The wandering Irish man (FM2019)

[Aaps]

Hello everybody, this is my first time posting on these forums after having been a reader on and off for several years. I had a couple successful saves in Ireland in the past and now I want to do a journeyman save as an Irish manager. I am not really going to use a narrative for this save, I will be simply starting as an unemployed Irish man in Ireland and see in which country and at which club I end up. My first save this year on the beta I played with my Director of Football making my transfers and I very much enjoyed this style of play. For me the most fun part in LLM is the games itself and to see how I do with the limited resources of a club, and how this can lead to an inevitable sacking or to the recognition needed to attract attention of a big club. 

I start with the lowest qualifications and a second nationality of Dutch, as this is my real nationality. Maybe I end up managing my favorite club Ajax somewhere in this safe, we will see :).

The name of my manager will be Daniel Barton, 24 years old and looking for succes!

I loaded all the nations in Britain and included some big nations with all their leagues.

[Aaps]

 

And I have signed my first contract, Irish First Division side Cobh Ramblers came in for me after they dropped down to 9th position in the league. With only 4 games to go it will be a short first season, but I signed a contract to the end of next season.

 

 

The squad looks meagre so far, a couple of strong players on the wing and a decent midfield player who is injured. Especially the defense looks horrible with no back up players and our best central defender out till the end of the season. Next season I will highlight players that will remain at the club for a more in-depth look.

 

 

The staff also needs a revamp so hopefully my chairman quickly brings in a DoF who can start doing some work.

 

 

In the league not a lot seems possible for the season, the board expects a mid table finish, which seems quite unlikely. If I can overcome Athlone town I will be a happy manager already!

 

 

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

Interesting choice 

Best of luck!

[Aaps]

4 hours ago, Fer Fuchs Ake said:

Interesting choice 

Best of luck!

Thank you!

 

So my chairman assigned me a DoF, who is english without any knowledge in Ireland. Hopefully he will be able to find me some players!

 

He did find me my assistant manager who I had to miss for my first game, now I am just missing a Head of Scouting! The assistant looks decent and he is still young, I have no clue what his personally of Mercenary means though.

Next will be an end of season review with the results in those last 4 matches.

[Aaps]

Our first season came to an end as we took the 8th spot from Athlone town in a comfortable win away from home. The last two games were disappointing as we had the upper hand against champions Shelbourne and in a very even game against Longford pulled the short end of the straw.

The board told us they will be judging our performance starting next season, which is fine for me. Meanwhile our DoF got us a new signing as he contract Cormac Raftery on a free transfer. He is a familiar face for me from my save with Wexford Youths two years ago, where he played an important part in my squad. He seems to be a very good pick up and gives me some much needed strength in the defensive department.

I am looking forward to next season, hopefully we get some more faces in for the midfield and fullback positions and a good striker is always welcome. Similarly I am hoping that not to many good players leave the club. Most of my good players are on contracts till the end of next season, but our Gibraltar 4 star current ability Goalkeeper's contract is running out soon. (Which might even be a good thing because he already missed a game being away on international duty).

One last thing, I tried to get my first coaching qualifications, and the board denied me because they are worried if I get better at coaching I might leave the club for a better team. Seems very weird to me, as at the moment I am the absolute worst manager in the world stat wise. 

[Aaps]

So he did try to keep our first team goalkeeper at the club but it was not meant to be. Hopefully we get someone else in because the first choice is not great.

Ian Mylod became player of the season although it does not mean a lot to me as we only played 4 games.

These are my top 5 players so far and so far they are all staying with me next season. Stephen Cristopher has a determination of 20 by the way, probably the first player with 20 I had in my team ever! So yes our wings are very properly manned.

[Sheriff7]

I had Paul Hunt as Gibraltar's main Goalkeeper in my save back to Fm17(He had dual nationality)  I remember he was quite good for this level.Lets hope your new one will be better.. 

[Aaps]

11 minutes ago, Sheriff7 said:

I had Paul Hunt as Gibraltar's main Goalkeeper in my save back to Fm17(He had dual nationality)  I remember he was quite good for this level.Lets hope your new one will be better.. 

He actually made an atrocious own goal in the game agains Cabinteely costing us the win, he seems very eccentric haha.

[Aaps]

Another transfer brought in by my DoF, and again someone that I worked with before. Eoin Porter is an midfielder that used to play for Wexford Youth, who I remember always having decent potential but never really delivering in my previous save. Maybe he can do a better job for me at Cobh!

