Chris_ANZFM

I second Mr Lewis’ thoughts. That really is quite an astonishing way to run a league season. Something more to fight for in every single game.

Matty, mate. Wow. What a sensational update. The way you’ve been able to combine the real life stories and history with the action in the game has made this a must read. I was so enveloped in the history section of this that I’d even forgotten there was a game to play and a congratulations on the result.

Thankfully it’s been a very quiet afternoon at work today and it’s allowed to read right the way through this. One has done a fantastic job so far. I really enjoy the depth you go into to explain your thoughts/decisions. Really one of my favourite things about FM Blogs.

Matty, mate, wow! What a read that was. The passion you have for German football makes this a must read. Very much looking forward to seeing what you achieve.

Again, let's skip the intro and get right into things. ------------------------------------------------ Squad News Nothing major to report. Sam McClelland has been called up into the First Team Squad to provide some much needed depth which will allow me to rotate and get some rest into my main trio of CBs. There looks to be some untapped potential in the lad so if a bit of game time can encourage some development then I certainly wouldn't be complaining. We'll see though as it seems that new players actually need some time to settle in on this edition of the game. In other news Jordan Wright continues to be the man between the sticks (great podcast by way) and I have identified my target who I hope will become 1st Choice in the near future except the game currently won't let me offer anything more than a 1 month long loan. ---------------------------------------------------------- Results Barnsley seem to have figured themselves out this season and there won't be a repeat of last seasons triumphs as a result. Again, it's one of those where an absolutely outstanding GKing performance has prevented us from taking anything out of the game. In terms of xG Barnsley probably get away with one but we'll take it on the chin and concede that they're just a better side than us right now. Thankfully we're back to winning pretty quickly as a midtable Wycombe come to town and barely put up a fight. To be honest, they're probably lucky that we only scored the 3 on this occasion as we face yet another absolute unit of a goalkeeper. It's starting to become a theme but on this occasion I won't complain. This time the goals are spread throughout the team which culminates in this absolute banger from my substitute left back. Joe Lumley made a surprise appearance in this one and managed himself a 7.8 as a result. Although it probably helps when you only face 1 shot on target, that and the fact the entire backline finished with a rating of 7.5 or higher. Makes it sound like we had some sort of battle on our hands or something but we dominated this game in every single aspect. I'd like to have scored some goals out of our 21 shots but I'm happy to walk away with 3 points and a clean sheet. Unfortunately for us and our league position those happen to be 3 Papa John's points but it does secure qualification to the next round at least. Another away game at a former premier league ground where we just don't show up. I dished out 10 fines after the completion of this game as all but one of the starting 11 finished with ratings under 6.5. Moving right along. Tom Hopper continues on the redemption path in this one bringing his tally for the season to 10 which sees him already match last seasons total. We were at our creative best in this one with a total of 7 chances created so perhaps I should be a little disappointed in our finishing ability or lack thereof but right now points on the board are a much higher priority. This one I will definitely express my disappointment in our finishing ability because we dominated this game at both ends of the pitch. Had the Crewe GK not had such a good game (surprising, no?) then maybe we could have come away with something but the performance of my forward players left a bit to be desired. Loanee Alfie Devine looks to finally be coming out of his shell which is nice considering his supposed ability. This was not one I had been looking forward to, perhaps only the away fixture unnerved me more than this one but a very surprisingly relegated Bristol City made their way to the bank and showed me why they'd been relegated. The fact that Jordan Wright had an absolute mare is the reason we got done over here, well that and once again our inability to finish the chances we create. There were 6 of them on the night in this one and for once it wasn't goalkeeping wizardry that kept us out. Unfortunately the red card also came too late for us to capitalise on so it's definitely a case of 2 points dropped, big ones too. We round off the month with another fixture against another club surprising relegated from the Championship last season. What's even more surprising is that Reading find themselves staring down the barrel of a consecutive relegation. They even reached out to my mate Chuck to see if he had any interest in returning to League One to save their season, an offer which he declined as I'm sure you can imagine. As far as the game went we gave them a good go and a monster effort from young GK Jordan Wright secured an important 3 points for us and a well deserved MoTM award for himself. ---------------------------------------------------- League Table Slowly but surely we are creeping our way back up the table. It couldn't have come at a better time really as we approach the half way point in the season the board have started to show signs of impatience with how our season has been tracking so far. I can absolutely understand their view because I share some of their feelings, frustratingly for me its our home form that seems to have been most detrimental to our season considering we rank 18th in that category compared to 5th in away form. Which basically means that If we can start winning some of these home games we'd be right up there in the mix with some of the bigger clubs in the division. ---------------------------------------------------------- Analysis Look, I said I was on a roll and we're approximately at the half way point so why don't we do a little deep dive into the stats and find out where our issues lie this season. Well that'll do it, won't it. If I find out it's Tom Hopper again I'll be devastated. (It's not, phew. More on this later). As I continue to dig through the league stats (my datahub still causes crashes) it just gets uglier and it becomes clear that the inability to finish is very much still our main issue. We're 4th in terms of Chances Created, we've taken the 2nd Most Shots, with 40% (10th) of those shots being deemed On Target and we sit 21st in Conversion Rate % with a measly 8%. I then consulted the Player Detailed stats screen in hopes of finding the culprit(s) of our shooting struggles and the initial point of call is the xG Underperformance where lo and behold William Osula is sitting in 2nd Place with -2.43 which accounts for roughly 1/3rd of our team underperformance, he isn't the only one though. Alfie Devine who's praises I had just recently finished singing also ranks here in 16th with a total of -1.39 so we've now effectively accounted for half of our collective xG Underperformance to be fair to them, they're both younger lads so maybe we need to allow them a little leeway. Don't forget that they are also both new to the squad this year and I still firmly believe that more time is required for players to settle into a new club. On the other hand I am starting to get some clarity regarding Ted Bishop and Keanan Bennetts who I initially thought were having rough seasons, but both rank fairly well among the creative statistics. Bennetts places 15th in Assists per 90 (0.32) while Bishop features in Key Passes, Open Play Key Passes, Chances Created and the most telling of all is his 3rd place in Expected Assists, Jamie Robson also features in this list in 12th. Just goes to show that we're creating good chances but we aren't finishing them as we should be. This discovery also leads me to think if we should perhaps look to alter our focus and perhaps aim for more of a Wing Play style and that itself is further evidenced by our league leading Crosses Completed (85) and 5th in Completion % (14%). Interestingly though we are bottom half in both Headers Won and Headers Won % so I need to have a look at who is attempting these headers, whether they are defensive or attacking headers and perhaps adjusting our crossing style to suit. You won't be in the least bit surprised to find out that both strikers have a Headers Won % of less than 50%. So I think it'll be a wing play tactic with a focus more towards low crosses than anything else. Sadly our attendances are down on last season which can more than likely be attributed to our lack in form this season but also the "stagnation" of the club. I only say that as compared to the success of the previous few years (in real life) the club are now stabilising and establishing themselves as a League One club and I am absolutely okay with that. As I've said in previous updates I'm quite happy for this to be a slow burn because we're absolutely not ready for promotion. ------------------------------------------------------------------- I know that wasn't a huge amount of analysis but it has certainly given me some things to think about and I think there may well be some sort of tactical shift coming. If you're still reading then thank you very much. See you in the next one.

