brod_104

OK, so now that I've caught up in-game, I can use a similar format to what I ended up doing with my St-Étienne updates, and give updates at slightly more regular intervals. First up: July 2024 The summer transfer window is now a month old, and I think I'm almost done in terms of business. I've already given some details of this, but to summarise, 21 players were released at the end of their contract, the most notable being veteran left-back Phillipp Steinhart, midfielder Niklas Tarnat, winger Tarsis Bonga, young goalkeeper Julius Schmid and target man Fynn Lakenmacher. Also leaving the club, for a combined total of £750k, were forwards Valmir Sulejmani (Dynamo Dresden) and Joël Zwarts (Osnabrück) and attaking midfielders Morris Schröter (Regensburg), Manfred Starke (Paços de Ferreira) and Eroll Zejnullahu (Erfurt). 14 players have joined the club, 11 of which were free transfers. The first four of those free signings were released by top-flight clubs: Aaron Riedel (Union Berlin), Raoul Petak and Karim Dhouib (Bayer Leverkusen) and Luca Janosch (RB Leipzig). They were joined on 1 July by Nathaniel Nwosu (Water FC [NGA]), Mustapha Lawal (Sunshine Stars) and Juan Alano (formerly of Gamba Osaka). Patryck Lanza then joined on loan from São Paulo, before four more free transfers were eventually secured: Frank Ronstadt (ex-Darmstadt), attacking midfielder Matija Marsenic (ex-Leverkusen), Chilean midfielder Bryan Soto (ex-Colo Colo) and Dutch midfielder Tom van de Looi (ex-Brescia). Marsenic would then go out on loan to Jedinstvo in his home country of Montenegro. There were then two more arrivals before our first league game of the season: Ivorian centre-back Ismaïla Sanogo joined from AFAD Plateau in Côte d'Ivoire for £215k, and German midfielder Samuele di Benedetto arrived on loan from Stuttgart. We then kicked off our 2.Bundesliga campaign, a Friday night game away at Greuther Fürth. This was a little bit of a grudge match for me, as they had beaten us to two signings during the window. Happily, we were able to secure a well-deserved 3-1 win, courtesy of an opening goal from Fabian Greilinger, followed by first ever goals for right-back Kaan Kurt and debutant Petak. The first round of the cup has also been drawn and we have been drawn at home as one of the teams from the lower half of the draw, and we've been given a winnable tie against fellow 2.Bundesliga side Wehen Wiesbaden, which will be played in August.

Two weeks into the transfer window so far, and a mixed bag so far... We have successfully offloaded three more players who either hadn't played much last season (Joël Zwarts, Eroll Zejnullahu) or I didn't think were likely to play as much in the coming season (Manfred Starke). Some of these were slightly cut-price due to their contracts also only having 12 months left to run, but we've managed to bring in a further £400k in transfer fees on these three. I still haven't paid any transfer fees either, so we've made a net profit of £750k so far this summer. On the downside, we've had four potential players, who would have been big upgrades to the squad, and all available on free transfers, all turn us down. Chilean international defensive midfielder Ignacio Saavedra and attacking midfielder Theo Zidane (yes, one of Zinedine's sons) both opted to join Greuther Fürth. Norway-born Philippines international full-back Simen Lyngbø signed for Hamburg, and German centre-back Jakob Lewald opted for a higher wage at Sandhausen. To complete the good-news-bad-news sandwich though, we have made two more signings, both at full back. Brazilian Patryck Lanza has joined on loan from São Paulo to compete with Franke, and Ghanaian Frank Ronstadt has signed on a free transfer to cover the right-hand side along with Kurt. I've got another 5 contracts currently being considered by other midfielders (although my current top target, Mexican international Jonathan González, also has offers from top-flight clubs, so I suspect that one won't go through).

With the mutiny avoided, and new signings settling in, if our form in the first half of the season was good, the second half was even better, dropping only 5 points in our final 18 games after Christmas: As the season went on, Arminia and RW Essen gradually faded, with Sandhausen, Dynamo Dresden and Viktoria Köln emerging as the other promotion contenders. In the end though, we proved to be too strong for the rest of the league, with promotion sealed with a 4-0 thumping of Viktoria Köln, and although we lost to Regensburg the following week, a win over Saarbrücken secured the title. Over the course of the remaining 5 four games, we also went on to set various league and club records, including most wins (30), goals scored (94) and points won (also 94). Lautaro Fedele was voted as the signing of the season thanks to his return of 16 goals in 17 appearances, while Julian Guttau was winner of the Player of the Year award. The rebuild for 2024-25 in 2.Bundesliga has already begun, starting with expired contracts: Steinhart, Tarnat and Lakenmacher have all been released, along with Tarsis Bonga (who was a new signing in real life, but never got a game for me) and third-choice keeper Julius Schmid. A further 16 players were also released from the youth and second teams, as they were never going to be good enough for the third tier, never mind the second tier. In addition, we've actually made some honest to goodness cash sales, with Valmir Sulejmani joining Dynamo Dresden for £52k, and Morris Schröter (who never got over that sulk before Christmas) leaving for Regensburg for £300k. The funds generated from these sales, and what transfer budget we have been given, have all been pumped into the wage budget, and arrivals so far have all been free transfers. Four players were youth players released by Bundesliga clubs in the form of midfielder Aaron Riedel (Union Berlin), striker Raoul Petak and left-back Karim Dhouib (both Leverkusen) and goalkeeper Luka Janosch (RB Leipzig). With no EU-player restrictions to worry about, I've also brought in two promising Nigerian goalkeepers on free transfers, Nathaniel Nwosu and Mustapha Lawal, and a Brazilian attacking midfielder, 27-year-old Juan Alano, formerly of Gamba Osaka. I'm currently still looking for some reinforcements in central midfield to replace the departed loanees and released Tarnat, as well as the transfer listed Frey, and I'll also be looking for a right-back to compete with Kaan Kurt, At the time of writing though, the transfer window has only just opened on 1 July, so there's plenty of time before the season starts!

