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Cambridge City 2032/33

Premiership



Cambridgecityfc.png

Summary



League

Board Expectation: mid-table

Media Expectation: 14th

Finish: 12th

First game back was away at Spurs. We were great, demoloshing them 5-1. Second gmae saw our DM sent off after 22 seconds, leading to a 3-1 defeat. Third game was away at relegation favourites Burnley. They won 6-1. SO after 3 games I had no idea what sort of season I was in for. AFter the Burnley result it didn't get any better. By Boxing Day we had only won 2 other league games and were mired in 19th place, out of form and out of confidence. I was a little befuddled as it was a much better squad than last time I was in the premiership, and kept kidding myself all we needed was two good results in a row. A boxing day victory over Everton kickstarted a 12 match unbeaten run, by the end of which we sat 9th. In the end we were comfortably 12th, wondering about what could have been had we not had such an abysmal first half of the season

Cup Competitions

Our upturn in form co-incided with a cup run in the FA Cup. Victories over Spurs, Newcastle and Everton saw us playing Liverpool in our first ever final. A close game saw us 2-1 down with 10 minutes to play. We equalised on 84 minutes only to see Liverpool snatch an 88th minute winner. We had our pride, but we also had losers medals.

Transfers

A nice hefty budget saw me bring back a couple of players i was forced to sell last season, Tom Newbold for a bargain 8m only a year after selling him for £20m being particularly pleasing. Juan Buval, a current French international, looked an absolute bargain at only 13.75m as well

Finances

Still looking good and healthy, still being spent on stadium upgrades.

Notable Players

David Carter - Found himself shunted out to left IF to make room for Buval. Responded with 20 goals and 9 assists in 37 games

Wanderley Diniz - Handled the step up in quality with aplomb, 26 goals from 41 starts and a Brazil cap to boot. Looking more and more like a bargain each season.

Juan Buval - yep, he was a bargain. A real superstar!

Next Season

can we do Leicester? probably not, but a Stoke would suffice

Career Overview

Season    League                       Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2016/17   Vanarama National League North      13th       
2017/18   Vanarama National League North      13th
2018/19   Vanarama National League South      9th
2019/20   Vanarama National League South      10th
2020/21   Vanarama National League South      2nd       lost in play-off semi-final
2021/22   Vanarama National League North      4th        lost in play-off semi-final
2022/23   Vanarama National League North      [b]1st [/b]       Champions!
2023/24   Vanarama National League          [b]1st [/b]       Champions!
2024/25   League 2                            12th
2025/26   League 2                            5th          Play-off winners
2026/27   League 1                            5th          Lost in play-off semi-finals
2027/28   League 1                            [b]1st           Champions!
[/b]2028/29   Championship                     18th
2029/30   Championship                      5th         Lost in play-off semi-finals
2030/31   Championship                      5th         Promotion! Play-off winners!
2031/32   Premiership                        20th 
2032/33   Champiosnhip                      1st         Champions!!!!
2033/34   Premiership                         12th       FA Cup R-up

100 Club

Name                (Position); League Games (Overall Games); League Goals (Overall Goals); Average Rating;        Years
Harvey Rodgers          (DC)         122        (140)                4           (4)            6.94               2017 - 2022
René Copeland           (MC)         208        (242)                22         (30)            7.26               2017 - 
Frazer Hampson         (GK)         214        (246)                                              6.84               2019 - 
Tómas Ingi Urbancic    (AMR)         121        (182)                23         (35)            7.27              2020 - 
Ady Gilmour             (AMC)        139        (211)               31          (46)            7.60               2019 - 
David Popa               (S)         121        (145)               80          (92)             7.26              2020 - 2024
Elijah Adebayo           (DC)       129        (147)               7           (8)              7.01              2021 - 
Emmanuel Gyasi        (AML/S)   130                              57                                               2022-2025
i will add more one day

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I have fully got Ashton Utd the prem title in season 2036/37 after unsuccessfully trying this challenge for years. ???

Can anyone shed light on how attendances work. I currently ground share at Old Trafford. I'm getting 27000-33000 in a 96000 stadium and the board are not interested in building our own stadium without a hugh increase in support. Will it be possible to sell out this stadium so I can build the 'Locky82 Stadium'?

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Cambridge City 2034/35

Premiership



Cambridgecityfc.png

Summary



League

Board Expectation: mid-table

Media Expectation: 12h

Finish: 8th

A strong start and an away win at Old Trafford saw us 2nd after 6 games. we couldn't maintain that form though and slowly slipped down the table. With 5 games left we were in a European spot but 2 draws and 3 defeats in our last 5 games meant we finished just outside. Cue lots of transfer requests from my better players. A summer of rebuilding beckons

Cup Competitions

Another final, the League CCUp this time. Another defeat to Liverpool. FA Cup saw us lose ay home too Championship Southampton in an abysmal perforrmance that saw the last appearance for two of the players involved. I'm a pettty, petty man

Transfers

Goncalves looked a bargain at only 14m. He startted up front, scored a hat trick on his second game, and then turned into Carlton Cole. Ended the season on loan at Malaga. We'll see.

Finances

finally, we have a decent sized stadium! finances are comfortable 2 seasons in premiership

Notable Players

none really. Buval was ok, and immediately asked for a transfer. Diniz was ok, 20 league goals again, but other than that not a particularly exciting or impressive season from anyone.

Next Season

I want European competition now!

Career Overview

Season    League                       Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2016/17   Vanarama National League North      13th       
2017/18   Vanarama National League North      13th
2018/19   Vanarama National League South      9th
2019/20   Vanarama National League South      10th
2020/21   Vanarama National League South      2nd       lost in play-off semi-final
2021/22   Vanarama National League North      4th        lost in play-off semi-final
2022/23   Vanarama National League North      [b]1st [/b]      Champions!
2023/24   Vanarama National League          [b]1st [/b]      Champions!
2024/25   League 2                            12th
2025/26   League 2                            5th          Play-off winners
2026/27   League 1                            5th          Lost in play-off semi-finals
2027/28   League 1                            [b]1st           Champions!
[/b]2028/29   Championship                     18th
2029/30   Championship                      5th         Lost in play-off semi-finals
2030/31   Championship                      5th         Promotion! Play-off winners!
2031/32   Premiership                        20th 
2032/33   Champiosnhip                      1st         Champions!!!!
2033/34   Premiership                         12th       FA Cup R-up
2034/35   Premiership                         8th         League Cup R-up

100 Club

Name                (Position); League Games (Overall Games); League Goals (Overall Goals); Average Rating;        Years
Harvey Rodgers          (DC)         122        (140)                4           (4)            6.94               2017 - 2022
René Copeland           (MC)         208        (242)                22         (30)            7.26               2017 - 
Frazer Hampson         (GK)         214        (246)                                              6.84               2019 - 
Tómas Ingi Urbancic    (AMR)         121        (182)                23         (35)            7.27              2020 - 
Ady Gilmour             (AMC)        139        (211)               31          (46)            7.60               2019 - 
David Popa               (S)         121        (145)               80          (92)             7.26              2020 - 2024
Elijah Adebayo           (DC)       129        (147)               7           (8)              7.01              2021 - 
Emmanuel Gyasi        (AML/S)   130                              57                                               2022-2025
i will add more one day



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  • 2 weeks later...

dorchester_town_fc.gif?itok=71SRM_70

 

Dorchester Town - 2024/25 - Barclays Premier League

 

League 

An excellent run of form early on was enough to allow us to put in a title challenge. City proved too strong in the end, but the Champions League is coming to Dorset!

FA Cup

We faced lower league opposition until the 6th round, where Chelsea surprisingly offered only brief resistance. The final was a classic game: Hull have become one of the best sides in  England!

Capital One Cup

With the team in a European campaign, I played a second string side and paid the price as Liverpool thumped us.

Europa League

A strong début season saw us top the group and send Koln packing, but Reims were too strong.

 

Key Players

Jan Jonk

Signed from Arsenal, Jonk transformed our attack. Seemed to score for fun at times, if a little wasteful early on.

Kristiyan Anachkov & Darko Cena

This pair were my starting wingers. Both excellent players with bags of assists, key passes, and a few goals.

Sam Johnstone

Ever present between the sticks, Sam was probably worth a dozen points with a string of powerful keeping performances.

 

Transfers | Best XI (Season) | Best XI (overall)

 

Season  Division  Position Avg. Attendance  Leaderboard Points (Pos) Notes
16-17   VNS        2nd       902               7,101 (133,749th)     Promoted via playoffs
17-18   VNL        5th        1,009             38,997 (227,347th)
18-19   VNL        1st         1,066            621,208 (146,517th) Promoted as Champions
19-20   Lg2         5th        1,774            666,905 (216,035th) Promoted via playoffs
20-21   Lg1         3rd        2,545            754,473 (258,442th)
21-22   Lg1         1st        2,550             1,466,749 (201,280th) Promoted as Champions
22-23   Ch          5th       2,000              1,581,142 (240,517th) Promoted via playoffs
23-24   PRM        6th       8,116              1,714,077 (266,578th) Europa League Qualification
24-25   PRM        2nd       10,948             2,610,598 (193,265th) FA Cup Winners

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I created a Dafuge challenge save last night, as I live in the North East I thought I'd aim for Blyth and luckily they came through first time.

I have no scouts so can't sign anyone yet :( I'm kind of lining it up for the 48 hours of flying I have lined up in October but I might start earlier.

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Good morning! 

Great to see how well people are doing :) I just got Dorchester to the Championship after consecutive promotions, and have a quick question. 

Is there no limit to how many players a club can have on loan in the Championship? (I realise that I can only bring 5 loaned players to games, but I'm talking about brining in players on loan into the squad)

 

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I finished this challenge a couple of months ago and have been meaning to post my season update screenshots. I ended up getting into the ultimate challenge and that's now took over my fm time (and life haha). So I have posted my league positions and competitions history. Hopefully I can get some more screenshots uploaded. Next year I need to get into the habit of updating at the end of each season.

League Positions

Competitions

I got so attached to this game. I even drove down to Colwyn Bay's ground and got some pictures there. Sad I know!!!

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I've finished my first season as manager of Blyth Spartans

Overall we were predicted 14th and the board set us a target of Mid Table. Overall we finished 6th which was good, frustratingly 1 point away from the play off spot (we would have got a spot by way of goal difference as well)

The season was quite tricky at first, getting familiar with a new squad of mainly rubbish players. I don't think we were playing anything that resembled football until nearly Christmas time, where we amassed a lot of draws which was probably our playoff downfall.

Interestingly I couldn't name a player of the season, perhaps Stephen Turnbull who was often missed when he wasn't in the team.

Our top scorer was Callum Bullock who got 10 from the wings. I struggled with a consistent striker as I suffered a lot of injuries.

In terms of transfers I bought in a lot of players on a non-contract basis but a lot of them became filler, notable signings included:

Aaron Ramsdale (GK)
Callum Bullock (AMLR)
Matthew Flynn (DC)
Michael Ledger (DR)
Matt Godden (ST) (Feb)
Denver Hume (DL) (Feb)

We didn't really amount to much in the cups either but I'm more interested in getting out of the bottom tier of the game!!

Time for scouting now :(

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So as we wait for FM17 my current save has gone a little stale so i have decided to give the last 2 months of FM16 to getting Dulwich Hamlet up through the leagues

Heres my profile and information

 

Already finished pre season and pretty much my first season so will include my preseason results and transfers into this post and write up my first season review tomorrow!

im looking to play a 442 here is my starting tactic

Dulwich Hamlet_  Overview-2.png

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'll post a full update later on as I've progressed since my last post. I've just finished my 3rd season with Blyth and won promotion to League 2 via a playoff final victory over rivals Gateshead. (couldn't believe it when that fixture appeared!) I also won the FA Trophy this year through a stroke of luck.

It was bitter sweet as I had a long term save with Gateshead on FM15 but there can't be any love lost now I guess.

Really enjoying the challenge so far but I am concerned going from a lucky promotion as Semi-Pro outsiders to a professional league might be a bit of a jump.

My biggest concern where I have failed in the challenge in past years is scouting but this year I have a new plan - I realised I can see the overall rating of players regardless of scouting so I like to look at good teams in the league who are at the end of the contract and direct my scouts in their direction and it seems to be working. That also means I am finding players who are willing to play part time etc.

Either way I'm glad to be a full time  outfit now as this should open up new recruitment opportunities which can only improve the squad.

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I've been playing this challenge on my iPad (FM Touch) and started quite well.

3rd in conference south, lost in playoffs

Won conference south

5th in conference lost in playoffs

4th in conference lost in playoffs 

2nd in conference with 8 games left, can't win the league though so playoffs again

My question is what tips do you have to get out of such a tough league where only the champions go up and the playoffs are a lottery? The teams coming down from league 2 are financially worlds ahead of my team, who are predicted to finish last every year and earn 10k sponsorship compared to 2.2 million for the top teams! 

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2 hours ago, Lenzar said:

There's teams earning £2.2m in sponsorship at Conference level? That sounds like a bug...

Tranmere and Scunthorpe both got that on my game! huge difference to the majority. Average was 90k. Lowest 10k. 

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I've never done this before and have not done LLM before either, is it normal for there to be 0 staff at the club I take over (Dorchester)? Also only 10 players in the first team?

It's fine obviously and a better circumstance to start this in, just wondering if this is normal?

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dorchester_town_fc.gif?itok=71SRM_70

 

Dorchester Town - 2025/26 - Barclays Premier League

 

League - An unbeaten run in the middle of the season proved vital as we lost form at the end of the season. Our first (of hopefully many) league titles!

FA Cup - Struggling even against lower league opposition, we limped rather than sailed to the semis and never looked like challenging City.

Capital One Cup - 3rd round failure again for the second string.

Champions League - As fourth seeds, I expected us to struggle. Instead we fought hard to reach the semi-finals, only to find City far too strong.

 

Key Players

Darko Cena - Probably now our best player, 'Donny' still has his best years ahead of him.

Jan Jonk - Top scorer once again, Jan led the line but inconsistency is still an issue

Sam Guillot - 'Guillot-ene' and his cutting passes provided needed strength through the middle.

Reece Oxford - After being trusted with the captaincy, Reece was the standout in a strong defensive line.

 

Transfers | Seasonal XI | Overall XI


Season  Division  Position Avg. Attendance  Leaderboard Points (Pos) Notes
16-17   VNS        2nd       902               7,101 (133,749th)     Promoted via playoffs
17-18   VNL        5th        1,009             38,997 (227,347th)
18-19   VNL        1st         1,066            621,208 (146,517th) Promoted as Champions
19-20   Lg2         5th        1,774            666,905 (216,035th) Promoted via playoffs
20-21   Lg1         3rd        2,545            754,473 (258,442th)
21-22   Lg1         1st        2,550             1,466,749 (201,280th) Promoted as Champions
22-23   Ch          5th       2,000              1,581,142 (240,517th) Promoted via playoffs
23-24   PRM        6th       8,116              1,714,077 (266,578th) Europa League Qualification
24-25   PRM        2nd       10,948             2,610,598 (193,265th) FA Cup Winner
25-26   PRM        1st       13,944             2,951,890 (193,459th)


 

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On 9/6/2016 at 18:10, glynnbob said:

hi I'm wanting to put barwell evo stik northern premier into the conference north but I have no idea how to do this or how to use the editor can anyone help me please??

You don't use the editor, and it may take you a while to get a certain side, depending on their reputation.

The instructions on how to start a Dafuge save are all in the opening post of this thread, and will explain exactly how to start.

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4 hours ago, jaysdailydose said:

You don't use the editor, and it may take you a while to get a certain side, depending on their reputation.

The instructions on how to start a Dafuge save are all in the opening post of this thread, and will explain exactly how to start.

its okay mate I reloaded until I got them 27 games played 14 wins 13 losses no draws!!!

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Well my Blyth save is going well. I will have to get some screenshots etc when I get home. I think I've just finished my 5th season and earned promotion to League 1. It was close as with 3 games left I needed 3 points to guarantee safety... Of course they wait until the final game to get that win but that's all behind us now!

My 2nd Conference National season was a good one, as I won the FA trophy and got a good away tie at Sunderland which topped up the bank balance somewhat.
No real cup success anywhere else so the bank balance was at about -£200k until I got a board cash injection and a good chunk of prize money.

I think they put some extra seating into the stadium, which didn't actually increase the capacity, but they did use their right to defer the next expansion that is required to compete in L1.
I just want the pitch relayed as every game I have to answer bloody press questions on the state of my pitch... although it is nice to have a less congested Xmas schedule as I have had quite a few postponed games :D

All my signings so far have been free transfers and that trend looks set to continue into L1. I don't think I have had a 20 goal a season striker in any division yet. I think I had Ross Hannah who got 15 + 10 cup goals but he was already 33 or so by the time I got him so he retired the following year.

I did get my scouting range expanded to Europe this year, and I've been able to find an Australian regen that I can scout that has mega potential so maybe I can develop him for a big cash boost to the club. I have one player who my coaches think is better than anyone else, who I think is alright, but they say he has reached his potential which is a shame as he isn't attracting any money.

Hopefully I don't get mullered in League 1 and I can find some good youth prospects to develop.

There was 1 point where someone failed to buy the club, which I was pleased to read as they wanted to put their own manager in, despite my success. I did see a news item regarding a fan takeover but hopefully as I'm favoured personnel I wouldn't be at risk.

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  • 3 weeks later...
4 minutes ago, Crispypaul said:

Looks like beta may drop tomorrow night. 

@dafuge have you thought about the rules this time around? Same as before? 

I haven't noticed anything in the new features announcement that should make a difference, so it will probably be the same as this year. 

 

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Skelmerdale - Championship 2024/25 - Season 9

Another delayed update but I am slowly getting through the seasons...

So after a solid debut in the Championship last season the board this season demanded a Mid-Table Finish, with the bookies and the Media Predicting we'd finish in the same place as last season, though the bookies did hedge their bets abit with them predicting pretty much any of us in the bottom half could be dragged into a relegation fight.

Reputation - Slight decrease but we are still a three star side, along with most of the rest of the division.

Transfers - Busy season as I went about improving the side as I first raided Newcastle's Reserves for a couple of midfielders before splashing a club record £675K on German Winger Greiber after Hull wouldn't let me reloan Lopez and in January I signed another quality Striker from Bayern for a bargain £80K.

Saleswise it was also a busy season as I sold off various squad players and youngsters who were no longer good enough, before Newcastle and Blackburn tapped up half my side, first to go was highly rated Left Back Bjornsson who'd been tapped up by Blackburn and with his contract up I had no choice but to sell him, on the plus side I got Blackburn and Newcastle into a bidding war with Newcastle offering me a record £2m plus clauses which would have been hard to turn down anyway, and later in the month they both came back for my Backup Right Back Atlason and I again I played them off each other and somehow got Newcastle to splash £1m plus clauses on him not bad for a player who only cost £50K a year ago, and they weren't done next they both came in for both of my Left Wingers and my Swedish Midfielder and despite upsetting them they wouldn't offer me anywhere near the same money and with time on their contracts they'd been staying with me for at least another season.

League Cup - Another disappointing campaign as we just about beat League Two Blackpool in the First Round before losing to League One Leaders Plymouth in the Second Round.

FA Cup  - No heroics here either as we drew Prem Strugglers Southampton in the Third Round and despite taking a 2-0 lead Southampton were just too strong for my shaky defence though a late free-kick from Gullenbeck rescued a draw, in the Replay it was Southampton who took an early lead which proved enough as we just couldn't score.

Championship - I have no idea how we pulled this off, we got off to an awful start as I tried to make us more attacking but this backfired badly as we lost our first four games scoring just one goal and making horrible mistakes at the back, with that not working I switched back to my Counter Attacking 4-1-4-1 formation but with a couple of tweaks I pushed us up a bit more with more closing down and switched the midfield roles to a Box-to-Box and Roaming Playmaker to give my Striker a bit more support and that seemed to work as we were unbeaten in our next seven games winning four of them before losing to struggling Preston and Bristol City either side of beating Sunderland as the formation struggled against the weaker sides who sat back more against us which left my Lone Striker isolated and crowded out.

So I decide to switch over to a Counter Attacking 4-4-2 formation, same basic shape but with the Ball Winning DM moved into the MC spot and the B2B Midfielder moved up front and replaced by a False 9 with my Complete Forward switching to an Attack Duty and that seemed to work as we hammered Swindon thanks to a hat-trick from Osuj, with Gullenbeck grabbing one against Norwich as well as the winner against West Ham, though draws to Millwall and Sheff Utd and a defeat to WBA shoved we weren't invincable, though the West Brom defeat was our last of the season as we remained unbeaten in our last 25 games which was a new club record (though it only counts as 21 games as we lost the FA Cup game near the start of the run).

