a number of jobs at teams in this league. Middlesbrough, Swansea and Reading to name three. There is also one other club that aren't currently below us in the table, and a club I would have to think seriously about moving to should an offer come in. Fulham. Currently bottom of the Premier League. Could I just get Wycombe to the Premier League though? I'd wager it unlikely but our form is back to its best as we head in to a new year. After the thrashing by Watford it took a while for us to get back to our best. Three draws against Reading, Wimbledon and Huddersfield were dull affairs and I wondered if we'd ever get back to our goalscoring best. We achieved that in the second half of our next game, at West Brom, with McDonagh and Ejaria finally getting us going again. McDonagh would again hit the net in our next two games, at Bristol City and home to Wimbledon. I really wanted us to prove something at home to the Dons. We'd been poor when we travelled to Plough Lane and we started in similar fashion as one the Championship's relegation favourites opened the scoring after 11 minutes. McDonagh got us back on terms with his 11th goal of the campaign right before half time. Aaron McDonagh is really proving his ability and is going to be a huge star. He has been dubbed the next Michael Owen and if I can be just a small part in helping him achieve greatness than that will make me happy. Our other most reliant goal scorer had a less happy month. Jake Scrimshaw got our third against Wilbledon but is currently on a sulk after rejecting a contract offer from me. The poacher wanted a new contract that would "reflect the quality he has" but we failed to agree terms. I've already increased our wage budget by £20k, at the expense of transfer budget, and we do need to be careful. Jake needs to realise that. Our fourth against Wimbledon was a debut goal from a young man who has had to be patient for his start. It was a brilliant moment for Will Andiyapan as he rose highest to head home Jack Sparkes' corner late in the game. I must mention that Sparkes had been fantastic against Wimbledon too. He is another man that has had to be patient but his performance against the Dons has made me think. Another of my players with transfer news attached to his name this month was center back Jamie Hamilton. Jamie has been fantastic since he joined us and it has been rumoured that many top clubs are to be offering money for his services in the upcoming transfer window. Jamie has a release clause of £4.4m and many are expecting that to be offered. We shall have to see. Three wins in a row have seen us back up to third in the Championship at the turn of the year. We'll just have to keep hold of our stars if we want to stay there. January 2025... We have one very huge game in January that I wanted to get in before I spoil it with our fixtures. Yes, our opponents in the FA Cup Third Round are eight time English champions and current European Champions Manchester City. I don't fancy our chances but we'll do our best. Ironically. I'd rather the game was to be played in Manchester for the money. Our projection is not great, and I don't believe it is down to me raising the wage budget either. In reality, we're still a small club that are playing above our level. But, the fixtures. This will not be an easy month and we'll need to keep defying media predictions. Elsewhere... English Premier League Our FA Cup opponents Manchester City are the form team in the top division and they top the league by five points at the end of 2024. Eight games without losing are the key to this for City, but Arsenal are the form team in the league as the Gunners find themselves on a thirteen game unbeaten run currently but draws have kept them 6th. Bournemouth won two of their December games to see the club end 2024 in 14th place in the Premier League. A fantastic 3-1 win over Brentford was a key victory, Patson Daka scoring his fifth and sixth league goals of the season for the Cherries. European Leagues The end of 2024 sees Bayern Munich a massive (for the Bundesliga) six points behind Dortmund and, equally surprising, PSG are four points behind Monaco. Celtic are flying in Scotland and Bravo lead this month's guest league, Slovenia's Prva Liga, by four points. Nice to see Koper, a team I have managed twice in my FM history, up there in fourth. European World Cup Qualifiers The draw was made to decide Europe's representatives at the 2026 World Cup in USA, Mexico and Canada on 31st December. All games will take place in 2025 with the top teams qualifying for the finals. That makes ten teams so I presume any other qualifiers will come from play offs involving the second placed teams. Indeed, it seems the top six second placed teams will qualify. Other Qualifying Regions CONMEBOL Brazil and Uruguay have already qualified for 2026. They will be joined by four other teams whilst a fifth will enter a play off by finishing seventh. Peru, Colombia, Argentina and Paraguay look odds on to automatically qualify. Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile have had a terrible first twelve games and will battle it out for the play off spot. CONCACAF There appears to be four qualifiers to come from North America and with USA, Canada and Mexico already qualified there are high chances that someone new will make the Finals. Things are currently at the Second Round stage with 12 teams set to make the Third Round groups. I think Costa Rica, Panama and Jamaica may make the Third Round automatically, but I may be wrong. Africa Things are at the Third Round group stage in Africa with the six group winners set to go to the World Cup. Furthermore, three more second placed teams will also qualify. A fourth second placed team will enter play offs. More later, when matches are completed. Asia The final round of Asian qualifiers is nearly half way. Eight teams will qualify automatically and two will enter a play off. There will be some new teams at the 2026 World Cup. Oceania There looks to be one qualifier from Oceania. Four teams will be drawn from the OFC Nations Cup and a knockout competition is helf to find the lucky team. Early days. Former Club Watch Weymouth faired a little better in December. A Boxing Day loss sees the Terras in 10th in the National League South. The team had grabbed seven points from games against Kingstonian, Havant and Chesham and won their FA trophy Third Round tie against Basingstoke. Surely the Terras can find their way back to promotion contention?

Early form is starting to tail off, but I think we're doing fine. We've scored top 2 and conceded top 6. Sometimes the way it goes in FM, Thanks. Scrimy's done well, yes, but he's started to get a little bigheaded. More later.

