[FM17] Nottm Forest – Nigel Doughty Academy

[Carninho]

My day can be split into 2 quite easily. FM time and none FM time. None FM time usually means I’m at work, bored and reading FM stories on the forum, day dreaming of starting a specific challenge I’ve been following.

Then I get home put FM on and quickly fall back into my lazy ways of always managing the same team, Forest. Over the years I’ve played all the Champ Man’s and FM’s editions and although I have managed numerous teams with my own random self-imposed rules I’ve become increasing narrow minded about how I play the game. I have a folder full of discarded games I’ve only played for a few weeks.

However now I think I have stuck my teeth into something I’ve not tried before. A youth only challenge with Nottm Forest. I don’t have the time to start too low down the football pyramid plus I believe it will be an equally tough challenge starting at a club with higher expectations, and having to bed in regens while being competitive in the Championship then hopefully the Premier League.

 

So my rules are that I will only use players that are in my squad when the game starts.

I will allow myself to resign players that have come though the Nigel Doughty Academy both in real life and with my FM savegame. This doesn’t open me up to a huge pool of players, but there are some recognisable ones that I hope to bring back into the fold.

Karl Darlow (Newcastle) James Perch (QPR) Felix Bastians (Bochum) Jamaal Lascelles (Newcastle) Lewis McGugan (Sheff Wed) Oliver Burke (RB Leipzig) Michael Dawson (Hull) Patrick Bamford (Middlesboro’) Kieron Freeman (Sheff Utd) Kieran Wallace (Sheff Utd/Fleetwood) Callum Chettle (Peterboro’) Tom Huddlestone (Hull) Wes Morgan (Leicester).

 

Mad Fawaz is still the chairman of the club, but it’s up for sale so there won’t be any funds to bring any of the above in as the transfer budget is £600k.

 

Starting off the season I’m unsure if I should be attempting to win promotion. I know exactly how to do it with the current squad, but I also know that once all the loan players have returned (namely Ross McCormack and Pajtim Kasami) that the squad is paper thin for a Premier League campaign. The young lads in the u23s & u19s aren’t at the required level. But that’s what this challenge is all about after all!

 

I won’t go into the current starting squad loads of detail, but I’ll pick out a few names that I hope to build the team around in my narrow 4312 formation.

GK’s – Long term prospect is Dimitar Evtimov. Bulgarian who has come through the academy and from memory won a national apprentice of the year award a couple of years ago. Also IRL he is yet to establish himself as the #1 having been overtaken by the younger Jordan Smith. The elder statesmen of the squad are Vladimir Stojkovic, easily the best keeper in the FM squad but he is on a 2 year deal and unlikely to be given a work permit extension. Stephen Henderson would be the obvious #2, but maybe overlooked while I give Evtimov some game time. As mentioned Jordan Smith is the #1 IRL but his FM stats are terrible, so I’ll be keen to see if I can do anything with him.

RB’s – Eric Lichaj is the only fit player in this position when the game starts. If he stays fit then no worries as he can cut it in the Premier League. However beyond Lichaj I have youngster Jordan Gabriel, who looks to be a half decent prospect , but suffering with a long term injury. He will need loads of game time to get him ready for the long term starting birth. On loan I have Hilberto Pereira, who is more of a winger and the holder of very few defensive qualities. If Gabriel cant cut it I need to find out fast and retrain another player into the RB role or see if I can buy back James Perch.

LB’s – I have more LB’s than any other position. None have come though the academy though, but of the players above that I’ll allow myself to resign 3 are. Danny Fox starts the season as first choice, many because he is fit. Dani Pinillos and Armand Traore begin injured, Chris Cohen can cover from midfield.

CB’s – Again there is plenty of cover for this position. Three of the brighter youth prospects are CB’s too in Alex Iacovitti, Joe Worrall & Anel Ahmedhodzic. The flip side is that I have three very well established players ahead of them all in their prime Michael Mancienne, Jack Hobbs and Matt Mills. I intend to play with two CB’s so giving them game time will be my biggest juggling act. Thomas Lam is able to cover all the defensive positions, but is a master of none as he cant head the ball or run down the flanks and put in a cross.

CM’s – Basically I have 3 players to build around. Ben Osborn, Chris Cohen and Matt Cash. Jorge Grant is on loan to Notts County and is better suited to the SS role. Toby Edser needs to have a huge jump in his development, but I’m hopeful he will. David Vaughan only has a season or two left in him. Kasami is the best of the bunch, but is on a season long loan. I may need to look at buying back an ex red if I fail to get any in the first couple of youth intakes.

