George_84

Hi all, Just got FM24 and started a save in the Northern League Division 2 with Sunderland West End. I was thinking it might be funny to get to the premier league before the other Sunderland and really wanted to start lower down the football pyramid. The board expect a tophalf finish, media prediction is 13th, but the bookies rate my team as 21st. My coaching staff is taking shape, the board brought in a DoF, scouting is non-existent at this level I guess. Most players coming through the scouting centre are over their 30's and unaffordable. I only managed to bring in a 16 year old and a 24 year old on loan. All players I offer contracts to are picked up by other clubs. So I keep struggling with 4 16 year olds in the 1st team squad. Currently on 5 losses and 2 draws, but Xg-wise I should have gotten more. It's a brutal world here in the lower leagues, but somehow I enjoy it. Let's see where this save takes me!

It's always tempting to switch to a bigger club, but I've also learned the hard way that is not always the best move. You say you're overachieving, but is your board having unrealistic high expectations? As long as you feel like you can meet the expectations, you can always go for it and see what happens. I sometimes find myself with the same doubts when the season is finishing, players wanting to move out of the club and not finding decent replacements or missing transfer targets. But most clubs find themselves in the same situation so a lot can change in these uncertain pre-season times. But I do think you made a realistic transfer to Boavista. So good luck with the rebuild!

Just started a new save with as a LLM after losing intrest in my Curzon Ashton save. I gave almost all responsibilities to the DoF and only suggested him to sign players recommended by my scouts, but it really took the fun out of the game. With Curzon Ashton my DoF did some decent work on bringing in players I lacked in the first team and after 2 seasons of mid table finishes, I was looking at promotion places above all expectations when Tranmere offered me a job in the national league. I had to choose between a promotion battle in the VNR or the VNL. I choose to go to Tranmere as I really liked their squad and the chances for a promotion to League 2. We bottled it with Tranmere in the playoff final and half of the squad wanted out. The DoF at Tranmere however wasn't as gifted as the one at Curzon Ashton, and replaced many of the leaving players with older players, dropping divisions after not playing a lot for their former clubs. The few players I recommended to sign (U23's, as asked by the board), couldn't find an agreement with the DoF. However their wages would fit the wagebill. Now the board is annoyed with me that I didn't bring in young players and supporters think I should have done better with transfers. I'm parking the save for now, maybe it will grab my intrest sometime later. So I started a new save with Hemel Hempstead, rockbottom in the league, with an awful squad and almost no staff. My DoF get's to negotiate contracts, but not sign any players in his own, as I would feel signings would be more realistic because the scouting, manager and DoF all agree to sign a player this way. Wish me luck!

I never put so much effort in getting the right game setup and just select the leagues I like to play in or who would add to the game experience. Try different game setups and see what you like best and what your computer can handle.

I've just finished my first season and I'm putting a lot of effort in the squad planner, adding players as transfer targets and declaring intrest in players to give the DoF a lot of hints on how I want to strengthen the squad. Hopefully he get's it and can land some players and hopefully these new tools make DoF behaviour more realistic. I do keep in mind that I'm managing a low reputation semi-pro club who's on a tight budget, so I expect to reach into the U18's to fill the bench on a match day. So far my DoF made 1 excellent signing (a young CB from Sunderland), 1 mediocre signing (a young inconsistent striker), 1 loan deal I asked for, a young winger I couldn't use and a young CB who still has to prove his worth. Let's see how he does with the new input. I feel like the more I achieve with a club, the more I have a say in the transfers and the more I get to instruct the DoF and scouts to get me a specific type of player. If delegating the squad building to the DoF becomes a bit to annoying to play the game, setting a scout focus is a a great addition to my lower league management game style. Going to the chief scout and asking him to search for a Left Wingback who's 23 years old to back up your 33 year old starting player, feels like a realistic approach to get new players in the club. In real life I see DoF's from different clubs messing up the squad all the time.

There is a great topic about setting a realistic database in football manager by DaVinci. He explains which setup to use and gives you some options depending on the hardware of your computer.

I always start in the vanarama south or north, depending on the job offer. That's mainly because in the past years a lot of bigger clubs tumbled down the leagues and there are great rebuilding projects once you made your name in the lower leagues and work your way up.

I watched a part of this series to. Inspiring and frustrating stuff to watch.

Maybe he’ll surprise me at the end of the transfer window and the beginning of new season. Curzon Ashton is one of the poorest teams in the league, so maybe my not so good DoF is just handling like the clubs reputation. I’ll see how he does in the future.