As the team progressed through the first half of the season, as you can see from the results below, our form was excellent, and despite a media prediction for a mid-table finish, we found ourselves in a promotion race alongside Regensberg, Arminia Bielefeld and RW Essen. We also caused an upset in the first round of the cup, knocking out top-flight Werder Bremen, before unluckily losing to Köln in a 5-3 thriller. Goals were generally fairly free-flowing, although there were a couple of spells were they briefly dried up in October and December, Other highlights included a 4-1 win over rivals Unterhaching and wins against promotion rivals Regensberg and RW Essen. By the end of December, Guttau was top scorer with 11, while Vrenezi, Starke and Knöferl had scored 7 each. As the January transfer window rolled around, Lautaro Fedele finally arrived, and I realised I'd missed something in the scout report - he was only 5'5 (roughly 165cm)! He struggled in his first two games, with 6.3 and 6.1 ratings seeing him dropped as I worried that I'd picked up a dud. From February onwards though, he was a machine, scoring 7 goals in four games in February, and finishing off the season with 7 goals across his last 4 games of the season to finish as my top scorer on 16 goals, all in the league, and joint 6th in the league scoring charts (and of the 5 players ahead of him, three of those were tied on 17, and the other two only got 21 and 20). There were further transfers. Kosovan Eroll Zejnullahu left on loan to Drita in his home country with an option to buy (which did not get taken up...). Meanwhile, with contracts expiring in the summer, veteran midfielder Tim Rieder agreed to join Volendam in the Netherlands and youngster Mansour Ouro-Tagba agreed to join Wehen Wiesbaden - these were both on free pre-contracts, but I was able to negotiate immediate transfers for £10k each (admittedly not big fees, and perhaps a little under their market value, but better than nothing). The departure of Rieder meant that I was again light in midfield and, to be honest, Tarnat and Frey hadn't really done anything to convince me that they deserved a regular spot. I therefore brought in two loans for the defensive midfield spots: Joseph Nduquidi from Metz and Julian Brandes from Ajax. Both would go on to play a key role in the remainder of the season, relegating the more senior midfielders to the bench. I did have one falling out with the squad towards the end of November, when Morris Schröter complained about not playing enough - he was my second-choice right-winger, with Vrenezi my first choice for cutting inside. My initial plan had been to sell him when the transfer window opened, but then the rest of the squad also complained that I should play him more. I was starting to worry that this would destroy morale and sabotage our season, so reluctantly agreed, annoyed that I would have to drop one of Vrenezi, Guttau or Starke, who were all in form. The choice was made for me though, as an injury to Vrenezi meant he would miss the whole of December, which opened up an opportunity for Schröter - which annoyingly he took, with several goals and assists over the next few games...

