Troops

Our European campaign can only be described as disastrous. We lost all six league phase games, we were unlucky in probably every game, but even if we had got what we deserved in those games, the reality is we are a long way from being good enough to compete in this competition & having 2 or 3 points would probably be about as much as we could realistically have hoped for. There is two games left and we can consider ourselves eliminated. The European campaign in truth was disastrous in more ways than one. Getting beaten in Europe every couple of weeks put a big strain on our league form as one defeat in the league either side of a European defeat and suddenly it's three defeats on the bounce. A 5 game winless streak in September cost us any chance of defending our title, we were a little bit unlucky with injuries but once again this is a side effect of playing twice a week. So we ended up in 3rd place, which I'm more than happy with, we actually only lost 3 league games all season and Viking took 26/30 points available in their last ten games. We would have had to win our last ten straight to have won the title. As the season drew to a close the job offers/interviews came thick and fast. I probably attended over a dozen interviews, obviously some jobs were more appealing than others and I was able to experiment a bit in some of the interviews that I felt were less likely to result in me taking the job. I demanded coaching badges or youth recruitment improvements just to see how the board reacted. Sadly I can't report any patterns, some agreed to my demands & some didn't. I haven't really played this journeyman with any narrative in mind, although I have considered what seems 'realistic' here. I went to interviews at teams in the lower reaches of Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 as well as interviews at a couple of 2nd tier teams in Germany, France & Portugal. In truth I'm not sure my record warrants the amount of interest in my services that was being shown. My reputation is currently 3 stars and in terms of overperformance I can point to the promotion with Vianense at the start of the save and certainly the title with Kristiansund in the previous season but after that the promotion/championship with SJK and 3rd place with Kristiansund this season I could only describe as 'expected', whereas this seasons Europa league campaign was abject. So I have decided to accept the FC Nordsjælland job, it feels realistic to me that a fellow Scandanavian country/club would recognise my work at Kristiansund and give me an opportunity to step up to a slightly bigger club/league rather than find myself making a big jump to the likes of Werder Bremen or Nantes who had approached me. I also like the idea that my reputation is such that when I walk through the door in FC Nordsjælland the players won't immediately hate me. Updates may have made changes to the squad dynamics but the early times at Vianense felt like hard work at times and I flirted with totally losing the dressing room more than I would have liked so this feels like a sensible step forward in my career. The previous manager moved on to AZ Alkmaar, so I'm not stepping into a crisis, we are well placed in the league and expectations seem reasonable. The other thing I considered was the finances. If you've been following the updates you know it's something I like to keep an eye on and whilst it's hard to know what kind of debt clubs have before you take the reigns in a new role, there is a few indicators to provide a guide. The clubs has a healthy £10million balance albeit some outstanding debt which currently amounts to about £8million. There is a slight overspend on the wage budget but I can absolutely work with these figures.

European football has proved to be a tough ask for this squad. There isn't huge depth to the squad and the increase in games obviously requires squad players to be able to come in and cover for any injuries or fitness issues. That said, we have had a brave Champions League run, we battled hard to get to the point where we were one result away from the Champions League proper, unfortunately we fell at the final hurdle. We could have been in for some real hammerings had we made it but the pay day makes it worthwhile. As a result of those early qualifying round wins though it means we fall straight into the Europa League and this looks like a particularly hard set of fixtures. We have suffered a bit domestically as well, if anything we have probably been a bit lucky in the league and find ourselves with a +9 points difference in the xg table. Defeat at home to Brann last time out though probably ends our title challenge for this season. 5 points adrift with 10 games to go isn't insurmountable but with those European fixtures thrown in we will inevitably have to rotate and again, we just don't have the depth for that. I'll be delighted with a top four finish and European football again next season although having attracted a few job interview offers (which I have declined) there is increasing interest in my services and once our European run for this season is over it might be the right time to think about moving on.

Our title defence is well underway and things are going pretty much as I expected them too this season. We did strengthen a little bit in the window but it wasn't wholesale change, there was a handful of new signings and a further one or two have stepped up from the youth/reserve squad. We only took 2 points from our opening 3 games but since then we have recovered by winning 5 of the next 7, that leaves us in 4th place only 2 points off the top. Once again it's a tight league, despite having what I consider to be a slightly better squad than last season I expect it to be harder to win this season. I think a few of our rivals have spent big to strengthen and we will also have those early European rounds to negotiate which fall for us in the later stages of the season, this will put big pressure on a small squad. We can certainly make an argument that we are massively overperforming given our budget restrictions. Molde with a wage budget 13x bigger than ours! One of our new signings is a familiar face from my time at SJK as Mulsim Ryzhov joins us in a club record transfer fee of £475k, despite the fee I think we got a bargain as he can still improve considerably and there is a strong likelihood the club can make a profit on him if and when he moves on. He's already a full international and I'm surprised bigger clubs weren't interested in his services.

