ShaunG95

Not a full update but... This guy is saucy for a first year intake player from League Two! Makes it even sweeter that he's from an obscure nation.

Rejuvenating Rochdale Rochdale currently find themselves at the bottom of League Two. Their rivals Bury are my hometown club and given that I can no longer manage them, I thought why not refresh the dwindling Dale. Objective - Win every cup competition available to me at least once throughout the duration of the save. - Rely on youth to charge up the divisions. Brightest Prospect - Ethan Brierley Ethan has the potential to play at a high Championship to lowly Premier League level, I am hoping for a quick trajectory up the divisions in order for him to fulfill his potential quickly. I don't have any intention to sell him early on but we will see. Young Starlet Acquired - Princewill Ehibhatiomhan For ease, I will nickname him 'Prince' going forward but my scouts drew attention to him and I thought he was worth a punt. He lacks massively in balance, dribbling and off the ball, so he will be a work in progress but I am hoping to give him substantial game-time in rotation with my new striking duo... A New Number 9 - Jahmal Hector-Ingram After a trial spell, it quickly became apparently that this guy was a must have. I'm hoping he'll still be up to scratch even by the time we hit the Championship - all going well. A Meaty Man - Glen Taylor Tall, good in the air and can bag a penalty, Taylor will be excellent in League Two. Hector-Ingram and Taylor will be excellent influences on Prince, given the pair are both professional individuals. Sadly, Ian Henderson has a 6 to 8 month lay-off so his professionalism will be a miss in impacting those around him.

Haha! I put him down to that so he didn't whinge when I rotated, it does work a treat. I also got that type of fee for Doucoure because he played a lot in the first season, I did exploit the newly promoted sides on the fees as soon as the transfer window opened. Pickford ended up leaving Middlesbrough on a free at the end of the season and went to Norwich who stayed up.