Hi, I recently got FM23 and started my llm save landing the curzon ashton job, struggling in a relegation battle. As the club has a DoF, I handed him all responsabilities he can get (hiring staff and players, renewing contracts, …). He started well with bringing in a center back, but now he is only signing youth players and deadline day is approaching. Some key first team players also signed contracts with other teams, leaving us at the end of the season, without the DoF trying to renew contracts. He is really passive and it makers me nervous, especially because I got the team out of the relegation battle and would love to get some decent singings in before the deadline day and some contract renewals before I lose half my team to other clubs. Is there a way to get him more active? I do allow myself to set transfer targets when my scouts present me a good player, but most of the time he can’t agree terms with them. Anyone else who has experience with making the DoF handling transfers?

I recently found some time to continue with my Boston save. Second season in League 2 and putting my DoF in charge of the signings. As my main target for this season is to further establish myself as a League 2 club, I thought it would be perfect to see how the DoF handles the recruitment of new players. There is a solid base of players to avoid a relegation battle and my scouting team identified some possible targets I could pass on to the DoF to sign for the team. Every signing my DoF presents to me, does have to get my final approval. I can't say I'm to impressed with the signings my DoF is making. So far he got us a better goalkeeper and a better right back, but he also got 2 unknown players from the lower divisions in Scotland and a striker who was unemployed for a season as backups. I also didn't approve another winger, 2 veteran midfielders and a very slow striker. He also failed to sign some of my targets but got us the striker I wanted although he wasn't very keen in the first place. He did get rid of some deadwood for decent money. I think the DoF is underperforming because of the low standards I set in the recruitmentmeetings, so I'll make sure the next meetings are more ambitious. We have 14 days untill the transferwindow closes and I'm looking for some much needed reinformcements and some squad debt! The first 2 games gave me a lose and a win, the new faces are still trying to blend in!

@Platinumyes, but he’s also responsible for signing first team players. My approach is that the manager (me), the DoF and the scouting department go through the list of players suggested by the scouts. Any player I find interesting is scoutend until I have a clear view of the players attributes. If I see a player I really want I suggest him to my DoF who makes the approach. Next to this method, the DoF signs players in the departments he thinks we need strengthening (suprise, here’s your new winger you never heard of!) I do have the opportunity to have the last call on the signing, so I don’t get stuck with 4 RB’s.

The playoffs were an absolute disaster. Crawley beat us twice in the semi's (and won the final) and that is all there is to say about it. On a positive note, my CB is named player of the year! Meaning he'll be attracting interest from bigger clubs! My DoF already refused St Mirren, but Lincoln are heading to the championship and are interested aswell. My CB is not happy about being kept in Boston. Hopefully the new signings can convince him to stay. The DoF didn't waste any time with signing new players with succesfully signing a forward, failing a LB and trying to get in a MC. The forward is way better then the ones we have, so I'm slightly optimistic. He also moved out my AMR who was with me since the national league north. We caught decent money for a backup and I wished him good luck with his new club. It's a bit weird not handling the signing and contract negotiating with players myself, but this gives me time to focus on tactics and training. I also let my assistant manager go. I felt his suggestions and comments did not help anymore. Best of luck for him to.

Some saves bring you immediate succes, some make you work hard for it. It all depends on which gives you the opportunity to be the manager. I got the chance to start at an underperforming Boston side, with better facilities and opportunities than other teams in the same division. But I guess Stalybridge is a different place to start. I dropped the 1 hour drive rule and made my DoF repsonsible for the signings after promotion to League 2. Great fun!

@Brother Benit’s a bit of a mixed bag for me. I took a quick rise through the leagues with back to back promotions so I didn’t expect the lads to play for promotion (gk, lb, cm & aml are key players since the vnn). But when you’re this close, it’s always sour to miss it. Let’s see where the playoffs take us. Congrats on the promotion! A couple of years of hard work makes it al worthwhile!