Another thing I have stumbled across recently is the inability of AI managers to, well, manage. It's always been the case that the AI concentrates it's efforts on the league that you are managing in and to a certain degree neglects the other leagues you have loaded. To some extent I understand this but I was under the impression that AI managers were going to be better in this version of FM but I'm just not seeing it. It's maybe something for another post but I think a move to a new league sometimes catches the AI by surprise and enables overperformance (relatively). Here's an example. I noticed Molde signing a lot of players in the last window, players whose names were vaguely familiar like Bielik, and players I would have thought unlikely to sign for Molde, so I took at their squad. They are one of the strongest teams in Norway and were our closest challengers for the title last season. We can see here that they have 10 players unregistered! The reason they are selected here is that Molde have just played a cup game. But those ten players are ineligible for league games! Not only that they are paying them about £120k/week in total. That's twice our total wage budget on players that can't play. Not one of them is unhappy about it. Martin, the guy on loan, not only are they paying him £12,500/week to not play, they are paying £40k/week loan fee. It's a massively bloated squad for a 30 game season and this can only be described as gross mismanagement. For comparison purposes, here's the Blackpool squad. They have just signed one of my players (he will join them in the next transfer window) and when I looked at their squad I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The squad consists of only 18 players. Two of them can't play as they don't have a work permit. The guy they have signed from me is Norwegian, so he needs a work permit, his work permit was refused but they signed him anyway, the message stated they would allocate him one of their 2 ESC work permit places. Since they agreed to sign him though they have signed Molina and allocated him that place, so when he joins them in June he can't play because he won't have a work permit. They have 16 players for a 46 game season. I can only describe this as, you guessed it, gross mismanagement. The AI has to manage hundreds of squads, therefore it's clear that this creates a headache in terms of managing them effectively. I haven't looked around at squads and picked out the worst examples. These are just two squads I happened to glance at and therefore if this is replicated across the database it causes me a few concerns. My main concern would be that it makes my life easier or perhaps even too easy? Even if AI managers in game tactics and changes are improved they are potentially still massively hamstrung by a squad totally unfit for purpose.

For some time now I have had a niggling thought in the back of my mind about player happiness/interactions. Every now and again when things are going quite well and have been doing for some time the game seems to throw a curve ball at you. The kind of thing that doesn't really make a lot of sense and almost seems designed to test you in some way and potentially cause a bit of unrest. My first choice striker just came to me. He played 26 times last season scoring 16 goals at an average rating of 7.23. As far as I am concerned he is a guaranteed starter when fit and unlikely to be replaced anytime soon. His information page suggests we are 'very close', he 'holds me in the highest regard as a manager' and I am one of his favoured personnel. He is currently injured and likely to be out for 3 months. For some reason he now thinks we lack depth in the goalkeeper department and wants to talk to me about it. I explain to him I'm happy with my squad and we don't need another goalkeeper. He goes on to say that he thinks I might not be the right manager for the job. He is now unhappy. Which is it mate? Do you hold me in the highest regard or am I not the right man for the job? I know I'm going beyond the scope of the chat options here but surely it can't be both. For context; 1. We have exactly the same goalkeepers in the squad as all of last season. 2. Our first choice goalkeeper didn't pick up a single injury last season, he played all 30 league games, conceding only 31 goals at an average rating of 6.97. He's a solid keeper and he had a solid season. 3. We haven't even kicked a ball since we won the title. 4. There is only a 25 man first team squad. How many keepers does he think we need. Including reserves and youth players we have 7 keepers across the whole squad. If anything that might be too many for a team with our budget constraints. One thing that my usual player interaction style results in, is a high level of discipline attribute. My level of discipline is currently 19. What does he expect is going to happen. Very limited knowledge of how I usually deal with this kind of issue would answer the question for him in no uncertain terms (isn't this what a high level of discipline attribute indicates). So he is of course no longer in that 25 man first team squad, he is transfer listed and in the reserve squad. He's dead to me now. There's two other players supporting him, needless to say they both are very close and hold me in the highest regard too. I can't see them lasting long whilst they support him. The weird thing is that at the time we only had one LWB in the first team squad, if he'd have complained about that I would have agreed with him and reassured him I was in the process of recruiting another. Because that's exactly what I was doing.