2023/24 Overview Clear progress shown, we were unlucky not to win the league to be fair given how many goals we scored but it wasn't to be in the end. 2023/24 Summer Incomings Tino Livramento for £22.5m (£25.5m) Pedro Neto for £39m Anel Ahmedhodzic for £10m (£11m) - P/Ex Williot Swedberg for £24.5m (release clause) Nelson Weiper for £26m (£27m) Niklas Hedl for £10.5m Sergey Pinyaev for £8m Armando Broja for £56m (£64m) Strahinja Pavlovic for £12.5m (£16m) Adam Karabec for £6m (£6.5m) Flavius Daniliuc for £13m (£16m) Roman Zobnin for free Romeo Lavia for £13.5m (£21.5m) Dion Drena Beljo for £6.75m Eddie Nketiah for £4.6m Chris Popov for £10m (£14m) Tomas Galvez for £10m (£12.5m) James Ward-Prowse for £15m (£18m) - P/Ex Alejandro Garnacho on loan for £1.2m Broja was pre-arranged during his loan spell, a hefty fee but he was ridiculous good last season so I thought it'd be rude not to secure the signature of someone who is homegrown too. The fees look massive overall but largely these were funded on installments and will harm the finances of the club in the long-term alongside the stadium repayments but I'm hoping success on the pitch helps to negate any financial struggle. *U21 foreign players signed 2023/24 Summer Outgoings Neal Maupay to Aston Villa for £725k (terrible deal) James Tarkowski to Watford for £4.6m Jordan Pickford to Middlesbrough for £21.5m Abdoulaye Doucoure to Norwich for £20.5m Reece Welch to Sheffield United - P/Ex Ellis Simms to Coventry for £300k Lewis Dobbin to Wolves for £10m Moise Kean to Juventus for £24m Niels Nkounkou to Udinese for free Lewis Gibson to Bristol City for free Nathan Broadhead to Portsmouth for £300k Andre Gomes to Wolves for £1m Dominic Calvert-Lewin to Man City for £89m (all up-front) Idrissa Gueye to Brighton for £6m Andre Onana to Southampton on loan for £300k Alex Iwobi to Southampton on loan for £875k Jean-Philippe Gbamin to Crystal Palace on loan for £850k (£2.6m future fee) So much deadwood was moved on and wages were saved here, ultimately that was the goal as some of these players were on ridiculous wages. Calvert-Lewin allowed us to fund a lot of our business and as much as I really like him on FM, he was grumbling over a move for most of the summer window so I decided to move him on. Beljo came in as a direct replacement and attribute-wise, there wasn't much in it despite speed overall which I began to work on straight away for the towering Croat. 2023/24 Winter Incomings Faustino Anjorin for £1.6m Roony Bardghji for £7m (£9m) Paul Wanner for £40m (£50m) Ahmetcan Kaplan for £12m (£13m) *U21 foreign players signed I adore Roony and Wanner on the game so their transfers were no-brainers whatsoever. Both will become home-grown at the club which is a massive bonus too. 2023/24 Winter Outgoings Dele Alli to Fulham for £15m There was no way I was paying £10m after 10 appearances for Alli and although he'd had a great season in Turkey with Besiktas and improved quite a lot, it was time to go. EFL Cup Man City got their revenge for last year's final. The start eleven was largely disappointing and front-three of Haaland, Leao and Foden proved too hot to handle. FA Cup A premature exit that displeased the board. Europa League We had a really good run to the semi-finals but Benjamin Sesko exists and happened, he was a real problem in both games. He is my top target for next season alongside Josko Gvardiol who was instrumental in both games too. I'm doubtful I'll land both but we'll see. I think my financial freedom will only allow for one of them. Nelson Weiper's Performances in 2023/24 I was really impressed with the big German, he started the majority of games and clutched up in quite a few big games. Another signing who will become home-grown and lead the line for years to come. Armando Broja's Performances in 2023/24 He's absurd, he really is. As you can see I didn't start him that much, mostly because I'm trying to have an impact on his personality via mentoring with Falcao and some other more professional players. Even so, as a substitute, his pace and power was a constant threat to tiring defenders. Armando Broja's Attribute Profile in 2024/25 Just look how good this guy is now... He's giving me Erling Haaland-vibes.

Central defender wise I'd look at Malick Thiaw or Anel Ahmedhodzic. Both are accessible and have ceilings, as well as being consistent performers. DM spot, I'd perhaps look at Nicolas Seiwald (providing he hasn't moved), maybe even Lewis Cook or Manu Kone or Joao Gomes from Flamengo. As you said though, Onana can certainly play in that role.

Cheers mate, big win indeed! I got around £50m at a point in time where the bank balance was looking quite healthy too due to outgoings.