SS’s – Ross McCormack is my biggest dilemma of the save. All £250k a month of him. He is absolute quality and can cover three key positions. Clough and Assombalonga start the game injured so I may keep him around and ditch him when the transfer window reopens in Jan and I can cancel his season long loan from Villa. I think he is worth the gamble and if the takeover goes through early enough in the save I may be able to keep hold of him all season. Zach Clough will be trained into the SS role once he is fit, as will all the current wingers as I cant see myself playing with wide men upfront.

STK’s – I’m happy with the forwards, in fact I could do with selling one or two. Assombalonga is the best of the bunch followed by Lord Bendtner and the Greek Vellios. Youth wise our biggest prospect to come the academy is 17yr old Ben Brereton. He needs game time and lots of it as his starting stats are bang average at best. Tyler Walker is next in line but he is out on loan to Port Vale so I cant touch him for a year. Lewis Walters and Virgil Gomis may come good too from the u23’s.

[Jimbokav1971]

31 minutes ago, Carninho said:

So my rules are that I will only use players that are in my squad when the game starts.

It's your game so feel free to ignore me and do what you want, but why not also allow yourself to sign players who have previously come through the academy and since moved on elsewhere? 

With that 1 slight rule change, (which still fits in completely with the ethos behind the save), you open yourself up to more experienced players being available towards the end of their careers, 

Anyway, good luck whatever you decide. 

[Carninho]

18 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

It's your game so feel free to ignore me and do what you want, but why not also allow yourself to sign players who have previously come through the academy and since moved on elsewhere? 

With that 1 slight rule change, (which still fits in completely with the ethos behind the save), you open yourself up to more experienced players being available towards the end of their careers, 

Anyway, good luck whatever you decide. 

Yeah I didnt put that right. I will buy back ex players, but only ones that started their careers at Forest.

I've played the first season so I'll be added the screenshots and story tonight.

[john1]

Good luck with Forest

[BoxToBox]

Good luck!

[Raware]

Will be interesting to see how this develops as a long suffering Forest fan myself.  We do have a good academy that does produce decent youngsters and has done over the years but if it can be upgraded furthermore to category 1 then it should give you a good chance of getting us up to the Premier League in the future.  Would be good to see Lascelles and Ollie Burke back at the club 

[Keano16]

Best of luck.

[Carninho]

 

Where have all my staff gone? I need an assistant asap and there doesn’t seem to be a huge pot to pick from, which led me to the uncomfortable pick of Ray Wilkins. Stats wise he’s OK it just that whenever I see his name on my screen I hear his voice.

Not only did I shortlist players I also added in a few key staff members in the hope they’d come home too. I only managed two so far. Des Walker as the u23 assistant manager and Andy Marriott as a GK coach. Both as far apart in the Forest spectrum as possible. Club Icon vs 11 games in 4 years.

The HoYD is the most important role in this save so I hunted down the best I could find. Phil Cannon fitted the requirements

I also picked up my first transfer Lewis McGugan. He was transfer listed at Sheff Wed and was an easy pickup for £250k. If you haven't seen him play his game at Forest was based around hitting the ball as hard as he could towards the top corner of the net from any angle. Like a David Dunn of the Championship.

Joe Worrall was sent off to Grimsby on loan for 6 months.

 

[Carninho]

As you can see it wasn't the greatest start to the season. Very much a mixed bag of results. At this point in the league season Norwich are flying high with Leeds close behind, then a 12 point gap to 3rd.

Forest are sitting comfortably in the top 6.

I eluded to the biggest decision earlier when I mentioned Ross McCormack. He ran the show for us on the pitch, but financially he nearly bankrupted us by xmas with the £250k a month deal plus wages. I would have kept hold of him all season but after 2 failed board takeovers I couldn’t take the risk and with Zach Clough fit again I really wanted him to play the SS role and be comfortable with it ready for next season. I could also take the option to recall Jorge Grant from Notts County and train him up too.

[Carninho]

This leads me onto the first big news as when I cancelled the loan deal I was in the middle of a two legged League Cup semi against Man City! As you can see below the cup run was pretty impressive. I know the Prem clubs were not playing full strength teams, but they were still very capable of tonking us.