We were unable to overcome Strømsgodset in the cup semi final. Despite being the better side in general play we wasted a lot of chances with wayward shooting. Our first choice striker was injured for the game and this perhaps made the difference. They took a lot of long range shots and both goals came via deflections from a shot outside the box, the first was a free kick that wrong footed the keeper after the deflection and the second took a couple of deflections through a crowd of players after a clearance from a corner. We did get a consolation and put them under heavy pressure at the end but we couldn't find the equalizer. We continued our great form in the league though and incredibly went on to win the title! I think we are far from the best team in Norway but I do think we are one of a number of teams at a similar level & it was our consistent form all season that enabled us to come out on top. Despite a few draws we only lost one league game in the second half of the season and the inconsistency of the teams around us enabled us to get over the line. Despite being 7 points clear in the end we still finished the season with 7 points less than last years title winners. It great to finally qualify for Europe albeit we will have an uphill task to reach the league phase of the Champions League. Obviously the financial reward of reaching the league phase is massive for a club of this stature but we enter the competition in the second qualifying round and therefore would have to make it through 3 qualifying rounds against other league champions from around Europe. The reality is that this seems unlikely, last years champions of Norway Vålerenga were eliminated at the first time of asking against the Hungarian Champions this season. Given that they have been pretty poor in the league this season though and they still managed to qualify for the league phase of the Europa league I'd hope to emulate that kind of performance level in Europe. There's an 8 month wait now though as it's (obviously) next seasons competition we have qualified for and the preliminary rounds don't kick off until mid June. The upside is there is a bit of time to strengthen the squad!

It's been a really enjoyable first half of the season at Kristiansund. It's nice not to have financial struggles to contend with for the first time in this save & despite that outstanding loan I'm confident of turning a profit in the transfer market both in the short term as well as in the long term. As is almost always going to be the case when managing all but the elite clubs we are a selling club, therefore identifying talent that ultimately we sell on for a profit will be something that I will always have to consider when recruiting. That said, all the players I recruited for this season were fairly experienced, with only one exception. The main reason for this is my limited knowledge of Norwegian players, I needed to sign players I knew were capable of doing a job in the first team and therefore it was players I had a good knowledge of. There is fairly stringent rules around foreign players in Norway with a maximum of 9 non-homegrown players allowed in the squad. One of my first jobs then is to get as many scouts on board as possible and start identifying homegrown talent. Obviously an enjoyable season thus far is partly due to the results and with the exception of a 4-0 reverse to Viking early in the season where we thoroughly outplayed we have been competitive in every game so far this season. We currently lie 4th in the league, only 3 points off top but it's very tight as only 12 points separate the top 10 clubs. We have also negotiated our way to the semi final of the cup. This has been no mean feat as 4 of our 5 games have been away from home, we've beaten 2 fellow top division teams along the way including Odds away from home and haven't really had an 'easy' draw at any stage as all our other games have been against 2nd tier sides. It's no easier from here on in as I suppose is bound to be the case in the semi-final but we have drawn 3rd placed Strømsgodset (away from home of course). Whilst technically we are in the title race my realistic aims are European qualification, this requires us to finish top 3 or win the cup unless we finish 4th and the cup winner finishes above us in the league. It's still a tough ask but as long as I keep Morale up and don't have to deal with any player unrest I think it is very achievable.

There has been quite a lot of significant developments. As far as my experience of Football Manager goes over the last few years I'd say unexpected developments too. There I was doggedly preparing for a top flight campaign in Finland with SJK when out of the blue I was approached by Kristiansund in Norway. Apparently they were very impressed with my performance at SJK and wanted to interview me for the vacant managers position. I was fairly happy to stay at SJK as I felt the close season was going well and that we could challenge for the top 3 or 4 places in the league in the coming season. The Kristiansund board told me they had reservations but I attended the interview and had a nosey round the club. They are a top flight outfit that actually played European football this season albeit they failed to qualify this season for next seasons European competitions, they looked to have solid finances and all in all seemed a well run club, The interview was one of those where most of the questions seemed to be focussed on the negative i.e. previous failure to control players/previous dressing room atmosphere etc.. & this just reinforced my belief that I wouldn't really be in the running. Of course you guessed it they offered me the job. I really did think long and hard about this one as it feels a fairly small step up and leaving a squad I know well that had a really good atmosphere felt risky. In the end I decided to take the job though as I felt this team has more potential in the long term. First impressions are good, the players here are better than I expected in comparison to SJK albeit there is some imbalance positionally which I am in the process of addressing. It's close season here and once again Norway is a summer season so there is a bit of time to get things straightened out. When I looked at the finances though I was in for a shock. The £3.2million balance that was part of what persuaded me to move was mainly due to a recent £10million loan that the club has taken out. There was a couple of older players on big contracts that I felt needed offloading and for the first time I used an intermediary to try and offload said players, within a couple of weeks they were gone and straight away the wage structure feels better, there was no inroads made into the debt, that was to come later. There is one or two good young players here, one in particular looks very decent. Man City made a derisory offer for him which I rejected. He was upset and wanted to discuss the matter so I agreed I would let him go if they came in with an offer of £6.5million. No sooner had he left my office & Pep was on the phone with a £6.5million offer along with a season long loan with a 0% wage contribution. I don't think a club has ever met a player valuation I've agreed with the player before, never mind do so straight away. Admittedly the game now values him at £36m-£56m and this implies I let him go too cheaply but I'm happy with this deal, we keep his services for a season & any debt worries have been postponed for years.