Well tonight would usual be one of our sessions but Chuck is out schmoozing some clients some where and I've got about 17 games to cover over the course of the previous couple of months. So here goes... ---------------------------------------------------- Squad News Still not a great deal to report in this area despite our average start this season. There's one outgoing in Paudie O'Connor who was less than impressed with his game time so far. I opted to let him leave as so far I have struggled to get a solid run of performances out of him and I already have 3 other CBs all fighting to be 1st Choice. Should we encounter any sort of injury crisis I have a couple of options in the U21s who could well be promoted to provide injury cover or further depth. Paudie, for the record has left for Australian shores as he joins Western United FC for a measly £23500. Jordan Wright has had an extended run of games lately due to my disgust with Joe Lumley, he hasn't particularly impressed so far but has been better. ---------------------------------------------- Results Danny Mandriou opened his account for the season as he makes his first appearance of what would be an extended run in the Starting 11, we're struggling for some form of consistency and so I have found myself starting to "try" things perhaps due to a lack of patience. Anyway this is another pretty unremarkable game for either side. Fairly equal in terms of possession and shot count. If you're one of those xG types then Wednesday probably should have won this one so I'll view it as a point gained. After our Carabao cup exit last month I'll be looking to make the most of the Papa John's Trophy for any prize money that we can get out of it. Plus games like this are fantastic for morale. The game was essentially already won at half time following aa 4 goal barrage by Captain Hopper who also very deservedly received a 10.0 rating for the performance. Danny Mandroiu justified my selection by finding the back of the net in consecutive games. We managed to carry that momentum back into league action on a visit to Forest Green where we absolutely dominated them in just about every area of the pitch. Our attempts to retain possession are still causing me a few issues but at least in this game it didn't cost us. Hopper on the score sheet again and also an assist in this one. And just like that all the hard work is undone although the match stats on this one paint a very different picture. This game would also mark the end of Joe Lumley as my first choice as he absolutely capitulated and earned himself a brilliant 5.9 rating for his efforts in this one, conceding 3 of Portsmouth's 5 shots on target. This also came after us allowing them 60% of the ball and the time to complete twice as many passes as us, on our home ground no less. As I sit and recount these games it's starting to become pretty clear that we've regressed this season, that or we just simply over performed last season. The Valley isn't an easy place to visit on a good day and in this instance we put up decent fight but Charlton had the better chances and ultimately were the ones to convert when it mattered most, despite a draw probably being a fairer result on this occasion. It was that man Mandroiu again who saw us manage to get back to winning ways. A man of the match performance from Jordan Wright also had me feeling a lot more at ease about our goalkeeping situation. For once we actually looked to be playing some of that possession football that I had hoped for at the start of the season as me managed to complete more passes than Morecambe would even attempt. Half of our shot attempts being from distance tells me there's still work to do. For the second time this month we manage to string together consecutive victories. You'll notice Mandroiu in the goals again, this one coming only 5 minutes after getting on the pitch. Our young Dane William Osula also managing to open his account after already making 8 appearances. The other big plus here is yet another game where we've managed to impose ourselves in a similar fashion to the Morecambe game completing more passes than their amount attempted. Sadly we were able to maintain the winning run on an away day to a high flying Cambridge United. We were rather unlucky to lose this one as both teams put on an absolute clinic defensively. It was the difference in goalkeepers which would ultimately be the difference and seal the points for the home side. In true Football Manager fashion a dodgy penalty won and converted by your ex player will rob you of hard earned points. At least it wasn't some last minute kick in the teeth on this occasion. The inconsistencies continue for us though as I'm still yet to find an out and out 1st XI. Nice to see Hopper add another one to his goal tally, this season is turning into a bit of a redemption for him. ---------------------------------------------------- League Table I'm actually somewhat surprised at seeing our position here, I know we've been inconsistent but we are still picking up points although if you look a little closer you can see that it's really only 2 or 3 points that keep us out of the top half position that the board are requiring of us. So far we're still alright in regards to board and fan confidence despite my own beginning to wane somewhat. Fingers crossed next month will see us start making our way back up the table a bit. ----------------------------------------- Normally I'd write you some sort of outro here but as I said earlier Chuck is out schmoozing and I'm on a bit of a roll here so what's say we make we recap October straight away in the next one.

Nice few updates to binge through. Good start so far mate, some excellent pick ups in the staffing! That penalty miss is absolutely atrocious too!

I came into this season with a plan and felt I had backed that up with some solid recruitment, never could I have anticipated the shaky start that we've endured so far. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Squad News Joe Lumley sucks. You heard it here first. As a Tottenham Hotspur fan I've been getting horrifying flash backs of the 2020/21 Joe Hart and the many calamities that came with it. In all seriousness though he has been so bad that I've dropped him from the 1st Team altogether in favour of Jordan Wright until I can bring in a replacement come January. In the interest of fairness we've not really looked great anywhere and so I have implemented some changes stylistically already this season. According to my staff they feel as though we are above average in most categories compared to the rest of the league. We're also meant to be largely better equipped than the squad that I had at my disposal last year and so I decide that would try and work towards building a more signature style rather than being as neutral and reactive as we were last season and to implement such changes we need to check out our comparison screen. Immediately my eyes are drawn to the quality of our midfield which has improved in almost all areas and we're also vastly improved across the board defensively. Our attacking areas are improved but still far below the required level in this division, this led me to think that we should be looking to retain the ball more than we were just allowing our opposition to have it. I don't recall the Low Block being all that effective for us last season so I would much rather just play to our strengths. It's probably a good thing that I brought so many central midfielders in now though as it will afford us a few different options tactically. All that musing and some observation over the first games saw me land on this, don't get too attached to it though as I'm sure it'll change again before too long as I continue to search for the answers to our tactical streakiness. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Results We got our season underway by hosting a newly promoted Northampton Town and it didn't take long for us to start battering the living daylights out of them. We had something like 24 shots in this one, creating chance after chance but unable to put anything away which had been such an issue for us last season. To make matters worse Mitch Pinnock slammed in a direct free kick to secure all 3 points for the visitors. Hartlepool were next to visit the bank as we looed to get our Carabao Cup campaign underway for the 2023/24 seasons and we very swiftly turned on the same style and pressure that we'd applied against Northampton only days prior. At the risk of repeating myself the total lack of finishing ability had me concerned that this game was heading down a very similar path to the one we'd just played. Thankfully for us, Tom Hopper managed to break the deadlock just after the hour mark and we never looked back from that point. It's not programmed within the game but I would consider this game a bit of a rivalry after the events of recent years between the two clubs: a playoff final meeting and loss for Lincoln then also Michael Appleton taking re appearing at Blackpool after his time at Lincoln. This game brought about everything that you'd want to see from that type of rivalry/derby game and Blackpool could well have an argument for winning the game considering their greater xG. Our second home game of the league campaign against a strong Oxford which couldn't have gotten off to a much worse start. We recovered well though and began to play that same style of football that had seemed to serve us well so far this season and it continued to serve us still with 4 Clear Cut Chances created during the game but once again absolutely let down by poor finishing. The more I say it the more I think that I really need to do something about it before it costs us anymore points. Another promoted side, another away day and a largely equal match, the quick two minute salvo of goals would prove to be all that either team could muster as both goalkeepers managed to ensure that the points were shared. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ League Table All of that brings us to this where we are currently sat in a lowly 17th position, thankfully though it's still early enough in the season that it isn't really a huge cause for concern, yet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is still another game left in the month of August but I shall hand over to my mate Chuck for another one of those special one offs. As always, thanks for reading.

Nothing than coming back to this thread after a few days and having a little binge read. Congrats on the new role, should set you up nicely.