A shaky start when I put the kids out for the first 2 matches that went to extra time, then after Mansfield I began to put out a stronger side. I didn't expect to beat Arsenal or Man Utd, it was just damage limitation. At no stage did I see myself taking the team into Europe. Crazy!

[BoxToBox]

Cracking work, well done!

[Carninho]

Youth Day

Great intake. Obviously the pick of the bunch are Ogbeche & George.

George is the perfect CB except he cant head the ball and is 5 foot nothing, he's 15 with time on his side though. Ogbeche can start in the first team straight away

The rest of the intakes aren't bad either.

 

Some good mental and physical stats with Adam O'Connell, just a shame that I don't use wingers, so I'll train him up as a LB for now.

Alex Fletcher is the new Paul Warhurst utility man. I really want this guy to work out as you don't see many who can play CB/CM/CF.

 

[Carninho]

9 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

Cracking work, well done!

thanks it was a lucky cup run. FA cup didn't go the same. knocked out by Norwich in the 3rd round

[wynter]

Could definitely see George as a BWM, his passing and first touch aren't horrible for his age so little holding him back from that. 

[Carninho]

What a run! 11 wins in a row saw us take 2nd place with 2 games to spare.

QPR away.

I always recall the game Middlesbrough played against Fulham back in 2006 where 15 of the 16 match day squad were born within 30 miles of the club. I want that record in as much as I want the 16 to come from my academy. The QPR match is my first opportunity to do that now that the league is over.

Its probably my biggest defeat in FM to date. The game was a complete car crash. 2 of my back 4 getting sent off and no cover for those positions. Lets just say that for the last game of the season I aborted this particular experiment for now.

[Carninho]

[Carninho]

Everyone who played for us this season

Ross McCormack    played 25(2)   11 goals   3 assists   7.28 rating

So far so good. I managed to give game time to a number of key young players Evtimov in goal, Iacovitti and Worrall spent 6 months out on loan each. Cash is a first choice in the midfield and Brereton has contributed upfront in the minor games along the way.

Now the fun begins as at the 3rd attempt a takeover has been completed and I have money to spend plus all the $$$ from entering the Premier League. I'll be running down my shopping list of ex academy players to fill in some of the holes and shipping out the excess.

[ManUtd1]

Tremendous start, the QPR result aside 

[Benjoe]

Terrific YI you got there, really good start to your save! 

 

[Carninho]

The new board cut my only affiliation as well. Crumlin are an Irish club and they sent us over the GK Ogbeche and two other regens. It was setup when the game started (as they are feeder team IRL) and it was an area of the save I wasn’t sure about. Normally I’d bang in as many affiliations as possible but it does mean that Forest aren’t the players first club in the players history. Either way the decision was taken out of my hands and the board since rejected my approach to add a new feeder club.

I was able to ask for improvements to the youth recruitment and training facilities so it wasn't all bad

[Sheriff7]

Now with Evagelos Marinakis as president you are going to have success... 

[Carninho]

3 hours ago, Sheriff7 said:

Now with Evagelos Marinakis as president you are going to have success... 

I hope so. I like what he has done and said so far. I don't think he would have invested in Forest if he didn't think he would be successful, there are plenty of clubs for sale he could have bought instead

[Carninho]

Transfers

I received £10m off the bat from the takeover. After renewing several existing contracts the priority for me was LB so I made an offer for Felix Bastians, £2.5m is a no brainer and it means I can push out Traore.

Once the transfer budgets for next season had been agreed and I had been given the target to avoid relegation I found £30m and double the wage kitty.

I put out some feelers for the ex-academy graduates on my shortlist, offering their value. Boro’ and Hull had been relegated (as they are in 99% of saves) so I made bids for Dawson and Bamford. The playoff final hadn’t been played at this point either and Newcastle were in the final so I put in bids for Darlow and Lascelles. Then Perch at QPR, Chettle at Peterboro’ and Burke at RB Leipzieg.

Amazingly offers were accepted for Batians, Dawson, Darlow, Bamford. I came to an agreement over Lascelles for an extra 500k and had to double the offer on Chettle, but it still looked like good value for his age. Burke was the only player I couldn’t agree a fee for. He is valued at £5.5m but they asked for £30m plus clauses.

I was worried about carrying too many players in the squad so I delayed all the deals for a week and put a few existing players up for sale. Matt Mills had been moaning about his game time so he was first to go and was replaced by Dawson. His pace isn’t great but every other stat is right up there and he will be a valuable tutor with his 20 for work rate 17 determination.