This started our incrediable run to the title as at the half way stage we were 14 points behind leaders Forest, who were eight points clear of second placed Leicester though they only had a two point lead over third placed Sheff Utd, however by the 32nd game we'd narrow the gap to Forest to just six points, though they'd played a game less and were just three behind Leicester and with three more wins we finally overtook Forest and Leicester to go top mainly because we'd played two more games than Forest and one more than Leicester, but Forest lost their extra game in hand to Sheff Utd, and after 36 games we were still ahead of Forest on goal difference, with Leicester two points behind but with them both having a game in hand on me.

We then nearly blew it with a draw at Sunderland, but Forest could only draw and with Leicester winning we were now on 73 points with both Leicester and Forest on 70 points, but now Leicester had two games in hand and Forest had one, but next week we beat Swindon whilst Forest lost to Cardiff and Leicester lost to Reading opening up a six point gap and then Cardiff do us another favour grabbing an injury time goal to deny Leicester victory which takes us five points clear having now only played one more game, we then had more luck as Leicester lost to Charlton on the Friday, Forest could only draw to Rotherham and Osuji scored a late goal as we came from behind to beat Burnley, which meant with just six games left we were now eight points clear of both Forest and Leciester though they both still had a game in hand on us and to make things more interesting Sheff Utd had now drawn level with both of them, and it turned out that Forest and Lecicester's game in hand was against each other which was good for us as Forest won to narrow the gap to five points.

Our luck was to continue next week as whilst we beat Millwall both Forest and Leicester lost giving us an eight point lead with five games left, however we let them back in when West Ham scored a late equaliser on Tuesday and with Forest, Leciester and Sheff Utd all winning our lead was cut to six points.

Next weekend both Forest and Leicester lost yet again whilst we entertained Sheff Utd who were now chasing their own promoton dream and we put in a shocking performance finding ourselves 2-0 down with just 15 minutes left I made my last sub throwing on Young Winger Barnett and within a minute he'd scored after being left unmarked from a corner my other winger sprayed the ball out to him and he cut inside and hit a shot that Utd's Keeper could only turn into his own net, though our hopes were short lived as a minute later my Young Midfielder McAllister got sent off for a pointless two footed lunge and he'd only been on the pitch for 10 minutes, but despite being down to 10 men we somehow grabbed a late equaliser which was similar to our first goal; Barnett took a corner it was cleared the ball was picked up deep by my Left Winger Pjevovic who sprayed the ball out wide to an unmarked Barnett who again cut inside but this time passed to Pjevovic who'd been allowed to continue his run into the box unmarked and he smashed the ball into the top corner to claim a valuable point to keep our lead at six points with just three games left, a defeat here would have allowed Sheff Utd to close the gap to just three points.

We finally secured the title and promotion in our next game as we thrashed rock-bottom Norwich 3-0 thanks to three late goals, whilst Forest lost again and Sheff Utd could only draw to Sunderland, we then finished the season with a win over West Brom in our only TV game of the season before signing off with a draw at Leciester to keep our unbeaten run intact.

POS Graph - Forest finally clinched promotion with a 91st minute goal on the last day to break Sheff Utd's hearts, whilst Sunderland won the Playoffs to add more misery to both Sheff Utd and Leicester fans.

StatPack - As with most seasons so far the first goal normally decides who will win the match, with 1-1 draws being our most often result followed by 3-1 and 2-0 wins.

Squad, Overview, and Review

Moroccan Keeper Ilias Sebtaoui was again in fine form, and I am hoping that promotion to the Prem will fend off the vultures (or at least increase his value) as this season he attracted bids from Real, Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea, but had a moan when Monaco scouted him and has now declared he wants a move to Roma :(

At Right Back Daniel Marshall had an excellent season, though he was the only one in my defence who did, at Left Back was Irishman Dan Flynn who did a little better than his cameo last season but never really pushed on to claim a first team place, losing out to Loanee Moussa Appiah who had a bit of a slow start but found his form towards the end of the season.

At Centre Back Scot Zak Jules had a slightly better season and was the best of a bad bunch as he had a few shockers, though his partner Spanaird Stefan Moreno had a shocking season as he made a costly mistake in each of our early season defeats and whilst he recovered some form in the later half of the season he just didn't look comfortable despite being my best defender in paper, my other option was Croatian Jure Curic who missed the start of the season due to being on Olympic duty and had to be nursed back to fitness for the first half of the season and whilst he did okay, like my other defenders I don't think he will be good enough next season.

In Midfield was Dan Thorpe who was signed from Newcastle for a fair amount of money as I needed Homegrown Players and he had a solid season in the Ball Winning Role starting off as my DM before moving into Midfield with the formation change, providing cover was Italian Loanee Federico Ferrilli who was able to play in any of my Midfield Roles and had a solid season, though he did lose his bench slot to my Young Irish Midfielder Joel McAllister who put in some good performances despite largely being used as a late sub, though his red card will see him miss the start of next season.

Playing alongside them in the Roaming Playermaker role was Spanaird Rogelio Valencia who was signed from Newcastle for £77K and he proved to be a fantastic signing as he ran the midfield and was even deployed as an emergency second striker on occasion, not bad for a player who was spotted whilst I scouted Thorpe and was only signed due to him being cheap, whilst his eight Player of the Match Awards were a new club record, providing cover was my highly rated Swede Patrik Dahlstrom who was a little unlucky to be the player to miss out when I changed formations but his PPM's don't really suit a defensive role, though he was still given plenty of games and pushed Valencia hard, he was also one of the players that Blackburn and Newcastle tapped and despite demanding a transfer he settled down after the window closed and had a fine season.

On the Right Wing was Record Signing Edgar Greiber who had a fantastic season, despite getting off to a slow start not helped by being ruled out for two months in his second game, but when he came back and got match fit he was on fire, I just wish he could shoot :(, providing cover was Spurs Loanee Nathan Barnett he didn't have the best of times last season but I needed Homegrown players so I renewed his loan and he stepped up putting in some fine performances whilst Greiber was injured and was even named Championship Young Player of the Year.

On the Left Wing Bosnian Born Dane Predrag Radic had a poor season, he was another player who threw his toys out of the pram when Blackburn and Newcastle tapped him up and whilst he changed his mind when we started climbing the table he just didn't look interested and lost his place to fellow Bosnian Dominik Pjevovic who was also wanted by Blackburn and Newcastle but didn't make a fuss and was rewarded with a chance in the team and he took it as he had a fantastic season and he was only three assists short of setting a new club record.

Upfront German Patrick Gullenbeck didn't make the best start to the season taking until the sixth game to score his first goal ending a 20 game goal drought stretching back to last season, however with the change to 4-4-2 and making him the spear of my Attack he became a different player scoring goals for fun and even grabbing a decent amount of assists with his 25 goals just one short of the record set by Lavery back when we won League One and he also became just the third player after Lavery and Metz to score more than 20 goals in a season for me. Partnering him was Nigerian Bede Osuji who became a different player after being deployed in the False Nine role as he also grabbed goals for fun and was level with Gullenbeck for most of the season, until he lost his place to my other German Striker Alfons Riedel who arrived from Bayern for just £80K and slotted straight in scoring and creating goals for fun, though at the end of the season we got the worst possible news as he damaged his cruciate ligaments after we won the title and will mess pretty much all of next season :( The other option I had upfront was a Serbian Youngster Nikola Plavsic who arrived for £150K in January aswell (and actually cost more than Riedel and Gullenbeck combined) who showed he also had an eye for goal.

Championship Team of the Year - Despite winning the league only Gullenbeck and Valencia make the team with Sebtaoui on the bench, though that might be because my Wingers didn't make enough appearances to qualify.

Best XI - About right though I'd swap Dahlstrom for Thorpe.

Overall XI - Several new players make the side, GK Sebtaoui swaps with Lyness, whilst Marshall comes in at Right Back and with the formation changing to 4-4-2 both Gullenbeck and Osuji make the team, to add to the three Strikers that are on the bench, whilst Lopez randomly displaces Mooney on the Right Wing despite neither being at the club any longer.

Records - Daniel Marshall is closing in on Paulinho's appearance record and should surpass it next season, whilst Gullenbeck is just 15 goals behind Lavery, not that a record of 46 goals is all that great.

Salary - Despite our salary costs more than doubling this season we were still outspent by everyone and are likely to be utterly outspend in the Prem as well.

Attendance - Still bottom, though we did increase our attendance to 87% which was the fifth highest in the league and we even sold out twice (though not according to the fixtures screen?)

Finances - Not that great mainly due to the player costs going through the roof this season, though we did make ~£1m in transfer profit, however if we hadn't gone up the £5m solidarity payement would have covered our losses. Thankfully despite us being in the red the board still finally sanctioned improving our training facilities and also threw in another youth improvement, though our Youth Category is still only a Three Rating which is rather poor and explains why we haven't produced a single useful academy player yet.

The Board also decided to build a New Stadium rather boringly named 'Skelmersdale Staduim' so there goes my chances of having a staduim named after me for another version, and hopefully it will have some decent expansion potential as worryingly they have gone for the minimum size needed to pass the league rules, and with it taking two years to build our finances are likely to be tight next season, unless we get some of the Prem money upfront, of course that means we have to play the next two seasons in a 2,000 capacity ground as you can only use the seating in the Prem :(

Knowledge - I've spent the last couple of seasons slowly building up our knowledge and we currently have 43% World Knowledge, I also like how the map now fills in all your knowledge rather than just the top few regions.

Manager Profile - Slight increase in my Reputation and I also grabbed the National B Coaching License, attributes show a small increase though my Goalkeeping skill went down one. I was also named
Manager of the Year for the third time, only missing out on the League One award so far.

Plans For Next Season

Main goal next season is to just enjoy the Premier League and take the money, staying up would be nice but if not the money should put us in a strong position in the future.

Transferwise pretty much a new Defence bar a Right Back is needed, a new Left Winger and Ball Winning Midfielder would be nice as would be a short term replacement for Riedel upfront, though £20m isn't likely to go far though I can stretch it by paying over 48 months where possible. The good thing is I don't need to spend big on Homegrown players which is good because from initial scouting good English players aren't interested in playing for me.

State of The World

Premier League - Spurs become the first non-top four side to win the title beating Arsenal on goal difference and if Chelsea had won their last game they would have made it a three way tie, in fourth was City, with Liverpool, Utd and Palace grabbing the Europa spots - Palace somehow finished 7th with their top scorer having eight(!) goals.

At the bottom Villa and Huddersfield went straight back down taking Southampton with them.

In League Two Wigan went straight back up whilst AFC Wimbledon ended their stay in the Football League.

In the Conference North Bolton were one point away from being relegated out of the game, but it appears their poaching of my U21 Manager worked to keep them up

FA Cup - Man City claimed their fourth trophy with victory over Stoke, whilst Man Utd claimed their second League Cup in three seasons with a penalty win over Chelsea.

Champions League - Arsenal beat Real Madrid in the Final to ensure no-one has still retained the title, they also become only the second English side to win it after Chelsea (who have won it three times) Spurs and City both fell in the Knockout Round, with Liverpool being hammered by Real in the Quarter Final.

Europa League - Betis beat Paris on pens to make it two years in a row without an English Finalist, though Watford and Germans Mainz were the beaten Semi-Finalists, with Paris knocking out Stoke in the Quarters before beating Watford, Chelsea lost to Betis in the 2nd Knockout Round, with Utd losing to Nice on Away Goals in the 1st Knockout Round

France - Paris win the league hitting a record 99pts, whilst Lille suffer a shock relegation. Marseille claim the French Cup beating Angers in the Final.

Germany - Dortmund make it two in a row, nine points clear of Bayern who were 14 points clear of surprise package Koln. Bayern claimed the Cup for the first time in eight years and for only the second time beating relegated Karlsruhe

Italy - Juventus again beat AC Milan with Sassuolo again in third, whilst Fiorentina get relegated

Holland - PSV stop Ajax making it five in a row by one point and in a nail bitting finish they both lost their last two games, though Ajax did claim a rare cup victory.

Scotland - Celtic reclaim the title with ease over Rangers, with Holders Partick Thistle finishing in the bottom half, though Thistle did claim the FA Cup, with Ross County winning the League Cup.

Spain - Real Madrid again beat Valencia to the title with Barcelonad third, whilst Real lose the cup to Villarreal.



Leaderboard points (FM Mode)
(My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)
(points / position)
Single Game: 2,261,684 (171,723)
Single Season: 830,440 (242,258)
Single Season England:  830,440 (142,295)
Single Season Championship: 830,440 (8,109)
Single Season League 1: 86,896 (15,461)
Single Season League 2: 627,616 (1,524)
Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)
Single Season National North:  17,771 (804)

Career Overview
 

Season       League           League Finish     Achievements                  Leaderboard Points (Season/Game)  Attendance      Euro C/E (Place) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
16/17    National North		16th		-					8,690 / 8,690        	320 10%
17/18    National North		3rd		Promoted - Playoff Winners		17,771 / 26,461        	350 11%
18/19    National League	4th		Promoted - Playoffs, FA Trophy Winners	483,959  / 510,420      460 15%
19/20  	 League 2		12th		-					46,701 / 557,121    	845 21%   
20/21  	 League 2		11th		-					54,675 / 611,796        930 20%
21/22  	 League 2		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			627,616  / 1,239,412    1,275 (27%)
22/23  	 League 1		4th		Promoted - Playoff Winners		86,896 / 1,326,308    	2,697 (53%)
23/24  	 Championship		15th		-					104,936 / 1,431,244   	4,058 (80%)
24/25  	 Championship		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			830,440 / 2,261,684   	4,396 (87%)

 

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Skelmerdale - Premier League 2025/26 - Season 10

So after storming the Championship last season we finally made it to the Premier League with the board hoping we'd avoid going straight back down, however the Media Predicted we'd finish rock bottom, however they did reckon five of us had no chance of staying up so it would just be a case of being better than three of them.

Reputation - Slight increase but not enough to get 3.5 stars as we are quite abit adrift of the rest.

Rich List - The act of getting promoted to the Prem see's us become the 97th Richest Club in the World and that is with just one weeks worth of Prem money.

Transfers - Busy season as I went about spending some of that Prem money to try and keep us in the league as I quickly smashed our transfer record, bringing in a combination of cheap good enough players, promising youngsters and a couple of castoffs from bigger sides. Saleswise I shipped out various squad players who weren't good enough, though losing my Keeper wasn't part of the plan but it appeared promotion wasn't enough to keep him and when Stoke offered me a record £15m plus clauses for him I couldn't really turn it down, and rather silly is if they'd come in just a week earlier they could have got him for his release clause of £6m and it appears they only bought him for the bench...

League Cup - Decent run as we reach the Fourth Round for the first time as my second string defeat League One Middlesbrough and struggling QPR on pens before being outclassed by a strong Watford side.

FA Cup - My second string did just about enough to beat League One Wigan in the Third Round, in the Fourth Round we entertained Championship Reading and somehow found ourselves 2-0 down within 10 mins, however 10 mintues later we were level with German Striker Ridel scoring his first goal since his return from injury and it was a fine one - a fantastic overhead kick, and we then broke Reading when my on loan Spanish Wonderkid Rodriquez grabbed his second and the winner in the last few minutes. This set up a Fifth Round tie live on TV against Championship strugglers Sheff Wed and again my second string did just about enough to win the game with Spanish Midfielder Valencia scoring a thumping header from a corner. Our Quarter Final tie was also on TV and we drew the weakest side left League One Colchester and again my second string did just about enough to beat them as Nigerian Striker Osuji came off the bench to score with the first shot on target of the match. Elsewhere Man City needed an injury time goal in the replay to beat Championship Leicester, with the other Semi-Finalists being Man Utd and Stoke, and again our luck held out as we drew Stoke.

In the Semi-Final City beat Utd on pens before we entertained Stoke who'd also had an easy ride so far, and they proved to be too good for us as this game summed up our season we were woeful in front of goal and then switched off from two set-pieces as Stoke scored both of their shots on target which set up a repeat of last years Final with Man City again easily thrashing Stoke.

Premier League - An excellent debut as we somehow finished 10th, though it looks better than it was as until the last few games all of us in the bottom half were involved in the relegation fight with about just six points covering the entire bottom half for most of the season. We got off to a decent start drawing to Sunderland, losing to Watford before beating Bournemouth thanks to a hat-trick from Striker Osuji. However things then went wrong as we lost to Hull, Forest and were thrashed by Spurs thanks to two dodgy pens as my 4-4-2 formation wasn't working so I switched to my 4-1-4-1 formation and that got us draws against Chelsea and Liverpool before we were thrashed by Utd.

Going into Christmas we were rockbottom after defeats to Derby and City so I tweaked things again, changed my DM from a Ball Winner to a Defensive Midfielder and put my Full Backs on defend duties and that seemed to work as we came from behind to beat Arsenal as Spanish Midfielder Bruno Mur grabbed his first assist and then grabbed his first goal when German Striker Riedel came off the bench to get an assist in his first game back from injury. We followed that with a 5-0 win over Everton with Gullenbeck grabbing a hat-trick and he then grabbed a double in our victory over Sunderland which lifted us up to 10th place at the halfway stage six points clear of now bottom Sunderland, four points clear of 18th placed Newcastle but five points behind 9th placed Palace which showed how close it was at the bottom.

Next we lost to high flying Watford and Bournemouth before beating second placed Spurs, but followed that up by being hammered at Chelsea and then drew the next three games against Liverpool and struggling Forest and Newcastle which dropped us to 16th leaving us just two points away from the relegation places with 10 games left and a game in hand.

Thankfully three wins from our next four games against teams below us saw us climb upto 11th but more importantly gave us an eight point cushion from relegation with five games to play (well six for us but our extra game was against Utd and kept on getting postponed), but then we got some bad news Wonderkid Centre Back Kucera slipped a disc in training and would miss the rest of the season and with a lack of decent Centre-Backs DM Bielik dropped into defence and put in a good performance as we beat Derby 1-0 thanks to a goal from sub Riedel who scored our only shot on target, this meant we only needed to get two points in our last five games to stay up which was good because we had to face Arsenal, Utd and City.

But none of that was needed as we somehow did the double over Arsenal as despite Arsenal having more chances we defended well even after losing Swedish Midfielder Dahlstrom to a season ending injury as we hit them on the counter twice in six minutes in the second half as Right Winger Ali opened his account for the club and minutes later we broke from a corner Gullenbeck held the ball up as my midfielders got forward and Bruno Mur smashed in his second goal against Arsenal and whilst they quickly pulled one back we held on for a famous victory which also secured our place in the Prem for next season. Of course a weakened side then went and lost to QPR to keep them up and we then claimed a solid draw at Old Trafford either side of the FA Cup Semi defeat before beating Everton with Gullenbeck scoring a record equalling 46th League Goal for us and we then finished off with a dead rubber against Champions City, who took a 2-0 lead but we pegged them back to 2-2 with Striker Osuji coming off the bench to grab a late equaliser which is likely to be his last goal for the club.

Stats wise we somehow had the most possession, pass ratio and passes completed which is a little weird considering we were playing on the counter, we also somehow had the highest Headers Won Ratio whilst winning the third least amount. Goals wise we scored the joint third least with just 38 goals, we had the 15th best Shots on Target Ratio tied with Liverpool and Chelsea, whilst having the joint most dribbles per game. Defendingwise we had the fitfth best defence but conceeded the third highest amount from corners, we also kept the joint second most Clean Sheets, won the least amount of tackles but had the third best tackling ratio.

POS Graph - Man City pretty much walked the league with Watford spending most of the season chasing them thanks to their 32yo Italian Striker Andrea Belotti who scored a league record 37 goals beating the 34 goals scored by Shearer and Cole back in the early 1990's and he also becomes the first ingame player to score more than 30 goals in a season. Whilst Stoke had a rollercoster end to the season they pipped Arsenal to fourth on the final day, then lost the FA Cup Final to City and to make matters worse Arsenal won the Champions League taking Stokes place anyway with Liverpool also qualifying due to winning the Europa League. Though it could have been worse newly promoted Forest won the League Cup then three days later fired their manager Uwe Rosler because they were bottom of the league and appointed Rio Ferdinard who'd been fired by Newcastle, even more harsh is they were only expected to finish 19th anyway, following them down were Hull and Newcastle who both suffered end of season collaspes.

