mannojunior

October 2022 So October is done and dusted and we walk away with 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss from our first four games in charge. Absolutely ecstatic to secure a place in the first round of the FA Cup which will bring us some much needed revenue and potentially a fairytale story?! In terms of the league, we secured a good win at home to Kettering before slipping up at home to Gloucester City. A really poor result considering their position in the league but we really didn't look like winning that one. We finished the month with a decent draw at Boston United but again, given their position in the league we really should have been taking three points away with us. This leaves us in the relegation zone going into November but we do have a game in hand over those around us and it is also still very tight in the middle of the pack. Our aim for November has to be to string some wins together and get us clear of that relegation pack. This is the tactic and formation we are currently using. It's fairly basic and I am looking to dominate possession and keep things simple. I am asking the boys to counter on winning the ball back to make use of our quicker attacking players and we've had some decent showings doing so. I am still a little light up top and I may look to bring in another striker to challenge Willoughby who has been fantastic so far for me. I have agreed to bring in a few new lads on non-contract terms to see how they do. And here is our reward for making it to the first round of the FA Cup! A home tie against League One Oxford United. The game is being televised and a sellout crowd is expected. Lets see if we can cause an upset!

Well, we couldn't have asked for a better first game in charge! We travelled to Kidderminster in the Fourth Qualifying Round of the FA Cup and secured our place in the First Round proper. A fairly poor first half was followed by an exceptional second half that saw lone striker Kurt Willoughby score a two minute brace to turn the game on its head. We were then able to see the game out professionally to secure our place in the next round. It's fair the say that the squad has some quality players but definitely lacks that depth of quality and I have made some initial moves to try and improve that. I've agreed a loan deal for Tow Hewlett who is a young striker at Burton Albion but we face stiff competition to land him. I have also offered a contract to a 19 year old striker called Alex Bonnington who is currently unattached following his release from Sheffield Wednesday. Again, we face competition for his signature so we will see where that goes.

So it has taken until the middle of October but I finally have my first job of my career. We were previously lined up for the Dover Athletic job but they decided to go with another candidate and then I was approached by Chester. It's quite clear that it has been a poor start to the season and the board and fans expect a mid-table finish come the end of the season. We've signed a 9 month contract here at Chester and our job is to at least deliver that mid-table finish at the end of those 9 months.

The Manager So here is the man that is taking on the challenge. As promised, I am starting with no coaching badges and no previous experience. I have started the save early in the English pre-season but I am going to holiday forward slightly to avoid the same jobs popping up at the start. It's time to see where we end up on job one of our journey.

Outdoing Ancelotti Welcome to my first save on the main version of FM23. I have decided to try and document my save and bring you along on my journey. So, what does the title mean? I’m sure some will probably have guessed it, but for those that haven’t, Carlo Ancelotti is the manager who has won the European Champions League on the most occasions. Ancelotti has won the completion a total of four times in his career. My aim, is to overtake Ancelotti and become the manager with the most wins in the competition. Now, it may well be that Ancelotti adds another trophy or two to his collection or another manager her surpasses him, but the aim remains the same. To make the save slightly more realistic, I will be approaching it as a European Journeyman. I will be starting unemployed with no coaching badges and will work my way up the ladder. To complete the challenge I will also become the most successful English manager in the game. So, what are we waiting for? A job! In the next update I will introduce you to myself as the manager and our first club. The Journey so far - July 2022 to present (Nov 2022)

And here is the news! I am very excited to be welcoming Harvey Elliott to the club as he still has bags of potential and I think he will slot into our Shadow Striker role very well. He's versatile and can offer us cover on the wing and further back in the centre of midfield. I think we've got a good deal at an initial £17 million.

A convincing 4-0 win over Ajax at home in the final group game means that we top the group ahead of Borussia Dortmund and face a knockout tie against Atalanta. We will certainly take that draw considering the calibre of teams left in the competition. There may also be some big transfer news on its way...

Season 2026/2027 We love a draw at the moment! It's difficult to be critical considering we haven't actually lost a game in that run of 7 games but there are so many dropped points amongst those results. Disappointing results against West Brom, Brighton and Fulham have stopped us from really challenging the top two so far but I am confident we can turn those draws into wins in the second half of the season. Nascimento is slowly returning to form and it's really pleasing to see Gonzalo Motta start to come into his own in that left wing position. Yusif Demir has been disappointing so far but I have moved him into a shadow striker position and he has started to produce some better performances. We've also qualified from our Champions League group with a game in hand which is excellent and we now just need to try and finish top!