Another update on the Boston United save: as I tought realism caught up with us after a strong start to the season in league 2, we bounced back to the winning days! League leaders Wigan were to strong for the competition, but a series of wins and draws saw us climbing back to the second place. A selection of 7 teams was fighting for a promotionspot and we were right in between them. Exhausted key players forced me to hit the transfermarket. I was looking for a striker, a central midfielder and a defensive midfielder. 2 midfielders were brought in by the DoF after making them transferpriorities, but we couldn’t find a suitable striker. Swansea and Charlton approached me for a job interview, but I wasn’t keen on switching teams in the middle of the season. Both teams were battling against relegation in the championship and looked like a rebuild job with an ageing squad and a lack of talent. We enter the last 10 games with a high amount of confidence and in second place behind the unbeatable Wigan. Small margins between 5 clubs make it a thrilling last part of the season. But then it all falls down. We drop points every week, only winning 2 games. We go to 3th place and hang on to that last promotion spot only because Forest Green are drawing matches they should win. Last game of the season sees us travelling to an already relegated Barrowside with nothing to lose, Forest Green meets Crewe Alexandra who are still fighting for playoffs. We play bad. No creativity, no chances, key players not showing up. 18mins in and Crewe Alexandra takes the lead. Promotion seems secured! 39mins in and a glimpse of creativity puts it 1-0 for … Barrow. Half time motivationspeeches are given, but we keep playing badly. A header on the crossbar and twi clean chances are missed. 73mins in, 1-1, Forest Green equalise and leap frog to 3th place on goal difference, leaving us 4th and on a play offs spot. A final push for an equaliser is not about to happen and we are not going up unless can win the play offs. Although avoiding relegation was the objective, being this close to promotion was an absolute fairy tale. Winning the playoffs or not, a rebuild of the squad is an absolute must, with many players punching above their weight.

A quick update on the Boston save. After taking the league by storm in the first 10 games, seeing us top of the table, reality kicked in. A series of draws and losses saw us tumbling down to 10th place. It made me question the ability of my players and noticed some attributes are not as good as they should be. But with quiet some players playing in the national league north 2 years ago this should not be a surprise. A major squad overhaul was never gonna happen as I just wanted a quiet season in league 2, while searching for reinforcements for the future. I am gently trying to improve the team, staff and facilities to become a stable league 2 side, but it is hard to get better players when you're the smallest duck in the pond.

Exactly. I think that is the beauty of approaching realism in your game. In level 10 you are handling everything yourself from mowing the lawn to washing the shirts and signing players. When you're in the professional leagues, you got someone to take care of that because you spend all your time keeping prima-donna's happy and having scout-, board-, staff meetings. I'll definitely take this approach to transfers with me if I ever start that low.

Don’t you think agents would leak offers to the press or even interested clubs to push up the price or wage? As soon as club x makes an offer for player z, the agent could drop a message to other clubs to make their move before their transfer targets signs somewhere else?

Hi everyone, After the promotion to League 2 with Boston United, I parked the save for a while. A lot of stuff changes when you're out of the national leagues (transfer windows, professional club, doubting each and everyone at the club if they can make it to the next level, ...) and for realisms sake I thought a different approach would be more suited. The biggest change is that I stopped using the 1h drive rule as we are a professional club now. This doesn't mean I'm al over the player search screen, filtering the premier league prospects and the small nation internationals. I've given my head of scout full responsability in scouting assignments. I'm only allowed to ask for quick searches in specific positions, or transfer listed or loan listed players. My scouts will file reports and from then on I can decide who comes in or not. The DoF however is responsible for contract negotiations. As I wasn't expecting promotion, some out of contract backups and same deadwood had to leave the club. I could have used them in case I stayed in the national league for another season, but now they had to go as they would be a complete waste of money. Some decent players left the club on a free because they didn't agree with the new "professional" contract terms. Having some names on my shortlist to full in the gaps helped me quickly sign some decent players on loan. I managed to sign 2 young first team players from Cambridge who went up themselves and rather gave these 2 kids some game time in League 2, extended the loan of a promising left back from Doncaster, got a winger and a DM on loan from my affiliate club Peterborough (the DM was an extension from the previous season) and moved another talented CM in from Sheffield Wednesday who was brought to my attention by the scouting team. My DoF secured the transfer from a striker and a winger from Grimsby and Kings Lynn and a 31 year old CB (released from Millwall) joined my young backline to add some experience. A lot of trialists came and went to fill in the last gaps in the team (DM, CM and ST), but I couldn't afford the ones I wanted (or they joined other clubs). Those are off course the short-term targets for the scouting department. Preseason was ok, a lot of games to maximise playing time for the trialists and the new players. But when the season started, we were ready! 9 games in and we are top of the league, beat Middlesborough in the Carabao cup and making it to the last 32 teams, still alive and kicking in both FA Cup and Papa Johns Trophy and doing this with 4 players in the starting 11 having played with us in the Vanarama National North! Staying in league 2 is the main target, strengthening the team as we do so and getting better every year. We are having a good run, but sooner or later it will all fall down! Proudest moment: my 16 year old academy player, getting subbed in against Middlesborough and scoring the winning goal!