2022/23 Overview We did rather well considering this was our start to proceedings... The Man Utd fixture was particularly embarrassing, I will let you suss that out by looking at the following screenshot: Say no more. As you will see, Falcao scored in this game, he's a favourite of mine to sign given his model citizen personality. 2022/23 Summer Incomings Arsen Zakharyan for £13m Illia Zabarnyi for £13m (£14.5m) Adamo Nagalo for £2.7m (£4.2m) Hal Robson-Kanu for free Sander Berge for £12m (£12.5m) Hakon Arnar Haraldsson for £5m (£6m) Daniel Carrico for free Sebastian Corchia for £650k (£1.2m) Radamel Falcao for £500k (£650k) Octavian Popescu for £2.3m (£3.3m) - loaned back to FCSB to gain a work permit Gabrijel Rukavina for £3m (£3.9m) Fran Garcia for £8.5m Jack Walton for £300k - P/Ex Armando Broja on loan for £1.3m I just want to caveat by saying that aside from Zakharyan and Garcia, all players were signed with lower fees up front, the initial fees before those in brackets are totaled with installments considered. For instance, I only paid £4.5m up-front for Zabarnyi with increases to £13m over the course of three year annual payments. I understand that without this context people would jump to conclusions about potentially cooking the books! Broja was a deadline day loan and I have categorically never seen him develop very well on FM so I decided to take a punt on him given that DCL is out injured. *U21 foreign players signed 2022/23 Summer Outgoings Asmir Begovic to Leicester for £3.8m Anthony Gordon to Leeds for £21m Tom Davies to Crystal Palace for £9m Seamus Coleman to Celtic for £1m Demarai Gray to Socchi for £5m Salomon Rondon to Dynamo Moscow for £1.3m Charlie Whitaker to Norwich for £700k Andy Lonergan to Barnsley - P/Ex I sell all players for money up-front, this effectively allows me to deal in installments on the transfers in. We brought in around £42m here on players that I had no intention of playing. Gordon would have been a starter (Iwobi works as a AMR, however) but I have too much of an affinity with Zakharyan to not trigger his £13m release clause - his ceiling is much higher than Gordon's too. I needed to sell Gordon in order to afford that up-front fee. Rukavina, Popescu and Haraldsson are also versatile players and can play on either flank. 2022/23 Winter Incomings David Brooks for £26m (£30.5m) Nicolas Seiwald for £24m (£27.5m) Tim Ronning for £1m (£1.5m) - loaned back to IF Elfsborg to gain a work permit I probably overpaid for Brooks but I feel he's a great buy as an inside-forward and contributes to the home-grown quota. Seiwald I don't believe I've ever had before but his attributes are incredible as a box-to-box midfielder. Sadly, he has a £48m release clause so I'm hoping that isn't activated anytime soon. 2022/23 Winter Outgoings Mason Holgate to West Ham for £12.75m Yerry Mina to Southampton for £2m Andros Townsend to Udinese for £5m Same principle as the summer outgoings, sold all of these for money up-front to supplement my January transfers. I still had around £20m of money left in the transfer kitty at the end of the window given my wheeling and dealing on installments. EFL Cup DCL was outrageous in this game, absolutely unplayable. Our run-in to the final was: Cardiff (H), West Brom (A), Forest Green (H), Brentford (H) and Hull City in the semi-final. Those somewhat easier fixtures didn't build any complacency though as we usurped a Haaland-less Man City. DCL's Performances in 2022/23 Elite clubs sniffing around him, it may well be time to do an 'Everton' and sell our prized asset.. All will be revealed on the next update. Armando Broja's Performances in 2022/23 I had quite a strong rotation policy, initially I started with a 4231 and Falcao, Broja and later DCL were rotated heavily. However, from January I created a 424 with a false-nine and advanced forward which improved our fortunes. Broja was potent playing either role despite his horrendous passing as his height and pace, much like DCL was a constant threat to opposition. Without spoiling too much for my second season, Broja has improved massively and even I'm surprised by how rapidly he has developed considering he tends to stagnate while at Chelsea.

Leicester always give you £3.8m for Begovic. If you offer Tom Davies out for £9m, Crystal Palace will give you that much for him too. You can get £1m for Coleman from Celtic too. Aside from that, you have to get a few days into July but Sochi have given me £5m for Gray on a couple of occasions and because I bought a player from Dynamo Moscow - they gave me £1.3m for Rondon. Aside from that I also sold Anthony Gordon for £21m to Leeds but I'd imagine the vast majority of Evertonians would want to keep him!

Welcome to the FM23 Everton thread Supporting Everton much of my existence has brought a roller coaster of emotions: from the steady-eddy times under David Moyes to the turbulent dross that has succeeded the consistent Scot. As an Evertonian under 30 years of age, naturally, the aim of any save is to win a trophy. With 9 Premier League titles and 5 FA Cup victories, Everton are still considered one of the more successful sides in England. The red side of Merseyside is currently leaving the blue side in their wake, Everton are currently in a long-term relationship with mediocrity and under achievement. Looking ahead, Premier League survival an absolute necessity in order to fulfill the long-awaited move to a new setting, the Bramley-Moore Dock stadium. You have a £2m transfer budget at your disposal with a trimmed squad that is still rich with high earners and a plethora of injuries to key players. What's not to love? Key Players Hot Prospects

