[FM18] The Dynamics of telling you to shove your transfer request up y- a journeyman career

[noikeee]

Derby - 2027/2028 - Season review

A first ever European title on the club's debut season in the modern Champions League, plus the first English title since 1975, makes for a standout season in the club's history. We nearly added a FA Cup title too, on the club's first appearance in a FA Cup final in 82 years(!!), but just missed out on the treble by losing it to Chelsea.

Statistics, best 11, and top 5 players of the season

 

 

5. Óscar Navarro (ST) - If forced to choose a regularly used player, I'd go with Matías Bastianini who was a revelation in midfield this season, but my top 5 will  be all attackers, because this guy, if only used sparingly after joining in January, was still hugely important. It was safe in the knowledge I could rely on his goals, that I managed to rotate the side dramatically in the league and cups, and still win the double. 15 goals and 8 assists in 14(5) matches, a superb first half-year for the club.

4. Warre Maes (ML, AML, MR) - Marginally less influential than last year, but still bloody great. 14 goals, 17 assists, and "unluckiest" tag goes to him: a brace in the FA Cup final was not enough for us to win that competition, and that game took him out of the CL final with injury.

3. Erwin Spruit (ST, MR, ML, AML) - On paper still our very best player, and is now becoming even more complete as I start experimenting using him in other areas of the pitch occasionally (still plays almost always as ST). 23 goals and 16 assists was again a great output - but others were perhaps even slightly better. I also think he was distracted for a while after a move to a bigger club didn't materialize.

2. Caio César (ST, MC, AMR) - I was concerned when I threw him onto the pitch at the beginning of the season and he just kept shooting from long with no criteria whatsoever. I couldn't imagine he'd turn into an absolute beast all year long, hugely impressive on his first season for the club, and even better, not just in one position, but shining as 2nd striker in the 4-4-2, as MC in the 4-3-3, or even as wide trequartista in the Champions League final. 25 goals (our top scorer) and 12 assists.

1. Diego Fratucello (MR, AMR, ML, AML) - He's been here for a while now (it's his 4th season for us), and you could argue that others like Spruit are more talented, but this was surely the peak of Fratucello's career. 20 goals (as a winger!), 15 assists, an hugely impressive 10 player of the match awards, and a brace in the Champions League final.

 

Major youth prospects

Danny Johnson YP24B (19, ENG) (MC, DM) - Completely stalled, because with all the competitions we're seriously fighting for, I'm having very few openings to play youngsters. Maybe a loan would've been a good idea.

Connor Neale YP26A (18, ENG) (ST) - Needs to start playing soon otherwise he'll go the Danny Johnson way. However, he's been improving dramatically and I think he's going to be a really good forward.

Aaron Eaton YP24F (20, ENG) (AMR, AML, ML, AMC) - A late blooming wildcard! I never rated him but he's now knocking at the doors of the first team, and valued at 9M€! Tutoring helped a lot.

 

Career progress table

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

Brilliant season 

Good idea to stay on I'd say. See if you can pick up the remaining trophies.

[Rikulec]

Great job winning the double.

[noikeee]

3 hours ago, Fer Fuchs Ake said:

Brilliant season 

Good idea to stay on I'd say. See if you can pick up the remaining trophies.

I'm still missing 5 trophies - FA Cup, League Cup, Community Shield, FIFA Club World Cup and UEFA Supercup - so it seems wildly optimistic to think I can win everything next year. But I think it's the right time to move independent of results, I've been at Derby for a while and achieved what I wanted. I just want one go to try to win the CWC and try to retain the CL.

47 minutes ago, Rikulec said:

Great job winning the double.

Thank you sir.

[deltablue]

That was a wonderful season, even before the CL final. I still wanted to see how that went so I could potentially congratulate you for it as well

[noikeee]

European football - 2027/2028

UEFA Champions League

Derby shocks Europe!! Other than that, it's a bog standard season. It's now been 11 consecutive years with at least one English team in the final... In fact this is now getting to the point I'm setting myself a personal target to try to help some other league overcome the Premiership, for when I leave Derby.