Just a word of warning that this summer period got kind of chaotic and there a probably a couple of areas that I can attribute the blame. Firstly, even after all these years I still haven't quite worked out the best way to approach all the analysis and recruiting in a timely enough fashion for a multiplayer save. I like to take my time and agonise over the details, but here in this arena I don't want to be the one holding up proceedings too much. Secondly, I've still not got my head around the new "Scouting Focus" and as such I'm hamstringing myself in terms of my recruitment options and finally once the contract expiry day comes around I find out just how much I lack self control and will always sign far more than I need. There's also some outs here that I definitely wasn't prepared for or wanted to have happen, let's see how it all went down. --------------------------------------------------------- General Admin Before we dive into the transfer related shenanigans there were some bits and pieces to figure out with the board. The first order of business was proposed by the board without any kind of input from myself they felt it the right time to improve our Youth Level, we also had an upgrade to our Junior Coaching as a result which is now listed as good instead of adequate. After their intentions to improve the infrastructure I figured I may as well have a go too and much to my surprise the board agreed to set about improving our Training Facilities at the first time of asking, perhaps a result of last season's cup runs and the subsequent prize monies or perhaps a result of the transfer money I made, more on that later. I also very briefly considered requesting improvements to our Youth Facilities but common sense prevailed and I decided that money in the bank was a better path to take right now. Perhaps if we can recreate last years cup success' then I'll try having that conversation again this time next year. The next order of business was an updated club vision which I was only too happy to agree with as we now no longer will be judged on signing U23s by the supporters, but more importantly the board are no longer demanding that we sign players with the intention of "flipping" them. In it's place we'll now be judged against the length of contracts we hand out to the "Oldies". This is good because I don't like to oversaturate my teams with young players, I enjoy having a couple of experienced heads around to aid with things like mentoring but also it just feels like the "realistic" approach and I think any good team needs some experience to build the right kind of atmosphere for winning. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transfers Outgoing Right, onto the good stuff. I know this is what you're all here for and boy it did not take long for things to start getting messy. I was bombarded with news reports almost immediately linking 3 or 4 of my guys with moves away from the club and the offers weren't far behind either with both Sean Roughan and Lewis Monstma the first targets. Rangers came in with a measly 650k for Roughan, who you might remember we had previously agreed wouldn't leave for less than £2.5 and as such that offer was very quickly rejected. That wasn't the end of the interest in our young LB though as Stoke City and West Bromich Albion both decided to get in on the action. Thankfully, this time the bids were much closer to that agreed value with Stoke offering the entire £2.5m upfront and a season long loan back to us and obviously I accepted the offer without hesitation due to the aforementioned agreement but also the simple fact that no League One club is turning down that kind of offer. Not long later West Brom decided to upstage Stoke and came to the table with the same loan back option but their fee was £2.7m, all upfront. Again, accepted for the exact same reasons and that's where Sean chose to go and I had 2.7 million reasons to thank him. The next major outgoing as mentioned was Lewis Montsma and this one really wound me up due to the absolutely torrid offers that were made, again I think this is down to the fact that the game realises the his contractual situation but also the fact that we wouldn't be able to secure a new work permit for him. Keep in mind that Lewis has an pre programmed release clause in his contract worth £1m but the first offer I received for him was a grand total of £100k and I rejected without a second thought, as you'd expect which caused a commotion due to him wanting to move back home to the Netherlands. We then proceeded to have a conversation and agreed that the value of the release clause already in place was a much fairer price. It was at this point that I elected to cut my losses and just offer him out at the agreed £1m but no such offer came, ultimately the best I could get was a £500k from FC Twente but Lewis decided he'd rather go to N.E.C. Nijmegen for a lower £475k and I'm still salty about it. Finally, and a much simpler saga was Regan Poole. Sunderland came in with a lowball offer than I can no longer remember but I was left with no choose but to attempt negotiating it higher as Regan had made it very clear he would be leaving at the end of the upcoming season when his contract expired. I'll take this moment to express the fact that I think the game is very much aware of situations like this too as I attempted to offer Poole out to other clubs after the Sunderland negotiation in hopes of making a few more pennies out the sale. This failed miserably as I didn't get a single other offer which meant that he would go to Sunderland for the measly sum of £250k, there's likely another £50k to be made at some point and we will retain a future interest in him but I still think the amount is far too small for a player of his ability. In terms of other outgoings Hakeeb Adelakun left for Motherwell (£250k) and Charles Vernam to Burton Albion (£100k - £145k). Adelakun had spent all of last season out on loan in League Two and this was a great opportunity to recoup £4k in wages while Vernam just hadn't played enough to warrant the £2k that he was being paid. We also had a few of the out of contract U18s leave on free transfers to lower league clubs while a couple of the U21s have gone out on loans to League Two sides as to get them more competitive minutes than an U21 competition can provide. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Incoming This is where the chaos comes in as some of the decisions based on incoming players were made before having the full picture of who might end up leaving. As a result there might be a couple here that I would reconsider with hindsight. A good place to start is Ellis Chapman, real life fans might find this a bit of a weird one as Chapman left Lincoln a few seasons ago. There were some murmurs about the reason for his departure but that’s not really relevant right now. I had always liked using Ellis in previous Football Manager saves and in the more recent versions he occasionally developed into a Premier League level talent. He also qualifies as club home grown (HGC) and we FM players know how important that is. So when the initial offers came in for Sean Roughan I was concerned about the fact that he was our only HGC player and as such I would lose a substitution spot on the bench due to the league rules. At the time it made sense to chase Ellis and the price seemed fair considering the HGC factor, but then I got the offer to loan Roughan back for the season and that was a no brainer. So now I'm left with a surplus midfielder who I'd spent £500k on, surplus because yes, I had already brought replacements in for the midfield on top of renewing Sanders who I had initially assumed was leaving. See? Chaos! Remember? Why don't we continue with the midfield since I already mentioned the fact I already had replacements sorted. There are 3 other new faces in the midfield this season, bear in mind we were unable to renew any of the loans we had last season and I also failed in my attempts to bring Matty Virtue to the club after his Blackpool contract expired. The first new name in the midfield is young Alfie Devine who joins on a season long loan from our affiliate Tottenham Hotspur, Devine was my first choice target to replace my old mate Two Dads in the more attacking role of our midfield, he's also more than capable of covering any of our attacking trio too due to the fact he is probably actually too good for this league. Tottenham were also kind enough to allow us to take Jamie Bowden off their hands and in all fairness I didn't really need this one considering he arrived very late in the window but he was just far too good to turn down. There's also a bit of an ulterior motive here, Bowden another lad that had decided to explore his options when his current contract expires at the end of this upcoming season and the thinking being that if I were to keep him happy then perhaps we could pick him up permanently. Rounding out our selection of new midfield signings is Football Manager Ethan Hamilton, perhaps not a legend for everyone but I swear I've been signing this lad for longer than I can remember because he's kind of a weapon, especially at this level. Once a Manchester United lad, Ethan found himself out of contract at Accrington and I was only too happy to bring him in. The first signing I actually made for the new season was a goalkeeper and this one came in on a permanent deal too, I had looked around at a few different loan options from Championship and Premier League teams to begin with but Tottenham had nobody of enough quality while everybody was else asking for enormous financial contributions so instead I went down the route of expiring contracts and came across Joe Lumley. Now It would seem that Joe has been having a pretty rough time of it as of late after a couple of very unsuccessful loan spells in League One he was then released by QPR before being picked up by Middlesbrough and then being loaned out again, but at least that latest loan spell was in the Championship. Thankfully the big man has also agreed to take a pretty hefty pay cut to join us and at 28 he should still have more than a few seasons left in him. Back to the loan market now where I added some cheap depth in the wings to replace the outgoing Adelakun and Vernam, Tottenham were only too kind to lend me another one in Roshaun Mathurin who will primarily be the back up to Ted Bishop on the left hand side, solid across the board but not spectacular in any particular areas, but at 19 Roshaun is certainly one I'll keep my eye on this season as a potential future signing. The lad on the other side of the pitch comes from our mate Chuck who is now sitting pretty up in the Championship, Cian Hayes is his name and ever so fortunately for us is predominantly left footed which makes him the ideal candidate for our newly establish Inverted Winger role. Like Mathurin, Hayes is solid across the board but the difference here is that his Work Rate is absolutely phenomenal and I am a big fan of building squads with high levels of the work rate attribute. To continue on with the Fleetwood theme we have new RB and his name is Hayden Muller who spent last season at Fleetwood on loan from Milwall. Given the transfer fee involved it basically a straight swap for the departed Regan Poole but Muller certainly isn't of the same quality that we lost and so TJ Eyoma will remain as the first choice although Mullers size gives me another choice at CB should I ever need it. Which is highly unlikely based on the CB I did sign to be Lewis Montsma's replacement. (Man, the segues in this section). I have to give full props to my mate Chuck on this one as he made the recommendation of Kelland Watts who is an absolute monster and very conveniently prefers his left foot. I'll admit that the wage is kind of extreme compared to some of the other contracts that we're currently paying but I think he's worth every penny and in the absolute worst case Kelland is almost guaranteed to command a pretty massive fee on his way out of the club. The final incoming for the 1st team was a bit of a mistake on my part, here's that chaos again. William Osula was out of contract at Sheffield United and my scouts were absolutely raving about him as a potential replacement for the departing, at the time, Tom Hopper. I offered and agreed a contract with him before being told it was going to cost me £675k in compensation. I should have caught on due to his age and the fact that his was contract winding down but I very clearly got it wrong and handed over a pretty substantial wad of cash to Sheffield United. It's not the end of the world because he's actually a bit of a beast and much like Watts I can see a scenario in the future where we collect an even bigger wad of cash for Osula. I also brought in a pretty large contingent to help me fill out the U21s side who will now be playing in competitive competition, I'm fairly certain all were ex Premier League players who'd come to the end of their Pathway (One for you Gary), I'll save you and I the effort of trying to collate links for them all but if any of them manage to make something of themselves then we can revisit their profiles at a later date. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pre Season At the back end of last season I was given the choice of booking the location of the up coming preseason and was faced with the Midlands or Scotland. I opted for Scotland as it somehow felt slightly more exotic. Fair to say it worked out pretty well on the pitch for us too. I'm no idiot though and won't be putting too much stock into this results especially considering we didn't actually play through a single one of them. Tactically I'm not looking to do too much differently to last season, I think we'll just try and bit that bit more aggressive at home or when we're obviously the stronger side rather than being so static like we were last season on the balanced mentality. Perhaps that will mean asking for the lads to press that bit more or perhaps opting to engage the opponent just that bit higher up the pitch. That way we should be able to really make the use of things like the home team advantage. As far as the new season goes our here's a quick reminder of the expectations that the board have set for us and as you can see there isn't anything particularly strenuous. I'd be incredibly disappointed if we didn't make the top half of the league and to be honest I'm not hugely bothered by any of the cups, it's literally all luck of the draw anyway. (Literally, ew). According to the media Alfie Devine won't be all that secret a weapon as he makes the Media Dream Eleven and also made the clear favourite by the bookies to win the League One Player of the Year award. As a club we're predicted to 13th at 20-1 which is about where we're expected to be anyway so no complaints from me here either. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That should just about cover off the news to catch you up on the happenings over the off season. Next post will return to the usual monthly updates of results and any major happenings around the club. As always, thanks for reading. Oh, and give Chuck's spreadsheet a look, it's magic. Up the Imps