When playing Football Manager in the past, I've generally always done the same thing. With the exception of FM08 when I did a save with Palermo, I've always tended to focus on a save with my favourite club, Liverpool. Last year I decided to mix it up a bit and try someone else, and my project ended up being a save with St-Étienne, starting in Ligue 2 with the aim of getting them back into Europe. Over the course of a 4-season save, it was pretty successful - we were promoted in the first season, qualified for the Europa Conference League in the second season, won the Conference League in the third season, and then qualified for the Champions League in the fourth year. I did start a second project on FM23 as well, this time with 1860 München, but didn't get very far before FM24 came around. After upgrading to FM24, I decided to restart my 1860 save. I wasn't planning on doing a Career Update this time, but I've been enjoying this save again, so thought I'd share how it's going. First, why 1860 München? The main reason is that when I first started getting into football management games in the form of Championship Manager 00/01, 1860 seemed to be one of the bigger clubs in Germany, at least in game, regularly qualifying for Europe. I'd seen that they had struggled in recent years though, getting relegated to the fourth tier of German football after going bust in 2017, and struggling to get out of the third tier for the past 5 or 6 years. In actual fact, after doing some further research, it seems like the 10 or so years falling either side of the turn of the millennium was actually the club's most successful period since the 1960s (when they won their one and only Bundesliga title), and they'd otherwise been bouncing around between the second tier and regional leagues... Either way, I've decided to stick with it, and see if I can get the blue-and-white half of Munich back into the top flight, and maybe Europe. In my brief FM23 save, I'd built up a little bit of knowledge, but was saddened to see that 3 or 4 of the key players from that save had moved on in the summer, including Leandro Morgalla (a very promising teenage centre-back who's joined RB Salzburg), Erik Tallig (who became a key attacking midfielder for me, but left on a free transfer) and Montenegrin striker Meris Skenderovic (who was a goal machine for me, but joined divisional rivals Hallescher in the summer). There were some familiar faces though, with key players including goalkeeper Marco Hiller, Dutch centre-back Jesper Verlaat, and Kosovan winger Albion Vrenezi. Add to that summer arrivals in the form of attacking midfielders Julian Guttau and Namibian international Manfred Starke, and there were some decent foundations. Playing in Real World mode, there were still players to come too, with centre-back Leroy Kwadwo, midfielder Niklas Tarnat and forward Joël Zwarts. Unfortunately, there was still a gap at left-back, where the only real option in the senior squad was 30-year-old Phillipp Steinhart, who was unfortunately injured and would miss the start of the season. I also felt we were light in central midfield, with only Tarnat, Tim Rieder and Marlon Frey as natural options for the suggested 4-2-3-1 formation. I therefore two additional signings on free-transfers, 27-year-old Dominik Franke to come in at left-back, and 24-year-old Ghanian midfielder Nunoo Sarpei to provide an additional option in midfield. This meant my main senior squad for the start of the season consisted of: Marco Hiller as first-choice keeper, with David Richter and Julius Schmid as back-up Kaan Kurt and on-loan Kilian Ludewig as right-back options Jesper Verlaat partnered with either Leroy Kwadwo or youngster Niklas Lang at centre-back, with Michael Glück as extra cover Dominik Franke and Phillipp Steinhart at left-back Tim Rieder, Nunoo Sarpei, Marlon Frey and Niklas Tarnat as defensive midfielders Morris Schröter, Albion Vrenezi, Fabian Greilinger, Milos Cocic, Julian Guttau, Manfred Starke and Eroll Zejnullahu as attacking midfield/wingers, with Devin Sür as a youth back-up Valmir Sulejmani, Fynn Lakenmacher, Joël Zwarts and Lorenz Knöferl as forwards. There were a handful of other players around the senior squad as well, but were never really in my thoughts as they weren't any better than the players listed above. As it turns out, none of my strikers were particularly great in the system I wanted to play either. Zwarts did score a hat-trick on his first start, but that and one goal from Knöferl the only goals scored by any of my nominated centre-forwards in the first 14 games of the season by the end of October. Knöferl did improve as the season went on, but we were carried by our attacking midfielders in that time, especially Starke and Guttau. I wouldn't have minded if the forwards were getting assists, but they weren't even doing that, regularly getting a 6.2 or 6.3 rating whilst everyone else was getting 7+. Fortunately, despite only having a scouting range of neighbouring leagues (not even Germany as a whole...) one of my scouts was able to suggest a 22-year-old striker playing for Defensa y Justicia in Argentina, Lautaro Fedele - I assume this was from prior knowledge as it was already quite extensive - and the report claimed that he would be a 4.5 star option in the squad. He would also be available as a free transfer for the January transfer window, and was keen to move, so I quickly confirmed his signing, and prayed my midfielders would continue to fire until then...

OK, so it's been a while - I haven't been able to play FM quite as much over the past month or so, but I've finally managed to get to the end of the 2025/26 season. Here's how the rest of the campaign went: February 2026 February was a dreadful month. No goals and only one point from four three league games, and a disappointing exit from the domestic cup against Lille. I guess a draw with Marseille and defeat against PSG might be expected, but the Lorient game was very poor. I was also disappointed to go out of the cup against Lille, mostly because PSG were already out before the Quarter Finals, so I felt it was a winnable competition. March 2026 In contrast to February, March was amazing! Four straight wins in the league kept us comfortably in the top four, and we eased through in the Europa League against Genk to set up another European Quarter Final. Disappointingly, that tie would be against domestic rivals Nice. April 2026 April was a mixed bag. We bookended the month with a solid win against Reims and a nerve-racking comeback from 3-1 down to beat Rennes 4-3. However, in between those games we had disappointing defeats away to eventual league runners-up Monaco and Lyon, who at the time were 4th. These results, along with results for Lyon and Lille meant that top four was no longer as comfortable as it was at the start of the month. May 2026 The league came to a close in May. We opened the month with a poor defeat to Montpellier, a result which meant only two points separated us in third, Lille and Lyon who were in fifth with 35 games played. All three teams won their next two games, which left us with a final day showdown with Lille, knowing that if we avoided defeat we would qualify for the Champions League. In the end, we squeezed out a 1-0 win, while Lyon drew, meaning St-Étienne finished third and returned to Europe's top table. Once again, Dion Drena Beljo was the star player of the season, scoring an incredible 30 league goals in 36 appearances. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for the golden boot because of someone called Mbappé who scored 40... Beljo ended up with 38 goals in all competitions and an average rating of 7.43 The other main notable performer this season was Branco van den Boomen (12 goals and 18 assists in all competitions, average rating 7.21). There were then a further 13 players, all with average ratings over 7.00, including the season's big money signing Emmanuel Njoku, who did pick up quite a few injuries but still recorded 8 goals and 8 assists. This is likely to be my last update on this save, as I want to try a couple of other saves, but I have arranged some future transfers, as I will probably dip back into this save occasionally. These include: 18-year-old Shin'ichi Ishii, a Japanese central midfielder who will arrive from Kawasaki Frontale for £4.1m ... and another 18-year-old, Diego López, an American right-back who I'd been tracking for a while, and somehow ended up being released by St Louis in MLS through the waiver system... I quickly managed to snap him up on a free transfer and whilst I couldn't register him for the final few games of the season, just look at that transfer value already! I've also picked up a Canadian right-winger, Lewis Lynch, and an American-Brazilian central midfielder, Fábio, on free transfers after they also fell through the waiver system. Those two are both 4-star potential, so hopefully they'll develop nicely, but if not I might be able to get a decent sell-on fee for them. If I do continue into another season with this team, I will need to look at moving some players on. Ligue 1 rules mean I can only have 4 non-EU players. Currently two slots are taken by defenders Araujo and Costa. López will definitely take a slot, and I have Colombian winger Perea to return from his loan spell at Ludogorets. On top of that, there's English left-back Garbutt, plus my two other new North American signings in my reserves, plus Ishii, Pacheco and Flores who will be arriving in the summer. I'll probably look at moving on Araujo to accommodate López (with Maçon as back-up at right-back). I might try and cash-in on Perea (who hasn't really convinced when I've tried to give him a chance, and has been solid but unspectacular in his loans away). I'll probably look to register Costa, López and Pacheco plus one other, and loan out the others. In other positions, I'll probably look at improving in goal again. Klaesson has done ok, but is prone to the odd error. There are a couple of options I'm looking at, including Elia Caprile (who's at Genk at the moment, but has just signed a new contract, so might be difficult to obtain). I'd potentially look at a new centre-back if an option came up, but other than that, I think any other signings would need outgoings first. And with that, I think I'll end. I'm going to go and watch the 2026 World Cup, but then whether I will continue with our the Champions League campaign, I don't know.

