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[FM18]Martyrs To The Cause.....


BoxToBox

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Up in the big time now, Premier League is off and running after a long, long summer. We're not given much hope, or expectations, but should be alright.

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Surprised to see Woodburn in the dream eleven, I was hoping that he wouldn't be *that* important to Liverpool, and maybe we could pick him up in a few seasons....

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Groups probably a bit kinder than it could have been.

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Heck of a crappy record to break, but it's exactly how many seats we have available. Will be up to 9,750 in January, and it seems like they have a plan for a bigger stadium in the future too.

They gave a decent budget to upgrade with, and I squeezed it to it's limits, turning 20m+7.5(or so)m sales into 52m! Despite having a balance of 9m at the start of summer, I wasn't concerned, as the TV money is bonkers and we'll make it all back quickly. Not to mention the Europa income.

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Long after our window was closed, Cardiff came in for Evans with an offer that couldn't be refused, and sets us quickly on sound financial ground again. We were already in the black before it, just, but it helps a lot.

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Gethin was a bit expensive for us, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have join permanently, especially as he had a release clause for 18.5m with the likes of Everton and Southampton circling. Surprised they negotiated lower for us, and structured that we only paid 7.5m up front. James is wing depth. Francombe you've already seen.

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Ward and Thompson are older than I usually buy, but both are solid players with a lot of time left and improvements to the squad. John is the next best Welsh leftback to Davies at Spurs, which is obviously a non starter, but also, he's actually from Merthyr Tydfil, so it's a kind of a homecoming!

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Wilson we were lucky to get, brilliant on either wing, or perhaps as an attacking mid, even a false 9 up front. Brooks is an interesting case, very much underdeveloped as he's a massive talent. He's English, but never got called up, and half Welsh, so I was watching. Never got called by them either, until recently, made the squad which flipped his main nationality to Welsh, took a knock, left the squad and never got another call up! Hopefully he'll not be called back to England, I don't expect him to be though. In real life, he has played for Wales.

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That's the squad, albeit a tad short, as I need to make a few call ups, especially now that Evans is gone.

 

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Squad overview.

Thought it might be a good time to see the entire team is at now.

Goalkeepers

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Both are handy, neither special, not much else out there, could really do with a top keeper in an upcoming intake.

Fullbacks.

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Again, decent but not great, there is one youngster(leftback) at Spurs we'll hopefully be targeting in the future.

Centrebacks.

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Our first area of strength, Wilson and Francombe are young and good, both Harvey and Tucker look like they'll have long term futures here too, as backups at the very least.

Defensive mid.

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Thompson's very good, but if he's injured we'll be concerned. Another area that we could do with an intake star popping up.

Central mids.

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All young or in their prime, this is an area to not be too worried about for the next few years, despite a lack of youth talent.

Wing/forwards.

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Another area of strength, we have youth, quality, potential and depth.

Centre forwards.

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Another strong area, with lots of potential, there are even a few more strikers in the youth teams that should be able to have squad roles eventually.

Sadly, Griffiths really isn't good enough for this level, and you could tell, every year his performances were not quite as good as the season before. His contract was up this summer, but I had to give him one crack at the Premiership, after working his way up from the 7th division.

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That's 210 apps and 130 goals in all competitions, 63 assists, I think.

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1 hour ago, Wavelberry said:

Is the 4-3-3 working still despite the update or has it been nerfed slightly?

It seems fine to me, when I've used it, but I've been working on a 4-1-2-3 DM Wide a bit more this season.

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40 minutes ago, DavidBeckham said:

Good luck at Wales mate!

And congrats on the cash injection ;) 

Cheers! Not much to buy right now, but I'm happy to have the budget in case something pops up in the near future.

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Half way through, and we're doing pretty damn well. The Europa group was surprisingly easy, despite the backups playing most games.
Wouldn't mind the league finishing right here, us with European football, both Spurs and Liverpool without is the dream, as they both have players I want.

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The missing team in 20th is Swansea.

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1 hour ago, Rikulec said:

How are you not top? :mad:

#BoxToBoxOut

:lol:

1 hour ago, kingjericho said:

Currently you are only looking to sign players with Wales as the main nationality?

Great group to attack the EPL, albeight a bit short in numbers, especially if you have long cup runs.

That's the plan, although there is one lad at Arsenal that is English first, Welsh second that I'd really like to get my hands on. I'd prefer him to declare for Wales first though, but right now the national team isn't much of an attraction as they missed out on the Euros(why the job was open for me to take).

I could do it more anyone who's at least partially Welsh, but as it stands every single player at the club is eligible, and willing to accept a Welsh call up.

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On 3/3/2018 at 23:45, BoxToBox said:

Up in the big time now, Premier League is off and running after a long, long summer. We're not given much hope, or expectations, but should be alright.

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i like your chances.I'll bet 10 euros on you...

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January was quiet, no serious bids for our players, and one signing.

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Spurs sold us this lad for a surprisingly cheap 575k. Lad was on loan at a League Two side, but he looks handy enough to be rotation/backup for us up front or left wing, bit of potential too.

Scored on his debut too, against...

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44 minutes ago, Nobby_McDonald said:

Amazing progress.

How are Billericay and the students doing in League Two?

Cheers!

