steve.battisti

So, I started off in tier 10 of the English system. I just got promoted to Vanarama North (or will do in a few weeks when it becomes official). We’ve done comparatively ok at staying afloat financially during these times, with the board injecting cash a bunch of times over the last few seasons. However, last season the fans took over the club and since then, without the cash infusions, we’ve tipped over into a negative bank balance and are now losing around 18k per month. (To be fair, we were losing it before, but the cash injections offset it, so our balance had remained positive.) We are now listed as “insecure.” In the goals for next season, I’m expected to fix the financial situation. But I can’t see how I can do so. Player and staff wages make up the vast majority of my expenditures, but unless I completely eliminate my staff and wage budget, I won't be able to break even. I thought about selling players, but at this level even my best players have a value of like $15k at most. So I could sell maybe 2 to 4 players and break even for a month or two. We have no youth system at all - no coaches, no players, because I couldn’t afford to keep one. Even though we’ve been promoted several years in a row, our annual season tickets remain at a not-very-robust . . . 5. Any ideas for how I can right the ship financially and also not get relegated next season?? I know I can do a friendly with a larger club. I did this last season, but was only able to schedule one such match, and I made a grand total of 2k from it, so that's not even going to make a dent. (Hopefully I can get a bigger club this coming season since I'll be up a league.) A cup run could help, but I know I can't rely on it, and if I have to fire all of my players to cut budget, that seems unlikely. How can I right this ship financially? Any other options you can see, or is this likely the beginning of the end? I've already started browsing job openings at financially secure clubs...

I am far from an expert in such things, but I do wonder if something like this would help, at least with ensuring the regens populate well:

Thanks for the suggestion, I will give it a try.

I play a lot in lower leagues. If you watch videos and so forth about how to get good players in lower leagues, the most common recommendations are trials and loans. I'm pretty good with trials/free transfers. But I have a question about the loan part. Presumably, to get loan players who could start on your team, you need to look at the levels above you, because anyone on the youth teams in your current league probably aren't good enough to start for you. I read a lot about looking at Premier League youths, etc. I'm farther down the hierarchy, in tier 7 in England right now, so no one on a Premier League team's youth squad is going to be interested in me. But let's say I want to look at players in tier 6 (Vanarama North/South) or tier 5 (Vanarama National). The problem is, these players are out of range for my cheapo scouting budget (which covers Regional Premier Division only). To scout them I need to pony up a chunk of money. It's not an onerous amount of money for one player, but if I want to scout a bunch, it will make a significant dent in my annual budget. (It's basically 1% of my budget for every player I want to scout, so you can see how it would add up quickly.) They typically won't come in on trial, so what's the best practice? Do I just look at attributes and sign them blind? Do I pony up the cash to scout them, and just try to be very cautious about how often I do that? Generally, I haven't been able to figure this out, and the board won't give me a senior affiliate, and so I rarely end up taking advantage of loans, which seems like I'm putting myself at a disadvantage. Recommendations appreciated!

Hi all. I typically play lower-league saves. I usually start way deep in the English leagues, and to be honest, I often get bored and stop playing before I get up as high as SkyBet, let alone the Premier League. This time I have a lot of momentum, haha. But when you're in the lower leagues, the contracts are very simple. You have non-contracts, or you have what amount to one-year part-time contracts. Sometimes you can fuss a bit with optional years and stuff, but for the most part you don't even have the option for multiple-year contracts. On top of that, players at this level have very little to no transfer value, and I make it a policy not to do anything but free transfers down there. So, none of the stuff about sell-on clauses and stuff like that to worry about. And no agents. As I get higher up the leagues, I know the contracts will get more complex, agents will get involved, and I don't understand much about all of that stuff at all. Is anyone aware of a good post or video that talks in detail about the basics of player contracts when they start to get more fancy? Thanks!

When a player complains about his playing time, the conversation options are almost all really obnoxious. While the target is a nice concept, every single time I have tried it so far, the player freaks out and reacts poorly. (One improvement could have more players willing to set a target. They're not ALL divas, especially if they "hold you in the highest esteem" as a manager.") It would make a lot of sense if there were a few more options that tied directly to performance in games or training. For example, "I haven't been giving you as much playing time lately because you've performed really poorly in training (5.85 in last month)." That seems like a very reasonable reason to reduce someone's playing time. Similarly, "I haven't been giving you as much playing time lately because you've played really poorly in matches (6.05 avg rating in last 5 games)." Another good one to add here would be "I've reduced your playing time because (other player at same position) has been playing much better lately (7.75 rating to 6.05 rating)." While no player should be thrilled with losing playing time, these all seem like options that reasonable players would accept without losing their minds. And sure, there can be a few crazies who freak out regardless. But these options are much better than the mostly combative ones that are there today.

I have a player complaining that he wants more 'tactical possession training.' I vaguely recall that, in previous versions, you could choose Tactical under Training, and there was an option called "Possession. Maybe I am misremembering that, but in FM24, there doesn't seem to be any such option under Tactical. So, how do I address his concern? Also, I have one of those "lacking sufficient quality of depth in goal" that is starting to irritate lots of players (8 of them, to be precise). I'm perfectly content with my keepers, but I have the budget to sign another body if it will keep everyone happy. The thing is, how do I know what will solve the problem? Do I have to bring in a really good keeper? Any old veteran body? Thanks!