 

England

 

Derby shock England, too. Arsenal continue their long purgatory through mediocricity by finishing 11th - they're already on the 7th manager since Wenger, Hernán Crespo managing the club now. Beyond Derby, Stoke are the most notable surprise, coming just short of a Champions League spot. 5th is their best top flight performance since 1975.

Spain

 

Real runs away with the league, with a 17 points margin, but for the first time in 9 years, it's NOT Real-Barça or Barça-Real in the top 2 - Atlético just about beats Barça for 3rd. Barça's manager Massimiliano Allegri, instead of getting sacked, was rewarded with a voluntary move to Man Utd...

France

An aging Jorge Jesus finally comes good for PSG, returning the Parisian club to Ligue 1 titles after 2 years of Monaco dominance. The Portuguese manager now has titles in Portugal (Benfica and Sporting), Germany (Leverkusen), England (Man City) and France (PSG)! Monaco's step back is a bit of a shock because they get overtaken by Lyon for 2nd, too.

Germany

 

Guess who's back... Bayern. Ugh. After 7 years of other teams winning the Bundesliga, and Bayern seemingly on a constant slow decline (they'd failed to finish top 3 for 4 years), they suddenly emerge to win the title again - thank no other than Carlo Ancelotti, on a return to the club. It was very close between them and Leverkusen, though.

Italy

 

Well this is a bit of an unforeseen surprise. 18 years later, Inter suddenly become champions!! Perhaps Juventus was a little distracted by their run to the Champions League final, but Paulo Sousa took the chance and led Inter to beat Juve by 3 points to the Serie A title. The rest isn't particularly remarkable with a bog standard top 5. Perhaps more interesting than the top, is the fact that Parma are back to the top flight, they've been here for a couple of seasons now trying to survive.

Portugal

 

It's 3 in a row for Benfica and Mano Menezes, beating Sporting by 4 points. Guimarães on the back of their Europa League title season seem very strong and only came short of Porto for 3rd by 2 points. Feirense qualify for Europe for the 2nd consecutive year. Real Massamá are the most randomly improved team around and have finished 8th!

[noikeee]

7 hours ago, deltablue said:

That was a wonderful season, even before the CL final. I still wanted to see how that went so I could potentially congratulate you for it as well

Or potentially roast me for losing it, too. 

[noikeee]

Uh-oh, this looks more expensive than I thought.

More costs. Everything's moving on the right direction, though. I feel like I'm preparing the club to be in a pretty good state for when I leave, ready and sustainable to remain at the top for many more years.

[BoxToBox]

Great to see Real flying in Portugal.

[noikeee]

2 minutes ago, BoxToBox said:

Great to see Real flying in Portugal.

To be honest I'm scrambling a bit trying to find things to get excited about in all the leagues, which is why I mentioned them, the game world has just not been as dynamic and different as I'd have expected after 11 years...

[noikeee]

Derby County becomes the 7th biggest club in the world in reputation.

[wynter]

Bordeaux doing work on that list. 

 

And congrats on the double

[Deisler26]

Fantastic work on the double!

[pheelf]

Superb work to win the double and it looks like you'll be leaving a good legacy behind when you decide to leave with the improvements to the stadium and facilities.  I think 65M Euros is a little steep for only 16,000 seats though.

[noikeee]

UEFA Euro 2028 - England

England's best ever side comes home to defend their trophy. The reigning UEFA Euro 2024 winners, FIFA World Cup 2026 winners, get the chance to defend their European trophy in home soil, and a chance to repeat Spain's golden run from 2008 to 2012, by winning 2 Euros in a row whilst winning a World Cup in-between. They beat Turkey, Belgium, Italy, went all the way to the final. But then... Germany. A 81th minute winner. At Wembley. Ouch. Our centre-back Adie Higginson played for England in the final.

Beyond England's pride-hurting capitulation at the end, this was a bit of a boring Euros. There was a decent haul of goals, but no surprises, with the only thing resembling a surprise being Wales run to the quarter-finals. Biggest shock was Spain not making it out of the groups, finishing last behind Wales, Portugal and Turkey.