[Aaps]

This is getting really creepy, the third player my DoF brings in is yet another player I managed in my Wexford Youth save (In which I after 4 seasons ended up at Shamrock Rovers). In my save back then never did amazing for me, but had to compete with Danny Furlong who was the favorite player of the fans and I also grew a soft spot for him. Well, now he is by far the best striker at our club so he will probably be starting, let's see how he does!

Annoyingly we lost some of our bench players who our DoF signed on non contracts instead of their normal contracts before. They got picked up by clubs from the same league, and even though not being the greatest players all off them had 5 star potential.

[Aaps]

Nice starting my first coaching qualification!

They expect us to finish top half, which the board expects us to do well and my team seems to agree as well in our pre season team talk. 

And we lost a 4th player on a free transfer out as you see on the picture of the season preview, hull our first choice striker of last season... Hopefully we do not lose more players, because our under 19 is filled with gray players.

As I was writing this post, a message arrived in my inbox that we signed a new goalkeeper. I am relatively happy with this signing the name is familiar to me but I do not believe I ever had this guy in my team. 

Kevin Burns seems like a decent GK and I am relatively happy with him, he is not the greatest and has some weaknesses in his game, but he still gets a 4 star rating and he is better than what we have at the club. Comparing him to Hunt we see that he is slightly less than what we had, and I was gutted to see that Paul Hunt moved on to Premier Division side Waterford United, good for him

[Aaps]

We just had a very good result in one of our friendly matches, we beat the Irish Champions of last season St Pats Athletic 3-1 at home. Look at those cards now, the lads got a bit aggressive for a supposedly friendly match.

 

Next to this in the Munster Senior Cup we drew our local rivals Cobh Wanderers for a home game. I am looking forward to this derby!

[Aaps]

A very decent pre-season for Cobh Ramblers, hopefully a good sign for the season to come. Losing to the Shamrock Rovers is never something to be ashamed about.

The DoF signed Pierce Phillips on loan, which is not a particularly good player, but does satisfy the promise to strengthen the defense of some of my squad players.

[Aaps]

Update February 2019:

From now on I will be making monthly updates to restrain the amount of posts a bit. We played two matches in the month of February and we did not start great to be honest. On the season opener we played a home match against Wexford and lost 1-2 at home, to probably the worst team in the division. We started of well took the lead and squandered many chances on doubling the score. They made a late equalizer after which we went more attacking and they punished us in the final 5 minutes of the game with a sharp counter. Unfortunate but I refuse to be disheartened, with the quarter final of the Irish Munster Senior Cup (also the first round to be played for this small local cup) against our local rivals Cobh Wanderers we had a rare and true derby to be played. The game against a weaker opposition we did not look great, our offensive play was good but we left some incredible gaps in defense and they could have equalized more than once but in the end we took it 3-1, thanks to two goals of Paul Murphy our new striker signing. The draw for the semi final is next month, hopefully we can manage to avoid the professional teams one more round.

Next month we have a relatively busy schedule with 6 league games to be played and hopefully we start grabbing some points. Also we are lucky with the injuries so far, none to be had.

If anyone would like to see how any of the other competitions are going I can post a screenshot upon request

The following leagues are loaded, everything to the lowest division available:

[Nobby_McDonald]

Good luck Aaps. Keep it concise and don't Ramble on.

[Aaps]

14 hours ago, Nobby_McDonald said:

Good luck Aaps. Keep it concise and don't Ramble on.

Thanks I will try, but might be hard with the club I am at!

Update March 2019:

We started the month with the draw for the Munster Senior Cup in which we probably drew some of the strongest competition we could, Cork City, but we play them at home which might give us a small chance of causing an upset.

In the league we had a decent run, no more no less. Against Athlone Town we played very disappointingly, a little the same like against Wexford, we started out well, failed to make a second goal and after there equalizer we had to be careful not to concede again. After these two disappointing results in the league I decided to slightly alter my tactic, maintaining a more cautious counter attacking mentality. The next game it paid dividend in a thrilling 3-2 win away at Drogheda United, where we scored some great goals. Eoin Porter is turning out to be a real value to our team, incredibly scoring many headers. He takes a bit of the role of a shadow striker behind Paul Murphy. The loss at UCD was a righteous one, they are clearly a better and bigger side than us. The two wins against Bray Wanders and Galway United the two teams that came down from the Premier Division were great demonstrations of power from our side, demolishing them in the first half after which we cooled down a bit in the second. The match against Longford I rather forget, we played absolutely horrible and did not deserve anything from that match.

These results put us in 5th, just outside of the play off spots. To be honest there is all to play for and it is to early to make a judgement on how we are doing this season. Maybe in two more times we will have a better view on our performance. Wexford is performing surprisingly well, which I like to see from my old club. (Although I much preferred their old name, logo and pink kit!)