Two things I would like to see are: - Improvements to international management. For me, one key thing would be for players in the National Pool list, keep scout/coach reports up to date. It really annoys me when I've had a report on some players who are on the fringes of selection and then, when it comes time to select a squad for a tournament, suddenly all the reports are out of date and have been removed. I think there's already an option within club scouting to keep scout reports up to date for players on your shortlists; surely something similar could be done for the National Pool. - Improvements to media and press conferences. Some questions, particularly follow-up questions and their responses can be frustrating. For example, Q1: "The transfer window closes soon, are you going to make any signings?" A1: "I'm not going to discuss transfers." Follow-up: "You clearly like to keep your cards close to your chest, but we need to know, are you going to sign Player X?" The responses to this follow-up are basically two versions of "Yes" and three non-committal "Maybe" or "When we know something, you'll know something." There's nothing to say "no" or even "I've never heard of him", which is often the case. The other one that bugs me is in the tunnel interview post-match, if a player has gone off injured and you get asked how bad it is - the only information I have is an "Inj" icon that says "possible leg injury", but I have no idea if it's a dead leg or a broken leg! Perhaps we could get a some contextual information to from the physio alongside this question to say "possible broken leg" or "muscle injury". I'd like to think the physio would have had chance to brief the manager that much at least before the tunnel interview!

January 2026 I'm calling this section January 2026, but it spills into February a little bit because of the way the transfer window falls, and there have been some significant exits. First of all, let's cover the results for the month and, somewhat unbelievably, we've had a 100% record this month! We had comfortable wins against Ligue 2 side Quevily in the Cup, followed by demolitions of Bordeaux and local rivals Clermont. The narrow win over Nice was massive as, having moved into third with the previous two wins, immediately above Nice, this result allowed us to build a 5-point gap over fourth place. We then returned to Europa League action with another 4-0 thrashing, this time against Midtjylland. We then built up another comfortable lead over Brest before almost throwing it away, but managed to hang on for a 3-2 win. Then came the big test in Europe: Inter away. Incredibly, we secured a 1-0 win which also secured top spot in the League Phase table with 7 wins from 8 games, the only dropped points being the goalless draw with Villarreal, which we should have also won comfortably. Finally, moving into February, we beat another lower league side in the cup in the form of Toulon, which sets up a Quarter Final tie away against Lille The French cup is another decent opportunity for a trophy this year, because PSG are already out! Now the transfers. Not many arrivals, other than those I think I've already mentioned: Pacheco and Steinlein were arranged before the window opened, and I've already posted screenshots of their profiles, along with Flores who will join in the summer. The only other signing added was Serbian striker Miroslav Dordevic (which I think would be pronounced Djordjevic?) Dordevic arrives from TSC in Serbia but was loaned back for the rest of the season. And now for the departures... Sinkgraven to Sampdoria I've already mentioned, which made room for Steinlein. Then there were a number of loans... then there was deadline day... The deals are in a slightly different order, but I'll deal with them in the order in which they started. Firstly, Mathieu Cafaro has joined Cagliari for £7.25m (signed for £400k, so a profit of £6.85m). I had tried to cash in on Cafaro in January last year when there was interest from Marseille. I'd just signed Sali and Moder and could see that Cafaro would eventually play less. Unfortunately Marseille didn't follow up their interest, and Cafaro was unhappy I tried to offer him out and I ended up promising I wouldn't sell him. The expiry of this promise wasn't until the end of this window, but then first he decided he was going to consider his options at the end of his contract in the summer of 2027, and then Middlesbrough made a £10m offer. I accepted the offer, which made Cafaro upset that I broke the promise not to try and sell him. Cagliari then made a rubbish loan offer which I rejected - this then upset Cafaro again, that I'd blocked a transfer, so we agreed that I would look to sell him after all. I ended up managing to get a bit of an auction going, and eventually got a £11.75m bid from Swansea. Cafaro then rejected the contract. I managed to agree another £10m deal with Middlesbrough, only for him to reject the contract again. I eventually ended up with the £7.25m offer from Cagliari, along with £9m offers from Norwich and Palace, plus a loan offer with a mandatory future fee of around £9m from SPAL in Italy. I accepted all of them (not wanting to risk another contract rejection, I decided against pushing for another auction), and eventually he agreed to join Cagliari. Junior Souleymanou is a sale I really didn't want to happen, because he had 5* potential. However Wolves made an offer in mid-January, which I rejected. This upset the Cameroon teenager who wanted to join what he thought was a stronger squad (although I'm not convinced he'll get any game time there...). Souleymanou then handed in a transfer request, which I initially rejected, but then figured it wouldn't be good to keep a sulky player around, so I decided to try and get a decent deal out of it. After further bids from both Wolves and Benfica, he eventually joined the Premier League side in a deal worth an initial £9.75m, with a further £2.5m based on club and international appearances, plus a percentage of any future profit. Not a bad return on a free transfer from the Cameroon leagues... (minimum £9.75m profit). Finally, we ended up with interest in two more of my centre-backs, Koumetio and Riedel. I was able to reject the offers for Koumetio with no issues, and initially also Riedel. But then Leipzig came calling, and Riedel indicated he would become unhappy if he wasn't allowed to talk to them. This deal happened quite quickly over the final weekend in January, but I ended up accepting a deal worth an initial £11m (all upfront, no instalments), plus further payments based on appearances plus 40% of any future profit. Riedel joined for just under £4m so that's another £7m profit (minimum). Overall in the January 2026 window, we had a net transfer INCOME of around £22m. I decided against making any immediate signings on deadline day in response to these sales. I already have plenty of options in midfield to cope with the departure of Cafaro. I could have made a signing at centre-back, but there weren't any interesting options available, and we still have Pierre Mbemba and Madi Monamay as young options to fill in for the rest of this season, plus Pacheco to return at the end of the season and couple of additional options in the youth team. All in all, a busy month!