 

 

Chelsea's monster winger, former Ballon d'Or Ashley Kane was an unsurprising pick for player of the tournament, after 7 goals and 4 assists in 7 matches for England. I think he's getting the big individual award at the end of the year again.

 

 

Germany's Peter Emde, who plays for Schalke, had a very serious bid for player of the tournament though. He broke Michel Platini's record of 9 goals in the Euros to be the first to reach double digits in this tournament, with a crazy 11 goals in 6 matches. Including the all-important winner in the final.

[noikeee]

18 hours ago, wynter said:

Bordeaux doing work on that list. 

 

And congrats on the double

I extended that list a little on purpose up to them, because I thought they were odd. Honestly I don't know what makes them that high. They don't have a tycoon and have not finished in the Ligue 1 top 3 since 2020. Most interesting thing about them is they reached - and lost - the Europa League final two years ago in 2026.

I think what's going on is all French teams seem a little overpowered in reputation there, maybe as a side-effect of the league itself rising in reputation (to 3rd, ahead of the Serie A and Bundesliga) - probably because of PSG's Champions League successes in 2022 and 2024. In reality the Premier League has been so dominant in Europe that I think a lot of English teams should have higher reputation than freaking Bordeaux.

 

12 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

Fantastic work on the double!

Thanks.

 

8 hours ago, pheelf said:

Superb work to win the double and it looks like you'll be leaving a good legacy behind when you decide to leave with the improvements to the stadium and facilities.  I think 65M Euros is a little steep for only 16,000 seats though.

Cheers, I dunno why it's so expensive, I'm pretty sure my board have quoted a smaller price tag earlier on...

Anyway, a frustrating aspect is that when we're asking for a new stadium or an expansion, we have absolutely no idea on the finances of either option, we just have a button to ask for it and that's it. I could've asked for a new stadium but I have no idea whether it'd pay off or not - I thought the expansion was a more cautious step.

[noikeee]

Meanwhile, I've been linked to Bayern, Man City, Marseille, Lyon...

[wynter]

1 minute ago, noikeee said:

Meanwhile, I've been linked to Bayern, Man City, Marseille, Lyon...

Please do it

[john1]

I would go to Lyon, if the job was offered to me.

[noikeee]

3 minutes ago, wynter said:

Please do it

 

2 minutes ago, john1 said:

I would go to Lyon, if the job was offered to me.

 

Haha. I quite dislike Marseille, and have already managed Lyon in FM15, I'd like something different... I also did Monaco in FM17.

Nah, don't think France is on my plans in the near future.

[wynter]

[john1]

Doh!  

[BoxToBox]

23 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Meanwhile, I've been linked to Bayern, Man City, Marseille, Lyon...

[noikeee]

Well this seems to have triggered some surprisingly passionate reactions! 

I've no intention of leaving this pre-season, it's planned for next year. A move to a superclub like Bayern/Man City is unlikely because it's generally boring/not challenging, there's only one superclub like that I would consider as they have their own different interesting profile and I fancy them, but otherwise no. Marseille/Lyon are more like the profile of club I should end up in, but just not in France.

[Northernpilgrim]

I wouldn't start with a Barcelona, Bayern etc, but being offered the job is different. Most managers wouldn't turn them down IRL, so why turn them down on FM?

[Borussia Teeth]

So what is the Super club you would consider?

[SmileFaceGamer]

1 hour ago, Borussia Teeth said:

So what is the Super club you would consider?

Actually yeah now I’m intrigued, what superclub would you consider?

[deltablue]

18 hours ago, Northernpilgrim said:

I wouldn't start with a Barcelona, Bayern etc, but being offered the job is different. Most managers wouldn't turn them down IRL, so why turn them down on FM?

I wouldn't if they were regular title winners or challengers. Too much pressure and not enough feeling of having earned success unless they're struggling.

[noikeee]

On 09/02/2018 at 17:22, Northernpilgrim said:

I wouldn't start with a Barcelona, Bayern etc, but being offered the job is different. Most managers wouldn't turn them down IRL, so why turn them down on FM?

 

8 hours ago, deltablue said:

I wouldn't if they were regular title winners or challengers. Too much pressure and not enough feeling of having earned success unless they're struggling.

