Fudal

Hello! And welcome to my new FM23 Save! In this save I will be attempting to take a club from tier 10 of the English football pyramid, all the way to the pinnacle, the Premier League. The club I chose is a club with a lot of history behind them, Maine Road. According to Wikipedia, the club was created in 1955 by Manchester City supporters, under the name City Supporters Rusholme. The club boasts a sizeable trophy cabinet for a tier 10 side, having won 24 official trophies since their creation. However, none of these are of any significance, and the club is still stuck in tier 10. It's time to change that. The goals for this save are simple: Reach the Football League Reach the Premier League Finish above Manchester City in the Premier League Have a higher reputation than Manchester City Have a player have 1000 appearances for Maine Road Have a player score 500 goals for Maine Road +++ This save will be my first ever Youth Only save. I also have the old Champions League format enabled on the steam workshop. Let's get started!

We've resigned academy product Florent Hoti to replace Kelly. As well as signing Jahmal to bolster our attack.

Our key player is out for 6 months. Great start!

Yes! They have absolutely 0 trophies in FM.

Our first signing comes in for just 500 p/w. Loan player #2 comes in for 1.1k p/w.

So in FM22 I had 2 different long term saves with Rochdale, one being on these forums and another solo save. The goal of these saves was to become the winningest team in England, but I never even won a Premier League in these saves. Now that I have a whole year to do this challenge I think I can actually do this challenge. This does mean however that my other save on here is going on the backburner. It's not over, just not the main focus right now. My manager, Logan Fudal (No alter ego this time) starts with no badges or experience for added challenge. The goals for this save: Become the winningest team in the Premier League, Carabao Cup, FA Cup, and Community Shield. Bring through youth players. Build a coaching tree of former players. Not sign any players for ridiculous money (for the sake of giving it a number I will say 50M+).

The cull begins. We get his money off the books, and a little cash as well. Previously starting CB Platt leaves for a nice chunk of change. Left IWB Jordan Thomas comes in for 1.5k per week. On a free this looks good. 34 Y/O striker leaves for pennies, but he was on 2k. Backup striker/right winger comes in for 900 p/w. Brought in for mentoring reasons. Will be a decent 4th midfielder. Another loanie backup. Our new defensive midfielder. A star wingback joins to play LB. Damn. We break our wage structure for a new winger. A new backup forward. Very cheap. Backup CB.

So we take over Bradford City, July 1st 2025, and the club has just been relegated from League One. Here is the state of the squad: Only one GK. A striker earning twice the next player who is already 32. 34 year old backup striker on 2k. Yeesh. We do have 4 5* potential players that I will show now. So it's not all doom and gloom. I want to focus on youth development in this save, even if we only see the players for a couple years. This lad could be special. He's a centerpiece of this team. I'm skeptical of this kid, although he's still very young at 15. A playmaking striker? I'm fawning over this lad's profile. He'll be integral to this side this season. Probably will be first choice, after we (hopefully) sell Ladapo. Wilson is much more of a destroying midfielder. He won't feature much this season, but he'll be on the bench for some games. I think this is what we're going to go with here with Bradford City. I need a DM, An IWB on the left and backups pretty much everywhere.

Season 3 done. The gap in talent from the top 5 to everyone else is insane. Onto Bradford!

Great start!

I'm incorporating a new rule to this save. We're going to do 3 seasons per team, instead of until we win a trophy. RKC has gotten a bit stale so I'm going to try and finish this season as fast as I can.

New signings We've also improved our youth and training facilities to the next level.

We would go on to lose 5-1 on aggregate in the Euro places final.

Youth Intake #2 He looks really good, just have to get his strength and jumping up. This kid is a proper game changer for this club. If he can grow a lot more we could sell him for a lot of money. We don't use AMC's but he looks okay. Lots of 7's and 8's which isn't great. Same goes for this guy.

A little bit better towards the end. We're all but safe.

Another chunk of games that haven't gone that well. I need serious tactical help on this game.

New signings 2023 We lose our best player for 2.5m.

A very rough end to the season, as tactical experimentation did not work. We finish 11 points clear of relegation, but 18 points off Europe.

Thank you! It's been good fun so far, just trying to figure out a tactic that will actually work now.

Youth Intake #1 Will be retraining as a central midfielder. I really like the look of this kid. If we can get a good mentor for him he'll do well. He's a bit of the same as the Icelandic lad, but just not as technically gifted. A good defensive wingback is not what I look for when I'm building my backline, but if he can turn into something good I'll play him. If his reflexes were 10+ I'd play him now . Poor acceleration and bravery, not what I look for in a center half at all.

A big update sees us hit some inconsistent form, but we're into the Semi Final of the cup against Heerenveen. We just can't play away from home it seems. Need to sort out an away tactic.

Do we dare to dream?

It will be the same save, just with a different manager.

A very decent pre-season sees us only lose to top flight teams in England, France and Italy. Here's how the first few months went. We need to turn these draws into victories and we've conceded 12 goals in our last 4 league matches. As long as we're safe this season I will be happy.

The squad is very balanced, but we still need a LB and we could use some CB depth. We're predicted 3rd bottom, only above Excelsior and Volendam. Playing a very attacking brand of football, a tactic that I developed in my first save of FM23. We signed a new LB.