This will be the last post of the 2022/23 season where we'll sum things up with some of my highlights throughout the year and then touch on a few bits and pieces regarding team and player stats which will help me in deciding which direction I'll go in over the summer. Based on some of the player information icons I'm already seeing this could end up getting quite out of hand but I guess I'll find out in due course. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was going to grab a clip of the goal but it really didn't seem that impressive to me, I'm fairly certain that I shared a replay with Chuck in our discord server that would have blown the aforementioned goal of the season to smithereens. No offence to Jamie or anything. The match to remember is also largely unmemorable to me, off to a great start aren't we. I absolutely remember the Oakley-Boothe hattrick from the MK Dons game though, what a guy. It's going to suck losing him. Although I may be alone in that thought, it would appear nobody was that interested in his shirt. Something to do with the cost of lettering perhaps? I am somewhat justified in Bennetts being the top seller though as the board expressed their disappointment in the wage that I offered the lad when he joined. Nothing much else of note here, everything revenue related on the up but that should go without saying considering the economic state of football in recent years. Now onto some awards. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fan's Player of the Season Adam Jackson missed the first 7 weeks of the campaign with a concussion but very quickly became a mainstay in our backline. Had the season run a little longer then he may well have lost this vote because my main CB partnership was Joe Walsh & Lewis Montsma. Jackson did sign an extension during the season for an additional year and with the news of Montsma's work permit being rejected he could well find himself back as first choice with Walsh. Young Player of the Season I still find it somewhat irritating that 24 appears to be the cutoff for "Young" Player because you could argue most 24 year olds are already established in a 1st team by this point, perhaps the award needs a new name but you can't argue that Jordan Garrick doesn't deserve the honour. His season began on the right hand side of our attack and played fairly well but he really came into his own deputizing up top after Tom Hopper's injury. As mentioned before his contract with Swansea is expiring this season and is somebody I have on my radar in terms of targets for next season's campaign. Signing of the Season It was fairly obvious considering we only made one, but Keanan Bennetts is deserving especially when you consider we weren't actually able to register him for league action until the January transfer window had closed. My staff seem to think that there might not be much left in the way of potential but as long as he stays consistent and shows up in the big games I will continue to lean on the lad to lead our revamped right hand side. Top Goalscorer Just in case you were wondering, yes a CMa is still a very viable option in this years match engine and Tashan Oakley-Boothe is a prime example. The affectionately known Two Dads has chipped in 16 goals across all competitions this season and I'm sure you can imagine the kind of boost that gives to a squad that I had expected to be lacking in the goal scoring department. Most Assists Super Ted! What a hero this guy has been this season, pun absolutely intended by the way. Chipping in 6 goals to go with his 8 assists I still firmly believe it was Bishop who pulled us out of the rut and was the major factor in our late push back for the playoffs. I intend on finding suitable cover for the middle of the pitch next season which will allow me to keep Ted out on the left where he was at his most dangerous this season. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Team Statistics When browsing through the detailed stats pages for the League One season there isn't much in the way of standout areas: we ranked 3rd in the number of Crosses Completed (186), but only 7th in terms of the Completion Percentage (14%). I had planned to dig into this for this update but my game doesn't seem to be much of a fan of the datahub, its caused me multiple crash dumps when requesting graphics. The next area of note, which came as no surprise was regarding our shooting where we lead the league in Shots On Target (273) and Shots on Target Ratio (44%) but our Conversion Rate (10%) sees us ranked down in 18th. Remember how I knew shooting would be an issue? Would be real nice to identify the culprits here but I can say without doubt I'll be looking to upgrade on our attacking options and also keeping a closer eye on where all our shots are being taken from. Now at the other end of the field it becomes somewhat confusing although I'll admit that I never really committed to a particular style so my dabbling in and out of a low block may well skew these numbers a little, but the first thing I notice is that we have allowed the 19th most Passes Completed Against with a whopping total of 20117. Couple that with the 22nd placed ranking in OPPDA (4.04) it becomes very clear that we both sit deep in our defensive shape and don't offer very much in terms of pressing but when it comes to Final Third Passes Against we are 7th best allowing only (2372). It would seem that my initial confusion is actually starting to fade and my interpretation of all is that we allow teams into our half and usually are quite efficient in winning the ball back which is further evidenced by our 6th best ranking for Tackles Won (830). These are the sorts of things that I need to consider ahead of the summer transfer window opening regarding. The other area worth mentioning here is regarding our attendance. We are top of the Average Attendance by Capacity % (90%) and Stadium Sellouts (2) our average attendance for the year was 9807 (10th) so we may have to start considering the fact that the ground is going to need expanding or the potential that the board may even look to build a new one as much as it would hurt to leave the Bank after all these years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Player Statistics Let's get right into it, we knew finishing was an issue and that is the first statistic that we are going to look at xG Underperformance our very own Tom Hopper is in 3rd (-4.38) just in case you weren't sure, this isn't a good thing. At the other end of that statistic is Jordan Garrick who was ranked 4th (5.96) in xG Overperformance I'm not going to read too deeply into this one as the game likely didn't expect me to play him as a STC and therefore wouldn't have expected him to score the amount he did. Just to really drive the point home with Tom Hopper he doesn't even rank inside the top 20th in terms of Conversion Rate % while taking a league 7th highest (3.26) Shots per 90 , meanwhile Jordan Garrick finished 12th (21%) right behind Chucks goal scoring phenom Callum Morton. (I think I might have found the problem). Creatively Ted Bishop ranks Top 10 in categories such as Assists per 90 and Key Passes per 90. Interestingly Jamie Robson also ranks on the Key Passes per 90 stat in 16th (2.31) and that's from a left back position which is something else definitely worth investigating further especially considering his non Top 20 in Crosses Attempted or Completed %. Defensively we don't rank Top 20 anywhere aside from TJ Eyoma in 9th for Headers Won (89%) . This isn't come as a huge surprise based on those team stats I looked at early suggesting that we don't really come under a lot of pressure around our box. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's where we'll leave things, I know I've got a fair bit to do in terms of squad building as we have loans ending for 5 players. 4 of which played pretty serious minutes for us this season in Matty Virtue, Jordan Garrick, Tashan Oakley-Boothe & Carl Rushworth. The 5th being Jack Diamond who never really got off the ground and couldn't get a consistent place due to the performance of others in his position. I will obviously look to utilise the affiliation we have with Tottenham Hotspur to try and minimise the wage outlay on some replacement loans ahead of next season, but as I alluded to early there is some pretty heavy interest in Regan Poole, TJ Eyoma, Sean Roughan & Lewis Montsma on top of that the futures of Tom Hopper and Max Sanders are still very much up in the air as they consider their options... Wish me luck. As always, cheers for reading. Up the Imps.