Stat Pack - We actually did better against the bigger teams, though we did play one more game against bigger sides so its fairly close, and yet again first goal determined the match winner most of the time with 0-0 draws being the most likely result followed by 1-0 or 2-0 wins.

Tactics (keep on forgetting about these screens) - 4-4-2 brought about more goals at both ends with it being most effective against similar sides, whilst 4-1-4-1 was more of a nullifying tactic but did well against the bigger sides.

Goal Times - We scored most goals midway through the first half and rather worryingly conceeded the most at the end of matches, largely due to my players tiring and my squad depth being a lot worse than the other sides, whilst pretty much all goals were scored from within the area, with pretty much all of them being placed shots.

Assists - We had a real problem dealing with crosses this season particular from down our left, whilst we had a nice spread of locations and types, with crosses from the left being slightly more favoured, thought interestingly my Right Sided Players got 16 assists compared to just 8 from the Left, so I expect most of those corner goals were from the left where the right footers take them.

Shot Placement - Most of our shots were either straight down the middle or horribly wide right.

Squad, Overview and Review.

With the loss of my Keeper to Stoke I gave Promising Young Croatian Hrvoje Tomic a chance at the start of the season and he did well enough though he had a bit of a problem keeping hold of the ball, but he isn't quite ready yet and lost his place to new signing Experienced Portuguese Keeper Anthony Lopes who arrived to provide some cheap short term competition and had an excellent season, though if we aren't in a relegation battle next season I'll hopefully be able to give Tomic some more games.

At Right Back was Daniel Marshall who had another solid season and with 141 League Appearances has now become my Record Appearance Holder beating the 138 games amassed by Paulinho. Providing cover was highly rated Attacking French Full Back Arthur Desbordes who had a mixed season but is still young and will hopefully push Marshall better next season. The Left Back position continued to be a problem as I just couldn't get anyone good in - a couple of guys couldn't get Work Permits (well no-one could get a work permit for me this season) two other players decided to join Watford and City and sit in their reserves, whilst Paris and Barcelona were hoarding left backs but wouldn't let any of them go, so in the end I loaned in Scott Harrison from Palace who didn't really impress, neither did his understudy Irishman Dan Flynn and a new Left Back is top of my wishlist for next season.

Thankfully at Centre Back I had a bit more luck snapping up Czech Wonderkid David Kucera as soon as the board announced our budget for the season, he cost me a record £5.5m but is looking a bargain as he quickly became my first Wonderkid and after a bit of a slow start was in excellent form before his season was ended by injury, he did also have a bit of a fitness problem at the start of the season as he struggled to last a full match and kept coming back from International duty jaded but he is only 18 and will hopefully grow out of it, finding him a partner was a bit harder, as again several players couldn't get Work Permits, others turned me down to go elsewhere, sign new contracts or demand silly money in the end I brought in Pole Mateusz Bondarenko from Fulham who formed a solid partnership with Kucera. Providing cover was my Scottish Captain Zak Jules who did well in the cups against weaker sides but had a poor time in the league and was only really drafted in to cover Kucera at the start of the season.

Playing as my Defensive Midfielder was Pole Krystian Bielik who cost me a record £6m from Bristol City but repaid that fee with some solid performances, he started out as my Ball Winner but didn't really work in that position, however when we dropped him back to his preferred DM position he excelled, though he did end the season as a Centre Back when I decided to use him to replace the injuried Kucera instead of Jules and he responded with some strong performances, providing cover was Irishman Joel McAllister who did well despite not being ready yet but I have high hopes for him if I can develop him.

In the Centre of Midfield was Spanish Box-to-Box Midfielder Bruno Mur who was snapped up after Bareclona transfer listed him and had a fine season though I wouldn't have minded him being a bit more of a goal threat, partnering him was Swedish Roaming Playmaker Patrick Dahlstrom who had another fine season but also was rather disappointing in front of goal and it also seems he has hit his potential which is a shame as I was hoping for bigger things from him and he may struggle to get back into the team next season, well if I had any other Midfielders he would.

On the Right Wing was German Edgar Greiber who had a fine season but like the rest of my Midfield he just lacked that final quality near the goal, though his place is under threat from French Winger Benjamin Ali who was snapped up for a bargain £2.5m on transfer deadline day (once I'd gotten rid of Moreno to finance the move) after Real decided they didn't want him and he didn't really get much of a chance as I had to get his match fitness up but showed glismpes of what he could do and it looks like he could be a great signing. Down the Left was Serbian Ilija Tomic who was brought in from Fiorentina who did ok but again the lack of an end product let him down, rotating with him was Spanish Wonderkid Enrique who was loaned from Atletico who also had some good games but like the rest the end product let him down.

Upfron German Patrick Gullenbeck again led the line and did ok but could do with being more clincial in front of goal (like the rest of my team), though his 14 goals does mean he becomes my joint Top League Goalscorer with Lavery on 46 goals, partnering him when I played 4-4-2 was another Spanish Wonderkid Rodriquez who was loaned from Bilbao but never really lived up to his hype and with the switch to a lone Striker found his chances limited. Providing cover was German Alfons Riedel who recovered from his injury quicker than expected but struggled to get his form back and it looks like he might be done, the other option I had was Nigerian Bede Osuji who was actually my second highest scorer grabbing some important goals in the cups, however three of his five league goals came in one game and he just doesn't work as a lone striker.

Best XI - Not sure why it picked 4-4-2 ahead of 4-1-4-1 but I'd generally agree with that, though Bielik was a little unlucky to miss out. Also surprisingly none of this seasons players did enough to change my Overall XI.

Young Player of the Month - We dominated this award this season, yet the Young Player of the Year award went to Citys 24year old German Winger who they just signed for £46m, though that said no one else seems to use Under 21 players.

Salary - Despite our salary being five times greater than last season it is still less than half of the next side.

Attendance - With the Prem only allowing seats to be used our attendance was reduced to 2,000 for the season which meant we beat the Low Attendance record set by Wimbledon back in 1993. It is also quite clear that the
ground shown in the matches doesn't bare any resemablance to our actual ground as it still showed up as full in matches even though two or three of those stands should be shut. On the plus side we actually filled our ground in the Cup games meaning our Third Round tie against QPR in the League Cup is now our record attendance game.

Knowledge - Increases upto 56% as I expand into Africa though I had to fight my board to get more scouts, I also keep on losing my U21/U18 staff to lower sides who keep on appointing them as managers.

Profile - My GK, Tactical and Mental Attributes increase a bit as does my knowledge of Scotland, I also seem to have got paler, and the board refused to sanction anymore coaching badges as they are worried I'd leave, though I haven't had a job offer for a couple of seasons now? I also reached my 500th game.

Finances - Look at all that money :cool: - we got over £90m from TV money and our 10th place finish earned us another £20m, with the board using that money to pay off our debts gained from our new stadium and they have also given £50m of that to spend next season :D

Facilities - Still fairly rubbish, despite being improved this season our training facilities only rate 1.5 stars, but thankfully the board agreed to improve them both again next season, though we are still stuck at Youth Level 3 and the board haven't let me increase our Youth Recruitment or Junior Coaching yet this season, which means we still haven't produced any Academy players past 2.5 stars yet.

NAT

9 ENG
3 CRO, FRA, GER, POL, ESP
2 POR, SRB, IRL
1 BIH, BRA, ISL, NGA, NOR, SCO, SWE, SUI, CZE

HOMEGROWN

CLUB: 0
NATION: 11
DUE: 20

Plans For Next Season

The goal for next season is to again avoid relegation, though a cup run or a run on the european places would be nice.

Transferwise the priority is a new Left Back and I have already agreed to sign the Left Back who City beat me to last season, I've also got a Turkish Wonderkid on the way to boost the Midfield who becomes the first player to actually get a Work Permit for me, a quality Left Winger and a Striker would be nice aswell as would some more squad depth in Midfield and Defence. I also wouldn't mind some English players but none of the good ones have any interest in signing for me or are paid way more than I can afford.


State of The World

In the Championship Aston Villa make a swift return to the Prem, with Swansea returning after a two year gap and West Brom return for the first time this decade with it being fourth time lucky in the playoffs, at the bottom Huddersfield finish rock bottom after finishing bottom of the Prem last season and take Brentford and Crewe with them

In the Conference Salford had an unlucky end to the season missing out on the title on goals scored to Yeovil and then they lost the Playoff Final to Telford in Extra-Time. In the VNN Scunthorpe followed Macclesfield out of the game as Bolton just about stayed up yet again.

In the FA Cup as mentioned City thrashed Stoke in the Final which was a repeat of last years final, City have now claimed the Cup five times, Chelsea have it three times with both Newcastle and Liverpool having one each, with both Stoke and Watford having lost two finals each.

In the League Cup also as mentioned Forest beat Utd stopping them from retaining the cup, though Utd and Liverpool are the only sides to have won the cup twice with  Sunderland, Chelsea, Arsenal, Derby, Spurs, City and now Forest only having won it once, whilst Watford and Stoke have both lost this cup once aswell.

Champions League - In a repeat of last years Final Arsenal beat Real Madrid to become the first side to retain the UCL. Paris and Chelsea are still the record holders with three each, Arsenal are the only side to have two trophies, with Barcelona, Bayern and Real all having just the one, with Real and Paris both also losing three finals.

The other English sides didn't do that well Spurs lost to Arsenal in the Quarters, with Chelsea and City both going out in the Knockout Round to Valencia and AC Milan. Whilst Bayern didn't even make it out of the Group Stage losing out to last years Europa League Finalists Betis and Paris.

Europa League - Liverpool restored some English pride beating Marseille on pens, leaving Spurs as the only side to win the trophy more than once with three titles, with Utd, Arsenal, Schalke, Real, Marseille, Stuttgart, Betis and Liverpool all having one victory, with Marseille having now lost two finals making it five final defeats for France.

Man Utd made it to the Quarters, with Palace losing to Marseille in the Knockout Round whilst Aston Villa who got in by Fair Play after being relegated didn't even make it out of the Group Stage.

France - Paris win the league again this time scoring a record 104 goals and winning a record 105 pts (!), they also won the Cup over nearly relegated Auxerre and then beat Marseille in extra-time in the League Cup and on pens in the Champions Trophy.

Germany - We have a new winner in Germany as Stuttgart took the title on an exciting final day if the form graph is to be believed but the fixtures show different results??? when in fact they claimed the title with a game to spare when Bayern and Dortmund failed to win. The Cup also had new winners as Leipzig beat Leverkusen in the Final.

Italy - Sassuolo managed by Patrick Vieira claim their second title with ease. In the Cup Cesena who just about avoided relegation beat AC Milan on pens to claim the cup for the first time

Holland - PSV retained the title beating Ajax by one point, with AZ claiming the Cup for the first time in-game.

Scotland - Celtic retain the title with Hamilton in second, whilst Hibs who finished third last season get relegated. Ross County win the Cup after they had to win the Relegation Playoff to stay up, with Celtic winning the League Cup.

Spain - Real Madrid make it three in a row with Betis second, they also win the cup beating neighbours Atletico in the Final.

World Cup - Italy make it two out of three hammering Portugal 3-0 in the Final claiming their record sixth title, whilst holders England managed my Guardiola went out in the group stage behind winners Italty and unlikely group winners Colombia. Also rather weird was the fact that the World Cup was again held in Canada?



Leaderboard points (FM Mode)
(My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)
(points / position)
Single Game: 2,425,561 (219,984)
Single Season: 830,440 (242,258)
Single Season England:  830,440 (142,295)
Single Season Premiership: 163,877 (290,430)
Single Season Championship: 830,440 (8,109)
Single Season League 1: 86,896 (15,461)
Single Season League 2: 627,616 (1,524)
Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)
Single Season National North:  17,771 (804)

Career Overview

Season       League           League Finish     Achievements                  Leaderboard Points (Season/Game)  Attendance      Euro C/E (Place) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
16/17	National North		16th		-					8,690 / 8,690        	320 10%
17/18	National North		3rd		Promoted - Playoff Winners		17,771 / 26,461        	350 11%
18/19	National League		4th		Promoted - Playoffs, FA Trophy Winners	483,959  / 510,420      460 15%
19/20	League 2		12th		-					46,701 / 557,121    	845 21%   
20/21	League 2		11th		-					54,675 / 611,796        930 20%
21/22	League 2		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			627,616  / 1,239,412    1,275 (27%)
22/23	League 1		4th		Promoted - Playoff Winners		86,896 / 1,326,308    	2,697 (53%)
23/24	Championship		15th		-					104,936 / 1,431,244   	4,058 (80%)
24/25	Championship		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			830,440 / 2,261,684   	4,396 (87%)
25/26	Premier League		10th		-					163,877 / 2,425,561 	2,000 (39%)

 

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Skelmerdale - Premier League 2026/27 - Season 11

After a solid debut last year the board were again just hoping that we'd avoid relegation, whilst the bookies didn't give us much of a chance but did predict a forth place finish for Spurs, though they did hedge their bets giving six times no hope of staying up with us the best of the bad bunch with the Media Predicting a solid 14th placed finish.

Reputation - Increases to 3.5 stars putting us in the middle of the National rated sides.

Rich List - We climb sixty positions to 37th making us richer than the likes of Napoli, Shakhtar and Zenit. Domesticaly we are ranked 14th behind relegated Newcastle. Whilst I feel sorry for Crawley fans paying more to see Non-League Football.

Transfers - Busy season as I went about spending that nice Prem money smashing my transfer record with three players joining for a record £9.5m first in was French Left Back Alet from Man City - he turned me down last season for City but a season in their reserves meant he was glad to join me this season, following him was Turkish Wonderkid Koray Sari another player I tried to get last season but his club would only accept his release fee that I couldn't afford upfront last season, so he was snapped up when the new budget was announced and the other big money signing was an 18yo Saudi Striker Amro who I may have overpaid for but I snapped him from under the noses of some of the big boys, the other big signing was brining in Luke Shaw on a free after he was released by Utd despite only being 30 and should help shore up my left flank, other than that I snapped up what 5star Potential Youngsters I could find. In January I didn't do much just brought in a promising Bulgarian kid and signed some loan players to bolster my squad depth (not that I even used any of them).

Saleswise summer exits were just squad players who hadn't made the stepup or youngster who hadn't developed, with the biggest departure being German Striker Riedel as injuries had just crippled him though I did make a tidy profit on him. In January I let German Winger Greiber leave as his contract was up and he wasn't good enough for this level and an £8m profit was hard to turn down. Though the main loss was Spanish Midfielder Bruno Mur defecting to Dortmund who was having a storming season, but a cheap bid from Bayern saw him throw a strop and when Dortmund made a £20m plus clauses offer for him I demanded his £28m release clause upfront plus their clauses aswell as 50% next sale and a delayed transfer to the summer and they accepted all the terms bar the delayed one so he left for a record deal worth £38m and a sell on fee, the only downside was my inability to find a quick replacement for him.

League Cup - Embrassing defeat to Championship side Sheff Utd in the Second Round as my second string failed to impress on the plus side both my new strikers scored on their first starts.

FA Cup - We opended up with a comfortable 3-1 win over League One Winners Wolves in the Third Round, whilst we made a mess of the Fourth Round drawing at League Two Stockport before needing two late goals to beat them in the Replay. In the Fifth Round we drew Chelsea and despite taking an early lead and controlling the match we just couldn't find a second goal and the game went to a replay after we gifted them a goal. In the Replay Chelsea took an early lead before we needed a late pen to level in an even match, sending the tie to extra-time where Irish Midfielder McAllister got himself stupidly sent off sending the game to pens where we both proved to be fairly rubbish at pens but we were slightly worse resulting in us crashing out and Chelsea going on to win the trophy.

Premier League - Fantastic season as we somehow finished fifth, though things didn't start well we lost three of our first six games as my 4-1-4-1 formation just wasn't working and with us 1-0 down to Spurs I switched back to 4-4-2 and claimed our second win of the season as Gullenbeck grabbed a double ending an eight hour drought and breaking our goalscoring record in the process, though I did switch back to 4-1-4-1 for games against Chelsea and Utd which we lost including a 4-0 defeat to Utd which saw me complete the switch to 4-4-2 which brought a draw against Liverpool and then three wins in a row without conceeding before we suffered a shock defeat to Swansea, but over christmas we returned to form with narrow wins over Bournemouth and Fulham inbetween stuffing Man City Away 3-0 thanks to an hat-trick from Marquez.

Going into the New Year our form faltered thanks to the loss of Mur and then the rest of my Midfield getting injured leaving me with first full-backs on each winger before being reduced to playing kids. Our form finally returned in the middle of Feb as we did the double over struggling Spurs and then either side of the FA Cup games we beat Chelsea 4-3 in a thrilling match with us claiming a last minute winner, but then lost to Liverpool though with a makeshift midfield, before somehow beating Man Utd with an even more makeshift Midfield.

So with 10 games left we were sat in sixth place - City were walking the league, though that was mainly due to second placed Arsenal having several games in hand through most of the season (we hadn't even played them yet so two of our last 10 games would be against Arsenal), Utd were third 10 points ahead of us, Liverpool fourth three points behind but both of them had played one game more, just ahead of us were Chelsea by two points and behind us were Watford by one and Sunderland having played an extra game were three points back. With Arsenal having won the League Cup sixth placed would also secure a european spot, whilst seventh spot depended on Chelsea who were still in Europe and would face Utd in the FA Cup Final.

After beating Utd we thrashed West Brom but were hammered by Arsenal and also lost to Palace and could only draw to Blackburn which saw us drop to seventh with six games left with Sunderland and Chelsea one point ahead of us, Liverpool two clear in the last Champions League spot and Watford one point behind, however us and Sunderland had played one more game than everyone else. Next up we just about beat Swansea 3-2, whilst everyone else won bar Liverpool who lost to Swansea in mid-week, which left us in eigth but with only two points behind the five of us and with only Chelsea now having a game in hand.

Next week we played Bournemouth on Monday but could only draw 0-0 though we did make up ground on both Chelsea and Liverpool who both lost to Villa and City, whilst Sunderland could only draw to Stoke, though Watford did thrash Derby.

The Following week we went first with the early game beating Arsenal 2-1 at home, whilst Sunderland lost to Derby, Liverpool beat Everton, Watford beat Spurs, with Chelsea beating QPR in mid-week, leaving us in seventh place with three games left.

With things getting tight we just about held on to beat Fulham, Sunderland edged out a Spurs team in real trouble, but Liverpool lost to Villa in the 94th minute and Chelsea beat Watford. This meant with just two games left we were now in sixth claiming a European spot, Chelsea were in fourth with a game in hand level with Watford who were both one point ahead, behind us were Sunderland by a point with Liverpool almost out three points back.

However in the second to last game we hosted a Man City side who still needed a point to win the league and despite a spirited performance City won 3-2 to claim the title, in the other games Liverpool beat QPR, however Watford drew to Utd and Chelsea and Sunderland played out a 2-2 draw and with Chelsea then losing their game in hand to Arsenal it meant going into the final day we were eighth with both Sunderland and Liverpool ahead of us on goal difference, whilst Chelsea and Watford were one point ahead of us so the race for europe couldn't be any tighter, and on the plus side Chelsea had gone out of Europe but were still in the FA Cup Final which meant top six was really needed. Also despite only being two points off fourth place Champions League football was out as Watford played Liverpool so it wasn't possible for us to pass them both, however it did mean we only needed to beat Everton in our final game and not worry about other results as a win would take us above either Liverpool or Watford into seventh, whilst Chelsea weren't a problem because if they finished above us seventh would then get the last european place.

To make matters worse Striker Gullenbeck would miss the game through injury so Marquez switched to the support role even though he needed just one goal to set a new season goal and league goal record, however I didn't need to worry as we turned on the style with Marquez grabbing two first half goals to get his record and fire us to a fifth placed finish and secure Europa League Football next season. In the other matches Chelsea lost to Stoke whilst the rest drew giving Watford UCL football for the second season in a row, whilst at the bottom Spurs became the first in-game Champions to get relegated going down on the final day as they failed to beat Derby - not sure how they went down as they have the likes of Stones, Alli, Grealish and Kane who were all in fine form and whilst they are all in their 30's none of them are past it, I did make a cheeky bid for Kane considering he isn't worth much but it seems he'd rather play in the Championship than for me, though with his contract up I'll have another go later.

Squad, Overview, and Review

In Goal I gave Croatian Hrvoje Tomic his chance and he took it with a fine season, he even became a Wonderkid for a short time before turning 21 and was ever present this season.