A season on (finished 5th in my first year and snagged a UCL spot in the new format) and the squad is looking like this: GK: Tim Ronning, Branislav Dukic (newgen - looks ridiculous for his age) RB: Lander Arenal, Tino Livramento (£19m relegation release clause), Adis Jasic LB: Rayan Ait-Nouri (£13.75m), Victor Kristiansen (£5.5m), Melvin Bard (free) CB: Maro Katinic, Martin Georgiev, Marian Faryna, Ethan Ampadu (backup), Fredrik Nissen, Joao Fonseca (£3m), Armel Bella-Kotchap (£16m) DM: Rafael Luis (£4.5m), Dario Essugo, Jordan Henderson (free) CM: Martin Baturina, Martim Neto, Rares Ilie, Williot Swedberg (£11.5m) CAM: Gabriel Vidovic (£16m), Paul Wanner (£28m), Muhammed Damar (£17m) AML: Joao Veloso (£23m), Afonso Moreira (£1m - bought years ago), Chris Popov (loan) AMR: Danny Palmer (first season intake model citizen), Rodrigo Ribeiro, Jardell Kanga ST: Nelson Weiper (£18.5m), Jovan Milosevic, Jovan Zivkovic, Emre Tezgel (£17.5m), Muharem Huskovic - Armando Broja arriving for the start of the 2026/27 season for £5m up-front rising to £20m. Unfortunately Lazetic wouldn't sign permanently so I opted for Weiper instead who has been hit and miss! Also, keep in mind I installment to death with some of those players - I've hardly paid any money up-front whatsoever. Can't believe this man was purchased for only £1m. He's easily one of the best budget goalkeepers on the game.

Now in the Premier League with Shrewsbury, start of the season form led me to back-to-back promotions. I have a really interesting, youthful squad currently: GK: Tim Ronning, Filip Stankovic, Noah Raveyre RB: Lander Arenal, Timothee Pembele, Adis Jasic LB: Patryck Lanza, Amadou N'Diaye, Alonso Aceves CB: Maro Katinic, Martin Georgiev, Marian Faryna, Ethan Ampadu, Fredrik Nissen DM: Antonio Blanco, Dario Essugo, Wilgot Marshage CM: Martin Baturina, Martim Neto, Rares Ilie CAM: Faustino Anjorin (loan), Bruno Iglesias, Samed Bazdar AML: Stipe Biuk, Nemanja Jovic, Chris Popov (loan) AMR: Danny Palmer (first season intake model citizen), Rodrigo Ribeiro, Jardell Kanga ST: Marko Lazetic (loan), Jovan Milosevic, Jovan Zivkovic, Endrick (loan), Muharem Huskovic I always favour a Balkan approach with transfers, Lazetic has been on loan since League 1 and he has just gotten better and better!

Apologies on the constant posting but I have now uploaded a file where the slowdown doesn't happen. The file name is: Taming of the Shrews MF.fm It appears to be something to do with the January period in some way, I am perhaps thinking it is maybe players I've signed/trying to sign who don't have work permits on both of the other saves? I'm not entirely sure how that would cause the issues but it's plausible.

I've now uploaded a second save game of the same name (Taming of the Shrews.fm) where the performance slowdown started even earlier (at around 8th January 2024 compared to late January on the other save). I started this older save from 26th December 2023 and the issues started from around 7th January 2024, very bizarre. I appointed more scouts on this save to combat what was previously mentioned by yourself @Neil Brock but the slowdown still occurred - very dumbfounding and I'm really gutted because I love this save.

I have uploaded my save game that is experiencing these slowdowns, the name is: Taming of the Shrews.fm

Having the exact same issue, has happened really suddenly.

Did you manage to solve this? I am not experiencing this suddenly with FM23.