It's fair to say the bookies had us down as favourites for the title this season. Given every other team in this league is Semi-Professional it would be a failure of epic proportions not to get this team promoted at what is really the first time of asking. I'm still slightly disappointed I wasn't able to pull it off last season but realistically it's more of an indictment of the previous manager that he had got the team into a position where 6/7 straight wins at the end of the season was required. And as expected we have absolutely dominated the league. Twenty games into the season and we are a massive 19 points clear of our closest rivals, having dropped only 4 points all season and averaging over 3 goals/game. The league splits after 22 games and the top 6 fight it out for promotion by playing each other again once more. As such there is 7 games to go this season and we are on the verge of securing promotion before the split even takes place. One or two of our better players have wanted to move to a bigger club and as long as the price was right I haven't stood in their way, obviously I'm hoping to strengthen for next season and I feel I can replace them with better players once we are a top flight club again. Also, our dominance in the league is such that I can let them go without replacing them in the short term as we are so much better than our closest rivals that even if it did result in a dip in form the points cushion is sufficient that we would still cruise to the title. It also helps with the finances as those sales have enabled me to keep the club in the black. Hopefully we will be in a much stronger position financially next season. We also had a little bit of a run in the cup and when we went in 1-0 up at half time in the quarter final against HJK (the current champions of Finland we beat 1-0 in pre-season) I was dreaming of cup glory. In addition it would have given us a back door entry into Europe which would have been a key achievement. Unfortunately we couldn't hold on and they eventually ran out fairly comfortable 3-1 winners. Given the summer season in Finland, Europe feels an extra season away as even is we qualify next season (2028) we won't actually enter the competition until the 29/30 season.

We are a month away from the season opener but pre-season for us involves competing in the First Division Cup, as it says on the tin this is a cup restricted to teams in our division. As you can see it's been a good start for us and hopefully this is a good sign for the season ahead as despite a bit of a scare in the group stage we go on and lift the trophy, securing the second silverware of the save to add the the Portuguese Liga 3 title all the way back in 24/25. Notice in there a deserved 1-0 win in a friendly against current champions of Finland HJK. I did tweak the tactic, although I'm not totally happy with it as yet. As you can see I have dropped the BWM into the DM position. I'm hoping to see us defend mostly in a 4-2-3-1 shape with the BBM dropping in alongside the BWM to make up the 2 in the DM position but when we are attacking I'm hoping to see us in a kind of 2-3-4-1 shape with the BWM moving central as the CWB's move up either side of him and the BBM joins the attack in an AM position. I'm not sure this is working quite how I would like at the moment but it probably needs time for the players to adjust. The main problem is we do look asymmetrical in our build up as the BWM tends to stay towards the left hand side of the pitch, my concern is that not only do we build up with a bias to the left hand side as a result but it also makes me think we might be vulnerable down our right when we lose possession, as such I will be keeping an eye on where we concede goals/chances to see if this materialises. I'm reluctant to move the BWM central in case he then interferes with the BBM. Finances remain problematic in the short term as half of our £500k balance has been depleted in the first three months, hopefully as the season gets going we will get a bit more match day revenue to slow down the losses. Players have a little bit more value here than in Portugal so there is always the possibility of a sale or two along the way to keep the balance topped up. We do have one player in particular who looks like he could soon become way too good for us if he continues to improve as he is doing. Young Muslim Ryzhov who is currently training and playing in that BWM role could have a bright future.

Interesting move. Keen to see how it goes. Apologies if I've missed this but which leagues do you have loaded?