The transfer window is now open and Pacheco is in for £1m, with a loan back his former club in Colombia (where he has been a regular starter) for the rest of the season. Sinkgraven is leaving, sold to Sampdoria for £1.2m and will move to Italy on 2 January - as bids were coming in, he'd also said he was going to consider his options at the end of his contract in 2027, so even more reason to cash in! The fee is a little below his market value, but it gets £23k off the wage bill for a player who would find himself with less game time in the remainder of the season. Mathieu Cafaro has also indicated he wishes to run down his contract (also expiring in 2027), so he is now also transfer listed, although I need to be a little careful with selling Cafaro, as I upset him by trying to offer him out this time last season, and the expiration of the promise not to sell him doesn't run out until the end of January! There are a couple of teams interested (Palace and Middlesbrough for instance), so hopefully they'll make an offer. I also have clubs interested in Koumetio (I've already rejected a bid from Mallorca) and Riedel, Juventus want newgen centre-back Souleymanou, Palace want my other main left-back Buleza, and Beljo once again has a host of Premier League clubs hovering.

December 2025 Another month's games completed. We haven't actually reached the end of December yet, but we have no more games until the New Year. We started with a narrow defeat to Rennes, who are one of our rivals for the top European places, but bounced back with league wins against both Montpellier and Angers. We continued our run in Europe with a win away in Cyprus against Pafos, although we had to come back from behind and bring on both Beljo and van den Boomen, who I had hoped to rest. We also cruised through our first French Cup match against fourth-tier Genêts Anglet, in a game where I did manage to rest some of my bigger names. At the (almost) half-way stage of the season, we currently sit 5th in the league, with Lyon, NIce, and Rennes as the main rivals for the final two Champions League places, although Lille aren't far away. We're also top of the Europa League table with two games (against Midtjylland and Inter) left to go. We also have another signing confirmed, who will arrive at the end of the season, a 17-year-old right back from Peru. Leonardo Flores will arrive from Alianza Lima in his homeland for a flat £350k: I've also made an enquiry about a Colombian defender/defensive midfielder called Víctor Pacheco at Atlético Bucaramanga. He's described as a centre-back, but his heading is dreadful and my scouts think he would be better as a DM: I'm also starting a search for another improvement in the goalkeeping department. Klaesson is decent enough, but a couple of mistakes have crept in recently. In January I'm also going to look into the possibility of moving on Sinkgraven to make way for my new left-back.

November 2025 A positive month overall. Three wins in four league games, and we're still unbeaten in Europe. We put in a strong performance against Reims, as mentioned in my previous post. We followed this up with a goalless draw against Villarreal in the Europa League - we're level with the Yellow Submarine at the top of the table in the League Phase, so on the face of it that's a decent result, but I was actually disappointed in the result, because we battered them! Following the European game, we had another tough league game against Monaco, in which we were disappointing in a 2-1 defeat. We bounced back though with a 3-0 win over relegation-threatened Auxerre, before returning to European competition with a 2-0 win over FCSB. Our next league game after that was yet another tough game, our local derby against third-placed Lyon. Lyon slightly edged the game on xG and total shots, and had a couple of goals disallowed for offside, but we took our chances and secured a 3-1 win thanks to an early goal from Beljo, a rare strike from Maçon (only his third ever goal), and a first league goal for youngster Berthon. I've also made an early start on January transfer business. I've sealed a deal for another Scandinavian teenager, this time from Denmark, in the form of Lars Steinlein, an 18-year-old left-back from Nordsjælland. He's been a first-team regular in the Danish top-flight for the past year and a half, but was unsettled as he wanted to move to a bigger club when my scouts spotted him. I've had to trigger his release clause to get him, at £5.25m, but he's already rated better than my existing left-backs, particularly Sinkgraven who I will likely try and move on. I need to be a little careful though, as my youth teams have a two or three more left-backs with similar potential, so Buleza might move on in a year or two depending on how they develop.