At Right Back Daniel Marshall had another impressive season and even became the first person to get his England debut under me. Providing cover was French Attacking Full Back Arthur Desbordes who actually spent more time playing on the right wing where he actually did better and it doesn't look like he is ever going to make it here, especially considering I've got Slovenian Uros Zajc who is developing well and didn't look out of place and should be getting the squad games next season. At Left Back was Frenchman Valentin Alet who I may have overpaid for but decent left backs seem hard to come by and had a solid season which was good considering I don't really have any cover for him.

At Centre Back was Czech Wonderkid David Kucera who had another solid season and is developing nicely, playing alongside him was Chilean Wonderkid Ivan Quiroga who was initialy brought in as one for the future but made a solid start and improved as the season went on and hopefully these two will go on to form a long-term partnership, providing cover was Pole Mateusz Bondarenko who had a solid season but dropped back as I prefered to give my two Wonderkids the game time.

On the Right Wing was French Winger Benjamin Ali who had a fantastic season and was named Fans Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year becoming the youngest player to win it since Kane back in 2015, providing a bit of cover was my Right Back Desbordes, however towards the end of the season thanks to injuries I gave my new Bulgarian Youngster Radoslav Apostolov a chance and he took it with some fine performances and he might just get the cup games next season. On the Left Wing was Luke Shaw who also had a fantastic season whipping balls into the box and with five goals was my third top scorer and I have to wonder how he struggled to get into the Utd teams over the last seven years, providing cover was Russian Wonderkid Alexandr Petrov who was loaned in after his transfer fell through when his agent demanded silly money, and did ok when called upon, however midway through the season he suffered an off the field incident that reduced his potential and my staff no longer rate him so I may have saved myself a fair bit of money.

In the Centre of Midfield was Turkish Wonderkid Koray Sari who was initialy deployed as my Deep Lying Playmaker and had a solid season, but was a little unlucky as he'd just started to form a solid partnership with Mur when Mur left and struggled a little after when all my midfielders were dropping like flies and I had to move him around to get him playing with different partners as I tried to find a new partnership that would work, though of course now Dortmund want him aswell despite them having a £50m rated academy player in his position. The player I eventually picked to play alongside him in the Box-to-Box role was Pole Krystian Bielik who did ok and is proving to be a versatile players considering he ended last season as a centre-back and started this season as my Defensive Midfielder. Providing was Swede Patrik Dahlstrom who rated well but I just couldn't get the team performing with him alongside Sari so he'll have to make do with being Sari's backup, another option was Enthusiastic Irish Midfielder Joel McAllister who did well when called upon in either the Box-to-Box or Ball Winning Roles but needs to push on if he wants to be a starter, whilst the other option I have is Tenacious Scot Kenny Leitch who showed glimpses of his potential but none of them have really claimed a spot alongside Sari so a quality midfielder is first on my list next season.

Up Front German Striker Patrick Gullenbeck had another strong season, he struggled a bit as the lone striker but he came alive when I switch to 4-4-2 getting a decent goal return despite playing as my support striker as he switched between being a False Nine and a Supporting Complete Forward, though he did finaly pass Lavery's goal record with his 56 League Goals a new club record. Playing alongside him was Colombian Wonderkid John Marquez who was snapped up for a bargain £2m under the noses of Barcelona and he had a storming season scoring goals for fun as his 25 league goals and 28 overall goals are new club records breaking the records set by Lavery back 2021 and is nearly half way to the All-Time record aswell, he was also Second Top Scorer in the league just behind Watfords free scoring Italian however with Barcelona shiffing around I really hope I can keep him. Providing cover was Saudi Wonderkid Majid Amro who cost me a joint record £9.5m and arrived with the bigger hopes but struggled to get going and just couldn't dislodge Gullenbeck and Marquez, but I wasn't really expecting either of them to be starters this season and with European football next season there should be plenty of games for him to impress in.

Best XI - About right with the likes of Bielik and Quiroga a little unlucky to miss out, also the Overall XI hasn't changed again but then Gullenbeck and Marshall are already in the team and no one else has played enough games to come close, though it might change next season as I'd guess that Ali and Kucera would be close to making the team.

Prem Select - Wingers Ali and Shaw make the team, with my Keeper and Strikers a little unlucky to miss out.

Stat Pack - As normal first goal tends to determine the match winner, with 2-1 wins or 1-1 draws being the common result.

Goals - Just before and after half-time were the times we most often scored with pretty much all of the goals scored for and against us this season were from the middle of the box.

Assists - Our assists were nicely spread around the pitch this season which is a good sign, and though whilst 22 goals came from crosses we only scored six headers, with five pens, five power shots and the other 44 being placed shots.

Shots - Most shots either went straight down the middle or in the right corner, though 20% went lying well wide of the goal.

Salary - Still rock bottom.

Net Transfer Spend - At the end of the Summer window we actually had the highest net spend, but with the sales of Greiber and Mur we near enough made even.

Finances - Premier League money means these aren't a problem - We got £96m from TV Money and £30m Prize Money, compared to revenue from our empty ground that earned ~£3m, our biggest expenses discount transfer fees were player wages at £24m, £18m tax bill and non-football costs of £15m all of which are well covered by the TV money. One slight worry is the fact that we only earned £1m from Sponsors which is about 0.25% of the Prem total

Shirt Sales - Looks like new signing Marquez was a hit with the fans, with Koray Sari the only one of the big signings to prove popular with the fans, with Dahlstrom continuing to prove populaar with the fans.

Facilities - Slight improvement as our Training Facilities are upgraded to Adequate (two stars), with our Youth still ahead on Good, I've also got them to improve them both again next season but again had to fight to get the training facilities improved, but were happy to improve the youth facilities, though I haven't had any option to improve either the Junior Coaching or Youth Recruitment this season but on the plus side our Youth Level finally got increased to Level 2 so lets see if we get any decent academy players next season. We also got some bad news regarding our New Stadium as it seems it has been delayed four months so it looks like we'll be borrowing Wigan's Stadium for our European Adventure.

Manager Profile - No real change, though the board did finally let me work on getting my National A Licence, I also rather surprisingly won the Manager of the Year Award (for the fifth time in total).

NAT (excluding yth players)

7 ENG
4 CRO
3 FRA, POL
2 POR,
1 BRA, BUL, CHI, COL, GER, ISL, KSA, SCO, SRB, SVN, SWE, SUI, CZE, IRL, TUR

HOMEGROWN (excluding yth players)

CLUB: 2
NATION: 10
DUE: 17

Wonderkids: 6 - Tomic, Quiroga, Kucera, Sari, Marquez, Amro.

Plans For Next Season

With us making our European debut next season the plan is to just enjoy the season and see how far we can go in the cups, any title race would rely upon City imploding though if we are lucky we might be able to snatch the last Champions League spot.

Signings wise the priority is to keep hold of my better players, the vultures are circling and I only hope European Football will keep them happy, other than that teams will need to be activating release clauses for me to part with the best ones. If I don't lose anyone a top quality midfielder is top of my list to replace Mur, though early attempts to replace him aren't going well as the better players just aren't interested, otherwise with European football some better squad depth is needed, so a backup LB, DC, LM and ST would be nice. Though my attempts to poach players from Spurs hasn't worked so far as the likes of Stones, Alli and Kane all want over £200K p/w which is way out of my reach so it looks like they'll be staying in the Championship.


State of The World

In the Championship Southampton win promotion back the prem after two years, with Forest going straight back up, whilst Reading end a 10 year exile winning the Playoffs at the third attempt.

Down in the Conference Salford gain promotion to the Football League whilst Wimbledon drop down the Conference South, with Northampton dropping out of the game.

FA Cup - Chelsea thrash Utd in the Final to keep up their run off winning it every three seasons inbetween Citys domination, whilst Utd like Stoke have now lost the final twice.

League Cup - Arsenal beat Stoke to claim their second trophy with the other one also being against Stoke back in 18/19.

Champions League - Bayern beat Real in the Final to claim their second trophy, with Madrid having now lost the last three finals. Chelsea went out in the Semis to Bayern, with City falling to Real in the Quarters and Bayern also knocked out Arsenal in the Knockout Round. Whilst Watford were unlucky not to make it out of the group finishing behind Madrid and Dortmund.

Europa League - Leverkusen beat Wolfsburg to complete a clean sweep for Germany, with Koln going out in the Semi-Final. Relegated Spurs made it to the Quarters before losing to Koln, with Watford and Stoke losing to other Semi-Finalists Leverkusen and AC Milan in the Knockout Round, finally Liverpool lost to Roma in the First Round.

France - No surprise as Paris win the league yet again. In the Cup struggling Toulouse beat Auxerre to claim their first trophy, though it wasn't all bad news for Auxerre as they qualfied for europe via fair play.

Germany - Dortmund reclaim the title from Stuttgart who could only finish 5th, with Bayern third behind Leverkusen. Whilst Dortmund claimed the double beating Bayern in the cup.

Italy - Juventus reclaim their title from Sassuolo, who finish behind Roma, with Sampdoria and Bologna taking the other European places. In the Cup Cesena couldn't retain the trophy losing to Atlanta in the Final.

Holland - PSV make it three in a row again narrowly beating Ajax the title with Feyenoord a long way back in third. Ajax at least claim the Cup beating VVV.

Scotland - Another title for Celtic, with Dundee Utd and Inverness third. Patrick win the Cup after avoiding relegation via the playoffs.

Spain - Its four in a row for Real Madrid with 99pts, whilst Barcelona finish third for the fifth season in a row. With Valencia claiming the Cup.




Leaderboard points (FM Mode)
(My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)
(points / position)
Single Game: 2,618,982 (209,800)
Single Season: 830,440 (242,258)
Single Season England:  830,440 (142,295)
Single Season Premiership: 193,421 (273,932)
Single Season Championship: 830,440 (8,109)
Single Season League 1: 86,896 (15,461)
Single Season League 2: 627,616 (1,524)
Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)
Single Season National North:  17,771 (804)

Career Overview

Season       League           League Finish     Achievements                  Leaderboard Points (Season/Game)  Attendance      Euro C/E (Place) 
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16/17	National North		16th		-					8,690 / 8,690        	320 (10%)
17/18	National North		3rd		Promoted - Playoff Winners		17,771 / 26,461        	350 (11%)
18/19	National League		4th		Promoted - Playoffs, FA Trophy Winners	483,959  / 510,420      460 (15%)
19/20	League 2		12th		-					46,701 / 557,121    	845 (21%)   
20/21	League 2		11th		-					54,675 / 611,796        930 (20%)
21/22	League 2		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			627,616  / 1,239,412    1,275 (27%)
22/23	League 1		4th		Promoted - Playoff Winners		86,896 / 1,326,308    	2,697 (53%)
23/24	Championship		15th		-					104,936 / 1,431,244   	4,058 (80%)
24/25	Championship		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			830,440 / 2,261,684   	4,396 (87%)
25/26	Premier League		10th		-					163,877 / 2,425,561 	2,000 (39%)
26/27	Premier League		5th		-					193,421 / 2,618,982	2,000 (39%)

 

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Skelmerdale - Premier League 2027/28 - Season 12

With us making our European Debut this season the board just expected us to enjoy the Group Stage of the Europa League whilst hoping for a top half finish in the League, whilst the bookies shockingly gave us an outside chance of mounting a title challenge, with the Media being a bit safer with an 8th place prediction, with only four teams at the bottom were given no chance of staying up this season.

Reputation - We reach 4 stars which brings with it a Continental reputation.

Rich List - We rise eight places to 29th.

Transfers - Quiet but expensive season, with the priority a quality midfielder, my first target was a German Wonderkid from Hoffenheim who I tried to get in January but they wouldn't sell him though he did sign a new contract with a £35m release clause but when I activated that in Jan he wouldn't move because he'd just signed a new contract, so I waited a couple of months and then when he declared he wanted to move to a bigger club I made another offer for him but he turned me down saying we weren't big enough for him (even though we were the only team showing any interest in him so no idea where he thinks he is going to go) so I waited until the game confirmed European football next season but still he wasn't interested, so I turned to my next target which was Ali from Spurs, he was older than I liked but still a quality player, though initially Spurs wanted £50m+ for him once their relegation was confirmed they would accept his value of £20m but he was demanding £300K p/w which was way out of  my reach so it seems he doesn't seem that concerned about being in the Championship, I also tried to get Harry Kane aswell but first he turned me down because he wanted UCL football and then after he was released he would talk to me but was wanting over £200K p/w, and in the end he joined Bournemouth who were no where near European football but they could afford to pay him £180K p/w!!! I also tried to get John Stones from them aswell but he was wanting £300K p/w aswell with him eventually joining Man Utd for half that. On the plus side I did manage to poach a five star potential striker from Spurs.

With my attempts to sign a new midfielder failing so far I had a look back at my shortlist to see who was next when I noticed Kittrick had now appeared on my interested list (I'd been tracking him for a couple of years but didn't have the resources or reputation to get him until now) and after some tough talks I got him for a record £32m plus about another £10m in clauses, with him signing with no problems as it at least seems Europa League football was enough to attract him, other Summer signings were a couple of youngsters including an expensive promising Left Back and a couple of loan signings for squad depth, though at the end of the window I snapped up Experienced German Winger Sane on the cheap as the week before Luke Shaw picked up a longterm injury and then a couple of days later Wonderkid Kone suffered a season ending injury without having made an appearance and with his loan terminated I was out of first team Left Wingers. Summer sales was just me clearing out some squad players and youngsters who weren't good enough.

The Winter Window didn't get off to a great start as Paris activated the release clause in my Turkish Midfielder Kotays contract which saw him leave for a record £46m, and to replace him I brought back Bruno Mur on loan as it seemed his move to Dortmund wasn't working out, its a shame he didn't warn Koray about going to Paris, with attempts to bring in a long term replacement failing I decided to wait until the summer.

Europa League - As a nice suprise we went straight in at the Group Stage as it seems the top nations now get two group spots, and despite only having a Nation part of the Co-Efficient we were named as third seeds and were drawn in a group containing French side Lyon who'd struggled to get anywhere near Paris in the league settling for european qualification each season, they hadn't done much in Europe a Quarter Final place in last seasons Champions League was the best they'd done, though they lost the Europa League Final to Utd in the second season. Second seeds were Ukrainian side Zorya Lugansk, who'd been in Europe for all but two seasons but had only made it past the group stage three times losing each time in the first knockout round. Completing the group were Dutch side ADO Den Haag who were making just their third appearance in Europe, losing to Milan in the Playoff last season and finishing bottom of their group a few years back, domestically they were solidly a mid-table team but had lifted the Dutch Cup a few years back and reached the final again a couple of years earlier.

In the Opening Game we faced what should have been our hardest match making the trip over to France to face Lyon however we utterly destroyed them with Marquez becoming the first player to score four goals in a match for me, as we ruthless exposed their narrow 4-3-3 formation. In our Second Match we entertained Zorya in Wigan as our ground wasn't good enough and two more goals from Marquez secured an easy victory and in the process set a new attendance record though it wasn't a sell out but was higher than the capacity of our new ground. Next up we made the trip to Holland and with us in control of the group I fielded a weakened side which went horribly wrong as ADO beat us.

In the Return Game I didn't make the same mistake fielding a full strength side that secured victory and our qualification out of the group. Next up we entertained Lyon live on TV and a weakened team won to secure top spot and knock out Lyon. With nothing to play for in the Final Game I fielded the weakest team I could for the long trip to Ukraine where the fans couldn't even be bothered turning up and were unlucky to only draw 1-1.

In the First Knockout Round we got the luck of draw after being paired with Czech side Viktoria Plzen who'd finished second behind Chelsea ahead of Partizan and Kobenhavn, with this being their third apperance in the Knockout Round. With the First Leg in the Czech Republic we blew them away winning 4-0 thanks to another Marquez hat-trick. The Second Leg was our first European game at 'home' and they gave us a bit of a scare (as in we nearly lost the leg but were in no danger of losing the tie) but my second string claimed victory with a late winner.

The Second Knockout Round paired us with Portuguese giants Sporting who'd knocked Utd out in the last round and had made it through the group stages after being knocked out of the Champions League in the Qualifiers. With the First Leg in Portugal we had a poor night as we just never got going and were lucky to only lose 1-0. In the Second Leg we put in a better performance but were woeful in front of goal and with Sporting grabbing an away goal on the stroke of half-time we just couldn't find the two more goals we needed, though that said we had a good debut season in Europe. It also proved to be a frustrating night for England as Liverpool blew a 2-0 first leg lead to get knocked out by Braga, Chelsea went out to Atlanta whilst Watford fell to Standard which knocked out all of the English sides.

League Cup - The less said about this the better as my second string fell to pieces against Championship strugglers Crewe.

FA Cup - In the Third Round we faced a daunting trip to Old Trafford and somehow we came away with a famous victory thanks to goals from both my strikers within minutes of each other. In the Fourth Round we entertained League One Coventry and a weakened side claimed a 2-0 victory thanks to a brace from my onloan Striker Carpenter. In the Fifth Round we faced Championship Newcastle and despite fielding a strong side we ended up drawing 1-1 which was the last result we needed, in the Replay I fielded my strongest side who tore Newcastle apart, however it was a costly win as Winger Ali picked up an injury that would rule him out of the Sporting games and the Quarter Final tie. The Quarter Final saw us make the trip down to London to face Crystal Palace, and despite it being sandwiched between the Sporting games I fielded my strongest side but we could only draw meaning yet another replay and to make matters worse my young RB Zajc picked up an injury that would rule him out for the rest of the season. In the Replay we battered Palace but were again poor in front of goal but a first half strike from Gullenbeck was enough to win the game.

In the semi-final we were drawn against an Arsenal side who'd already won the League Cup and were walking the League, however we did have an even record against Arsenal having both won three of the eight games we played drawing the other two, though this season we'd been beaten 3-0 away and needed two injury-time goals to claim a draw in the home game, but despite that the press made us slight favourites, whilst our only other FA Cup Semi-Final had resulted in defeat to Stoke. Arsenal also made a interesting choice with their team as for some reason they dropped their first choice keeper and replaced him with their backup keeper who's only appearance so far was in a 7-3 win over Newcastle in the League Cup Quarters, he wasn't even a promising young keeper either he was just a sub-standard 30yo they'd purely signed to sit on the bench :confused:

The Semi-Final itself didn't get off to a great start when a defensive error gifted Arsenal's £65m Striker a free header and after that I expected the worse, however despite Arsenal spending most of the game assaulting our goal we defended heroically to reduce them to half chances and on the hour we punished them Marquez grabbing his 45th goal of the season and that spurred us into action but we just couldn't find a winner and so the match went to extra-time and that proved costly as Marquez injured his knee and would be ruled out for the rest of the season and with neither of us able to score in extra-time the match went to pens and with my Keeper saving their second pen it fell to record signing Kittrick to score the winner and book our place in the Final.

As a bit of luck and a cruel twist of fate we'd face Stoke in the Final who beat City in extra-time in the other semi and were hoping it was finally their year as they'd lost the 2025 and 2026 finals to City and they'd also lost the real 2011 final to City as well and to add to that our record against Stoke was woeful we'd lost four of the seven games against them so far though we'd faired a bit better against them this season coming from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 on the opening day and then record our only victory against them in Jan when Koray scored on his final game, he'd also scored in the draw aswell though he wouldn't be scoring here. It was a Historic First Final for us, whilst Stoke were hoping it would be fourth time lucky.

Going into the final we had a big injury problem with Left Backs Alet and Shaw both out injured, whilst Right Back Zajc was only fit enough for the bench, though the bigger loses were Winger Ali and Striker Marquez who were my star players and it would be a struggle without both of them.

The Final turned out to be a close fought game with us taking the lead just before half-time thanks to a fluke goal - my Bulgarian Right Winger Apostolov whipped in a cross from the Right which Gullenbeck headed against the bar with the ball then hitting the Stoke Keeper and rolling into the back of the net :) which was lucky as my other striker Amro had picked up a knock and really needed subbing but with only a 17yo Striker on the bench he had to carry on until half-time when I brought on DM Leitch and switched to my old 4-1-4-1 formation in the hopes of just holding onto the lead but midway through the second half we doubled our lead when Left Winger Sane drifted into the middle and found Apostolov in the area who got free and smashed in his first goal for the club and whilst Stoke scored a late goal it was too late to do anything as we held on to win the FA Cup for the first time :cool:

Premier League - Fantastic season as we somehow finish third and claim a Champions League spot. The season didn't get off to a great start in the opening game we had to come from 2-0 down to grab a draw at Stoke, but then lost to Derby and needed two injury time goals to claim a draw against Arsenal before before playing out a drab 0-0 drew at Sunderland and then as I tweaked my tactics switching over to a Fluid system and switched around a couple of my pairings as we suffered narrow defeats to Utd and Chelsea but things started to slowly improve as we then won away to Liverpool and in our final appearance at West Lancashire College we utterly destroyed a woeful Blackburn 11-0 (yes eleven!!!) as Gullenbeck became the second person to score four goals in a game for us whilst Suadi Striker Amro even came off the bench to end an 11 game goal drought as Man Utd's record 9-0 win over Ipswich back in 1995 was finally beaten and we also finally wiped the 7-3 defeat to Kidderminster from our records.