After @warlock relinquished the reins on managing this thread, I figured I'd set this up as I have become a stickler for a Shrewsbury save annually now. Mine is already underway and going quite well, currently in the Championship after a topsy turvy first season where I finished top of League 1 after chasing Plymouth all season and pipping them to the title on the last day. I plan to update this original post at a later date and update with starting transfer budgets for all football league clubs.

Got an Everton save on the go on the beta. Finished 4th in my first season which was a great success. As with my first save on every beta, I have gone crazy with installment deals with a hope of basically just juicing the team as much as I can in a short time frame. My main takeaways since putting the hours in since Friday: Nathan Patterson has been significantly upgraded and is now a model citizen, it's a must to play him as much as possible as he develops rapidly because of his personality. The squad is generally in a sorry state, as any Everton fan knows in real life. Alli, Gomes and Gbamin have proved extremely difficult to move on even after returning from their loans. Holgate and Doucoure similarly have been tricky to shift. Anthony Gordon is improved but potentially still not great. I may well have just got a low potential roll but the coaches seemed to think he wouldn't improve and hasn't since being sold. Dwight McNeil is as good as he has been on past editions. DCL is still prolific.

I have just completely FM'd Liverpool at Anfield and I couldn't be more delighted...

Premier League Table - 2023/24 A solid debut campaign in the Premier League, I largely rotated between three different sides throughout the year too to try and keep the whole squad content. I believe this was probably the first season of many during my FM2022 play-time where I've managed to keep all of the players happy. The rationale behind this was also to try and develop the whole playing personnel equally, to which some did whereas others didn't due to under-performance on the pitch. It was a risk going into a Premier League campaign but thankfully we managed a good number of home wins when we played our stronger side. I did sign some old guard to act as mentors - Radamel Falcao, Oscar Lewicki and Linus Wahlqvist. All three are not brilliant at Premier League level but are highly professional to rub off on (not in that way). Falcao also came on against Fulham to score a brace and win us the game after a dreadful run of form, check out the goal he scored... falcaogoal.mp4 We finished our campaign with this masterful display at Turf Moor against Manchester United. We have temporarily moved due to the Wham Stadium being under Premier League capacity - the 'John Coleman Stadium' is currently being built. Transfers In - £88m You may well balk and think: how on earth has he spent this amount of money with a newly promoted side? Well, a lot of it was not paid up-front. Most of it will be paid over 3 years in installments which would have been damaging had we gone straight back down but luckily, we didn't. I would argue that I perhaps spent about £30-35m after being given a budget of £28m-ish. I did deliberately try to sign a few different players here too. I had Sotiris, Dasilva and Swedberg on my Shrewsbury save but aside from that, I wanted some completely fresh faces in. Alex Scott broke our transfer record alongside Marko Lazetic but I feel the pair are extremely promising going forward. Transfers Out - £38.75m I felt I got some really inflated fees for Sykes, Piccinini and Salimi so I took the money and ran! All of these fees were paid up-front so I had absolutely no qualms in moving them on as it meant that we reinvested in significant upgrades in quality. Best Eleven Honourable Mention Toby Savin was top quality when called upon and certainly raised his stock significantly with a really good season.

Championship Table - 2022/23 We were running away with is very early doors, the 'underdogs' tag with an attacking formation always tends to work a treat. This was our run of games up until October, consistent to say the least. We also ended up facing Sheffield United for the title on the last game of the season - it was a dreamland situation as our academy graduate Scott Neville (who is very good) came on to win the game. Transfers In - £7.5m Loaning shrewdly again was my mantra. Samek, Voloshyn and Balogh were the pick of the bunch performance wise. Samek slotted in seamlessly as our regista, Voloshyn's early crossing was deadly and a constant thread on the right-wing while Balogh was imperious as our right-sided central defender throughout the season. Denis Alijagic also hit 12 goals in 35 games in his debut season, alternating with loanee Vladislav Shitov who hit 13 in 33 games in total - not bad for teenagers. Alessio Rosa was a bit of a genius signing as AC Milan paid his release clause in January, £5.5m into the transfer kitty and having him back on loan for the rest of the season was great. You may well balk at the Elias Jelert and Oliver Dovin signings given the transfer fees but I actually paid £50k upfront for each of them. The rest are to be paid over installments, as we were top of the league in January, these signings were sensible 'wait for the Premier League money' buys. Funnily enough both of those signings were secured before Rosa's departure so that income allowed us to sign Samek and Montano permanently at the end of their loans in 2024. Transfers Out - £6.1m Best Eleven Honourable Mention Not bad for a freebie! I was astonished he got a work permit but he proved to be a very potent inverted winger, out-muscling the departing Stipe Biuk for the starting berth. It will be a massive summer ahead of transfers in the next update, brace yourselves... Some players significantly over-performed in the Championship and this has meant that the vast majority of them are wildly overvalued currently so it would be rude not to cash in on the players who won't quite be Premier League quality.