Yeah this is what I think, I've tried it a couple of times in the past, either giant teams like Real Madrid or tycoon-owned clubs, and winning becomes the bare minimum rather than an achievement. This atmosphere of extra pressure is now also reflected within the game itself, as it's much harder to gain the players confidence until you start overachieving (not much scope to overachieve at all if you're expected to finish 1st), and teams play very defensive against you which often isn't fun neither.

So yeah it might be more realistic to take those jobs, but I'll sacrifice some realism if it's gonna take away my enjoyment of the game.

 

On 09/02/2018 at 20:11, Borussia Teeth said:

So what is the Super club you would consider?

 

23 hours ago, SmileFaceGamer said:

Actually yeah now I’m intrigued, what superclub would you consider?

This won't be to everyone's liking, but it's Barcelona (the Iniesta avatar might've been a hint  ). I fancy them and their traditional style of play (specially the style they had in the Guardiola days), they have a particular philosophy of their own which includes not just the style of play but also the focus on youth development. I've always wanted to manage them in FM in my journeyman careers at some point, but it never came up.

I think FM18 isn't the best match engine to make the Guardiola tactics work though. If I eventually make it to Barcelona I'll probably focus more on my 4-3-3 and ditch my 4-4-2, and maybe slightly tweak it to make it more Barcelona-like, but it's still a little far from that style. At Derby with all my tactics I almost never win the possession battle!

[noikeee]

Pre-season 2028/2029

 

Honestly, it's a disappointing pre-season. I had a brilliant attacker lined up to sign on a free transfer from Juventus, then he didn't get a work permit and I ended up spending a massive 73M€ on an identical, maybe even slightly worse player, instead. Then I picked up a nice upgrade for the goalkeeper position... only to find an even better keeper in the market. I tried selling Juan Caballero to make way for this 2nd player and there was no way he'd move anywhere, so I decided to pass it up. Then finally, I failed to hire a right-back despite several attempts.

I did manage to make two lucrative sales of two wingers: Francesco di Nolfo had been here since the Championship days, bought from Everton for 2,3M€, now sold to West Ham for 13,25M€. And Ahn Chang-Ho, was signed from West Ham for 7,75M€ 4 years ago, now sold by 28,5M€ to Napoli. Both were backups, I needed them to move to make way for other players, I'm very happy with both deals.

Total value spent: 81M€. Total income from sales: 42M€.
 

The 2 signings:

A ridiculous fee perhaps, as the 73M€ I paid was over 2 times our record, the 27,5M€ we'd spent on keeper Juan Caballero (who amusingly I failed to offload now) 3 years ago. But I feel it's worth it as this is a very rare breed of player between the newgens: a very versatile attacker which is equally adept at creating and at finishing moves. I intend to use him mostly on the left wing as a completely different alternative to Warre Maes.

A Bolivian! Bit of an unusual nationality at this level of world class football. My staff feel he's a big upgrade on Juan Caballero, I'm not sure it's that big but I do think he's better and might help our defensive record slightly.

 

 

Squad

 

 

This is largely the same team, as you'd expect after winning the Champions League, still I would've liked more transfer dealings. We're likely to use almost an identical 11 to last year, except with Barrancos in goal, and I think this is also time to promote the exciting centre-back Serban Petcu to the first 11, making it an all-Romanian duo of CBs.

The squad is still a work in progress at the moment, I still want to offload one keeper, I will probably loan out Danny Johnson YP24B to get him some playing time, and it remains to be seen if new signing Emmanuel Mercier or Óscar Navarro will really be subs, I think both are absolutely superb and will keep our attackers like Caio César, Fratucello, Maes and Spruit, on their toes. Notice I intend to use some of our "forwards" as wingers, Mercier will play on the left, Ratnage is being adapted to MR, Jenas can play as AMR or AML. So that's why I sold both di Nolfo and Chang-Ho, with all of those guys counting as wingers we had far too many of them.

 

Fixtures

 

Hey, we actually drew a friendly. First two potential trophies of the season coming up, as we play Chelsea in the Community Shield and Benfica in the UEFA Super Cup.