After the Blackburn game the goals continued to flow as we won our next four league games, but then in December things fell apart as we lost Winger Ali to injury and midfielder Koray switched off as he was more interested in arranging his move to Paris which resulted in us losing four games straight against Reading, Fulham and Everton all teams we should have beaten, whilst we were unlucky to lose 4-2 to City with them scoring two injury time goals, though our second goal was through City trying to be too clever at the back (vid link) :D

Then with Ali back in the team and with Koray discussing terms with Paris we rediscovered our scouring touch with a Marquez hat-trick inspiring our win over QPR and then Koray put in his best performance of the season and scored in his last game as we beat Stoke.

This meant at the half-way stage we were sixth, ahead of QPR on goal difference, one point clear of Chelsea and Fulham and two clear of Villa, above us was Watford by two points, with Liverpool a further two ahead, but the top three were out of sight.

In the second half of the season we kept up our form winning seven of the next nine games, including a 1-0 home win over Utd, but it also included a 3-0 thrashing by Arsenal. This meant with 10 games left for us we were in 7th however thanks to FA Cup replays and european games we'd played less games than everyone else - Derby were four points behind but had played three games more than us, Liverpool were one point ahead of us having played two more games, Chelsea were another point ahead also having played two more games, ahead of them by one point was Watford who had played four(!) more games than us, and up in third were Utd 11 points ahead of us but also having played four more games than us, ahead of them on GD were City but they had only played twice more, whilst Arsenal were walking the league being 25 points clear of us but having played four more times. I was also looking rather thankful that we'd gone out of Europe by now as for the rest of the season we were playing twice a week in the League and I don't even want to know how they'd would have fit in two to four more European games?

With the games coming thick and fast we won our next two against Villa and Palace but then suffered a costly 3-0 defeat to Chelsea which saw them climb to fourth with us dropping to fifth but we still had a game in hand on them and were only two points behind, we'd at least narrowed the gap to third placed Utd to six points but were down to just two games in hand.

Comfortable wins over Reading and Southampton meant with just five games left we were in fourth, one point behind Utd, one point ahead of Chelsea and four points clear of Watford who had all played two more games than we had, we were also only five points behind second placed City and 10 points clear of Liverpool who had both only played the same amount of games as me which meant our games in hand were against each other.

However our season very nearly fell apart as Star Striker Marquez's injury against Arsenal in the FA Cup would rule him out for the rest of the season and without our Striker we lost to Liverpool as Gullenbeck missed a pen, we were then hammered 4-1 by QPR, before needing an own goal to rescue a draw against relegated Everton who spent over an hour with just 10 men.

This meant going into the final week of the season we were in fourth place one point clear of both Chelsea and Watford who had one game left to our two, five points back were Liverpool who had three games left, ahead of us by three points were Utd who were down to their last game, whilst second placed City who despite having three games left to play had nothing to play for. With our last two games being against City and Fulham we only needed three points to secure a Champions League place.

With us utterly out of form I was just hoping not to get thrashed by City, however for the first time since the FA Cup Semi we remembered how to play football and dominated the game claiming a 2-0 win over a lacklustre City side, who to be fair had nothing left to play for, spent most of the game down to 10 men and were on their second of four games in eight days, though the win was costly as Winger Ali picked up another injury that would rule him out of the FA Cup Final. With Champions League Football secured in the final game I fielded a team of youngsters to rest players for the FA Cup Final, who were unlucky to lose to Fulham however with Utd also losing we claimed third place on Goals Scored so that Blackburn result was fairly important in the end :)

Squad, Home and Review

Croatian GoalKeeper Hrvoje Tomic had another fine season, though he wasn't ever present this season as I gave each of my other Keepers one appearance each.

At Right Back Daniel Marshall had another solid season, but is slowly being phased out for Slovenian Wonderkid Uros Zajc who is developing nicely and had a solid season but ended up missing the last two months of the season through injury and was just about fit enough to come on as a sub in the FA Cup Final. At Left Back was Frenchman Valentin Alet who had a better season but didn't really push on as I'd hoped which explains why City didn't use him, though he does seem to have attracted the interest of Bayern, providing cover was Czech Wonderkid Ludek Krizek who cost me a decent amount of money and showed glimpses of his potential but is still a little raw but will hopefully push Alet next season.

At Centre Back was another Czech Wonderkid David Kucera who had a fantastic season as I switched him over to the DCR position and has just signed a bumper new five-year contract that should keep him at the club long-term, partnering him was Chilean Wonderkid Ivan Quiroga who was also in fine form as these two have formed a fine partnership, though they are still a little error prone and can struggle at times to play twice a week but hopefully both issues will get ironed out as they get more experience. Providing cover was Pole Mateusz Bondarenko who had a poor season, with the only other option I had was Youngster Liam Jones who did ok but isn't really ready yet and needed a more solid partner to help him out.

On the Right Wing French Winger Benjamin Ali had a storming season as he broke my 10 year old assists record, set a new Average Rating Record and even found his scoring boots, I also thankfully got him tied down to a long term contract at the beginning of the season as Real Madrid wanted him back and he had a £30m release clause that I got bumped upto £120m, he also retained the Young Player of the Year Award and won the French Player of the Year Award which has so far been dominated by Pogba and Varane, the only downside is that he keeps on getting injured in matches, providing cover was my Young Bulgarian Midfielder Radoslav Apostolov who again stepped up with some fine performances and is developing well, though he seems to be my only youngster who isn't a Wonderkid? On the Left Wing Luke Shaw started the season well but he then just suffered an endless list of injuries that has likely finished him off, he also had the nerve to want out at the start of the season as he wanted Champions League Football, however the only team interested in him were UCL-less Chelsea, whilst he didn't make a single european appearance for Utd in the last seven years - I still have no idea why Utd didn't play him. Providing cover was Experienced German Leroy Sane who was brought in on the cheap mainly just to provide cover however he had a fantastic season and will leave Shaw with a fight on his hands to get his place back, the only other option I had was Entusiastic Winger Peter Bradford who did ok but I'm not sure if he has a longterm future with us.

In the Centre of Midfield was record signing Dave Kittrick who had a slow start as I started him out as my Box-to-Box Midfielder however after switching him to my Deep Lying Playmaker he excelled and had a fantastic season and even had a hand in several goals and the £45m I might end up paying for him is looking a bargain. Playing alongside him in the Box-to-Box Role was Turkish Midfielder Koray Sari who was having a fine season until his head was turned by Paris and his form dropped off until they activated his release clause in January, and to replace him I brought Spanish Midfielder Bruno Mur back to the club on loan from Dortmund where he'd had a dissapointing year and I still don't understand why they signed him as they had better players anyway, thankfully he slotted straight back into my team and made sure we didn't miss Koray, I've also hopefully put him in the shop window considering I am due 50% of his next sale. Providing cover was Swede Patrik Dahlstrom who had another solid season when called upon but isn't likely to ever be anything more than a squad player and will likely be moved on once one of my young midfielders has improved past him though he did claim a rare Goal of the Month Award for us, providing cover in the Box-to-Box role was Enthusiastic Irish Midfielder Joel McAllister who did ok but like with Dahlstrom hasn't really developed enough but might be kept on as he is now homegrown, but I also have Scottish Wonderkid Kenny Leitch who ended the season strongly after a poor start and might be given the squad matches next year.

Upfront in the Advanced Forward Role Colombian Wonderkid John Marquez was on fire scoring goals for fun with his 45 goals likely a new record for me - the closest anyone has got to that for me before was a Striker Reeves I had for Nantwich back on FM10 who got 39 goals one year, though I did have a guy called Stourac for my Salzburg squad who got 43 goals in one season in Gundos Challenge on FM13, however I am missing a couple of earlier versions and CM screenshots so someone might have beaten it back then. He'd also beaten the record he'd set last season by January with his 29 league goals a new record, he also claimed the Football of the Year and European Golden Boy awards and was really unlucky to miss out on the Top Scorer Award again - if he hadn't missed the end of the season through injury he may even have set a new record, whilst his nine man of the match awards were also a new club record. Of course his end of season injury might have been a blessing because at the start of the season Barcelona wanted him and I could only keep him by telling him we'd get Champions League Football - and this seemed to inspire him as he nearly got us top four on his own, however the bigger problem I had was he had a £28m release clause and spent most of the season worth £27m so I spent most of the season dreading a bid from Barcelona or City who were both interested in him however no bids came from either of them, the only team to bid for him were Benfica in Jan and it seemed they didn't have the cash upfront to activate his release clause, so the second we secured UCL football I offered him a new contract with his demands thankfully just being within my reach and I noticed after offering him the contract his value was at £30m so I was still expecting a late bid from Barcelona or City but thankfully he accepted the offer and didn't have any work permit related problems this time.

Playing alongside him in the Complete Forward Support Role was German Patrick Gullenbeck who had a solid season though a third of his goals came against Blackburn, and with Marquez just 15 league goals behind him he is in danger of losing the All-Time Goal Record for us, even more so considering he lost his place during the season to Suadi Wonderkid Majid Amro who made a poor start to the season only scoing his first goal in the destruction of Blackburn, but with Gullenbeck out of form I gave him a chance alongside Marquez in the Support role and that seemed to suit him as all of a sudden he became alive and started to show why I paid £9.5m for him.

My Academy also finally produced a player of note - Defender Dominic Campbell who has a four star rating and I was looking happy considering I needed a Centre-Back until I noticed he cannot jump, so I'll retrain him into a Right Back.

Best XI - I'd go with that well apart from Winger Apostolov being deployed as a MC who I'd swap for Mur.

Overall XI - This finally updates as Ali, Marquez and Kucera all make the team, whilst rather fittingly Dahlstrom makes it to the bench, which were the changes I predicted, next year GK Tomic is the most likely to make the team, though LB Alet and LM Sane have an outside chance of making it if they have good full seasons.

Prem Select - Ali makes the team again and is this time joined by Marquez, though no room for the leagues top scorer.

Stat Pack - Mixed performances against the top sides but we mainly beat the smaller teams and even managed to win some games after going behind - though I think this might be broken as three of our four draws this season required us to come from behind, whilst the other was a 0-0 draw so shouldn't be included in either column? Whilst assuming the rest is correct our most common result was a 2-1 win followed by either 0-1 or 1-2 defeats or 4-0 or 4-1 wins.

Goals - Again most goals are scored just before half-time with pretty much all of the goals in our matches being scored from around the pen spot.

Assists - My Left Side was by far the most dangerous which was a little weird considering my Right Winger and Strikers accounted for more assists, but the game doesn't break them down for players or where the set-piece goals came from. Defensively it was a little worrysome that our Right Side was rather weak, though our inability to defend corners may have inflated this stat.

Finances - We again make a healthy profit and finish the season with over £100m in the bank. The main increase in revenue this season was the extra £10m having an actual stadium with people in brought in, we also gained an extra £10m in prize money and players sold. Expenses wise Wages and Transfer fee's account for over half our expenditure, though spending big on tranfers isn't really a problem as we have the money in the bank.

Salary - We finally outspent someone though it was only newly promoted Reading.

Net Transfer Spend - Thanks to the enforced sale of Koray we again were at the bottom of the list as everyone spent money this season.

Shirt Sales - Star Players Marquez and Ali proved most popular as did new signings Sane and Kittrick, whilst Mur was a little bit of a surprise considering he was only loaned in January, I'm guessing we reused last seasons shirt for him :)

New Stadium - After a bit of a delay we finally moved into our New Stadium which looks rather nice apart from that one random Floodlight. Though it didn't last long as within days of being built the board announced plans to expand it and at the end of the season they decided to expand it by 50% which means we'll be spending next season playing in Wigan. I also hope the 25,000 expansion capacity is a soft cap otherwise we could be limited in few years.

Attendance - Still bottom, though we did fill out our new home not that would even lift us from the bottom.

Facilities - Training Facilities get bumped upto Average (2.5 stars) but the board have again refused to increase them further, but did approve improvements to the Youth, Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment stating that youth development is important to them - but won't improve the training facilities so I can actually develop them once they have been generated into the game :( Though at the last minute I got another chance to ask which they rejected, but this time I leaked it to the press and they finally agreed to improve our training facilities.

Elite Footballers - We somehow made it onto the list of Elite Football Producers, apparently producing nine club-trained players - though I have no idea how the game calculates this as according to the various homegrown screens I only had two - McAllister and Dahlstrom or about 40 if you include the useless youth players my academy has produced, though a later story said two of the nine were playing in one of the big leagues outside of the Prem - but I could only find one player playing in Scotland who doesn't count, so as best as I could work out it seems to count Nation-trained players who've been at your club.

Manager Profile - Reputation shoots up two stars to 3.5, I also gained two badges this season and now have my Continental C Licence. I also managed my 600th game which was the 1-0 win over Utd.

Knowledge - Upto 71% coverage of the World as we have knowledge of pretty much every corner of the world, though I would have more if the AI teams stopped appointing my coaches as their Managers :(

NAT (excluding yth players)

10 ENG
3 POL
2 CRO, FRA, GER, SCO, CZE
1 AUT, BEL, BUL, CHI, COL, ITA, POR, KSA, SVN, ESP, SWE, IRL, USA, WAL

HOMEGROWN (excluding yth players)

CLUB: 3
NATION: 10
DUE: 19

Wonderkids: 8 - Tomic, Zajc, Quiroga, Kucera, Krizek, Leitch, Marquez, Amro.
Sold Wonderkids 1 - Sari

Plans For Next Season

The plan is to enjoy our debut in the Champions League and try and get back in next season, a title challenge would be nice but whilst we can match the big teams if we turn up, we just don't have the squad depth to grind out a title challenge or compete on several fronts.

Transferwise the first thing we need to do is keep our best players, thankfully they are all on nice long contracts and all the low release clauses have been removed, whilst Champions League football should hopefully keep them happy. Signings wise the priority is a new quality Centre Midfielder - thankfully I've got one sorted nice and early as I have poached a 23yo English World-Class Midfielder from Liverpool for a frankly stupid £96m but we had money in the bank and it was worth it to poach Liverpools best player :cool: Other priorities are a Centre-Back to add competition and cover, and we could also do with a new Striker to provide cover for Marquez as his end of season injury nearly proved costly, could also do with finding a promising young Left Winger as it looks like Shaws time is over.

State of The World

In the Championship Spurs' woes continued as they very nearly suffered relegation to League One, yet Ali still wants silly money to sign for me. At the top Hull returned at the second time of asking, whilst Birmingham returned to the Prem for the first time, with Swansea coming straight back up via the playoffs.

In League Two Salford survive rather comfortably their first season in the Football League. Whilst Bolton finally drop out of the game and this will hopefully stop them from appointing my coaches as their new manager only to fire him after six months and poach another one.

FA Cup - Was ours this season for the first time, as Stoke lose the final for the third time. (four all time).

League Cup - Arsenal become the first side ingame to retain the trophy in-game (but not over Stoke this time) with their third trophy a new record.

Champions League - After having lost the last three Finals Real finally win beating Valencia - and they have now made the final for the last five years straight. With both Arsenal and City losing in the Semis, whilst Porto and Benfica were surprise Quarter-Finalists. Utd finished third in their group behind Real and Roma, whilst Watford finished third behind Benfica and Dortmund which was how well they did in their only other appearance.

Europa League - Monaco beat Sporting for their first trophy, which was France's second, behind England with Six, Germany with Three and level with Spain. The beaten Semi-Finalists were both surprises - Dinamo from Croatia and overachieving Italtians Sassuolo. Whilst it was a season to forget for England with us, Chelsea, Watford, and Liverpool all falling in the Second Knockout Round, with Utd losing to Sporting in the previous round

France - Continues to be one sides as Paris again top 100 points. With Bordeaux beating Nice in the cup.

Germany - Bayern claim the title for the first time in five years beating Dortmund on goals scored, but they lose in the Cup Final again this time to Stuttgart.

Italy - After finishing second four times Roma finally win the title beating Juventus by one point. Thought Juventus did claim the Cup for the first time in five years beating Sampdoria

Holland - Bit of a shock here as FC Twente claim the title on the final day, as PSV lost and dropped to third below Heerenveen who also won with Ajax struggling to sixth place but thanks to the silly european playoff thing it looks like they still secured a european place. Whilst NEC won the cup but finished rock bottom of the league, beating fellow relegation strugglers GA Eagles.

Scotland - Exactly the same as last season, Celtic win again with Dundee Utd second and Inverness third, with Celtic beating Hamilton in the Cup for their first Double in five years.

Spain - Valencia spoil Madrids party as they beat them to the title with 98pts to Reals 95, with Barcelona a distant third. Though Real got some revenge beating Valencia in the Cup Final.

European Championship - Bit of a shock as Ukraine beat Hosts and Holders Spain in the Final - with Ukraine doing a Portugal and managed to win the tournament with just two wins - they won only one group game losing the other two but went through in third place, they then beat Denmark in extra-time before beating Bulgaria and Germany on pens. England didn't have a great time losing in the Quarters to France which cost Seedorf his job and he was replaced by Unai Emery who was poached from Liverpool.

Leaderboard points (FM Mode)
(My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)
(points / position)
Single Game: 3,461,313 (173,275)
Single Season: 842,331 (312,385)
Single Season England:  842,331 (187,613)
Single Season Premiership: 842,331 (178,517)
Single Season Championship: 830,440 (8,109)
Single Season League 1: 86,896 (15,461)
Single Season League 2: 627,616 (1,524)
Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)
Single Season National North:  17,771 (804)

Career Overview

Season       League           League Finish     Achievements                  Leaderboard Points (Season/Game)  Attendance      Euro C/E (Place) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
16/17	National North		16th		-					8,690 / 8,690        	320 (10%)
17/18	National North		3rd		Promoted - Playoff Winners		17,771 / 26,461        	350 (11%)
18/19	National League		4th		Promoted - Playoffs, FA Trophy Winners	483,959  / 510,420      460 (15%)
19/20	League 2		12th		-					46,701 / 557,121    	845 (21%)   
20/21	League 2		11th		-					54,675 / 611,796        930 (20%)
21/22	League 2		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			627,616  / 1,239,412    1,275 (27%)
22/23	League 1		4th		Promoted - Playoff Winners		86,896 / 1,326,308    	2,697 (53%)
23/24	Championship		15th		-					104,936 / 1,431,244   	4,058 (80%)
24/25	Championship		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			830,440 / 2,261,684   	4,396 (87%)
25/26	Premier League		10th		-					163,877 / 2,425,561 	2,000 (39%)
26/27	Premier League		5th		-					193,421 / 2,618,982	2,000 (39%)
27/28	Premier League		3rd		FA Cup Winners. UEL KR2			842,331 / 3,461,313	9,717 (83%)
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Everyones warming up for FM2017 but as I'll be sticking with 2016 until the update in March I'm starting up a challenge. ...Not entirely true, I started it a few days ago and forgot to post my profile. Here it is, playing as Rushall Olympic. I've actually finished my first season and I'll post an update in a bit.

 

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Rushall Olympic FC

160px-Rushallolympicfc.png

2016/17

Vanerama Conference North - 18th

Overview

 A steady start to our first season. Relegation was a distinct possibility and I was only really able to secure players capable of pulling us clear in mid-March leaving just a handful of games. The team is now strengthened and I have lined up some very strong players to join for next season. Hopefully next year we can start pushing for promotion.

Team

GK - George Dorrington

 

RB - Lewis Turner

CB - Taylor McKenzie

CB - Christian Maghoma

LB - Michael O'Donoghue

 

RW - Jack Macreth

CM - Kristian Scott

CM - Gary Deegan

LW - Gerardo Bruna

 

AM - Frankie Sutherland

CF - Jordan Preston

History

Season	¦	League				¦	Pos.	¦	Comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17	¦	Conference North		¦	18th	¦	

 

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Skelmerdale - Premier League 2028/29 - Season 13

So after somehow securing a Champions League place last season the board were hoping for a European Place finish whilst expecting us to just enjoy our Champions League debut. The bookies gave us an outside chance of the title with them reckoning we had the best chance of breaking the top four, and at the bottom they again hedged their bets giving five sides no chance of staying up, with the Media Predicting we'd finish 5th.