Not once but twice did I manage to blow our promotion chances. Had we beaten HIFK Fotboll in the Promotion Group Stage we would have been promoted as champions, as it turned out we had to settle for a playoff spot where we managed to get eliminated by SalPa Salo 4-3, this was despite being 2-0 & 3-2 up. Therefore, it's another season in the Ykkönen & I think we should be aiming to secure promotion by winning the league next season. There's another close season to navigate where I will be shopping again in the free transfer market, I do have a transfer budget of £1.5million but spending this is not an option as the club only has a balance of just under £0.5million and most of this will be swallowed up over the course of the season with the wage budget. The wage budget is a little bit misleading as there seems to be a first team, a reserve team, an U20's team & a 3rd team. Any players in the 3rd team squad don't have there wage considered as part of the 1st team squad budget. It's a good place to store those surplus to requirements players but it feels a bit cheesy, albeit this is what the previous manager was doing! I have and will no doubt continue to tweak the tactic as I think we were way too open at the back with the existing tactic, the GK put in a solid 6.1 in that 4-3 defeat saving only 1 of 5 shots on target. That said we had an inferior xg to them so I can't bemoan the result too much and therefore I think we need to be a bit more responsible defensively. Our key player is the AM who now wants to leave due to the club being relegated (not sure how that happened given we weren't relegated), if he does leave there is no ready replacement so this will probably dictate how we adjust tactically for next season.

Good luck. I'm sure a manager with more ability than myself can make a success out of it.

It's certainly been a period of unexpected developments. As we approached the end of the season with Vianense all the players who had initially expressed intentions to consider their options decided to stay at the club, all except one of them even took a pay cut to do so. Given all the factors that I have mentioned previously, I decided to extend my stay at Vianense, I felt with those players staying and some decent recruitment I could have another good season here. As the summer progressed I felt recruitment was going okay, however there were also some negative developments. There was a board takeover. The new board didn't invest in the club, there was a loan taken out and the debts were paid off. The transfer budget remained at £0 and the wage bill was cut again albeit by a small amount. As a result I was unable to sign any of my backroom team to extended contracts and had to replace them all with inferior alternatives. They were recruited on the cheap as it was, so you can imagine the quality of the replacements. Basically, if you were prepared to work for peanuts you had a job offer. My final signing of the season was about to take us over the wage budget restrictions by about £200/week and the board intervened and cancelled the transfer. There had actually been a bit of interest in one or two of our players so I was confident I could balance the books by the end of the window but the board didn't even discuss the matter with me. And finally, I approached the board for a coaching course. This was refused, we had a discussion about the matter and I tried every chat option to convince them, they didn't budge & I tried the final option of threatening to leave. My bluff was called, except it wasn't a bluff & I was on the next flight home. Luckily, I was destined not to be out of work for long as I took the managerial position at Seinäjoen Jalkapallokerho (SJK) in the Finnish 2nd tier. This is a club actually in the promotion picture as it's a summer season in Finland & there is only 3 games to go before the end of the season and playoffs. We are mathematically certain of a playoff place & extremely unlikely to secure automatic promotion. One thing I insisted on in the interview was a coaching course! This could be considered a step backwards but I think this team has more potential than Vianense, they are previous champions of Finland with a decent ground and facilities. Finances are in an okay state, there is no debt but I think we need to get back to the top tier either this season or next if they are to remain that way long term. Also, I don't recall managing in Finland before. Squad dynamics start positive with good cohesion and dressing room atmosphere, only a few players oppose me too so I'm hopeful of making a quick positive start and maybe even get promoted at the first time of asking. A quick look at the team comparison and we are superior to the other teams in the league in 21 attribute areas! It's a change of tactical approach from me then as two of the areas we aren't superior in are crossing and heading. There will be similarities, I want to press high up the pitch & win the ball back early but we will be looking to dominate possession, play attacking football & work the ball into the box.

I'm torn about what I should do now. I find myself out of contract in a month. I have been unable to secure any further coaching qualifications and my reputation is still 1.5 stars, therefore it seems unlikely I will get a better job than the job I have. There's a lot of work to be done this close season given the amount of first team players who have decided to leave & I think replacing them with players of at least equal quality will be difficult given our budget. That's right, as I suspected, the board have slashed my wage budget by half. Our budget is currently, with the exception of one other team, half the next lowest in the league and a fraction of most of the other teams. I wouldn't mind if there was a light at the end of the tunnel as far as finances go but there really isn't, it's only going to get worse. Currently, I feel as though I should leave Vianense, even if this results in me getting a job that initially appears inferior to the one I have. There are of course plenty of reasons to stay, not least the fact the job hunt will be difficult, there are a couple of decent young players here I'd like to see develop but I've been here two and a half years now & I feel a journeyman would move on at this point.....