That's a massive shame and also the very reason I tend to struggle getting into a proper lower league save.

League One Table - 2021/22 We found ourselves in 7th in mid-February and at which point it wasn't looking good for an automatic promotion, however, this run of form then happened... Ipswich led throughout most of the season yet somehow bottled top spot. We ended up losing on the final day to Wimbledon and I was content with a 2nd place finish but The Tractor Boys also lost at home to Charlton which meant that Wigan leapfrogged them on the final day. Justice was served when they won the play-offs against Oxford. Transfers In - £200k As we can see, it was nothing short of a loan army that propelled us to promotion. Kor was a totally free loan and was very impressive as a right-winger. Pinheiro was played sparingly and I upset Porto with his lack of game time, this was down to Mandela Egbo's consistent performances at RB. I was really impressed with him and I'm sure he'll be a key member of our Championship squad. Laikin and Shitov both came in from Spartak Moscow, if I'm honest I knew nothing of Laikin but he looked quite well rounded and proved a reliable set-piece taker throughout the season, chipping in with some really important penalties on occasions throughout the season. Shitov (excellent name) is the striker I want to build around ideally, I know that he's potentially very good on the game and scored 10 goals in his first senior season. Biuk, Simons and Morton were trusted loans that I brought in after their success in my Shrewsbury save earlier in the year - during this season Biuk was class, notching 13 in the league while Simons was consistent when called upon but I did prefer Laikin most of the time as it felt a bit too easy to rely heavily on someone I already knew was great based on a previous save. Morton's loan was short lived as he sustained a hip injury early in the season and upon returning Klopp recalled him due to a lack of play-time. I had a lot of time for both Montano and Gomes who were really good options when called upon - I often preferred Montano over Vazquez despite paying the latter more money as part of the loan deal. Bloxham, like the earlier trio was a reliable player during my Shrewsbury save, it is safe to say I didn't play him that much though as I wanted to get the most out of Shitov and Bishop. Defensive solidarity was something I felt the squad lacked so Jackson, Raglan and Salimi were brought in as professional heads to sure up our backline. Salimi was originally on trial without a work-permit but debuted for Iran in this time and was subsequently given one from there on out, great success! I can confirm that Pinheiro, Simons, Bloxham, Machuca, Vazquez, Ambriz and Wagner have all returned to their parent clubs for the Championship campaign while the rest have been extended. Very excited to see how we get on personally. Transfers Out - £190k Best Eleven

Now, this could be tasty...

Butcher and Sykes are really, really good. Arguably two of the best players they have and both gone! Little to no wiggle room in the wage budget which was really concerning to start off with, it almost put me off a bit. I decided to loan out the majority of the u23s just to get money off the wage bill currently so I could get loans in to improve the side, not to mention selling a few of the players. Notable departures have been: John O'Sullivan, Stephen Sama, David Morgan and Michael Nottingham. Ironically the former two have left in real life so I suppose it makes for a somewhat realistic experience. I've also terminated a couple of the loans they had too as I didn't feel paying their wages warranted value for money when foreign imports were much more cost effective.