European Reputation - With a decent showing in last seasons Europa League we finally become one of the leading clubs in europe, though we are one of the weakest Continental sides on a par with those mighty German sides Hannover and Mainz. (Though I did forget to take a screencap of our domestic reputation.)

World Rich List - We rise upto 15th just behind Barcelona.

Transfers - Record breaking season, which is down to the £69m (rising to £92m if all the clauses are met - rather interesting is that all instances of his transfer fee were showing £76m at the end of the season after I paid the £7m international caps clause, at the start of the season the transfer was reported as just the base £69m so it is rather nice that these values actually update as clauses are paid) I paid for Liverpool's World Class English Midfielder Josh Taylor, it was silly money but we had the money in the bank with the bigger problem being wages I can only offer £130K p/w when most of the star players want over £200K or even £300K p/w so I am rather limited in who I can purchase. Other signings were a couple of youngsters and players to improve my squad depth, then in January the board randomly gave me another £30m to spend, but with it not enough to attract a World-Class Striker I raided Europe for a couple of promising youngsters. Saleswise it was just letting various squad players go, with the biggest sale being the £4m+ I got for Young Defender Jones - he didn't look like he was going to break into my team and I wasn't ever likely to get more than that in the future so I let him go, I also let Luke Shaw leave after he continued to pick up injuries over the summer and the £60K I was paying him was better used elsewhere, finally I was disappointed to make a loss on Irishman McAllister but only League 1 sides were interested in him, which showed how badly he'd developed.

Leading Transfers - After activating one of his clauses Josh Taylor becomes the most expensive in-game transfer, passing the £74m City also paid Liverpool for English Striker Montgomery a couple of years back. From the 25 transfers Paris and Real have the most with five each, with City next with four, Juventus have sold five of the top players, whilst Valencia and Utd are the only teams to have both bought and sold a leading player. Whilst Kingsley Coman has an interesting transfer history - pregame Juventus got him on a free from Paris and then loaned him to Bayern for two years before they bought him for £15m, then promptly sold him to Real for £35m and then a year later after not realling being given a chance in Spain they bought him back for £36m where he again struggled and was sold back to Juventus for just £14m had two solid seasons was sold back to Paris for £52m.

Community Shield - Not the best start to the season as its Arsenal's turn to win on pens after we beat them on pens in the FA Cup last season, and to make matters worse Dahlstrom picked up an injury which ruled him out for most of the season.

League Cup - Unlucky to draw Man City in our only game as my second string put up a good fight, but Citys second string was a lot stronger.

FA Cup - After winning the FA Cup last season we returned to Wembley, after having quite possibly the easiest route to the Final you could ask for, as my Second String beat League Two Hemel Hempstead, League One Leyton Orient who gave us a little shock, then they beat Championship strugglers Cardiff and Sheff Wed, before my first team blew past Sunderland in the Semi to set up a Final against Chelsea. Our record against Chelsea wasn't great having won three, drawn four and lost four - though we were improving against them as we beat them in both of the league games this season.

FA Cup Final - We utterly dominated the Final and should have thrashed them as Striker Marquez just missed chance after chance and was yanked off for Loanee Leo Jaba in the second half, but thankfully Gullenbeck showed him how to do it scoring the only goal midway through the first half as we retained the FA Cup. We also got a nice bit of revenge on former Keeper Sebtaoui who joined Chelsea this season and after leaving us after wanting a move to a bigger team has had less success than we have had in the same time.

Champions League - Making our debut we weren't given much chance, whilst a Real side who'd made the last five finals and were hosting it this season were only third favourites with Porto the bookies dark horse.

Thanks to finishing third we went straight into the Group Stage, but could end up with a tough group as we were only fourth seeds, though the group wasn't that bad (as City got Real, Arsenal got Barcelona and Utd got Bayern) as we drew Portuguese Champions Benfica who'd been in the Champions League every season so far, but had only made it to the Quarter Finals three times and had failed to get out of their group five times. Second seed were German giants Dortmund who'd won the German league in three of the last five years and had made it to the UCL Semi-Finals four times - losing to Real twice and fellow German sides Leverkusen and Bayern, they also had my former player Bruno Mur. Making up the group were Russians Zenit who'd only made it past the group stage once and that was in the first season, though the six other times they made the group stages they finished third but then never made it past the Second Knockout Round in the Europa League.

Group Stage - Our First Game was at 'home' against Dortmund and despite going one down and being reduced to 10 men we thrashed them 4-1 with Gullenbeck grabbing his first goal of the season ending an 11 hour goal drought, next up was the trip to Russia and a fantastic first half thanks to a Marquez hat-trick saw us smash them 4-2 and put ourselves in pole position, thanks to Dortmund beating Benfica. However the double header against Benfica went horribly wrong, as we were unlucky to lose in Portugal and then somehow lost the Return game despite being in control though missing a pen didn't help, nor did the fact that they'd injured both my Wingers and my Striker Amro by half-time. This meant with two games left we were in second three points behind Benfica but two clear of Dortmund and Zenit as Zenit had beaten and then drawn to catch up to Dortmund. First was a tricky trip to Germany to face Dortmund however we put the Benfica games behind us and hit Dortmund for four again as Marquez grabbed another first-half hat-trick which secured our place in the knockout round. In the final match with us unable to catch Benfica, I gave my second string a chance who were unlucky to lose to a Zenit side who secured yet another third place finish.

In the Knockout Round we drew Europa League Holders Monaco who'd won all but one of their group games, however they had never got past this stage so far, they hadn't had much luck domestically either as they had to settle with finishing a distant second behind a dominating PSG pretty much every season so far.

With the First Leg at home we dominated the game with Midfielder Kittrick grabbing his first of the season with a fine strike from outside the area to open the scoring, however we spent the rest of the game failing to add to our tally before Kittrick grabbed his second of the season with a well placed finish late on to give us some breathing room in france. The Second Leg was a more even game as we got off to a great start as Marquez grabbed a valuable away goal with less than two minutes gone, though some awful defending either side of half-time saw Monaco take the lead on the night, but with Monaco having to commit men forward we killed the game off as Marquez grabbed his second goal of the night.

In the Quarter Final we of course drew Arsenal (I really hate playing English sides in Europe) who'd won the Champions League two years in a row a couple of years back and along with City had been tearing apart the Prem in the last couple of years. We also didn't have a great record against them either having won three, drawn four and lost five of our encounters with them so far and taht included two 1-0 defeats to them in the league this season.

With the First Leg at home it looked like we'd blown our chances as in an even game our defensive frailities cost us as we lost 2-1 giving them two away goals. In the Second Leg we got off to a bad start as more bad defending gave Arsenal the lead, however that seemed to inspire our team as after that we defended well limiting them to long range pot shots and midway through the half Kittrick got us back into the game with another screamer from distance, I then made a big call at half-time dragging off both Ali and Marquez who were both having shocking games and it paid off as midway through the second half we levelled the tie as the Arsenal GK could only palm away a shot from Gullenbeck, which my Record Signing Taylor anticipated surperbly giving him a tap-in, after that we had Arsenal on the ropes but just couldn't find another goal so our third cup tie in a row against Arsenal would go down to a pen shootout - Arsenal scored their first three pens whilst new signings Taylor and Banegas scored for me before German Striker Gullenbeck saw his pen saved, but GK Tomic kept us in the tie when he saved the next pen, then on loan Striker Leo Jaba who'd come on for Marquez drew us level and with my GK Tomic also saving the next pen, Kittrick stepped up and calmly put us into the Semi-Finals.

In the Semi-Final we drew French giants PSG (though the other options were Real or City so Paris not looking that bad) which meant a reunion with former player Koray Sari who unlike Mur was excelling in Paris, and whilst PSG had dominated in France they had a mixed history in Europe having made the Final six times but having only won three of those finals - which makes them the jont most successful side along with Chelsea, whilst Real have also played in six finals but have lost four of them, though slightly worrying was the fact that Paris had only lost one semi-final and that was against Chelsea and to get here they had knocked out Benfica.

With the First Leg in France, PSG dominated the match and took the lead early on after catching us on the counter, though we did leave their RB all the space in the world to cross the ball and didn't bother to pick up the target and with PSG all over us I made a couple of changes at half-time off came former PSG defender Jonckheere who was having a shocker replacing him with Quiroga who was on the bench because he ws completely out of form, I also brought on Leo Jaba for the disappointing Gullenbeck. Though with PSG still dominating they just couldn't score and we punished them midway through the half with Marquez releasing sub Jaba who coolly smashed in an unlikely equaliser and we then hit them with a late sucker punch as Experienced Winger Sane came off the bench and whipped in a cross that a PSG defender could only turn into his own goal which somehow gave us a first leg lead and two away goals having only managed one shot on target.

In the Second Leg we got off to a great start as pretty much from the kick off Ali got away down the right put the ball in the box for Marquez to smash home, and minutes later he had his second after a loose ball from a PSG tackle left him free on goal, though some poor defending then gave PSG a life line before Quiroga restored our two goal lead with just his third goal for the club - as he got free on a free-kick and whilst the GK saved his initial shot he could only parry it straight back at him for a tap-in, PSG then grabbed a fluke goal to pull another goal back. In the second half we made sure of victory as from a corner Ali was unmarked at the far post and he headed the ball back across goal where Kucera bundled the ball in from almost on the line for his first goal of the season, and whilst PSG scored again late on we held on to book our place in the Champions League Final.

In the Final we would face a Man City side who'd knocked out Real and Valencia and had made it through a group containing Sporting and Real, and despite Citys success domestically this was their first European Final, having lost in the Semi-Final three times and had even lost a Europa League Semi-Final. Whilst our record against City was bad we'd only won two of our nine encounters losing six and drawing one, they'd also beaten three times already this season, twice with weakened sides.

Going into the Final we were at full strength (minus Marshall who I would have liked to have on the bench) and we made a great start as against the run of play we took the lead with record signing Josh Taylor smashing in the Goal of the Competition from long range which was almost worth the ~£90m he cost me on its own, but things were to get better as Gullenbeck scored a placed shot to give us a two goal lead, but then Citys record signing dragged them back into the match with two goals in little over a minute to level the match. At half-time with Left Back Alet having a shocker he was subbed off and that seemed to shore up our defence as in the second half City were reduced to pot shots as my Centre-Backs dealt with anything they threw at us in the second half both ending with 8+ ratings, though we weren't much better in attack and with Marquez loooking lost in front of goal he was replaced by loanee Leo Jaba, however with neither of us able to break the deadlock extra-time loomed, and with both sets of players looking dead on their feet a moment of madness from Citys £53m rated Right Back gave us the advantage as with Taylor breaking into the box he pulled his shirt and the ref gave a pen, and Taylor dusted himself off and as calm as you like sent his pen straight down the middle to put us back in the lead and that goal would be worth the money, however we weren't finished as we made sure at the end with Loanee Leo Jaba getting on the end of a Taylor throughball to calmy lift the ball over the City Keeper which made it 4-2 and secured the Champions League at the first time of asking :cool: and it even impressed the board.

Videos of the rest of the goals from my Champions League Knockout Games can be found here.

And that is part one of the challenge complete :cool:

Champions League Review - We were named biggest Overachievers, with Marquez just about grabbing the Golden Boot with his 12 goals a new in-game record.

Premier League - It was a frustrating season as we got off to a great start thanks to my new signings - Left Winger Banegas who only got his work permit on the morning of the opening game was thrown in because I noticed he could take better corners than Sane and that worked as within a minute of our opening game against Reading my new Centre-Back Jonckheere who was only playing because Quiroga was at the Olympics headed in a corner and not long after Banegas got his first goal and then set up two more including one for Record Signing Taylor as we won 5-0 and after a good start it looked like we could put up a title fight, though of course City went and won their first eight games, whilst we started to drop points as I just didn't have the squad depth to fight on multiple fronts and with us falling way behind City and Arsenal I concentrated on the Champions League.

With 10 games left having just lost to Hull we were somehow still in third but 13 and 14 points behind the top two, one point clear of Chelsea and two clear of Derby - with the end run being a fight between us, Chelsea and Derby for the two remaining Champions League spots (though of course at the time I didn't know that we'd win the Champions League and Chelsea would win the Europa League turning it into a pointless fight).

Defeats to Derby and City and a draw to Stoke didn't help our cause, however a late win over Chelsea lifted us into third on goal difference with four matches left, but then we lost to Villa and Watford before and after the Paris games though my second string did at least beat Swansea inbetween, meant that with one game left we were in fourth place one point behind Chelsea, one ahead of Derby and one ahead of a Stoke side who'd come out of nowhere to try and spoil things, however the fixture list should help us out as Derby played Chelsea, we entertain a poor Sunderland side and Stoke played City, but going into half-time things were looking bad Derby would beat Chelsea, Stoke were leading a City who'd already won the title whilst we were losing to Sunderland but on the stroke of Half-Time Gullenbeck drew us level, and midway through the second half Ali score only his second goal of the season which was enough to win the game, whilst City hit back against Stoke which secured our and Derbys' UCL spots with Chelsea getting theirs later.

Home Record - This is what let us down this season as we just couldn't win at the DW Stadium.

The other thing that was interesting was that we finished with the same wins, draws and defeats as last season, we just scored 20 goals less and conceeded 10 less, as scoring goals was the problem this season as we failed to score in 10 games, letting Villa, Watford and Derby do the double over us didn't help neither, nor did losing each league game against City and Arsenal, five of those defeats also came when I fielded a weakened side

Manager Movements - Not much going on as Utd and Liverpool fired their managers, whilst Bournemouth and Villa both did aswell but with contrasting fortunes - Bournemouth fired their manager in March with them in relegation trouble but their new manager couldn't turn things around in what could be termed a shock relegation, whilst Villa fired their manager in January with them rock bottom and they somehow managed to survive. Though the biggest shock was Klopp resigning from Chelsea at the start of the season to take the Switzerland job.

Squad, Overview and Review

In Goal Croatian Hrvoje Tomic had another solid season, with his 15 league clean sheets enough to finish second in the Golden Glove Award.

At Right Back Slovenian Wonderkid Uros Zajc was given his chance and did ok but I was hoping for more from him, providing cover was Daniel Marshall who isn't really good enough any longer and after missing most of the season through a knee injury will be moved on with his contract up having made a record 210 League Appearances for us, though the only other option I have is my Academy Prospect Dominic Campbell who is being retrained to a DR and he showed some glimpses of his potential but faded as the season went on and isn't really ready yet. At Left Back Frenchman Valentin Alet again did ok but hasn't really pushed on as I had hoped, he also threw a strop at the start of the season when Paris wanted him but they refused to activate his £20m release fee, with Barcelona and Arsenal both showing an interest in him aswell, though I'm not sure why, providing cover was Czech Wonderkid Ludek Krizek who had a dissapointing season as I hoped he'd push Alet but he just didn't really push on, it also didn't help that Paris went after him after they couldn't get Alet, so some new Full Backs will be near the top of my transfer list next season, though with my ones in demand it doesn't look like there are that many options around.

At Centre Back was my other Czech Wonderkid David Kucera who had another solid season especially in Europe, partnering him again was my Chilean Wonderkid Ivan Quiroga who did ok but his form faltered through the season but he turned up in the Final against City and was rotated with Belgian Staf Jonckheere who was brought in to add some extra squad depth at the back and did ok but was a little inconsisent with his performances, with my other option being Scot Gordon O'Neil who was thrown in because I don't have any other options and there seems to be a real lack of young promising centre backs who can actually jump.

On the Right Wing was French Winger Benjamin Ali who had another fine season and again won French Player of the Year, providing cover was Bulgarian Radoslav Apostolov who finally became a Wonderkid and had a fantastic season being named Man of the Match 10 times equalling the record set by Marquez last season, which meant he was named Potm in half of his starts, and will hopefully push Ali hard for the starting spot in the years to come as this is the only position I have any real competition for. On the Left Wing was Argentine Winger Leonardo Banegas who was initial just brought in to provide some cheap cover, however he made a flying start and had an excellent debut season with his 22 assists blowing past the record 16 Ali set last season and was my first player to win the Players Player of the Year Award. Providing cover was Experienced German Winger Leroy Sane who again impressed when called upon but couldn't reclaim his first team place, and in January decided he wanted to return to Germany.

In the Centre of Midfield was Defensive Midfielder Dave Kittrick who was deployed as my Deep Lying Playmaker and he had another excellent season and was well worth the £45m I paid for him and whilst he didn't grab the assists like last season (mainly due to my missfiring strikers and its not really his job anyway) he did score some cracking and important long range efforts, partnering was my new Record Signing World-Class Midfielder Josh Taylor
who had a bit of a slow start as he had to be fully trained up on the MC position, I also messed around with his roles before settling back on the Box-to-Box Role that proved the most effective for my team and after he settled in he started to repay his insane transfer fee and ended the season in excellent form finishing with a Man of the Match performance in the Champions League Final. Providing cover in the Deep Lying Role was David Taylor (no relation) who'd been poached from Newcastle as a kid and put in some fine performances but my staff don't seem to reckon he can improve much more which is a shame if true, playing alongside him was Scottish Wonderkid Kenny Leitch who did well when called upon but again doesn't look like he is going to trouble my first choice pairing.

Upfront Colombian Wonderkid John Marquez had another solid season as again he pretty much scored all my goals as my Advanced Forward, however he was less consistent this season as he'd either score goals for fun or completely forget where the goal was and in seven league matches he had a rating of less than 6.5 and ended up getting subbed off in six of his last 12 games, though he did become the first player to retain the Golden Boy Award. Playing alongside him was German Patrick Gullenbeck who made a poor start to the season but pushed himself back into contention with some fine performances as the season went on and excelled towards the end of the season as I swapped his Support role from a Complete Forward to a False Nine which brought about some better movement and ended the season with three goals in three games helping to secure third place, the FA Cup and the Champions League trophies. Whilst the race for the All-time Goalscorer Record is hotting up as Gullenbeck finishes the season with 79 League Goals for us, but Marquez is right on his tail with 76 so we might have a new record holder next season.

Providing cover was my Suadi Wonderkid Majid Amro who had a poor season as he just couldn't get going though missing over three months of the season to injury didn't help either, another option I had was Uruguayan Ignacio Oritz who was brought in on a free after being released by Liverpool to provide backup, however he whined about this not long after joining and at the end of the season and with him failing to impress he'll be on his way out, his stats are also misleading as seven of his nine goals came in three games in January when he and one of my kids stepped up when the rest of my Strikers were injured however outside of those three games he was woeful. The last option I had apart from some kids was Brazilian Leo Jaba who was loaned from Inter in Jan to provide some cover (I've no idea how he even got a Work Permit?) and he proved to be a useful option mainly coming off the bench to replace a misfiring Marquez grabbing a couple of important goals in the FA Cup aswell as the last goal in the Champions League Final.

Chris Lund - My Academy produced its second player with Prem potential this time a promising looking Striker, it's just a shame he came through after I'd picked up a couple of 16yo five star potential strikers earlier in the season.

Best XI - Pretty much spot on bar swapping Aposotolov for Kittrick.

Overall XI - GK Tomic and Defenders Alet and Quiroga all make the side, which means it's just my midfield that contains Football League players, though I'd reckon Banegas has a good chance of making it next season if he has another solid season, but I'd expect Benaniba and Bacon are safe for another couple of seasons.

Prem Select - For the third season running we get two players in the team this time it's new signings Banegas and Taylor

Champions League Dream Team - We get three players here with Marquez and Kucera joining Taylor.

Stat Pack - Our most common result was a 1-0 defeat followed by a 2-0 or 2-1 win.

Goals - The timing of our goals was evenly spread out this season, whilst again pretty much all goals are scored or conceeded from directly in front of goal.

Assists - By far most of our goals came from the left flank, whilst we also conceeded most of our goals from our right flank.

Attendance - Bit disappointed that we didn't manage to fill the DW Stadium though our attendance was greater than the expanded capacity of our new ground, and thanks to Birmingham we weren't bottom for the first time.

Net Spend - The Taylor transfer combined with us not losing any first teamers saw us top this, with City the only other team spending money this season.

Salary - We climb off the bottom but are still way behind the top teams.