Lascelles came in and it meant I’d have to move Hobbs on. Hull made a quick bid and he was gone. Like Dawson he only weakness is the lack of pace. It was a tough decision too as he’d played very well last year.

Mancienne is the only senior CB I kept on and I will attempt to train him as a CM to cover Cohen. He’s probably a first choice at CB still.

Another CB who moved into a coaching only role was Damien Perquis. I just wanted to indulge myself with as many ex-players on the coaching team as possible and to be fair his stats are ok. Steve Stone was another who came in as a coach while I’m on the subject. Paul Hart as a Director of Football just to help with outgoing transfers and offer players to clubs. Again it was a romantic appointment. Hart was the academy manager and then first team manager when the last group of stars came though at once (the Dawson brothers, Wes Morgan, Andy Reid, Marlon Harewood, David Prutton, James Perch, Jermain Jenas…)

I couldn’t agree personal terms with Karl Darlow, as he wanted a ridiculously low release clause and high wages. I was unsure about the deal anyway as I wanted to give match time for Evtimov and the 5* regen Ogbeche. Other keeper Henderson was sold and I thought I’d let Stojkovic see out the last year of his contract.

Callum Chettle’s deal went through and Bastians chose Forest over offers from other German sides.

Bamford was a 50/50 as I wanted to offload Vellios and/or Bendtner first as both had moaned about a lack of first team football last season. In the end Bamford came in and Vellios was offered a new deal. I’ll sell Bendtner as soon as he starts to moan again, as I didn’t want to transfer list him against his will and have him disrupt the squad.

Final deal was James Perch on a bit of a whim he didn’t cost that much and he can cover RB and CM. He also has good mental stats for tutoring.

Lastly once all the in/outs had been finished off I began to haggle over Oliver Burke. I agreed a deal with the club but his demands were outrageous £100k a week and +£20k a game, £3m signing on fee for him and same again for his agent, plus release fee and sell on clauses. He only played a dozen games last season too! I’ll revisit this one at the end of the season.

[Carninho]

New Season

I love being in Europe, mainly because you get some early competitive fixtures against some minor European jobbers. The players can boost moral with a couple of big wins.

The route into the Europa League group stages was pretty simple and I gave the entire squad a runout. Dinamo Brest were first up with a straight 4-0 aggregate victory. A first leg 4-0 win away to HJK allowed me to field a youth team in the return leg which we disappointingly lost 2-1 on the night.

We were seeded in pot 3 for the group draw and found ourselves with Lazio, CSKA Moscow & whipping boys Trencin.

First league match and we’re on TV vs Man City. Big test for but not too daunting as we did defeat them on route to our League Cup win last season. Osborn and Lascelles are both injured for 2 months and would be in my regular starting XI. Not that we missed them as we were 2-0 up at halftime, then the game turned and Man City hit back with 4 goals, and reality hit home.

Newcastle away next and confidence was restored with a convincing 3-1 victory, then like a yo-yo inconsistency began. Away win at Burnley, home loss vs Spurs.

I don’t know what happened against Watford and the 2-6 defeat followed by an extra time defeat to Bournemouth in the League Cup. By this point the XI were knackered from playing 2 games a week, and the poor results meant that I had to play my strongest possible team.

Leicester Away was a huge rescue job. From 0-2 down Assombalonga popped up with 2 goals, the second coming in the last minute. Then two more defeats to CSKA Moscow and Arsenal and the pressure was on, so an away match at Anfield wasn’t looking good. By this point the injured pair of Osborn and Lascelles had returned but it was goal a game striker Assombalonga that won the game for us and hopefully helped to turn the corner.

We’re mid-table now a still averaging a point a game.

[Carninho]

Lewis McGugan

I don’t know what to say about this guy. He was my only signing last season and he played half a dozen games. He didn’t look up to much and in preseason there was no sign of what was to come. Ben Osborn is my first choice B2B midfielder and as I mentioned above, found himself injured for 2 months, the only cover at the time was Lewis. Ordinarily he would be my last resort and in the 2 months that have now passed he is keeping Osborn out of the side. He has no right to be playing this well and his stats have even dropped over this period.

 

[Carninho]

One last quick update is to show you Felix Bastians 

I think he is hugely underrated and may slip under the radar in other FM savegames. His ave rating is a little skewed here as I had to play him at CB a couple of times and off the bench in some of my heavy defeats