 

Finally we became third in the manager of the month March award, which i can not complain about!

Next month we got a league cup game coming up, which still has to be drawn, the semi final at home against Cork of our local cup and 4 league games to look forward to. Probably at the half way mark of the season I will give some update on ratings of my players and the system that I decide to play with by then.

 

[Whalix]

Nice thread, Aaps!

I'm Irish so every year my main save begins in the Irish First Division, and see very little publicity of the Irish leagues on these forums, so I'll be watching your progress closely.

In FM17 I had a great run with Cobh Ramblers, getting promotion and winning the FAI cup twice which gave brought European football to Cobh for the first time!

Best of luck!

[Carambau]

Good luck! Hoping for a good season for the Ramblers

[King Cactus]

Got a soft spot for the Irish leagues after they saved my faltering FM17 journeyman, good old Sligo. Best of luck with this, will be following.

[Aaps]

3 hours ago, Whalix said:

Nice thread, Aaps!

I'm Irish so every year my main save begins in the Irish First Division, and see very little publicity of the Irish leagues on these forums, so I'll be watching your progress closely.

In FM17 I had a great run with Cobh Ramblers, getting promotion and winning the FAI cup twice which gave brought European football to Cobh for the first time!

Best of luck!

Whalix thank you very much, first time so trying! I played in the Irish leagues since FM 2016 and have a save there every year, for some reason I really enjoy playing in its little bubble. 2016 I had a run with Athlone town from the first division for two or three seasons before moving on. I had a 4 star current ability player come from my youth team, who became a regular in the Irish team. FM17 I had a nice save with 4 seasons at Wexford Youth, after which I managed the Shamrock Rovers for three seasons (winning some cups but never the league). And last year after a couple of years in Scotland in its lower leagues I moved to Derry City, for a very successful period, winning the league and becoming the national coach of Ireland. 

I never go with any plans I just play and see what happens :).

3 hours ago, Carambau said:

Good luck! Hoping for a good season for the Ramblers

Hopefully we will turn the tie around, thank you very much!

2 hours ago, King Cactus said:

Got a soft spot for the Irish leagues after they saved my faltering FM17 journeyman, good old Sligo. Best of luck with this, will be following.

Thank you King Cactus, likewise I am very much enjoying your Scotland Leagues thread as well!

[Aaps]

Update April 2019:

Another month of in game time gone and well, lets be realistic, we have not set the ground running yet with the Ramblers. April was an awful month hopefully soon to be forgotten, where our tactic, which before let to a 3-0 victory as the only loss for top of the table Galway United, where we demolished them, got completely torn apart. We were awful in some matches, and in the matches we went up equally with the opposition, some terrible mistakes of my backline destroyed the hope of salvaging any points from them. We are out of both cups, thanks to our local rivals Cork City in both of them, they are just a little to big for us and in the league we really have to start putting in better performances as if we are not careful it can cost us our job.

Also one of our best players Stephen Cristopher got injured for around 6 weeks at the start of the month:

He has about 4 weeks left to go, so hopefully we will see him back next month.

Our striker, Paul Murphy, also got injured in the Munster Senior Cup semi final that we played a couple days ago and will definitely miss the two upcoming matches. We have to see how we adjust our playing style for our upcoming fixtures. We got injuries and players that are in need of rest after the busy schedule last month, so we have to be creative.

In the League we are in a disappointing 7th position, hopefully we can motivate the lads and start looking up again!

[RioImmagina]

Are you professional? or only semi-pro?

[Whalix]

37 minutes ago, Aaps said:

I never go with any plans I just play and see what happens :).

Sounds like you're even more experienced than me then! Interesting to see you've moved from different countries into the League of Ireland - usually it's my starting point and then I move abroad. I usually start with one of my local First Division clubs and see where it takes me similarly to yourself, whenever I get bored of that club!

29 minutes ago, Aaps said:

Update April 2019:

We are out of both cups, thanks to our local rivals Cork City in both of them, they are just a little to big for us and in the league we really have to start putting in better performances as if we are not careful it can cost us our job.

This is funny to see. This used to happen to me constantly with Cobh, being drawn against Cork in practically every cup, every season. Nothing more satisfying than when you finally beat them! 

[Aaps]

1 hour ago, RioImmagina said:

Are you professional? or only semi-pro?

We are only semi-pro at the moment.

57 minutes ago, Whalix said:

Sounds like you're even more experienced than me then! Interesting to see you've moved from different countries into the League of Ireland - usually it's my starting point and then I move abroad. I usually start with one of my local First Division clubs and see where it takes me similarly to yourself, whenever I get bored of that club!