It would seem that our friend Chuck forgot to share a league table, so this is where things stand at the end of March. As I mentioned in my previous post Fleetwood have occupied that top spot for many months at this point deservedly so. My boys meanwhile had slipped from 5th to 10th due to that horrendous stretch of games through February and March. We have 8 games left from here, 7 in April and a single game in May which I will tag into this post as well, that way we can use the next post as a bit of a round up of the season with award winners, stats and the like. This might be a rather risky thing to say but our run in isn't as difficult as it could have been. 3 of the 8 games are against playoff rivals, 3 are mid table sides and there's a couple who are in and around the bottom. League One is no joke though and there some massive clubs in this division. Let's get into it shall we... ----------------------------------------------------- Squad News Tashan Oakley-Boothe still sadly remains unavailable and it's a real shame as we could definitely do with the added fire power heading into this final month of games. He now hasn't played in 2 months and we're running out of time to work him back to full fitness, but there may be a small silver lining in the sense that his value could crash based on the lack of game time and with his contract soon running out I would love nothing more than to add him to the team permanently, but right now his demands are way beyond anything I could dream of affording. I'm getting ahead of myself though, recruiting comes in a few posts time. There is a massive 7 games to cover in this month so let's not mess around and just get down to business. -------------------------------------------------------- Results Now that we're finally out of the cups we have the luxury of time between games and in this instance we had a whole week to get ourselves prepped for the trip away to Sheffield Wednesday. It took them all of 3 minutes to show what they were about and it threatened to get even uglier from there. We were out worked in every single way as the Wednesday boys proceeded to completely almost twice as many passes as us on their way to having 60% possession. We were probably lucky that this only ended 2-0. We managed a couple of half chances towards the end of the game but our front 3 finished with a combined average rating of 6.2. Fines were swiftly doled out and I had my concerns that our might still not be over. One of the surprise packages of the season were next up on their visit to the bank. This is a team who had shrugged off all notions of a pre season relegation prediction and found themselves pretty securely in the playoff picture. I made the call to shuffle the midfield trio around a little, so that it would allow me the opportunity to get Ted Bishop back in to the AML position where he'd been doing such great work earlier this season. That switch was almost immediately rewarded when Ted put a shot marginally wide just 3 minutes into the game. He was involved again on 20 minutes linking up with Tom Hopper before playing a cute little pass for Hopper to chip the keeper with. Bishop again in a 3rd key moment would run onto a long ball sent forward by Jacob Davenport before being brought down in the box to win yet another penalty for Tom Hopper to dispatch. A wednesday evening is not the greatest time to be making an away trip to Plymouth Argyle especially when its a Plymouth side that we're battling with for a potential playoff spot. Yet again we would line up in the low block style that seems to have fuelled the better performances we'd had lately and that decision was once again almost very quickly rewarded as Tom Hopper hits the post after just 30 seconds latching onto a fantastic ball from Lasse Sørensen. The rest of the first half was rather dull in all fairness with no other real highlights of note. Plymouth came out firing in the second half and soon set up camp in our half of the pitch, a valiant effort between the sticks from Carl Rushworth kept our chances alive before a rare breakaway would see Lasse Sørensen play yet another exquisite pass between the back 3 of Plymouth for Jordan Garrick and his electric pace to run onto and slide it past the Argyle keeper. After picking up a couple of consecutive wins I had started to see that morale was back on the rise and a relegation threatened Port Vale came to town and as such I opted to move back to the mid block style that had seen us produce such great results in the earlier parts of the season. Lo and behold my tactical switch was pleasantly rewarded as we proceeded to bombard our opposition. Ted Bishop has almost singlehandedly dragged us back from the depths and his desire to press the Vale back line would see him win the ball back on the edge of their box before proceeding to bend one in to the far post. Tom Hopper had a day to forget hitting the post with a free header at the end of the first half and to make matters worse had a penalty saved on the hour mark. Late on goal scorer would turn provider as Matty Virtue slammed home a Ted Bishop cross. Consecutive home games allowed for some decent recovery time following the weekends win over Port Vale and that rest coupled with our current winning form carried over as we comfortably dispatched playoff rivals Barnsley, once again Ted Bishop opened the scoring thanks to an absolute shambles by the Barnsley keeper (see below). On the stroke of half time Tom Hopper slid a ball between the defenders for Matty Virtue to run onto with one of his trademark late arrivals from the midfield. We won a penalty on the hour mark as a Barnsley defender decided he could use his arm to control an incoming cross and for the 2nd game in a row Tom Hopper saw his penalty saved by the Barnsley keeper who was all too keen to redeem himself for the earlier error. Tashan Oakley-Boothe finally made his way back onto the pitch in this one and very quickly got back to work playing a sensational ball for Jordan Garrick to run onto and complete the rout. bishop goal keeper clam.mp4 Back to the low block, the usual concession of possession but plenty of chances to break forward but unable to beat Stryjek in the Wycombe goal. An unlucky deflection off Jamie Robson's back sees the ball land at the feet of a Wycombe player who smashes it past Rushworth which also doubled as their only shot on target in the 1st Half. Bennetts had a fantastic strike pushed away by an equally fantastic save just before half time. 2nd half much the same as we continue to win the ball back and pounce forward but are unable to find a finish until Matty Virtue catches the Wycombe backline sleeping and puts a ball between them for Keanan Bennetts to finish. 10 minutes later a wonder strike from Joe Walsh at CB is parried by Stryjek, Bennetts is the quickest to respond and put the ball in before being flagged offside. In the dying moments an error from Rushworth allows Wycombe an almost open goal to take the lead again. An absolute calamity at the back (shades of Barnsley) sees a Wycombe defender slam a ball into Jordan Garrick who can only too happily slot the ball straight past the onlooking goalkeeper. We knew heading away to Morecambe that we had to win both of our final two games to stand any chance of sneaking into the playoffs. Heavy rotation ahead of the game due to fatigue following the sheer amount of games we've played this season. We had both wingers blast shots wide in the first few minutes as Morecambe set up camp in their own 18 yard box, might I remind you that it was a home game for them too. Then right on cue they score a direct free kick with essentially their first foray into our half. I was livid at half time, we'd had the bulk of the ball and 8 shots to go with it but nothing on the scoreboard. Meanwhile the teams around us were winning their games and our playoff hopes were quickly fading away. At half time a quick "You've been terrible, sort it out" was the message before a slight tactical shuffle, if they were going to camp out then we'd have to break them down. That switch was rewarded almost immediately after Matty Virtue broke into the box forcing yet another save out of the Morecambe keeper. I tried every trick in the book during the second half but it was to no avail as we just couldn't break them down which would ultimately see us miss out on the playoffs as we were now 4 points behind the last playoff spot. In our final game of the campaign we welcomed Shrewsbury to the bank who had only just managed to sneak out of contention for relegation in their previous game. I had no intention of allowing them to enjoy it and looked to pile on the pressure right from the whistle. A training injury to Carl Rushworth meant that Jordan Wright would get a rare start but otherwise we had a full strength side at our disposal and it took all of 30 seconds for Keanan Bennetts to latch onto a ball from Matty Virtue before sending it narrowly wide of the mark. Much like the Morecambe game we absolutely battered their goal throughout the first 45 minutes but had been unable to find the finish that we needed. "Super" Ted Bishop would finally break the deadlock in style by chipping the keeper from just inside the 18 yard box. Shrewsbury so very nearly equalised moments later after Jordan Wrights inability to claim a corner led to a very unnecessary goal mouth scramble that was cleared off the line by Lewis Montsma. Matty Virtue was able to double our tally after TJ Eyoma found him with a wonderful long ball from the halfway line. A rare poor touch by Joe Walsh allowed Shrewsbury in for a consolation with minutes to spare then once again super sub Jordan Garrick found a way to respond almost immediately after he combined with Danny Mandriou. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Table Thankfully the slip up at Morecambe doesn't end up costing us as Plymouth's GD is far superior to our own. Ultimately though I'm more than happy with an 8th place finish, it satisfies everybody's expectations without exceeding them to the point that more will be asked of us too soon. It's going to be rather a busy summer as we have 5 loan contracts expiring and then an additional 3 players in the 1st team are due to expire. I'm expecting a bit of a clear out in the youth teams ahead of setting them up ahead of next season and I know that at least half of the backroom staff have contracts that are also about to expire and this is an area where I had already planned to put a large focus on. ------------------------------------------ Miscellaneous News Nice to see the young fella getting some recognition for a solid season putting in 14 goals to help Chesterfield race away with the National League title. I'll be keeping a close eye on Freddie over the coming summer as I am strongly considering bringing him into the fold for next season. Tom Hopper made it clear he wants to explore his options when his contract expires next month and I think Freddie could well be a ready made replacement so watch this space. It's not all good news though. I had offered Lewis Montsma a 3 year extension in an attempt to sure up the backline long term. We agreed terms but the FA weren't having it. It's not all bad just yet, he is under contract for the 2023/24 season but a decision will need to be made as to whether we sell him for some cash after a quality season or whether we risk losing him on a free when his contract and current work permit expire this time next year. --------------------------------------------------- Alright, that will do us for now. I feel like it's been a long one. I'll look to wrap the season up with some stats and analysis in the next post ahead of what I anticipate being a rather busy summer. As always, thanks for reading. See you in the next one.