Finances - Despite losing £50m this season we still have a balance of £70m+ - the biggest loss was the £100m I paid on transfer fees this season which was up £30m on last season, player wages also went up £20m to £50m, ground maintenance cost an extra £10m, with Bonuses nearly tripling to £22m. Income wise we got an extra £30m from the Champions League prize money, we also doubled our ground related income to ~£26m though that will drop next season as we move back home, we also tripled our merchandising sales to £4.5m, the only thing that dropped was our transfer income which decreased £50m though that is a good sign. The game also scared me a little when it claimed we failed FFP, however it is only the wage bit we failed as we are allowed to spend £1.38m p/w and are spending £1.4m p/w, however the next day the game claimed we had passed and were roughly the same amount under the cap, not sure what changed in one day but it looks like the finance screen was taking into account incoming wages for next season which wouldn't count towards this seasons limit.

Shirt Sales - New signings Taylor and Banegas proved popluar as we doubled our shirt sales.

Facilities - Improvements all round this season as at the end of the season the board max(?) out our Junior Coaching and increase our Youth Recruitment and they even agreed to improve our training facilities without much of a fight this time around though they are only 3 star rated so it will still take a few years to get them improved. At the end of the season our Academy finally got the Category One Rating, so bring on the 5 star academy players.

Knowledge - Stuck at about 70% it doesn't help that my staff keep on getting offered manager jobs elsewhere - I've had six poached this season, with the last one suprisingly getting the Napoli job who was annonyingly one of my important coaches rather than someone just to get knowledge from, whilst half of them have already been fired, I also rehired three who'd been previously poached after they got fired.

Profile - Couple of changes this season as my reputation increases 0.5 stars to 4 stars, my knowledge of Scotland is now randomly nearly full, I gain two badges this season to give me the Continental A Licence which increases quite a few of my attributes, whilst my coaching style goes from defending to attacking despite our problems in front of goal this season.

NAT (excluding yth players)

11 ENG
4 GER
2 BEL, BRA, CRO, FRA, ITA, SCO, CZE
1 BUL, CHI, COL, POL, KSA, SVN, SWE, URU, WAL

HOMEGROWN (excluding yth players)

CLUB: 8
NATION: 9
DUE: 20

Wonderkids: 9 - Tomic, Zajc, Quiroga, Kucera, Krizek, Apostolov, Leitch, Marquez, Amro.
Sold Wonderkids 1 - Sari

Plans For Next Season

With the Champions League won the only goal next season is to win the Premier League title to hopefully complete the challenge before FM17 is fully out. Transferwise a new World-Class Striker is top of my list to take some pressure off Marquez, whilst some top quality Full-Backs would also be nice, but as my ones seem to be in demand there might not be many around.


State of The World

In the Championship Spurs finally got promoted back to the Prem, but lost the Championship title to Everton by two goals who came straight back up after suffering just their third relegation in their history last season, whilst Newcastle end their three year exile to win the Playoffs, though Southampton, West Ham, Leicester, Burnley and West Brom are all still stuck in the Championship.

There was drama in League One as Leeds won the title on a playoff from Wigan after they both ended on identical records. At the bottom Middlesbrough were relegated to League Two for the first time in their history, with Wolves joining them after suffering back-to-back relegations.

In League Two Salford are relegated back to the Conference, with Norwich going straight back up, whilst another challenge side Ilkeston actually finished in the top half - if I had some spare money I'd be tempted to help them out.

Down in Non-League FC United win promotion to the Football League for the first time, whilst Northampton get relegated out of the game for the second time.

League Cup - More heart-break for Stoke as they lose their sixth ingame cup final this time to Man Utd though it wasn't enough to save the Utd managers job.

Champions League - Was shockingly claimed by ourselves as we knocked out fellow English sides Arsenal and City, whilst Utd finished third in their group behind Bayern and Porto.

Europa League - Chelsea beat Wolfsburg for their first in-game win, with Wolfsburg losing the final for the second time in three years and knocked out Liverpool and Utd on their way to the final. With Watford losing to Betis in the Second Knockout Round.

France - Paris make it eight in a row, with Monaco reclaiming their customary second place. In the Cup Marseille beat League 2 Brest.

Germany - Looks like Bayern are back as they make it two in a row, with Dortmund having a poor season but just about claim the fourth Champions League spot. In the Cup Stuttgart retain it beating HSV.

Italy - Sassuolo pip Juventus to the title to claim it for the third time. In the Cup Napoli claim it for the first time in-game with Sampdoria losing the final for the second year running.

Holland - PSV make it four from five, with Ajax second, whilst last seasons winners Twente miss out on europe thanks to that silly european playoff system, with Feyenoord having a shocking season that saw them finish in the bottom half. In the Cup Ajax beat Roda for their third trophy in five years.

Scotland - Shock here as Rangers claim their second in-game title, with Celtic struggling to a third place finish the first time since 1992 they have finished outside the top two. In the Cup Hamilton beat Partick Thistle.

Spain - Valencia again hold off Real to retain the title with Barcelona finishing fourth behind both Madrid sides. Valencia also claim the double after beating Atletico in the Cup.

Leaderboard points (FM Mode)
(My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)
(points / position)
Single Game: 4,870,754 (125,989)
Single Season: 1,409,441 (196,905)
Single Season England:  1,409,441 (118,058)
Single Season Premiership: 1,409,441 (116,735)
Single Season Championship: 830,440 (8,109)
Single Season League 1: 86,896 (15,461)
Single Season League 2: 627,616 (1,524)
Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)
Single Season National North:  17,771 (804)

Career Overview

Season       League           League Finish     Achievements                  Leaderboard Points (Season/Game)  Attendance      Euro C/E (Place) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
16/17	National North		16th		-					8,690 / 8,690        	320 (10%)
17/18	National North		3rd		Promoted - Playoff Winners		17,771 / 26,461        	350 (11%)
18/19	National League		4th		Promoted - Playoffs, FA Trophy Winners	483,959  / 510,420      460 (15%)
19/20	League 2		12th		-					46,701 / 557,121    	845 (21%)   
20/21	League 2		11th		-					54,675 / 611,796        930 (20%)
21/22	League 2		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			627,616  / 1,239,412    1,275 (27%)
22/23	League 1		4th		Promoted - Playoff Winners		86,896 / 1,326,308    	2,697 (53%)
23/24	Championship		15th		-					104,936 / 1,431,244   	4,058 (80%)
24/25	Championship		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			830,440 / 2,261,684   	4,396 (87%)
25/26	Premier League		10th		-					163,877 / 2,425,561 	2,000 (39%)
26/27	Premier League		5th		-					193,421 / 2,618,982	2,000 (39%)
27/28	Premier League		3rd		FA Cup Winners. UEL KR2			842,331 / 3,461,313	9,717 (83%)
28/29   Premier League		3rd		FA Cup Winners. UCL Winners		1,409,441 / 4,870,754	19,888 (79%)    32.379 (62nd)

 

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Rushall Olympic FC

160px-Rushallolympicfc.png

2017/18

Vanerama Conference North - 1st

Overview

Promotion wasn't a massive surprise. I had strengthened significantly with 5 new players going straight into the first XI for the new season. These players had significantly raised the standard from last season. By December I had replaced most of the first XI who started the season with better players and we stayed in pole position all season.

I expect the current team to be good enough to make it into the football league next season. I generally have a large turnaround in players at this stage of a game as I pick up free transfers. This trend will probably continue in the coming season but I have a couple of players I like alot including striker Danny Rose.

Team

GK - Billy O'Brien

 

RB - Luke O'Neill

CB - Yann Songo'o

CB - Ben Nugent

LB - Tyrell Robinson

 

RW - Josh Harrop 

CM - Oliver Muldoon

CM - Jamie Ness

LW - Bobby Grant

 

AM - Daniel Roberts

CF - Danny Rose

History

Season	¦	League				¦	Pos.	¦	Comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17	¦	Conference North		¦	18th	¦	
2017/18	¦	Conference North		¦	1st	¦	Promoted, Champions
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Skelmerdale - Premier League 2029/30 - Season 14

So with the Champions League claimed at the first attempt last season the only goal this season was to win the Premier League to complete the challenge, though the board did only want a top four finish. The Bookies gave us a decent shot of the title, with the Media Predicting we'd finish third, but safely in the Champions League spots, with them again giving several sides no chance of staying up.

Reputation - We are now the third best English side. Whilst we became the worst 4.5 star club in Europe for a day before that star dropped off, we also made it onto the World List.

Rich List - We become the eighth richest club in the world passing Utd, Barcelona and Bayern.

Transfers - It was another expensive season as I spent big improving my first team, spending £60m (plus another £24m in clauses) on World Class Austrian Striker Dorrbeck from Monaco, then later in the month I took their Left Back for £50m, other signings saw me poach some promising english youngsters, and a couple of others. Leaving the club were various unneeded squad players Dahlstrom finally got his move to Newcastle and was joined by Ortiz who made me a nice profit, I also sold Amro and Alet to HSV as their contracts were up and I needed the funds to sign Gamboa, then on deadline day I let young Winger Bradford go when Championship Brentford offered me a deal worth £5m and offered him £25K p/w as it looks like they got a tycoon takeover.

Leading Transfers - Both the Dorrbeck and Gamboa transfers make the list, whilst Taylor becomes even more expensive as I paid the appearance clause this season.

Community Shield - We Continue to annony City claiming the Shield for the first time with a comfortable victory, though losing new Striker Dorrbeck to injury 10 minutes into his debut wasn't part of the plan.

European Super Cup - We also claim the Super Cup with a fine win over Chelsea thanks to two goals each from Taylor and Marquez, though we did nearly throw the game away in injury time.
 


League Cup - Poor effort from my Second String as they did well to beat Arsenal but then lost to Championship Southampton in extra-time - we dominated the game but conceeded from a set-piece at the end of normal time, before switching off from another set-piece at the end of extra-time and then summed the game up by giving away a pen with the last kick of the ball.

Champions League - As holders we were first seeds, though the bookies didn't give us much of a chance, and despite being first seeds we got a tough group that included Barcelona who made it though the playoffs, Stuttgart and Olympiakos.

Champions League Group - With this already won I'd didn't really care and fielded a second string side, but with us picking up injuries I made the further decision to not risk anyone needed for the league games so I ended up playing several kids in each of the games and they put up a good fight and I didn't mind finishing bottom as it meant we had less games to worry about in the second half of the season.

Club World Cup - We made our way over to Algeria and in the Semi-Final beat Mexican side Chivas 1-0 despite dominating the game we just couldn't find the back of the net to give us a safer win. In the Final we faced Argentine side River Plate and got off to a greate start as Bulgarian Winger Apostolov scored his first goal of the season in the first minute with our first shot, but River hit back scoring from their first shot aswell, and despite again dominating the game we just couldn't score and the game went to extra-time and it was looking like pens before Josh Taylor scored a tap in with minutes late to secure the trophy.
 


FA Cup - Another good effort from my second string as they beat Ipswich in the Third Round, but then drew City in the Fourth Round, though it seemed neither of us cared about the FA Cup as we both fielded second string sides and played out a 1-1 draw that neither of us wanted. In the Replay City fielded a strong side, whilst thanks to injuries I ended up with an even weaker side that included a 16yo Right Back and two Strikers making their debuts and we put up a good fight taking the game to extra-time that I doubt the City manager was best pleased about, but in the end Citys stronger side had enough to beat us.

Premier League - The decision to save my best players for the league paid off as we absolutely dominated the league this season, we started strong winning our first four games with Dorrbeck scoring a hat-trick on his first full game for the club, and then grabbing the winner away to Arsenal before we dropped points with a 0-0 draw at Derby. We also ground out 1-0 wins over City and Chelsea to leave us eight points clear after just 10 games and we carried on winning until Christmas when we played out another 0-0 draw this time at United, which left us nine points clear of second placed Chelsea and 11 clear of third placed City at the half-way point, though we also had two games in hand thanks to the Club World Cup.

We finally caught up on games played after 21 games winning all four games which put us 18 points (!!!) clear of both City and Chelsea and put us 24pts clear of Arsenal and Utd who were fourth and fifth. However we then suffered our first league defeat of the season as we somehow lost 1-0 to Arsenal who scored their only shot of the game as we missed a pen and just couldn't beat their keeper who got the man of the match award with a 9.3 rating. We then drew to Stoke and needed an injury time goal to beat Watford before drawing to Swansea, as we just kept on picking up injury after injury LB Gamboa and MC Taylor had already missed a month each and with them back fit I then lost DM Kittrick, Strikers Marquez, Dorrbeck and Gullenbeck and my Keeper Tomic.

Up next was an important game against City, thankfully we had a international break had gave me time to get Tomic and Dorrbeck back with both being rushed back before I should have and we got off to a great start against City with Promising Striker Paul opening the scoring and Apostolov adding a second, but with my team dead on their feet City grabbed two late goals to draw level and then after the game should have been over they scored the winner direct from a free-kick. Which meant with 10 games left they were now only eight points behind us. A few days later we made the trip to Chelsea and with my team dead on their feet we played out a dour 0-0 draw, Chelsea were just as tired as we were having just won the League Cup a couple of days ago, and with City beating United our lead was now cut to six points.

After the Chelsea game thankfully my players slowly returned from injury and with most of our games against the bottom teams we returned to winning ways but we just couldn't shake City as they won 15 games straight to set a new league record beating the record Arsenal set back in 2002, and with games running out I had to face Utd in the second to last game which was looking like it would be the title decider, though we nearly blew it against Villa as the ball just wouldn't go in the net until my Defender Kucera popped up on the edge of the area and blasted a shot into the top corner to keep us going and we then finally got a break as City finally dropped points drawing to Stoke which meant a win over QPR in our next game would secure the title with two games to spare, and for a change we didn't mess around as Strikers Marquez and Dorrbeck grabbed a goal each within two minutes and Dorrbeck grabbed his hat-trick as we were 5-0 up by half-time and had secured the Premier League Title :cool: And whilst we were busy winning the title Citys day got worse as they got beat by Derby in the FA Cup Semi-Final.

And that is the Challenge Complete :cool:


We just utterly destroyed the league this season as our 98pts was a new record and our 97 goals were a new ingame record (shame we came so close to beating 100 in both), with our +77GD a new record and greater than anyone apart from Citys goals scored column, we scored the most goals from Corners (13) and Indirect Free Kicks (10) which was a bit of a surprise had the highest Cross Ratio (21%), Highest Pass Rate (79%), the joint highest Shots on Target Ratio (48%) whilst having having nearly 100 shots more than the second team City (373 v 279). We also kept a record 23 clean sheets and conceeded ingame low of 20 goals, we also only conceeded one goal from a corner and one from a free kick.

We also dominated the Player Stats as I had the top four Average Ratings in the League all with an Average over 8. Striker Marquez blew past the goal record with Dorrbeck sixth, Marquez also had the best average minutes per goal time with a goal every 70mins, with Dorrbeck fourth on 100mins, with both my Wingers top of the Assists chart.

Squad, Home and Review.

Croatian Keeper Hrvoje Tomic had another fine season winning the Golden Glove Award with ease and equaling Courtois's record, providing cover was my highly rated Belgian Maxime Bonte who put in some good performances in Europe, whilst his league appearances were late sub appearances to activate his contract extenstion.

At Right Back was Slovenian Uros Zajc who had his best season yet, though he doesn't seem to be rated by my staff he also threw a strop when I wouldn't let him join Paris, but with a lack of quality right backs around he isn't going anywhere especially if he carries on performing like that, providing cover was my Academy Prospect Dominic Campbell who had a mixed season but is still improving. At Left Back was new signing Ecuadorian Wilson Gamboa who cost me a fortune but was well worth it as he had a fantastic season and really helped shore up my defence this season, providing cover was Czech Youngster Ludek Krizek who had a poor season and will move him on if I can find a promising Left Back to replace him.

In the Centre of Defence was Solid Czech Centre-Back David Kucera who had a fantastic season being ever present in the league, partnering him was Chilean Ivan Quiroga who was also in excellent form and even got among the goals. Providing cover was Belgian Staf Jonckheere who again failed to impress but there wasn't really anyone else to field in my second string, partnering him was Scot Gordon O'Neil who somehow became a Wonderkid but again had a poor season but there isn't really any other options as their seems to be a real lack of promising centre-backs coming through at the moment and I don't really feel like spending big on a backup option.

On the Right Wing was Bulgarian Wonderkid Radoslav Apostolov who had a storming season taking his chance when Ali got injured and never looked back as his 25 assists were a new club record as was his Average Rating which was also a new Prem record aswell beating the 8.17 rating Aguero got back in 2017 he also claimed the Players Player of the Year Award and the European Golden Boy Award. Providing cover was French Winger Benjamin Ali who was a bit unlucky to lose his place after getting injured in October he just couldn't get his place back, it also doesn't help that Apostolov is HG, younger and better, so I might cash in on Ali in the next couple of seasons. On the Left Wing was Argentine Winger Leonardo Banegas who was also in fine form and somehow won the Young Player of the Year Award despite being one of my older players (but with players upto the age of 24 being able to win it most of my team could have won it), providing cover was Promising English Midfielder Phil Boyce who was poached from Brentford last season and in a nice twist of irony was promoted to replace previous backup Bradford who joined Brentford for nearly £5m this season, and he put in some impressive performances.

In the Centre of Midfield was Deep Lying Playmaker Dave Kittrick who had another fantastic season, partnering him was World-Class Midfielder Josh Taylor who was also in excellent form with them both having the same rating in the league, as they both completely dominated the midfield for me and the £130m I spent on them is looking to be a bargain. Providing cover in the Deep Lying Role was David Taylor who did well when called upon but just hasn't developed and with some promising youngsters coming through is likely to be moved on, in the Box-to-Box role was Scottish Wonderkid Kenny Leitch who did well when called upon though injury did mean he lost his place to English Wonderkid Adam Rowe who put in some good performances and I'm not sure what surprised me more the fact that he became a random Wonderkid or that he actually became a starter for England (though it was for an England team that failed to make it to the World Cup and Josh Taylor and Kittrick were injured at the time), though he won't be around for much longer as Stoke have just agreed to pay £35m for him!

Upfront was Colombian Advanced Forward John Marquez who was unstoppable this season scoring a club record 47 goals, (though I do have a Promising German Striker in my youth team who scored 58 goals this season, though I have no idea how he even managed to play nearly 60 games for my youth sides the AI must have played him in nearly every U18 and U21 match this season) which included a record 42 league goals which saw him named Top Goalscorer as he blew past the record of 37 goals set a couple of years back by Watfords Striker Belotti, he also claimed the Golden Shoe Award and was named Footballer of the Year and it only took him until the end of September to become my All-time Record Goalscorer finishing the season with 118 goals (129 Apps) overall as he just couldn't stop scoring as he grabbed nine doubles and four hat-tricks and in the last nine games since he returned from injury he scored 17 goals (!!!), he also broke his own Man of the Match record. Partnering him was World Class Austrian Striker Mathias Dorrbeck who slotted into the False Nine position with ease and at £60m is looking a bargain as he struck up a great partnership with Marquez chipping in with an impressive amount of goals for the support role as he took a fair bit of pressure off Marquez, and was even named third in the World Player of the Year Award and made the subs bench for the World Dream Team (though most of that will be from his time at Monaco). Providing cover was German Striker Patrick Gullenbeck who had another solid season but isn't really good enough for the top level and has been left behind abit with 84 goals from 203 Apps, though he is only seven games behind Marshall for my All-Time Appearances record. The other option I had upfront was English Wonderkid Tyrone Paul (another random Wonderkid) who'd been snatched from Spurs couple of years back and has had a bit of a mixed time he started off as a Support Striker but struggled, then had a couple of disappointing loans last season, and again started this season in the support role but again struggled, but thanks to injuries I redeployed him in the Advanced Forward role and that seemed to suit him as he started to score and impress and was a bit unlucky that we ran out of games to play him in in the later part of the season but hopefully he'll push on next season.