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Billericay have been bottom all season, Loughborough have keep keeping their head above water, but are struggling with players being poached more now than in past seasons.

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6 minutes ago, kingjericho said:

Why did you sign a couple of winger if your setup (last I heard) was with 3 strikers?

I've been playing with wingers all season, well, most of the season, I played 3 or 4 games with two strikers early on.

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Youth Intake Day!

I was excited about this one. New HOYD, to try and get away from the constant stream of strikers. Bigger rep, better attributes, Perfectionist personality, an upgrade in every way...

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Nothing of value there.

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In other news, backups smashed Toulouse.

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Lyon next.

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6 minutes ago, oneronaldo said:

"Perfectionist" personality HOYD, your batch of kids come in and all of them are basically banter-club material personality-wise :seagull:

Not only that, quite probably the worst intake we've had.

Even the first intake, in the 7th division gave us Geraint Griffiths, who while not really good enough for this level, was a massive, massive part in us getting here, and scored two goals in Europe this season.

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7 minutes ago, Kubson said:

That's an rough intake :/ Maybe at least those 3 ST's with 1* CA have some decent attributes and may grow into players playing above their CA

Nah. I had a look through them all, not one looked in any way capable.

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We're done for another season, and what a season it turned out to be!

We found some real form in the second half, just as the Manchester clubs had a wobble. We almost found ourselves in a title race, but Man City righted their ship just in time. Still, we secured Champions League football for next season, delightful.

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The team in 20th is Leeds.

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Tidy bit of money to spend.

 

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Sadly Loughborough fell away in the end, back to the conference.

 

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2 hours ago, mark1985 said:

Amazing progress there mate! 

Cheers!

1 hour ago, john1 said:

Brilliant :cool:  Shame about youth intakes tho :( 

Cheers! I guess we were due a bad one, we'd been so blessed early on.

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Love the idea of this save. :applause:

I've got an idea for a future FM, (still needs fleshing out), that involves all the Welsh clubs in the English structure. Seeing Merthyr, Wrexham, Cardiff & Swansea all in the Premier League and then seeing how that impacts on Welsh football is the base of the idea. 

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48 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Love the idea of this save. :applause:

I've got an idea for a future FM, (still needs fleshing out), that involves all the Welsh clubs in the English structure. Seeing Merthyr, Wrexham, Cardiff & Swansea all in the Premier League and then seeing how that impacts on Welsh football is the base of the idea. 

I want to see how a similar thing pans out with my save in Liechtenstein. Aiming to get myself (Eschen Mauren) and Vaduz in the top tier. Plus as many of the other 5 in the top 2 tiers as possible. There are only 10 teams in the top tier and 10 in the second so it’s going to be hard to get 7 teams into those 20 places, but that’s the goal. Plus get the youth facilities as high as possible at all 7 (the lower teams get the higher teams cast offs) to see what effect that has on the national team

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18 hours ago, Slipky said:

God. That's remarkable, great leap forward!

Cheers!

6 hours ago, kingjericho said:

I thought you had a game-breaking tactic, but now that you're using something different I may start to think otherwise!

The one with three strikers, I won't say game breaking, but it was definitely a bit exploit-y/overpowered. Now I'm using a more standard 4-1-2-3 DM Wide(or what a sane person would call 4-3-3...).

4 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Love the idea of this save. :applause:

I've got an idea for a future FM, (still needs fleshing out), that involves all the Welsh clubs in the English structure. Seeing Merthyr, Wrexham, Cardiff & Swansea all in the Premier League and then seeing how that impacts on Welsh football is the base of the idea. 

Cheers!

Can't wait to see what you have up your sleeve. Cardiff got promoted ahead of us, I was hoping at least Swansea and them would stay in the Premiership, but both are in the Championship now.

4 hours ago, mark1985 said:

I want to see how a similar thing pans out with my save in Liechtenstein. Aiming to get myself (Eschen Mauren) and Vaduz in the top tier. Plus as many of the other 5 in the top 2 tiers as possible. There are only 10 teams in the top tier and 10 in the second so it’s going to be hard to get 7 teams into those 20 places, but that’s the goal. Plus get the youth facilities as high as possible at all 7 (the lower teams get the higher teams cast offs) to see what effect that has on the national team

It'd be great if you could set up a number of Liechtenstein talent factories.

13 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

How? Just how do you do this? :lol:  :applause:

I have no life. :lol:

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Second year in the Prem, we're after spending big on what we could. No one seems to thing we've improved though, despite buying Spurs best player after their disaster of a season, and one of the best young prospects in Wales that wasn't already at the club.
In fact, the national team is almost purely Merthyr Town players now. I did want to sign Ben Woodburn but he agreed a new Liverpool deal, sadly. We could have landed Ben Davies, but investing heavily in a 31 year old full back didn't seem wise, and we may be set at left back.

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Mostly Chelsea and Man City players.

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Missing team is Watford, fairly nasty CL group.

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Sad times, but he was never going to get a game.

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Patten's back, permanently, shows how limited midfield options are. Ford never played for Liverpool, no idea why, he's a monster. Evans is the future at left back, club and country.

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Thomas was Spurs best player, he's amazing, currently training to play left wing as we're so top heavy. Dasilva joins after I convinced him to switch to Wales, a more well rounded fullback that we've had.

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That's the squad as we stand.

 

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