Well here it is, you were promised a special post for the second Head To Head of the save. Enjoy it because it might be the last for awhile with the way things are going this season. --------------------------------------------------- The time had come for us to travel Northwest to take on Chuck and his high flying Fleetwood who came into this game having not lost in their previous 11 fixtures. They have also been top of the league since a 2-0 win away at Bristol Rovers back in early November. Meanwhile we make the trip off the back of that ugly Peterborough defeat also having only managed 1 win in our last 9, safe to say this game couldn’t have come at a worse time for me and my boys. I think at this point the entire country knows that Callum Morton knows how to score goals considering he already had 30 to his name going into the game. It’s not just Morton though, Chucks boys score for fun averaging 1.88 goals per game, only really matched by Bristol Rovers, somewhat surprisingly. They also know how to defend, conceding at a rate of 0.72 goals per game again surprisingly matched by Cheltenham. Throw in a whopping 22 clean sheets for their keeper and it would certainly seem we have our work cut out for us today. Both of our clubs seem to play a variation of a 433 or 4141 and by the looks of things we both look to use our LBs as the more attacking of the two. Look I could keep making comparisons here but ultimately we seem to approach things very similarly. I know they are also looking to play deeper allowing space for the attacking trio to run into. I too had recently opted for the lower block mentality with mixed results but had assumed that with the game being at their place it might naturally draw them out a little more than usual. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Fleetwood players highlighted in Red) First Half 0:27 Ball In & Hopper Penalty Davenport finds Jamie Robson out on the left just past the halfway line who chips one in over the Fleetwood backline for Ted Bishop to run onto who takes a touch and is brought down by Jordan Willis who is subsequently booked for the challenge as the referee awards a penalty. Tom Hopper steps up and drills it down the middle. 1-0 Lincoln! 4:30 Willis smashes a clearance to the halfway line. Lewis Montsma carries the ball all the way into the Fleetwood box before laying it off to an on running Matty Virtue but the Fleetwood keeper is alive to it and saves comfortably. 5:30 Virtue catches Masterson in possession, wins the ball at halfway, lays it off to Virtue who finds Keanan Bennetts in space on the right hand side and sends his attempt from just inside the box flying over the crossbar 11:00 Omochere Cut Back After a spell of lovely Fleetwood possession Mendes Gomes switches the ball to Earl on the left hand side who finds Promise Omochere in the left hand channel before the cutback across the box to the late arriving Josh Vela, but the shot is straight at Lincoln keeper Rushworth. 22:00 Omochere Goal Josh Earl throw in, wayward cross from Omochere is collected by Josh Vela at the far post. Makes his way past Matty Virtue, Mendes Gomes takes the ball to edge of the box and notices a run from Morton in the center of the box who manages to take 3 defenders with him leaving Omochere in acres with just the keeper to beat on the left hand side. GOAL Fleetwood 1 - 1 Lincoln 25:07 Fleetwood freekick, just outside the box. Josh Earl takes from the left hand side and blazes it over harmlessly. 27:34 Bennetts wins the ball from Omochere who goes backwards to Monstma. He gives to Eyoma who sends one long looking for a run from Ted Bishop. Bishop continues his run carrying the ball down the right handle channel to the byline. GIves it back to Eyoma who’s made his way to the edge of the box then squares it to Matty Virtue who is making his way into the box before blasting the ball into orbit. 37:25 Keanan Bennetts Goal Fleetwood free kick from their attacking right, ball into box is picked off and headed away by Lewis Montsma. Danny Mandroiu picks it up on the edge of his own box and carries it across the halfway line. Eyoma in support overlaps and finds himself at the byline down the right. Ball played back inside to Bishop on the edge of the box who dribbles his way into the box and find Bennetts on the penalty spot who volleys the ball low to the keepers right. GOAL Lincoln 2 - 1 Fleetwood Second Half 51:04 Morton Goal Following another lovely display of Fleetwood possession, Muller finds Rooney in space on the right hand side who is allowed to dribble freely to the edge of the box before whipping a ball into Callum Morton on the penalty spot who heads the ball downwards and it bounces past the Lincoln keeper. GOAL Fleetwood 2 - 2 Lincoln. 53:00 Fleetwood ramping up the pressure, ball is passed swiftly and accurately through Lincoln. Masterson begins the play from half way who plays a short ball to Warrington who finds Andrew out on the left. He expertly picks out Promise Omochere in the left hand channel and makes his way to the byline then lifts one into the back post for Vela who’s header is met by the Lincoln keeper. 60:32 Andrew floats a lovely ball into Mendes Gomes at the back post who sends his header clean over the bar. 77:58 Slow patient build up from Fleetwood between the CBs and DM looking to open up a gap in the Lincoln defense. Masterson finds Vela on the halfway line who plays a decisive ball into Callum Morton before he carries it out to the right hand side. Morton gives it off to Lane who makes an underlapping run towards the byline, who dummies and dribbles back inside but the shot doesn't curl back enough and ends up wide of the back post. 86:10 Morton Offside Lincoln corner taken cleanly by Fleetwood keeper who plays the ball to Lane just shy of the halfway line, who pings one over the top of the retreating Lincoln defence for Morton to run onto. He carries the ball into the box and shoots from the right edge of the 6 yard box and puts it in the back of the net before the offside flag goes up. 89:33 Adam Jackson clears a ball long which is picked up by Jordan Garrick on Lincolns left hand side. He carries the ball to the touchline before playing in Jack Diamond on the edge of the Fleetwood box taking it to the byline before playing it back to the on rushing Garrick who sends his attempt high and wide. Full Time Ultimately a fairly even display, we conceded some of the ball as I had planned to but still came away with a similar amount of shots. Fair to say Fleetwood created the better chances as the penalty massively boosts our xG. Defensively we were solid and I’m happy to see that we won more of our tackles and headers. I feel Rushworth let us down with the save attempt on Fleetwoods second equalizer but this is definitely a point gained rather than points dropped. We now head into the final month of the season with a spot in the playoffs still very much a possibility. ------------------------------------------------------------------ I believe that Chuck is going to follow this up with a post sharing a few of his own thoughts, I'll leave it to him to share a league table with you too. As always, thanks for reading!

Cheers Viney! Not too far away from the end of season stuff now!

Here we go again, there’s some good, some bad and some downright ugly. We did get our first youth intake though and I’ll admit I was pleasantly surprised by what it contained. As Chuck mentioned in his own update we had our second H2H matchup of the save and that will receive its own post, for now let's dive back into Lincoln. ———————————–——————— Squad News The injury to Tashan Oakley-Boothe that I mentioned last month seems to have set off some sort of chain reaction as we ended up having 5 players from the 1st Team out all at once. Prompting the game to also inform me of that fact. On a lighter note we’ve had our first youth player receive a professional contract. Bailey Adamson the player in question, but on second glance I am beginning to question the decision making on that one. It's early days yet, we can save the cold heartedness for later in the save. For now we can just wish Bailey all the best and hope there's some money to be made in the future. ———————————–——————— Youth Intake Every FM players favourite time of year, right? This was first Youth Intake of FM23 and was very excited to see what it would contain. Stars don’t mean everything right? At first glance it’s probably safe to assume that there’s no Premier League potential here. To get multiple 1.5 star CA players is actually quite a boost because they aren't that far behind some of the U21 squad that I began the game with. Jamie Rattray jumps out immediately due to his personality, so to does Stavros Neofytou and he's also a Cypriot which earns him bonus points as my birthplace. Liam Rowe while looking somewhat decent will be my first go at the mentoring system on this edition of the game, thankfully we have a couple of very solid mentoring options in Joe Walsh and Adam Jackson. Andy Guy, Connor Thomas, Jason Richards, Ian Harrison, JJ Warren, Paul Murray, Ben Jones and Vaughn Hoole has also all signed youth contracts at the advice of my backroom staff. I wouldn't normally just sign so many youth players willy nilly but most of these guys are all of equal ability to the U18s that I already have and come in at a fraction of the cost, plus we have an U21s team to fill out given the fact that all youth teams now play in competitive competitions and developing our own youth players is something that is expected of us during our tenure at Lincoln City. I want to make a special shout out to @shaunvamos here too as I will absolutely be "borrowing" some of his methods of documenting and tracking youth developments in terms of nationalities produced and where they were born. I also have a couple ideas of my own for tracking the players progress throughout their careers but we can get to that in due time. ———————————–——————— Results It only took us until the 5th Round but we got ourselves another nice premier league away day, the result is also quite impressive despite the absolute battering we took. Wolves had a grand total of 70% possession throughout the 90 minutes and a whopping 27 shots. This visit took our Prize Monies for the season to just shy of half a million pounds. It's hard to tell what we've made in terms of gates as FM's finance screen still isn't quite detailed enough. All in all I'm left massively impressed by our ability to have gone so far in so many cups again this season. Now I just need to convince the board to let me re invest some of that cash back into the club. Overall this was a fairly even game, we conceded slightly more possession to our opponents but would manage twice as many shots. It would seem that we left our shooting boots behind as we just couldn't find a way through the Oxford keeper who had himself quite a game with 7 saves made. At this point we were on a run of 7 consecutive losses after having not lost a game so far this calendar year and something had to change as we slipped into the bottom half of the table for the first time this season. A slight change in system and the floodgates absolutely opened for us on a trip down to the South West. I couldn't believe we amassed 62% possession whilst getting off 27 shots while all playing a low block. Somehow the stars aligned for us and we finally got ourselves a massive 3 points to re-establish ourselves in the top half of the table. Jordan Garrick has been phenomenal at times this season and I am very seriously considering attempting to bring him in permanently when his contract expires at the end of the year. He certainly wasn't somebody I had placed huge expectations on at the start of the save. There's not a lot to say about this one, my game crashed right as the match screen was loading but by the time I got back into the save I was subject to spectating a very ugly loss. ———————————–——————— And that is where I will leave it as the next game in the schedule was the away day at Fleetwood which will get some special attention in the next post. As always, thanks for reading.