[noikeee]

Meanwhile, going quite a few posts back...

On 04/02/2018 at 15:19, BoxToBox said:

Your staff have to have a few of them pegged wrong.

You were absolutely right, this kid was underrated by them at that point but now it's clear he's going places.

[BoxToBox]

1 hour ago, noikeee said:

This won't be to everyone's liking, but it's Barcelona (the Iniesta avatar might've been a hint  ). I fancy them and their traditional style of play (specially the style they had in the Guardiola days), they have a particular philosophy of their own which includes not just the style of play but also the focus on youth development.

8 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Meanwhile, going quite a few posts back...

You were absolutely right, this kid was underrated by them at that point but now it's clear he's going places.

Brilliant!

[noikeee]

Missing team: Kobenhavn.

I'm okay with this group, I'm happy to avoid all major superclubs and we should be favourites. But, these are 3 competitive sides, and all have the ability to hurt us in a good day.

[noikeee]

A youth product finally reaches the English national team:

 

[noikeee]

August 2028

 

(Transfers)
 

We sold 4th choice (!) keeper Michael Casey to Sheffield Wednesday for 2M€ (might reach 2.5M€), and young midfielder Danny Johnson YP24B was loaned to Leicester to get some Premier League experience. Then he scored on his debut for Leicester!
 

Our first match of the season was a very weird Community Shield. After 75 goalless minutes, suddenly the floodgates truly opened and we lost 4-2 to Chelsea. Not a great beginning that immediately stopped any hopes for a perfect season or for leaving England at the end of the season with all the trophies in my pocket, but we'd collect the next one, beating Benfica 1-0 to claim the UEFA Supercup, even if new record signing Emmanuel Mercier missed a penalty kick.

We were given a very tough calendar to kick off the Premier League, having to travel to Stoke to meet last year's surprise package, and then host both Man City and Chelsea. We failed at the first hurdle - tired from the 2 supercups, we lost at Stoke in a crazy open 4-3 match. We recovered well though - beat a 9-men City (they saw 2 red cards) 2-0, then smashed Chelsea 4-0 in a mini-revenge from the Community Shield and FA Cup final defeats, in quite possibly our single best performance against Chelsea ever since we returned to the Premier League 4 years ago.

 

[ManUtd1]

2 solid signings and a CL Group that you should walk.  I like how this season is shaping up...

[noikeee]

12 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

2 solid signings and a CL Group that you should walk.  I like how this season is shaping up...

We've started on dodgy form though... next update will show that.

[noikeee]

September 2028

It's a sluggish start to the Premier League as we draw 3 matches in a row - Boro away, Bournemouth away, and Spurs at home in a frustrating match in which we had plenty of clear chances. We finally beat Fulham, but we're already lagging 6 points behind Man Utd, and we're only 7th for now.

We nearly got humiliated in the League Cup too, and against no other than our rivals Leeds, who got relegated to the Championship last year. This tie proved much tougher than expected and we needed penalties to go past them.

What did start well was the Champions League - neither Napoli nor Besiktas were a match for us.
 

 

 

[TheJanitor]

Just finished reading this today, it's great so far. congrats on some damn fine achievements!

[noikeee]

3 hours ago, TheJanitor said:

Just finished reading this today, it's great so far. congrats on some damn fine achievements!

 

[noikeee]

October 2028

 

In the Premier League, we're moving forward. We're hardly spectacular but with 3 wins from 3 including a difficult away match against Liverpool, we make quite a leap up the table to come just within 2 points of early leaders Man Utd.

In Europe, a 1-1 home draw against a 10-men Marseille (now managed by Pep Guardiola!) was a little disappointing, but we're still top of our group; and in the League Cup we again made it unnecessarily difficult against Stoke, with only extra-time, 105th and 110th minute goals, settling it - but we continue. Bizarrely it's only the first time I reach the League Cup quarter-finals since arriving at Derby...
 

 

[noikeee]

November 2028

Oh dear. After the 1-0 win in France, that gave us a very nice early qualification from the CL group, this was an AWFUL month. We got smacked by Man Utd in a match in which everything that could've gone wrong, did so; and this sent us down a spiral of low morale and poor results in the league. Suddenly, we're now 10 points behind and languishing in 6th. Worse... Erwin Spruit broke his ankle and is only coming back next year, missing the Club World Cup.