Flattering. However, it's a no from me for now. We are very invested into the challenge of getting the club a Premier League and Champions League trophy and I cannot leave without seeing that through. There is definitely scope for a new job once we've completed the challenge.

So there is a little bit of transfer news. Tyrick Mitchell became unhappy that the young Brazilian, Carlos Roberto had moved to being my first choice left back and he wasn't happy with a squad role. It's not a transfer I really wanted to sanction as he is a very solid left back and is English, so fills a spot. However, he's never been amazing for us and I think for £18 million we can definitely find a new young left back to come into the squad in January. In other news, Matheus Nascimento has had a very poor start to the season, by his own standards. He has just 4 goals in 10 league starts and is really struggling for form. I am still trying to bed in Marco Antonio who is a young Brazilian newgen but he is also struggling in front of goal. Hopefully Nascimento has just set such a high standard that a small baron run looks odd.

September and October 2026 It's been an indifferent September and October and the top of the table is looking very tight as we enter November. We've put in some fantastic performances, such as wins over Ajax, Liverpool and Borrusia Dortmund, but we've also put in some below par performances against the likes of Aston Villa and West Ham. Nothing is spoilt as we are still very early in the season and our Champions League form has been excellent to say the least.

August 2026 A disappointing result against Everton denies us a perfect August. The first two games against Bristol City and Arsenal went according to plan and we looked dominant in both. I was really impressed with our performance against Arsenal as historically we struggle against the bigger teams, even if we are above them in the table. It's nice to see Nascimento scoring but I do believe he is still looking for that dream move this summer and I just hope I can hold on to him. The defeat to Everton was extremely disappointing. We created a lot of chances and just didn't take them. Some slack defending from Obradovic allowed them to open the scoring as he didn't track his man and my decision to give him his first start of the season in place of Filipe looks to have been an error. Not much you can take away from the league table when only three games have been played but it looks like it will be another competitive season. I think our aim has to be top 4 again, anything less than that will be bitterly disappointing considering our strong league finishes over the past two seasons. I do wonder whether our lack of money to strengthen the team will come back to haunt us but there is nothing we can do about that. I think we can be satisfied with the group we have got. We owe Ajax some revenge from last season's Europa League semi-final and I think we have enough about us to at least finish 3rd in the group if not sneaking a second spot.

Summer 2026 So we are just about to enter August 2026 and I think I've got most of my transfer dealings done. It's been a tough summer with a restricted budget but I think I've managed to strengthen the squad and give us some depth along with the loan players that have returned and will get a go in the first team this year. I've already shown you Luis Filipe who I believe will be a quality addition at centre back. The signing of Filipe did mean that Kaiky had to leave and I then we've got a good deal with him moving on to Shakhtar for £25 million. You'll note that I added a little bit of depth through free transfers with Iker Muniain and Gaetano joining on free transfers. They won't be holding down any sort of starting berth but they will be very handy for squad depth this season. With around £25 million left in the bank, I made the decision that I wanted to target a young left winger to bring in. I tried to bring back Enamorado but he eventually opted to move to Bayern Munich and so that deal fell apart. It did take a lot of scouting but I was made aware of Gonzalo Motta becoming available. I think for £33 million we are taking a risk, especially as I plan to retrain him on the left hand side. However, I do think we are getting a rough gem here. He can also play up front which helps with coverage.

First signing of the summer arrives. I'm not going to lie, it's not been an easy summer to date as the budget of £31 million has made me rethink my strategy. I made it clear that I needed a centre back this season and although it's not the proven man that I was looking for, I think this was too good of a deal to turn down. Fillipe comes in for £13.5 million as we trigger his release clause. He's raw but he is well rounded and has so much potential to improve. I did actually try and sign him in the January window but we couldn't get the financials agreed in terms of the contract. Glad to get him into the club this summer and this now frees the path of Kaiky to leave. We rejected an initial bid earlier this summer of around £20 million for Kaiky as I hold out for slightly more.

Oh boy this summer is not going to be easy. Looks like I am going to have to sell to buy if I really want to improve the squad. Manchester City don't really want to loan back Enamorado but may be tempted with an optional future fee. I think I'm going to have to offer out Kaiky and see if we get any interest.