October 2025 The latest update in 2025-26. Our European form is great, our domestic home form is great, but our domestic away form, not so much. The month started with a stunning performance to come back from a goal behind to beat Union Berlin 5-1 in the Europa League. We then drew with Toulouse away and beat Lens at home. We then got another big European win, 2-0 away to Anderlecht, with 18-year-old youth academy product Richard Berthon scoring his first goal for the club. However, we then followed this up with more dropped points in the league, losing away at Strasbourg. I'm not entirely sure what to make of our domestic form away from home this season. These most recent dropped points have been against sides who do seem to be bogey teams for us. We've played Toulouse and Strasbourg 5 times each now since getting back into Ligue 1, and we've beaten them once each. The only teams we've done worse against are PSG, Monaco and Nice, who are financially a lot better off than us. These games also came immediately off the back of European ties as well, so I'm not sure if it's the bogey teams striking again, fatigue after the midweek games, or a mixture of the two. I have also played the first game in November, which ended in a 4-2 home win against Reims, and Dion Beljo has hit a milestone of 50 league goals for the club, in just under two and a half years, which I think is pretty good going!

Back on my PC, so here's a bit more info on my preferred tactic and line-up. In this line-up, Mouton is probably a 50-50 choice to rotate with Moueffek, and Riedel is likely to swap with Koumetio a fair bit. The closest I have to "undroppables" are Klaesson (because none of my other keepers are at the same level yet), Costa (for his 19 leadership) and Beljo (although he does tend to get tired relatively quickly). Njoku will play quite a lot this year, but Sali will get a fair amount on the left, as will Aiki on the right. The squad planner looks a bit a little like this:

Yes, I use a positive or attacking 4-3-3, with short passing to try and retain possession. I'm not at my PC at the moment, but my first team squad at the moment is generally: GK: Kristoffer Klaesson DR: Yvann Maçon/Julian Araujo DCR: Diego Costa DCL: Billy Koumetio/Clemens Riedel DL: Andrii Buleza (Daley Sinkgraven) DM: Aïmen Moueffek/Louis Mouton (Petar Dukadin*) MCR: Sivert Mannsverk (Butrint Morina*) MCL: Jakub Moder/Branco van den Boomen AMR: Gustav Kjølstad Nyheim/Ayman Aiki AML: Emmanuel Njoku*/Enes Sali (Mathieu Cafaro) ST: Dion Drena Beljo (Ismaïla Diallo*/Richard Berthon*) Where players are separated by "/", this is where some rotation is likely, whilst players in brackets are backups or youth players getting game time. Players with an asterisk are newgens. I'll try and remember to take a screenshot of tactics in-game showing roles, if that would be of interest.

September 2025 Overall a positive set of results this month. We returned to action after the international break with a 1-0 win away at Marseille. After being unfortunate to lose at Nice, this was perhaps the opposite and we were probably a little fortunate to win. Marseille were the better team in terms of the number and quality of shots, including one effort in particular following a mix-up in defence where it was a fairly open goal, albeit from an ever-narrowing angle, which was put into the side netting. In the end though, Beljo's first-half header was enough for victory. We then opened our Europa League campaign with a win away at Genk, with Njoku bagging a brace to open his account for the club. We were then beaten by PSG in our next game in what was again a surprisingly even game - Heung-Min Son and Mbappé gave PSG a 2-0 lead, but we fought our way back into the game and could potentially have grabbed a late equaliser. We then recorded back-to-back wins against Lorient and Troyes. I was particularly pleased with the performance against Troyes (who we failed to beat last season), as we rested a lot of players and gave opportunities to a lot of youngsters including Morina and Diallo, with the young Senegalese striker getting his first senior goal for the club. He could have had a hat-trick too, with two more efforts disallowed for narrow offsides - Sali also had a second goal disallowed for offside.

August 2025 Something of an inconsistent start to the new season. The defeat against Lille was very disappointing - we had the slightly better xG from the same number of shots, but conceded from a set piece, a second-phase set piece, and a long range shot that Klaesson might have done better with. The win over local rivals Clermont was comfortable. Despite the player ratings, I felt we played well against Nice, who spent a lot of money this summer (more than PSG!), to limit their opportunities before succumbing to an 80th minute winner. In the final match of the month, we were a lot better going forward and deservedly scored a lot of goals, but Brest's goals were all avoidable, with Klaesson again at fault (practically throwing two of them into the goal). Transfer deadline day came and went without any major activity (despite more rumours of big clubs looking at Beljo, and even Koumetio). Young Tunisian midfielder Jebryl Sahraoui joined Nantes for around £300k - he had reasonable potential but his contract was expiring at the end of the season, and couldn't agree a renewal, and I felt there were other better future prospects in the squad. There was actually a departure after the deadline as well - Riqui Puig never really got a run in the team due to the form of van den Boomen and more recently Moder, and ended up being left out of the Europa League squad. He didn't kick up a fuss, surprisingly, but given he was on relatively high wages and was unlikely to play a lot of games, and there was interest from clubs in the Middle East, I decided to offer him out, and managed to secure a deal for £6m for him to join Al-Wahda in the UAE. Europa League games have also been decided, and we have away games against Genk, Anderlecht, Pafos (of Cyprus) and Inter, and home games against Union Berlin, Villarreal, FCSB (again, after playing them in the Conference League last year), and FC Midtjylland.