We might have to forget the league and focus on all the other competitions?

 

 

[ManUtd1]

November was not a kind month for you, by any measure.  Thankfully there's a lot of football to be played still.

[Deisler26]

Oooof ya. You got spanked that month.

[ManUtd1]

2 minutes ago, Deisler26 said:

Oooof ya. You got spanked that month.

Perhaps with a rolled-up version of World Soccer, with the Derby Champions League photo on the front?

What?!  Don't look at me like that.

[ChrisWilson]

Have been following the story from the start. Are you happy with Mercier so far?

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

11 hours ago, noikeee said:

We might have to forget the league and focus on all the other competitions?

Not just yet but if you still have a gap like that by the time the Round of 16 starts, you might have to.

[noikeee]

11 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

Perhaps with a rolled-up version of World Soccer, with the Derby Champions League photo on the front?

What?!  Don't look at me like that.

I thought I had bought all copies...
 

11 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

Oooof ya. You got spanked that month.

The most frustrating thing is I thought I had already gone through the bad run, and had slashed a big gap, catching up on Utd...
 

6 hours ago, ChrisWilson said:

Have been following the story from the start. Are you happy with Mercier so far?

Actually I was about to mention him. Not at all, he looks like a massive 73M€ mistake!! 

The idea of using him as an inverted winger on the left hasn't worked out at all. Which is bizarre, last year Ahn Chang-Ho did great in that role in a few appearances in the league, and I really do think this guy is a much better player than Chang-Ho was. Might be related to how the AI has changed their approach against us, which I'll just talk a bit more about below...

 

40 minutes ago, Fer Fuchs Ake said:

Not just yet but if you still have a gap like that by the time the Round of 16 starts, you might have to.

Honestly the way the table looks - and I've lost another match since - I can't ignore the league because I need to recover enough to claim a Champions League place. 

 

--------------------------------------------

I'm really quite staggered at how bad we've been and lost for explanations. I've been here before, it all reminds me a lot of when I managed HSV in FM17, and really struggled to move from the role of successful underdogs, to actual proven team at the top of world football with expectations on our shoulders. We no longer have a positive feedback loop of good morale -> better results that the players see as overperforming -> better morale etc. And the opposition is now wary of us, I think we used to score a lot of goals thanks to the AI being reckless with their fullbacks, and the striker and wingers running into the channels behind them, but now they give us a lot less space there.

The question is how do I evolve tactically-wise to deal with that, where's the space to exploit on the pitch. I'm thinking maybe being more aggressive and going for a 4-2-3-1, it's what all the successful top AI sides use. But I'll give a bit more time to the current tactics so I don't rush into conclusions and have to start all over again from scratch, it could all be a bit of bad luck and circumstances too.

[noikeee]

Meanwhile the UEFA guys have been compassionate with our terrible fortune this year, and given us the easiest draw we could get in the CL round of 16, as we again meet an old rival team of mine:

They can still hurt us, they're a dangerous side that has been here at this level for quite a few years now, but looking at all available options we could've faced, they're by far the easiest. I mean we could've drawn Real, Barça, Juve here...

 

Also, Club World Cup about to start and we're up against Chivas in the semi-final. Hebel CFFC vs Grémio in the other semi-final.

[noikeee]

Job done, but this was embarrassing. We entered the match very badly conceding a goal, and I quickly crapped all over what I had just wrote about being patient with my tactics, and switched to a new 4-2-3-1. We became MUCH better and dominated the match. Problem is the ball just wouldn't go in. It finally did after half-time, and then Chivas were down to 10 men... surely a matter of time? Nope. We even had a penalty.... nope, Navarro hits the bar. Chance after chance after chance, nothing goes in. Then the cards started piling up for us too, and we saw 2 red cards in extra time. Down to 9, we limped to penalties, and even missed the first one (Óscar Navarro, again), but somehow turned the shootout around.

Grémio in the final now, as expected.