Told you it wouldn't be too far away. This one will be short and sweet though. Safe to say it's all gone horribly wrong and the alarm bells are ringing big time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Results Remember how there used to be lots of green and it concerned me? Well that's been replaced with lots and lots of red and I am even more concerned than before. The change in form caught me completely off guard, we very simply dispatched Forest Green in the FA Cup replay despite our struggles against them in the original tie. As you can see we then only had a couple of days to prepare for the arrival of a high flying Bristol Rovers and it's safe to say we got absolutely torn apart conceding 58% of the possession (in a home game of all places). To make matters worse Tashan Oakley-Boothe also suffered a broken wrist in the 75th minute and then the wheels really fell off. When looking back at the schedule it was a pretty tough run of fixtures on its own before you even take into account the lack of rest between games. This is from a squad that had already played 40+ competitive games due to our cup runs and it was clear that fatigue had really set in and as such we plummeted down the table, landing as low as 12th if I recall correctly. Given our expectations for the season that wasn't the end of the world but it did lead me to try out a few different role combinations tactically. A switch to a pressing forward at the top end of the pitch certainly looked to improve our performances but the concerns I had at the beginning of the season about our inability to finish really reared its head in the worst way. We have to thank our goalkeeper and his backline for the fact that we didn't concede many more and I firmly believe we can attribute this to the returns of Lewis Montsma and Joe Walsh, they've been nothing short of remarkable over this run of games. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other News The only other significant news of note this month is that the board agreed to find me a Senior Affiliate, they came back with 4 options which were: Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Southampton and West Ham. Did you think there was ever a chance that I'd select anybody else, please. Despite the £93k a year on offer there's no doubting a whole host of young talent that we can look to bring in to help our chances next season and to be able to do that with the potential of no or low wage demands then why not make the most of it Dane Scarlett anyone? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's about all I've got for you this month, I'll be honest, I wasn't the happiest of chappies while enduring that losing run and it's that time of the season where there isn't much happening elsewhere, but with our first youth intake just around the corner and the fact that we've finally caught up to where we are in real time it sets things up for a pretty bumper post about March so that is where I will leave you and as always thanks for reading. This is where it gets a lot more fun.

I'll get this out of the way early, lowball transfer offers still exist and they're still just as frustrating as they have always been. Oh and players seem to love considering their options now... Anyway, on to the update. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ January Transfer News Well our first transfer window came without too many dramas, one in, none out, despite the aforementioned lowballers. (It's the USA in this instance who are the guilty party). Multiple offers at approximately 1/5th of the player value have been made, in most instances I have been able to shrug them off without upsetting anybody, except Regan Poole that is. Remember how I mentioned it would difficult to hang on to him? Well Aberdeen came in early with another one of those lowball offers but supposedly that was a good enough division for Regan to want to go and test himself, anyway, we deliberate and decide on a realistic valuation (still and excellent get out of jail free card if you were wondering) and now his feathers are much less ruffled. Although he has since decided he is going to consider his options before his contract expires at the end of next season (2023/24). This considering of options has become a massive pain in the rear end for me so far on this save, Regan is the 4th player to announce this to me. TJ Eyoma was also the subject of some of that American flavoured interest but the offers weren't even worth considering letting him go. He's been an ever present performing at a very good level, plus he's a spurs lad and we know how I feel about that. Here's another fine example of that agreed valuation interaction. Sean Roughan is widely considered as a bit of a cash cow (in real life) for Lincoln, there were reports of him having trialled at a couple of Premier League clubs towards the end of the 2021/22 season and that same interest seems to have followed him into the game and so I'm going to assume that there is some sort of real potential there, both in real life and in this save. My staff already consider him as having EFL Championship potential (that staff member has a JCA/PA of 14/14 so I'd consider that fairly accurate). Back to the point though (warned you that I can waffle). There were a couple of Championship clubs to make bids for him during the window but I didn't consider them nearly enough compared to what he'll likely make me in future and this upset Mr Roughan, but we discussed his value and he decided that he is worth an offer of £2.5m. Win, win really. Tottenham is actually a fantastic segue into the incoming player (Professionally done, that). Enter Keanan Bennetts. If memory serves Keanan left the Tottenham academy around a similar time to when Jadon Sancho left for Germany, the link here is that Bennetts also took to Germany but in his case it was a move to Borussia Mönchengladbach. It's probably fair to say he didn't have the best time while in Germany only managing to make 5 first time appearances during the 5 years on their books and there was even a loan back to Ipswich in the middle of it all. Bennetts was available at the start of the save but was asking for something like £10k pw in wages, fast forward to now and those demands had dropped right back to the £2.5k we're now paying him. Pricey still and yes another player in an already bloated AM strata, but, he was 23 at the time of signing and a player who I believe could still be moved on for a profit. Worst case scenario I get a season or so managing a player I'd never had the opportunity to before. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Results If I wasn't concerned about winning too often before then it was really beginning to concern me as this month began, having done the double this season on both Ipswich and MK Dons was hugely unexpected. I don't know if I mentioned this early but we were predicted to finish in 16th at the beginning of the season and clubs like those have proper pedigree at this level. Our winning ways continued in the cups too where we made absolute mince meat out of Man City's kids. The draw on a visit to Forest Green was absolutely less than ideal as our fixture list was really starting to stack up at this point considering we had made some pretty deep runs in all cup competitions along with the rigours of the League One schedule. Thankfully we've managed to nurse everybody back to full health and a pretty steady stream of rotation has enabled me to keep us relatively injury free in general (touch wood). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table I guess this is the moment that everybody has been waiting for. As you can see our mate Chuck is leading the way and has already carved out a nice little lead for himself. The goals scored is impressive, but the face we're both conceding less than a goal a game is something that we'll both be much prouder of. As for us, all my worrying about winning too much currently sees us sitting in the playoffs and I'm comfortable enough with that but I have concerns it will lead the board to upping their expectations quicker than I'd like them too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Youth Intake Just before we wrap things up I thought I'd leave this one here as we received our very first intake preview and this is what Mr Pepper thinks we might be able to find out in our Elite Performance Centre this year. The game is already throwing around words like "Excellent" and "Golden Generation" but let's just wait and see shall we? --------------------------------------------- As always, thanks for reading. February's updates won't be too far away.

Thanks mate! Cheers for following along

Always fascinating hearing you analyse the incomings and how they’ll fit into the plans going forward. Even if the match engine doesn’t always quite represent the idea you had in mind.

Authors Note: Just a reminder that due to our inability to make a decision we had already made some decent progress with this file before deciding to bring it to the forum. In this post I’ll cover off my initial tactical ideas before getting into a pretty quick fire summary of the first few months results. ————————————————————— Tactics Tactical I went into this save with the idea of trying to replicate or at least stick to the a similar approach that Lincoln City have taken in real life. This to me, makes the most sense at the start of a save because that’s what the squad will have been built for. I also wanted to keep things simple due to the fact that this is a multiplayer save and I don’t want to be spending hours and hours doing the research to accurately replicate the style as it will only hold up the progress of the save. I’ll save that long winded stuff for my own blog which is coming a little later on With that in mind though I had a few key positions/roles in mind when it came to laying out the basic shape. Those being a support striker, inverted winger(s) and a late arriving central midfielder. It’s fair to say that we’re lacking when it comes to striking options. There are only a couple of recognised ST on the books and one of those is still a youth player. The squad is rather bloated with players in the AM strata and almost all of them are best suited to the inverted role on the left hand side. We do have one incredibly physically gifted out and out winger in Jordan Garrick who has played himself into the 1st XI and remained there. Depending on what happens in the January window there won’t be too much overhaul in these areas until the end of this initial season. So until then I will just make do as best I can with what’s available. That will do us for now, I’ll do a deeper dive somewhere closer to the new season when I’ve had a chance to do some recruitment of my own. ————————————————————— Results For these first couple of posts this will likely just be a quick summary of things for now but going forward I’ll look to bring more detail. That might be in regards to my tactical approach or just some random musings while I get to grips with the new match engine July There was a preseason tour of Scotland already loaded into the schedule when we launched the save so I just went with it. Plenty of green as you can see but the ultimate goal here was to get some cohesion growing among the team and start to build up match fitness. August Off to a dream start here both in the League and also the domestic cups. The 4-1 victory at Stoke a particular highlight where I tried out the “new” low block for the first time. The main blip here being the loss of our first H2H fixture. I won’t lie, neither of us are particularly big fans of how the ME plays in a H2H (oh the irony). September So far so good, a fairly high scoring affair in Cambridge was decided late on. The Derby game didn’t really come as a huge surprise, FM has no idea of their troubles in real life so ultimately they’re just a team that is far too damn good for League One. October Far from a good day out in Bolton but business as usual elsewhere. Away wins at Ipswich and Barnsley were a good boost especially when coupled with clean sheets. That Barnsley win ensuring us qualification out of our Papa Johns group as winners. November Cup successes all around this month as we progress in all three domestic competitions. The best one coming in the Carabao Cup as we eliminate Middlesbrough who had knocked out Chuck’s Fleetwood side in the previous round. It was at this point where I started to wonder if we might be winning a bit too often in the league though. A weird thought I know but as expressed in the intro post I had no intention of getting promoted too early and up to this point we firmly secured ourselves in the playoff picture at the very least. December A bit less green here thankfully as we only manage the one win from five league fixtures. Our Carabao cup dream comes to an end as we receive a small hiding on a trip to London. The financial benefits are absolutely enormous though as we take in about 600k from the game at Tottenham and we look to extend that number further with the FA Cup second round win which now puts our name in the hat for that prized Premier League away day. ————————————————————— That will be all for now and in the next post I’ll cover any transfer dealings in the coming January window while also catching you up on the next two months of fixtures which will get us caught up to real time. As always, cheers for reading.