OK, I've run into a weird situation in my save game, curious if anyone has run into anything similar. The year is 2044. I simmed the game without playing until 2040, because I prefer a world without "real" players. I started in the 10th tier of English football. Just got promoted to tier 7 today (woo!), and am squaring away my staff for the upcoming season. Every season to date, where we are in the league, all staff charge like £50 p/w. However, for some reason, suddenly in this off-season, the absolute minimum even the worst staff member will take is £120 p/w. I know these seem like piddly amounts, but it's a huge difference to a club like mine where every dollar matters. I'll have to go from spending like £400 p/w on staff to like £1000 p/w. (I was excited because the board finally approved an extra coach and scout.) Is this just because I'm now tier 7? (I haven't even reached the point where my team is officially in tier 7 yet either, it's just a done deal. Still three weeks to go until the official cutover.) Is there some sort of automatic inflation built in (that doesn't kick in until 2044?)? Thanks!

In general, I would LOVE to see improvements in the conversations - perhaps an area where they could take advantage of ChatGPT like functionality? The challenge with stuff like this is that SI have limited resources and the law of diminishing returns. It's not that SI don't want it to be better. It's that ultimately, they have a feature that works passably well, and the work required to take it to the next level isn't worth it. Or more specifically, they have not chosen to prioritize that work from a strategic roadmap perspective. I have no doubt that they are capable of cleaning up some of those issues and making the conversations better. But they can only spend so many developer hours on each version of the game. Whether they have discussed spending more time on it, we don't know. We DO know, though, that they have not elected to do so. And somewhere, someone is trying to decide what new features or enhancements will drive the most users to FM 25. If they upgrade the conversation stuff, will that make new users flock to the game? I think it's unlikely, but they likely have very detailed marketing data around stuff like this to base their decisions on.

This question isn't technically in the form of "How do I," but it's in the same vein. I'm near the end of the season (April) and starting to plan out transfers. I am interested in several GKs, but they are all still under contract. So I offer their clubs transfers, which are all accepted (this is deep in non-league and none of these players have a transfer value). Is there anything negative that happens if I offer transfers to, say, 5 different keepers, end up signing one, and ditch the other four? Like, do I need to be more prudent about NOT over-offering transfers and then bailing out, because it will hurt my reputation, or anything like that? Thanks!

THANK YOU!

Hey, where the heck is the screen where you can compare your players/staff to other teams in the league? I don't mean individually, I mean the screen with bar charts that show you where your attackers are compared to the league, or your coaching, etc.

You mean in the Social Feed? I'll give that a try.

Those are already unticked…

I have shortlisted a whole bunch of players, because they are players at particular positions that I may be interested in approaching in the off-season. It's more like a "next time I need a left back, see what these people are up to" kind of list. I really don't need to be bothered any time someone approaches them, but my mailbox is constantly inundated with updates about them. Is there somewhere that those emails can be disabled? Thanks!

Thank you!

Interesting. I got my interpretation from a number of different randos on the Internet, so definitely take it with a grain of salt! I wonder what the official word on that is, or if there is a way to change it...

My understanding is that they impact performance. Also, there is some peculiar wording to consider - when you have a dashed line link, you’ll often get a warning that they don’t play well together or something. It’s not worded well. In general, I’m pretty sure that solid lines play best together, dashed lines next best, and no lines play worst together.

Ooh I like this! Or even, like, “Playing as a (role) could help extend your career with this club.”

One thing that always seems weird to me is the fact that when you join a new club, you have no scouting information at all. In reality, even if you were new to the league and fired all of the staff, you would still have SOME scouting information from the previous regime. At the very least, when you join a team, you should have some basic scouting information about all of the players who were in your league last season. Just my two cents!

a. Because I don’t really understand what an inverted fullback is, haha. Can you explain why he would be good at that? b. My current tactic has fullbacks on attack on his side of the field, and he doesn’t seem like a great fit for attacking.

Just curious, what would you define as his most important center back skills? I wouldn’t do this experiment higher up the leagues, FYI. But in tier 9, physicals are so crucial, in my experience.

Lol I know, right??

I’ve always been surprised when players get upset when they are being played out of position. There should be a conversation option like “convince player to try new position”. It could have options like: Convince: I really believe your (pace) could pay huge dividends in this system. Convince: This tactic can win us a championship. We all have to work together as a team, and this is where I need you. Convince: Having more flexibility as a player can only benefit you in the long run. It will make you attractive to a wider variety of teams. Anyway, obviously not a huge deal, but it seems like it would fit just fine into the existing conversation model in the game.

Playing deep in non-league and came across this guy. How in God's name do you have a kid who is 6'4 with 17 jumping reach, 14 aggression, and 11 bravery, and you're not playing him at centreback?? OK so maybe he's not the best at heading the ball, but it's freaking NON-LEAGUE. GET IN THE MIDDLE!