Transfer cost of my Title Winning XI:

GK Tomic signed from Mosor for £1.2K as an 18 year old, now worth £14.75m. Nation Grown. 158 Apps, 164 Conc.
DR Zajc signed from Maribor for £1.3m as a 16 year old, now worth £22m. Club Grown. 76 Apps, 0 Goals.
DC Kucera signed from Sparta for £5.5m as a 17 yeard old, now worth £46m. Club Grown. 160 Apps, 3 Goals.
DC Quiroga signed from Cobreloa for £2.5m as a 18 year old, now worth £28,5m. Club Grown. 120 Apps, 7 Goals.
LB Gamboa signed from Monaco for £51m, now worth £32m. 33 Apps, 0 Goals.
RM Apostolov signed from Levski for £2.5m as a 17 year old, now worth £37.5m. Club Grown. 77 Apps, 5 Goals.
CM Kittrick signed from Derby for £45m, now worth £51m. Nation Grown. 96 Apps, 5 Goals.
CM Taylor signed from Liverpool for £85m, now worth £62m. Nation Grown. 64 Apps, 7 Goals.
LM Banegas signed from Velez for £5m, now worth £34m. 64 Apps, 4 Goals.
ST Dorrbeck signed from Monaco for £60m, now worth £60m. 28 Apps, 23 Goals
ST Marquez signed from Deportivo Cali for £2m, now worth £58m. 129 Apps, 118 Goals.

Total Spent: £260m.
Average Spend: £23.63m
Total Value: £445.75m
Average Value: £40.5m
Average Apps: 91
Average Goals: 17 (excluding GK)

Josh Gerrard - My Academy produced its first player of real note, who according to my staff could be the player of his generation and after signing a contract my staff upped his PA to 4.5 stars which gives him the potential to be one of my best players and is possibly the best Academy player I have ever produced (there was a guy I had in Austria who might rival him), it's just a shame he has come through when the challenge is over, though if I carry out I might throw him some games next season.

Best XI - Spot on apart from the game randomly picking MC Rowe over Kittrick despite Kittrick playing more games and having a better rating and with half of Rowe's appearances being from the bench, I can only assume Rowe's Champions League appearances have been given a bigger weighting which has pushed him ahead of Kittrick.

Overall XI - Banegas makes the team with just two seasons under his belt, though that is more because I haven't really had a stand out Left Winger so far, whilst Kittrick and Zajc make it to the bench. If I carry out I expect there is a good chance of Kittrick making it off the bench and an outside chance of my Left Back Gamboa getting named over Alet.

Prem Select - We Dominate this season, though Kittrick is cruelly snubbed despite playing better than Sanches, he also had the same rating as Taylor but from more games, though I cannot argue about the full-backs.

Stat Pack - Our most common result was a bigger than 4-0 thrashing, followed by 2-0 wins and then either a 3-0 win or a 0-0 draw.

Goals - Most of our goals came in the first half hour this season, with again pretty much all of them being from point blank range.

Assists - Again most were from crosses, with the right a little bit more favoured, though 80% of our goals were from placed shots.

Net Spend - Only third highest this season as we recouped a fair bit of money, whilst even with City spending big they couldn't keep up with us, though they hardly played three of their four signings - they signed a £50m Striker and £20m DC they hardly used, a £26m Winger who played cup games, the only player they used was a £10m AMC bought from Championship Southampton. The other interesting thing with City was the Striker they paid £74m for a couple of seasons ago made just five sub appearances all season - it looks like the problem is their manager Schmidt retired last season and he preferred 4-4-2, but was replaced by Pochettino who prefers 4-2-3-1, with the £50m Striker being a signing of the old manager which meant they had too many strikers for the new managers formation and pretty much no AMCs.

Salary - Continues to increase as we hit the middle of the pack, but are only paying half what Arsenal are and less than a third of Citys wage bill.

Attendance - Back to the bottom of this, but on the plus side we had the highest ratio and sold out for every game bar the post-Christmas game against QPR.

Finances - Despite losing money again they are still looking good, as the loses were again due to my transfer spending. Slightly worrying was the fact that only our Merchandising income increased this season (by about £10m with my staff reckoning Dorrbeck was worth £4m when signing him which was roughly last years income on its own), in the expensives a £15m rise in wages was the biggest change, excluding transfers though that was offset by a £10m less tax bill.

Shirtsales - Dorrbeck proved popular with the fans, though he couldn't outsell Taylor, with Apostolov proving a favourite as well.

Facilities - the Board continue to improve our facilities with most of our youth maxed or close to being maxed out, though training lags behind at 3.5 stars. We also moved back into our New Stadium this season which is looking quite nice. And at the end of the season the board announced plans for another expansion to bring us up to its capacity.

Knowledge - Decreased to 69% this season, and that is because 13 of my staff members were appointed managers of other sides, with some of them being some of my actual important coaches and four of them being staff I'd only signed this season :mad:

Manager Profile - I got my last coaching badge and was named Manager of the Year, I also got an extra half star to my reputation and a couple of attribute improvements, I also reached 700 games in managment.

Hall of Fame - I finally entered the English Hall of Fame, with the Community Shield win at the start of the season getting me on the board, though by the end of the season I'd climbed upto third, which shows the sorry state of English Managers - Hodgson is the only one to have won anything in game and that was Euro16 with England (the game may have got that a little wrong), he is the only one to have won anything this century (in Denmark), with Brian Clough the last Englishman to win something in England on the Hall of Fame. Though I am a way away from breaking into any of the other areas.

So after 734 games, over 1,000 goals, over 5,000 days and having bought 202 players for £383m the Challenge has been completed :cool:

NAT (excluding yth players)

15 ENG
3 GER, ITA
2 BEL, CRO, FRA, SCO, CZE
1 ARG, AUT, BRA, BUL, CHI, COL, ECU, POL, SVN, IRL, WAL

HOMEGROWN (excluding yth players)

CLUB: 13
NATION: 7
DUE: 20

Wonderkids: 13 - Tomic, Zajc, Quiroga, Kucera, O'Neil, Krizek, Apostolov, Leitch, Rowe, Marquez, Paul.
Sold Wonderkids 2 - Sari, Amro

Plans For Next Season

Nothing really not sure if I will continue on with the Challenge complete and with the full release of FM17 next week. I might push on to get some achievements but I doubt I'll have chance to post any more updates, unless anything interesting happens.

So I'll see you all in a week for FM17...

State of The World

In the Championship Birmingham come straight back up, joined by Southampton who end a two year and exile and Leicester who end a 10 year exile.

In League One Luton continue their rise making it back to the Championship for the first time.

In League Two FC United go straight back down and in non-league Bolton get relegated out of the game yet again.

FA Cup - Bit of a shock here as Derby beat Chelsea ending Chelseas run of having won it every three years. Meaing City have the most wins with five, followed by Cheslea on four then us and Newcastle both have won it twice with Liverpool and now Derby having won it just the once.

League Cup - This is getting rather comical as Stoke lose the final yet again this time to Chelsea. Meaning Stoke have now made it to a domestic final in each of the last six seasons and have somehow lost everyone of them... Arsenal and Utd have the most wins with three each, followed by Liverpool and Chelsea with two each, then Sunderland, Derby, Spurs, City and Forest have all won it once.

Champions League - Valencia claimed it for the first time beating Bayern in the Final, with Leverkusen and Benfica the beaten Semi-Finalists. It was a poor season for England as Arsenal lost in the Quarters, City and Cheslea both went out in the Knockout Round, we threw the Group Stage, whilst Derby didn't even make it through the playoffs. Chelsea and Paris both have won it three times, Bayern, Real, and Arsenal have won it twice, whilst us, Valencia and Barcelona have won it once. Meaning England have won it six times, Spain four, France three, and Germany twice.

Europa League - Utds poor season ended with defeat to CSKA Moscow in the Final. Utd knocked Derby out in the Quarters, whilst Watford lost to Napoli at the same stage, with Stoke losing in the Knockout Round. Spurs are the only side to have won it more than once with three wins with the other winners being Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Cheslea, Schalke, Stuttgart, Leverkusen, Real, Betis, Marseille, Monaco, and CSKA. Giving England seven trophies, to Germanys three, with both Spain and France having two and Russia on one.

France - Its Nine in a Row for Paris and 14 in total, though Monaco pushed them hard this season finishing one point behind - they may have got the title if I didn't poach their two best players. Whilst Bordeaux won the Cup.

Germany - Bayern make it three in a row, again beating Leverkusen though on goals scored this time. Leaving Bayern with six titles, with Dortmund having five, Leverkusen three and Stuttgart with one. In the Cup Dortmund beat Wolfsburg who miss out on Europe due to failing the FFP rules.

Italy - Roma reclaim the title with holders Sassuolo finishing way down in 12th. Which leaves Juventus with eight titles, Sassuolo with three, Roma with two and Napoli and AC Milan with one each. In the Cup Atlanta beat Juventus.

Holland - PSV retain their title. Leaving Ajax with six titles, PSV with five (all in the last six seasons), Twente with two and Heerenveen and Feyenoord with one each. In the Cup Twente beat De Graafschap.

Scotland - Celtic get their title back with Rangers finishing at the bottom of the top half. Which gives Celtic 12 titles, Rangers two and Partick one. In the Cup Dundee beat Hamilton on pens.

Spain - Valencia dominate the league hitting 100 points as they make it three in a row. Leaving Real with nine titles, Valenica with four and Barcelona with just the two. Valencia also claimed the cup with an extra time win over Barcelona to make it a clean sweep.

Leaderboard points (FM Mode)
(My Steam Username is same as here if anyone wants to add me)
(points / position)
Single Game: 6,495,385 (91,843)
Single Season: 1,624,631 (157,361)
Single Season England:  1,602,189 (118,058)
Single Season Premiership: 1,602,189 (98,288)
Single Season Championship: 830,440 (8,109)
Single Season League 1: 86,896 (15,461)
Single Season League 2: 627,616 (1,524)
Single Season National League: 483,959 (1,520)
Single Season National North:  17,771 (804)

Career Overview

Season       League           League Finish     Achievements                  Leaderboard Points (Season/Game)  Attendance      Euro C/E (Place) 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
16/17	National North		16th		-					8,690 / 8,690        	320 (10%)
17/18	National North		3rd		Promoted - Playoff Winners		17,771 / 26,461        	350 (11%)
18/19	National League		4th		Promoted - Playoffs, FA Trophy Winners	483,959  / 510,420      460 (15%)
19/20	League 2		12th		-					46,701 / 557,121    	845 (21%)   
20/21	League 2		11th		-					54,675 / 611,796        930 (20%)
21/22	League 2		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			627,616  / 1,239,412    1,275 (27%)
22/23	League 1		4th		Promoted - Playoff Winners		86,896 / 1,326,308    	2,697 (53%)
23/24	Championship		15th		-					104,936 / 1,431,244   	4,058 (80%)
24/25	Championship		1st		Promoted - Champions!!!			830,440 / 2,261,684   	4,396 (87%)
25/26	Premier League		10th		-					163,877 / 2,425,561 	2,000 (39%)
26/27	Premier League		5th		-					193,421 / 2,618,982	2,000 (39%)
27/28	Premier League		3rd		FA Cup Winners. UEL KR2			842,331 / 3,461,313	9,717 (83%)
28/29   Premier League		3rd		FA Cup Winners. UCL Winners		1,409,441 / 4,870,754	19,888 (79%)    32.379 (62nd)
29/30   Premier League    	1st  		Club World Cup Winners			1,602,189 / 6,495,385	18,805 (99%)	62.822 (36th)
*****         CHALLENGE COMPLETED   *****

 

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On 29/10/2015 at 08:42, michaeltmurrayuk said:

I'll get this posted nice and early this year so it doesn't get lost in the middle of the thread somewhere.

This is how I start the challenge off, if anyone is new or struggling at the start, though it's not the only way to do the challenge and is based on FM15 information as I haven't really had a good look at FM16 yet:

- When picking a club Reputation, facilities and stadium will effect how difficult the first few seasons are - the better these items the (slightly) easier it will be, with facilities and stadium generally affecting how much money you have in the early years as rubbish small stadiums will need more money spending on them to meet league rules. Region also plays a part, if you pick a club based in the north west you'll be able to attract players from Manchester not London and viceversa. The other thing to consider when taking off a team is their kit colours make sure you pick a team who's colours you can read easily.

- Also a quick way to find the promoted teams is to run the holidayman bit before adding any custom logos as most if not all conference sides should be licensed, so the newly promoted sides will be the ones with the default generic logos.

- Once I have picked a club the first thing I do is sign the assistant with the best judging ability attribute possible (potential is nice but not as important, I also find tactical knowledge helpful for the OI if you use them, other attributes depend on what you want your assistant to do) also try and sign a quality scout if possible again you want the best judging ability you can get, with potential a nice one if you can get it.

- For coaches it depends on how many you can have, if you have the numbers I tend to go for a GK and fitness one - though if you can try and sign them as general coaches so they can still train anyone, then I use me and the assistant for general coaching. You can also 'cheat' a little bit by signing coaches with good judging ability and use them as extra scouts, as at this level training isn't going to do much and the more accurate scout reports you can get quicker the better.

- Ask for a Parent club (or senior affiliate as they now seem to be called) for free loans - depending on how the game is feeling you might get some free first teamers or at worst have to settle for some free bench players which can at least save you some money. (the ability to get parent teams and the quality of loanees seems to change each version, hopefully this will be a nice one)

- Pick your basic preffered formation (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 etc...) roles and duties don't matter at the moment, though have a general idea of what you want, for example I tend to play 4-4-2 and in the centre of midfield I'll have a defensive minded player and an attacking minded one, and upfront I'll have a goalscoring (hopefully) and a support striker - though actual roles depend on my players and what works.

- Go through your exisitng players and work out their best position, also check your U21 and U18 squads incase anyone decent is hiding in there. Use the Report and Squad Depth screens, I also add some extra columns to the squad view - Ability and Potential columns, you can also add best position and role columns if you wish. This year we have some new columns in the tactics screen - a role rating column that seems to give your assistants star rating of the role, and a green bar chart that seems to be based on the average of the key attributes for the selected role - at this level I'd probably use the green chart rather than the stars.

- Pick your Best XI and Second XI from your existing players, this now allows you to see where you are weakest, also check for any AI made future signings, I think the squad depth screen has a filter to include future transfers, you may have got lucky and had the AI grab you a good player.

- Check the Contract Offers view on the squad screen to see if the AI has offered any of your players a new contract, and cancel any offers you don't want, also check the expiry dates of the contracts as some players may only have a week left on their contract.

- Before making any offers for players you need to check a couple of things to see what standard of player you are looking for, a quck glance can be had by looking at the Team Report -> Comparison screen, this will give you the highest and lowest averages for various attributes in your league per position, in the Conference North 10/11 is normally good for a key attribute. Next from the player report screen check to see what level the stars correpond to - players will have a star rating which will change depending on expectations, quality of players and league, however players also have a description that doesn't change which will read decent/good/leading and then a division, you need to keep on an eye on what level the stars are at, as for example at the start a decent conf north player may be five stars as your team is rubbish but a month later may only be two stars as you have found better players.

- Now it's time to find players, what I do is filter by interested players within scouting range, and add conditions unattached and eu-national (you aren't likely to attact players from other clubs at this stage nor will players get work permits at this level) and then add a position filter and search for the position you most need a player in.

- Next step depends on how many players you found and what staff you have, you have two options;

- Trial players in - reveals all attributes, once on trial can compare with other players, downside players may not accept trial and it also seems players on trial attract more attention from AI players. If trialing do it for 1 month/end of pre-season. (Though I think trialling was changed in one of the patches for FM15 and no longer reveals attributes instantly, but is still an alternative to scouting)

- Scout players - limit to how many you can scout, new system takes time, however no need for player to agree terms, can also get coaches to scout if they are any good.

- Once you have scouted/trialled players for one position move onto the next, if you have the staff you can assign one member of staff to scout players of one position whilst another scouts a different position.

- If you scout a player and still aren't sure trial him in, you can use scouting to weed out the useless players and then trial in the possible ones to have a closer look.

- If there is no interest in a player then trial him in and take your time, unless he looks really good.

- Priority is first team players squad depth isn't important yet and can be filled with free loans or non-contract players.

- Once the season is under way carry on searching (transfer window doesn't close until march in non-league) as better players will be interested as the season goes on. (free players get more desperate the longer they are without a club).

Tactics wise keep it simple and if not sure where to start check out the tactics forum - there are some stickied threads to help you understand the roles and how they are linked, otherwise it's just watch the matches and slowly tweak things depending on what is happening.

The first season I tend to write off - you have to build a team, understand the new features and work out a tactic, if you are lucky things will start coming together at the end of the season and you may sneak a playoff spot or if not be in position to push for promotion next season.

In your second season you should have a better idea of what you need and what works, I also tend to have a core team by now and just look to add some players with that extra bit of quality.

Once you have gained promotion you repeat all of the above, until you gain promotion again and repeat the above again etc...

Getting quality players in the early years is part luck part how much time you have - to find the gems you may have to scout/trial thousands of players which takes time (both real and in game), you also cannot always rely on poaching players from other peoples games as at this level most of the released players we are after have random attributes and have had a season or more to develop/fail.

Another way to narrow down players on your scouting screen is to add the last club column to the view and first check out the players released from bigger sides (unfortantely there is no column to show what division the side was in). You can also check the transfer history for clubs (or even england) for released players and scout them and hope that you can persuade a quality released player to sign for you.

Another cheeky thing you can do at the start is look at the reserve teams of the prem sides and scout the ones who's contracts are expiring (or get a team report) because we start a week before the contracts expire and in the past AI teams haven't looked at these players until they have been officially released, so you might get lucky and be able to snap one up before the AI gets interested.

Damn talk about dedication and just in time to start this year challenge.

Also congrats I read your starting post about this challenge anything you might want to update?

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14 hours ago, QSF25 said:

Damn talk about dedication and just in time to start this year challenge.

Also congrats I read your starting post about this challenge anything you might want to update?

 

I haven't really had a chance to look at FM17 yet, so I don't really know what has changed.

One thing I would add if it hasn't changed is if you want your manager to be a coach then put what points you can into determination and level of displince as these hardly increase and affect your coaching ability.

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Rushall Olympic FC

160px-Rushallolympicfc.png

2018/19

Vanerama Conference National - 1st

Overview

The team was far too strong the previous year for the Conference North and so I was expecting a decent show in the Conference National. I was a little worried however when the board gave me the expectations for the season as winning the league. It looked rather unlikely after only 1 win in the first 5 games. SIx wins on the trot in September saw us back in the hunt however. Stockport ran us close for the title and it took a strong run-in to finally take the title but we finished by a clear four points at the top in the end.

Stars of the team were Bobby Grant on the left win who hit 20 goals and Bobby Forde on the right who assisted 18. Danny Rose upfront hit 35 goals.

 

Team

GK - Lee Nicholls

 

RB - Luke O'Neill

CB - Luke McCullough

CB - Ben Nugent

LB - Tyrell Robinson

 

RW - Anthony Forde

CM - Manu Garcia

CM - Robbie Weir

LW - Bobby Grant

 

AM - Liam Kelly

CF - Danny Rose

History

Season	¦	League				¦	Pos.	¦	Comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17	¦	Conference North		¦	18th	¦	
2017/18	¦	Conference North		¦	1st	¦	Promoted, Champions
2018/19	¦	Conference National		¦	1st	¦	Promoted, Champions

 

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Rushall Olympic FC

160px-Rushallolympicfc.png

2019/20

League Two - 1st

Overview

A third number one finish in a row wasn't exactly expected especially as I largely was unable to strengthen the team from last season. I was minorly surprised that we were in the top three and was hopeful of grabbing one of the three automatic promotion spots. By the end of the season we had comfortably achieved promotion and managed to just edge out Oxford for the title on goal difference.

Most of the team were retained from last season. Again Danny Rose top scored, this time with 30 goals. By far the player of the season was Anthony Forde. Last season he provided 18 assists, this year it was 26. He also added goals this year though scoring 16.

Team

GK - Lee Nicholls

 

RB - Luke O'Neill

CB - Luke McCullough

CB - Ben Nugent

LB - Tyrell Robinson

 

RW - Anthony Forde

CM - Manu Garcia

CM - Robbie Weir

LW - Scott Sinclair

 

AM - Duane Holmes

CF - Danny Rose

History

Season	¦	League				¦	Pos.	¦	Comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17	¦	Conference North		¦	18th	¦	
2017/18	¦	Conference North		¦	1st	¦	Promoted, Champions
2018/19	¦	Conference National		¦	1st	¦	Promoted, Champions
2019/20	¦	League Two			¦	1st	¦	Promoted, Champions

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi All,

I've not posted any of my updates and generally not told anyone I was doing this but finally having previously failed to get passed promotion to the premier league (in my Guisely 2009 game) I have done it, having won the league for the second time in a row I have wrapped up the challenge with a 1- 0 win over PSG to lift the champions league trophy.

HgRGy9u.png

 

Capture.PNG

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