Thank you! Certainly much quicker progress than I had thought would happen. I bought him for £12.75 million 2 seasons ago. He's scored 25 in 27 and then 27 in 36 in the league over those two seasons. Unfortunately he does have a minimum release clause of £78 million to clubs in the Champions League and he wouldn't get rid of it. I've got my eye on a couple of players - a young lad called Daniel Moreno from PSG. He is a newgen and would probably cost around £50 million but not proven and would be a risk. I think I am going to have to plan to be without him as he does want to leave to play for a better team which is frustrating. Balogun is probably as far as he is going to go. He's a really good player and great squad depth but I have probably overpaid for him at £37 million and I'd like to keep Enamorado to play ahead of him. Demir is also probably as progressed as he will get. Slightly disappointing this season with only 5 goals but he puts in consistent performances.

End of Season 2025/2026 Well there we have it. A very disappointing end to the season which sees us slip to third. Now this is a very weird position to be in, as when we came into the season I had hoped for a top 6 finish at best but to be level on points with Liverpool going into the final stretch of the season and ending up 10 points behind them will haunt me. In the grand scheme of things it has been a very good season and we have ultimately returned to the Champions League. At one point we were in with a shout of winning both the Premier League and the Europa League but it wasn't to be. I don't think I will ever get over that second leg against Ajax! It'll be interesting to test ourselves in the Champions League next season but we are going to need to do a lot of work in the transfer market to do well. Summer Plans I think we are in for a difficult summer. I don't see us getting a huge transfer budget, considering the budgets that I have been given to date and the fact that finances aren't in the best position. We do however really need to strengthen this summer and add some much needed squad depth if we are going to compete at the back of the season...something which derailed our season this season! We definitely need to add some attacking depth and I can do that with a couple of promising youngsters coming back from loan spells but I may look to add another striker to keep things fresh. I would really like to keep Enamorado at the club but his loan deal from Manchester City expires and I just don't have the money to buy him. I am going to try and get him on loan for another season as he progressed really well with us this season but I'm not sure if Manchester City are going to want to do that again. We definitely need a new centre back and this has been something that has troubled me in my five years at the club. There can be no questions that signing Zagadou last summer was an excellent signing but he needs a solid partner next to him. I went into the season with high hopes that Kaiky and Obradovic would be the perfect pair to rotate and in all honesty they did a great job. Obradovic is still developing at 20 years of age and will definitely be part of my plans next season. Kaiky had a disappointing season compared to seasons gone by and I may look to move him on this summer to free up some cash. Aged 22 and valued between £45 and £57 million, it may well be the most sensible thing to do. Our biggest challenge will be keeping our main man, Matheus Nascimento. He scored 27 Premier League goals this season, finishing just three being Salah for the golden boot. We rejected some bids for him in January when the likes of Real Madrid and Munich came sniffing and I am hopeful that Champions League football is enough to keep him at the club. If we were to get an offer of upwards of £90 million then I may consider a sale but right now we need to keep hold of him as he is our star man.

Journey So Far I've been debating starting a thread for a while now and I've finally bit the bullet! I am now in my 5th Season with Nottingham Forest and I want to use this thread to document the save and bring you along on the journey. I am by no means going to be providing long and insightful posts but just updates as the season progresses. The aim of the save is probably quite obvious, bring Forest back to former glory. Specifically, I want to win the Premier League and the Champions League but actually I will put the save down once I have won each domestic cup, the Champions League, European Super Cup and the Club World Cup, or at least that's the aim. I'm currently in my 5th season at the club and here is a very brief recap of what has happened so far: 2021/2022 Season - We won the Championship with 101 points, finishing 5 points clear of Bournemouth and sealing a return to the Premier League in our first season. 2022/2023 Season - We had an excellent first season back in the Premier League and managed to finish 11th but failed to progress far in any domestic competition. 2023/2024 Season - A disappointing second season in the Premier League where we were unable to kick on from our 11th place finish. We finished in 13th place and with a point less that we got in the previous season. 2024/2025 Season - We managed to turn things around with some shrewd signings and finished 5th and secured Europa League football. 2025/2026 Season We are currently on 8th May in game with 3 Premier League games to play and this is how things stand. We have had an absolutely incredible season so far. We started off quite slow and I couldn't have imagined that we would be in any sort of title race come the end of the season. Unfortunately, we still have a relatively small squad and some late season injuries and our progress in the Europa League caused some late season dip in form and it looks like Liverpool will continue their dominance and pick up another Premier League Title. Another disappointing season in the domestic cups and that's something that I really need to improve on next season which will definitely require some depth signings. Gutted doesn't even come close in terms of the Europa League...I'll let this sum up that second leg Anyway, with three Premier League games left to play, I'll let you know how we finish.