OK, maybe one more signing... Tumelo Mosehlenyane has been signed for £2m from Kaiser Chiefs in South Africa, where he will stay on loan for the season.

Pre-Season Results The defeats against Ferencvárosi and Raków Czestochowa were disappointing, although the former was a team comprised mostly of youth players, so perhaps that's not too disappointing, and the whilst the second game did involve a lot of first team regulars, it was their first game of pre-season. We started to get into the swing of things in games against Beijing Youth and China Locomotive. We also made use of two of our affiliates for some morale boosting match sharpness - the 9-0 win against Savigneux Montrison also involved hitting the woodwork EIGHT times! I was particularly impressed by our performance against Maccabi Haifa though - a win by a five-goal margin away from home is very promising! One possible transfer that might still go through that I didn't mention previously is the potential loan of Óscar Perea to Ludogorets to get him some regular first-team football, given that Njoku and Sali are ahead of him for that left-wing spot, with Cafaro a more experienced option on that side too. He could play on the right, but we also have Kjølstad Nyheim and Aiki on that side.

Pre-Season 2025-26 Time for another update, this time at the beginning of August 2025. The new season is about a week away, and there is still a month of the transfer window still to go, but I'm unlikely to do any more major transfer business aside from loans, and I'm quite excited by the players who have come in this summer, including those who have returned from loan and will be integrated into the first team this season. Transfers in this summer are as follows: Only four arrivals this summer, three of whom I've already mentioned: Araujo is a 23-year-old Mexican right-back to offer competition for Maçon, Dudakin is a teenage Bosnian deep-lying playmaker at DM, and Klaesson is a 24-year-old Norwegian goalkeeper who spent the second half of last season with us on loan. The extra signing I've made is Emmanuel Njoku, an under-21 international for England winger/inside forward, who also has Nigerian nationality so doesn't count towards the non-EU count under Ligue 1 rules. Njoku arrives from recently relegated Crystal Palace, having rejected offers from Leverkusen and Udinese, and was immediately rated as the best player at the club alongside Beljo. This means I've broken St-Étienne's transfer record twice within 6 months, after Costa in the previous window, but in both instances I think we've got something of a bargain! There have been a lot more deals involving players leaving the club this window: Some long-serving players have left this summer, alongside a player I would consider a cult-hero. Briançon and Pétrot have both been allowed to leave on free transfers at the end of their contracts. I'm a little sad to see Pétrot leave, as he's close to being a club icon after two spells at the club, including scoring some absolute worldies in our promotion season, but sadly neither he nor former captain Briançon are good enough to challenge towards the top of Ligue 1. The other player I'm particularly sad to see leave is Bobir Abdiholiqov - 25 goals in 62 games is a good return for the Uzbek international, who joined on a free in January 2023, especially given he was mostly a substitute in the last two seasons. Fellow striker Borukov has also left the club, for a slight loss, having never really convinced when given the chance. Sergi Palencia and Mahdi Camara are the other two first-team squad members to leave the club for transfer fees (for £5.25m to Sevilla and £3m to Verona respectively). "Bobi" and Borukov were both allowed to leave in order to allow opportunities to be given to a trio of young strikers: Yanis Lhéry, Ismaïla Diallo and Richard Berthon. Lhéry hasn't quite developed as much as I would have hoped in his time out on loan, but offers a bit more experience than the other two, who are both excitingly talented forwards:

An additional bonus from the season just completed - our Under-19s won the youth championship, beating Lyon in the final: A bit of early transfer business for the coming season. Towards the end of the season, two free transfers were finalised - both young players who were on trial for a while until they turned 18, as both came from Africa. These players are Senegalese striker Ismaïla Diallo (who I think I have previously mentioned had signed a deal), and Cameroon centre-back Junior Souleymanou. Both players were putting in amazing for the Under-19s while on trial (Diallo scoring 17 goals in 15 appearances in the youth league, plus buckets more in friendlies). I've also signed Julian Araujo, a (now) 23-year-old Mexican international right-back as competition for Maçon and Palencia (with the latter probably on the list of players I'll try and move on). Araujo is an IRL player who's played his entire career in MLS, mostly at LA Galaxy, but on my save in 2024 ended up bouncing around between SEVEN clubs (three clubs twice) through waiver claims! (MLS is weird...). So that's three free transfers (plus Klaesson, whose loan deal becomes permanent). My first signing for cash is Petar Dukadin - an 18-year-old Bosnian defensive midfielder picked up from Hajduk Split for around £4m. I'm quite excited by some of this kids stats already - my coaches reckon he's already as as good as Mouton and Moueffek, which the potential to be even better! I've currently got a contract offer in for Warren Zaïre-Emery too, who would also be a free transfer as his contract at PSG runs out. He does also have offers from Man City, Tottenham, Porto and Sporting though, so I'll have to hope the promise of regular football wins out over money I think. Possibly the most important bit of business though is a contract renewal for star striker Beljo. I had to get the board involved to get him anywhere close to the wages he wanted, but he's signed, and that new wage looks to have driven off the circling big clubs from England, Spain and Italy. Thought this was amusing. England and Spain got the extra Champions League spots for the 2025/26 season - no real surprise there. The surprise was which club one of those spots went to. England's representatives in the Champions League will be Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and ... Bournemouth?! Yes, Bournemouth finished 5th, 7 points clear of Tottenham and Man Utd!