November 2024 - Tougher, But We Are The Entertainers November was a tough month with a bit of joy in the middle. Our games are certainly entertaining affairs. Our only goalless draw was in the cup against Cheltenham, but we have had a 7-3 and now two 6-2s. "If you want to see goals, follow Wycombe around" is the message being put out on social media by the Chairboys army. It's just a shame the latest 6-2 was not in our favour. The month started tough with a two-goal defeat in Sunderland and didn't get any better as we travelled to Blackpool only to lose after being a goal up. That game marked our third defeat in a row, following the cup defeat to Burnley. We were well beaten by Sunderland but should have done better in Blackpool. We lost Ovie Ejaria to injury in Lancashire too. Ovie would be out for at least three weeks. I needed better as we returned to Buckinghamshire for two home games in a four day period. First up were Middlesbrough and a Scrimy penalty in the 7th minute was enough to seal the win in a close game. Next up were Portsmouth and a cracking 6-2 win. Aaron McDonagh was the star of the show as he knocked in his first senior hattrick. In a match which showed a crazy change of fortunes we next met Watford at Vicarage Road. I was worried about how we might fair in this game and I was proven right as Watford tore us apart. Scrimy was fantastic and notched a brace but defensively we were a complete shambles. We are still top scorers in the Championship and still in fourth, but that defeat hurt. On the plus side, we have already hit the 30-point mark. Another 20 points and we should seal safety. Loan Watch There have been no transfers this month but I thought I might look at how our youngsters out on loan are performing. Llion Jackson and Mikey Windsor (Oxford City) Llion has been magnificent in defence for the National League North side with a 83% tackle completion rate and 216 clearances. Mikey Windsor has notched two goals and three assists. Eddie de Zeeuw (Woking) Eddie has been fantastic in the National League scoring ten goals for the Cardinals. The young striker won the National League Player Of The Month for November. Not to be outdone by Aaron McDonagh, Eddie hit his first senior hattrick in Woking's 6-3 defeat to Eastleigh. Oliver Pendlebury (Morecambe) Oliver has been the other of my youngsters to show great form for his loan club so far, scoring twice and making six assists to keep Morecambe mid table in League Two. The rest. December... On paper December is a much easier month than November was. All the teams we face are no higher than mid-table. Reading and Wimbledon, whom we face home and away, are battling to stay in the division. The question is whether the defeat to Watford will start a period of struggles or whether we can get straight back to form. Elsewhere... English Premier League The current season is proving to be a competetive one in England's top division. No team can move truly clear. Manchester City are top going in to December with Chelsea and surprise package West Ham just two points behind. Game of the month was Chelsea's 2-1 defeat of City at the Etihad. Bournemouth had a much better unbeaten November to move up to 13th. At the end of a very poor October manager Mowbray had been tipped to be sacked. Four unbeaten will keep him in a job, for now. The division is so tight that bottom club Burnley are only six points behind what relegated QPR got all last season. UEFA Nations League The group stage of the Nations League reached its climax in November. England had had a dreadful start, losing 2-1 to Italy and 4-1 to Norway, but managed to claw back second place by the end. Euro Leagues Bayern are still struggling to keep pace with Dortmund in Germany but PSG have closed to a point behind Monaco. AEK Athens are dominating our guest league this month, the Greek Super League. Former Club Watch Weymouth had a terrible November, winning just once, and have dropped to 11th in the National League South. Worse still, the sole win was in the FA Trophy. A 2-2 draw versus Poole in the Dorset derby was an entertaining game that the Terras should have won after Poole had a man sent off after just 28 minutes. Only D'Auria-Henry, Yarney and Dugmore from my time at the club are still regulars. Simon Dabringer, a keeper I thought could do well, is back up.

I always have a main save for FM and it usually lasts most of the year or until I get to the point at which I need a break from FM. I play very slowly and my current 22 save is in December 2024. No one will believe how long it has taken me to get that far, so here it is in print: Okay...incredibly slowly. I sometimes start a second save. For FM20 I ended my main save with Bangor/Swindon because my game developed a huge problem that SI told me couldn't be fixed. I went back to an old team I managed in a way back FM for a couple of seasons. In past FMs (before 2018, or thereabouts) I did tend to play a couple of saves more often.

My CB is 5'11' with a jumping reach of 13 and he's setting the world alight in the Championship. I know the PL is world above that but I do think there are other factors to consider. What players do you have around him? Is he accompanied by height? I think it also depends on his role. Maybe don't rely on him but I still think a player like that can be useful.

I'm not in football so I know the experts will better understand this but I figured I'd mention it. I hear it said a player is "training with the team" quite often in football. Wasn't Eriksen training with Brentford before he signed. Wilshere used to train with AFCB. Can we have an option in game that allows us to offer a very basic wage for a player to train with the team? You might just say "get him in of a free" bit I will counter by saying sometimes you don't have the wages at the time but might want to get that player in later. "Just set his contract to start later", you'll say. I don't know how my wage situation will look in three months. Maybe the trialling mechanic in game works in a similar way. I don't know the ins and outs. Do players get any money for a 4 week trial? I also find it very frustrating if you want a further look at a player you have to re-trial him. You can't just extend the trial. Maybe it can be looked at as a cheat way of playing the game. Maybe there should be a board triallists fund and they'll only let you bring in a certain number of triallists. Maybe there could be expenses for allowing players to train with the team. I'd also like to see something like used as a way to build rappor with a player. We've all seen random players suddenly reture because they could get a contract. It can stop that and it can allow you to make a player want to join your team more. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At my current club I have no youth setup. We don't recruit players that way. I still get a staff meeting suggestion to sign a Head of Youth Development every month though. Can we have a little tickbox to say "don't remind me of this"? Or maybe simply if the team doesn't have youth recruitment then you don't need a HOYD and the job is greyed out. I've looked but I can't see that he does anything but bring in youth players.