What an epic read this has been so far! Your work is always some of my favourite here on the forums but I’m usually far too behind the action to ever comment. Congratulations on the promotion! I look forward to reading how you get on next season! Oh and thanks for the skin! It is absolutely incredible!

Well hey, I'm Chris. Chuck already did the introductions so let's not waste any time. Here's a rundown on my beloved Lincoln City. Lincoln City Football Club Founded: 1884 Ground: LNER Stadium (But it will always be Sincil Bank) Rivals: Grimsby, Scunthorpe History I have a tendency to waffle at times so I'll keep this as brief as I can and to ensure that I will stick to the more recent history. It has been a rather wild ride for Lincoln City over the last 20 years or so with the lowest point surely coming during May of 2002 and who could then forget the 6 dull years that followed down in the National League, but from that point on though there has barely been time to look back. Many will recall that magical FA Cup run from the 2016/17 season which saw City become the first non league side in 100 odd years to make an appearance in the quarter final. Also in that same season the club would finally regain their football league status after being named champions of the National League. More winning followed in the 2017/18 season which saw the club lift the EFL Trophy this time, this would also mark the clubs first Wembley appearance. They also managed an appearance in the promotion playoffs before ultimately losing out to Exeter City. The season after saw no such troubles as Lincoln managed to hold down the top spot on the table for a consecutive 8 months on their way to being crowned League Two champions. The 2019/20 season will always be remembered for the departure of the Cowley's as they made a deserved move up the football ladder for an opportunity at the helm of a Championship club in Huddersfield. Michael Appleton was appointed the replacement manager at Lincoln City. His arrival also brought about some changes, not only in the style of play on the field but also a change in the clubs approach to recruitment/transfers. Sadly this season was then cut short by the arrival of covid leaving Lincoln to finish 15th via a points per game system that left many EFL fans perplexed. The 2020/21 brought back some of the feel good factor from the Cowley seasons when the club made a somewhat unexpected trip to the playoff finals. Unfortunately for them though Blackpool would overturn a 1-0 deficit to beat City 2-1. I say an unexpected finals trip as the 2021/22 season saw Lincoln end up finishing down in 17th position and the departure of Appleton as manager soon followed. Rather timely really as this is where we come in. Facilities/Staff As previously mentioned the club play at what is currently known as the LNER Stadium, you can see that we are blessed with both good training and youth facilities which at this level is no joke and will be a huge help in achieving the objectives that our board and supporters have for us, more on that later though. The famous FA Cup run Lincoln City went on back in 2016/17 season generated a rumoured £1,000,000 and those winnings were put towards building the Elite Performance Centre which gives The Imps a purpose built facility for developing young talents. There is some work to be done in terms of the junior coaching and our youth recruitment but I see those as longer term goals right now as my initial focus will be geared more towards scooping up young released talent before selling them on for a profit. I have no intention of making any changes to the current staff before the end of the initial season with the intention of building a coaching staff only comprising of those who share the same or similar principles to that of my own manager. Preferred formations and tactical similarities will be prioritised over the coaching abilities/attributes. I'm curious to see how much of an impact this sort of thing has on the development of players. Where possible I would very much like to bring in ex players to add that level of experience. If I can bring in ex Lincoln players then that will be even better. Before I dive in here please ignore the fact there is already some green here, we were already a few months into the save before electing to bring it across to the forums here. Club Vision As I already mentioned you can see that one of the boards main objectives is to sign players for a profit, this is something that fans refer to as "The Model" but anybody who knows football at this level knows this is the way that most clubs have to operate just to stay afloat. Lincoln have been making excellent progress in this regard in real life as evidenced by the departures of players such as Tayo Edun, Anthony Scully & Cohen Bramall and in even more recent times it was reported that Regan Poole was mere minutes away from a move to the Championship at transfer deadline day. So as much pain as it will cause me I will absolutely be looking to keep up with this strategy. The new supporter vision rather conveniently aligns with "The Model" via their desire to see the club sign U23s for the first team. You can also see their wish for the development of the clubs own youth players, I'll save my judgement on this area until I've had a chance to get an idea of the quality of player produced in our intakes. If we turn our attention to the competitive side of things it would seem that the board are fairly patient in their expectations, mid-table in this first season followed by a desire for the playoffs in the next season. It isn't until seasons 4 and 5 that the board want us to start working towards promotion to the Championship. This suits me just fine as I have very little interest in getting promoted any earlier than is required. It is well documented that the Championship is notoriously difficult to get out of and also rather expensive which is just not a situation that we can afford to get ourselves into right now. If it takes a few years to go up then so be it, I'll use that time push us towards becoming ever more sustainable. The Squad I'll just come right out and say it, I requested this to be our save this year simply because of my excitement around the squad that Lincoln had been building in the last few years. I felt it had underperformed last season and then with the additions that were made I just had to get my hands on it. There is a good balance of both younger players and more established on the books with a healthy sprinkle of loan players too. I will use this section to focus on a few of the players that I am most excited about and then perhaps we can look at the squad as a whole in a future post. GK - Carl Rushworth Lincoln have been spoiled with some pretty fantastic young goalkeepers in recent years and Carl is the next inline, in on loan from Premier League side Brighton he will prove to be a key component of the strong backline that I hope to build. If things go to plan I will look to extend the loan into a second season but in truth I would expect to see him earn a move to a Championship side next season and as such will likely be left looking for another option. DC - Regan Poole Regan is arguably the best player currently on the books at Lincoln, he spent the vast majority of the 2021/22 season playing out of position at CB due to an injury crisis. Unfortunately for Regan he will once again be called upon to continue deputising as the injuries problems continue on in the early parts of this season. As mentioned earlier Poole was the subject of major transfer speculation in real life and I expect to have a pretty tough battle on my hands trying to keep him at the club. DC - Lewis Montsma Arguably the other best player at the club, sadly a knee injury has kept him on the sideline for a pretty lengthy period at this point and that injury will continue in the early parts of this save game. I have massive plans for Lewis, he's one of my favourite players at the club and I will fight tooth and nail to keep him here for the length of the save provided he can return to a competitive level after recovering from the injury. MC - Tashan Oakley-Boothe Look, rightly or wrongly I'm a Tottenham Hotspur fan and I have been a fan of Oakley-Boothe for many a year after discovering him in the Tottenham youth teams (on Football Manager of course). He's always been a transfer target in my previous saves but have never managed to actually bring him in. Now that doesn't matter because Lincoln did it for me in real life, unfortunately for me though it will likely only be this season on the current loan deal. Depending on how he performs I think his in game reputation will prevent me from making it a longer term appointment. AM - Ted Bishop Bishop is a prime example of the recruitment strategy that Lincoln have moved towards having been purchased from Ipswich towards the end of his contract. Ted is a little older than the normal buy low, sell high target but he remains a player with tremendous ability who has played a good number of games at a Championship level. Injuries have slowed his progress in real life but this season I intend on him being a pretty focal part of my tactical plans due to his ability and positional versatility. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ That about does it for me on this initial post, if you're reading this then thanks for your time. We hope you enjoy following along on our little adventure.

It’s bloody good seeing you back in the fold Mr Aqua and what a fantastic save to do it with!

Unfortunate to slip down the league table, those results in March might well have been what did you in. Another crack at the CL is a good spot to be in. excellent start at the World Cup

Off to another strong start here sir. Things seem to be pretty secure at least domestically. But if interval growth should hopefully see a stronger campaign through the UCL. is Heij still playing WB? With attributes like that I’d expect him to be banging them in all over the place.