St-Étienne are Europa League Champions 2025!! A fully deserved 3-0 win in the final, with Dion Drena Beljo scoring a second-half hat-trick, taking his tally to the season to 37 goals in 51 appearances across all competitions, with 15 goals in this competition. Something tells me I might have some offers for Beljo in the summer, with interest from Fulham, Southampton, Leverkusen, Gladbach, Milan, Benfica, Nice and Juventus, following the performance in the final. I'm hoping to ward off interest though, with a £65m asking price (as a minimum), which he has no arguments with at this point. Once the new budgets are announced, I'll also be looking to offer him a new contract...

Live updates - sort of! The Champions League dream is over (for this season). We beat Angers, and Marseille beat Lille, so we were two points off Rennes in fourth going into matchday 37. Unfortunately game 37 was away to PSG, whereas Marseille, Nice and Rennes were all at home against teams in the bottom half, whilst Lille were away, but again at a team in the bottom half. In the end, all four of the teams above us won, while we eventually lost 1-0 to PSG. Despite PSG having just played a midweek cup final, they were still able to call on the likes of Neymar, who ended up getting the winner. At least the cup final seemed to take its toll on their opponents Lyon, who dropped points against Auxerre, which means St-Étienne are guaranteed a second consecutive 7th place league finish. We still have a chance of qualifying for the Europa League though, if we beat Bilbao. I think I will be resting my first choice XI as much as possible for our final league game against Troyes!

(Early) May 2025 OK, so a quick sit-rep as we enter the final stages of the season, because it could be quite exciting ... or alternatively a complete anti-climax! First things first, we have a European final at the end of the month! We just about got through the Quarter Final against Club Brugge. After a 3-0 home win in the first leg, we seemed to do our best to throw it away in the return, going 2-0 down in the first half-hour, and being fortunate not to be 3-0 down at half time! We managed to have on though, for a 3-2 aggregate win. The semi-final was much more straight-forward against AZ. A deserved 1-0 win away was followed up with a 3-0 home win, for 4-0 overall. The league could be very nervy though, where we could still qualify for the Champions League, or we could end up with no European football at all (depending on the outcome of the Europa Conference League final)! So this screenshot is taken in the middle of matchweek 36, so that's why Monaco, Rennes and Nice have all played a game more. Our game is against Angers, so a win in that would move us within two points of the top four and Champions League football. After that though, we have PSG away and Troyes at home, so not necessarily the easiest run in. Meanwhile, Marseille visit Lille this match-day, before games against Strasbourg and Toulouse. Elseswhere, Rennes play Brest and Reims (both at home), Nice play Dijon and Nantes (who are both in the relegation zone), and Lille's remaining games after Marseille are against Montpellier and Lyon. So, aside from Lille, I'd say we have the toughest run-in...

A couple of quick notes as we enter April 2025... We had some promising looking prospects in our youth intake. I'm particularly excited by this defensive midfielder, who I think looks amazing to say he's only 15. Already valued at up to £7.5m too: We got through our Round of 16 tie in the Europa Conference League, although we didn't make it easy for ourselves! Against Banik Ostrava of the Czech Republic (or Czechia as I think it is now called...) we went 1-0 up early on, but then capitulated to a 3-1 defeat. We came storming back in the second leg though. Goals midway through each half from Cafaro and Beljo took the game to extra time. The tie was completely turned in our favour by two identical van den Boomen free kicks within two minutes of each other - they were so similar I had to double check I hadn't clicked on something and ended up watching a replay! To add icing to the cake, both backup strikers, Borukov and Abdiholiqov added to the scoresheet, for a 6-0 win on the night, 7-3 on aggregate. We've been drawn against Club Brugge in the Quarter Final (having beaten them in the League Phase), with either AZ or Braga in the Semi Final if we get that far. (The other half of the draw sees Feyenoord play West Ham, and Athletic Bilbao play Mainz.) Our long 14-game unbeaten run in the league has come to an end meanwhile, following a 1-0 loss away to Strasbourg. We also lost to Rennes at the end of March, in a game that on the balance of play we probably deserved to win. We're still in the race for the Champions League places, but it's very tight, as you can see from this table: PSG have re-established a 10-point cushion at the top of the table, but 2nd to 6th place are covered by just one point! We were 2nd before the weekend that we lost to Rennes! Throw in Marseille as well, as they are only two points further back with a game in hand. You really have to include Lyon and Troyes in the mix as well, only a further three points behind Marseille. Lots of twists and turns to come I expect! I have started making signings for next season, with loan goalkeeper Klaesson making the move permanent on a free transfer when his contract with Leeds ends at the end of the season. He has agreed terms as a backup too, so if I can find another keeper who's better, he shouldn't become unhappy. I'm also thinking I'll look for an upgrade at right-back, probably for Palencia who is the older of the two I have at the moment, with Maçon likely to stay. Finally, the NXGN 2025 list has just been published, and two St-Étienne players make the top 10 - both right wingers, Aiki and Kjølstad Nyheim are in the top three! New signing Enes Sali has also made the list at number 50.

Very quick mini-update, as we've played our two games in hand, and we took 4 points from them! A 1-1 draw at home to PSG is a very welcome point gained, followed up by a 1-0 win at Montpellier, which could have been a more convincing scoreline as we hit the woodwork 3 times. Those results lifted us to fourth in the table, "only" 10 points off PSG who are top. Obviously a title challenge is probably unrealistic, but the Champions League is a reasonable target at this stage I think!