This is funny to see. This used to happen to me constantly with Cobh, being drawn against Cork in practically every cup, every season. Nothing more satisfying than when you finally beat them! 

It is likely to draw cork, because one of the cups only has 8 teams in it. For some reason this "local" cup is split into Munster and Leinster I believe, but the Leinster cup got like 64 teams instead of 8. I believe when I was at Derry city, instead of those cups, I was always playing in a local Northen Irish Cup.

[Whalix]

1 hour ago, Aaps said:

It is likely to draw cork, because one of the cups only has 8 teams in it. For some reason this "local" cup is split into Munster and Leinster I believe, but the Leinster cup got like 64 teams instead of 8. I believe when I was at Derry city, instead of those cups, I was always playing in a local Northen Irish Cup.

Yeah that's the way it works here, those cups are open to amateur and intermediate sides as well - the League of Ireland teams enter them much later usually. What I meant however is that I always also got them in the league cup and FAI cup also, so three times a season!

[Aaps]

On 14/11/2018 at 10:53, Whalix said:

Yeah that's the way it works here, those cups are open to amateur and intermediate sides as well - the League of Ireland teams enter them much later usually. What I meant however is that I always also got them in the league cup and FAI cup also, so three times a season!

Mental

Update May 2019:

In June we had a relatively relaxed schedule where we played 1 game a week in the league. We started out horribly, against Athlone we were by far the better side and after we went 2-1 up and they went 1 man down with a red card in the 60th minute I thought the points were coming back to Cobh, but they scored a late equalizer by scoring a header from a corner. Disappointing, especially because the next two games were agains the two teams who are way ahead of the rest of the league. We played well in both games, but the result agains UCD was especially gutting. We were the better side by far and got a penalty, which we missed obviously, and then they suddenly turned the game around and started crushing us. I managed to switch to a more defensive tactic stopping them off and then they got the winner a minute past the allocated stoppage time!

After this crushing result, we turned it around for the Longford game to end the month on a positive. I had a team meeting, which greatly increased the moral and it really seemed to pay of in the match, where we fought like lions.

The friendly game at the end of the month was because from now on we start playing games every two weeks. I want to keep my players fit and sharp in the weeks between these matches.

The league table looks decent now and my squad harmony has taken a big increase and my players finally seem to be moving into a positive morale.

Next month only 2 league games to play for against Finn Harps and Bray Wanderers, both teams below us in the table. This can either propel us up the top half or result into something terrible for my position as a manager.

 

[Aaps]

Update June 2019:

The month of July was a month we could either fall behind the teams below us or move up into the upper half of the table, at least that is what I mentioned in the previous update. In reality we drew both games and both of the draws were completely avoidable.  Against Finn Harps we did not slot any of our chances, our complete front line seemed to be missing their glasses this game. Agains Bray Wanderers we went up 1-0 from an absolute stunner of Stephen Kenny, who I just talked to before the match he had to start playing better, because he was performing dreadfully. After the 1-0 we kept pressing, they got a red card and in their 1 shot on target they had in the match they scored the equalizer. This result really frustrated me as at the moment the games we need to draw we lose and the games we need to win based on the game stats, we end up drawing.

Next month we play Cabinteely away and Wexford at home, which gives us yet another chance to get into that top half. Drogheda united the club above us actually fired their manager for the disappointing results they are having.

Luckily my board is more patient than theirs. Even though the results are leaving something to be desired, the support of my players is keeping me steadily in my seat for now.

[Aaps]

Board Meeting:

So our time at Cobh Ramblers can come to a shocking hault. I do not know what is causing it but for some reason we always seem to be dominating from the start and after we score and miss some chances, we suddenly collapse. Also we give away such stupid goals, we really need an extra defender to bolster our defense. Well lets see what the board says, probably they demand me to win some matches in which case I will come back after to let you guys know if I got sacked or not.

 

 

[Nobby_McDonald]

Shame I'm hoping you can keep plodding on.

[Aaps]

Update July 2019:

I have been a little busy at work so I did not had much time to play, but I am back now for a small update. I went into the board meeting claiming that first job as a manager caused me to need some time to adjust, but the board did not see it as an excuse and was ruthless. They gave me 5 games to save my job, in which I have to accumulate 8 points minimum to stay on as manager of Cobh Ramblers. The good news is that the first game against Wexford we claimed our first 3 points towards our target, to get of to a good start.

Worse news we received this month was the departure of probably our best player, Shane O'Connor. He is set to sign for Galway United, which might give him the chance to try his luck in the premier division, if they go up at the end of the season.

Would have loved to keep him, but unfortunately my DoF offer for a new contract was rejected by him. This win finds us in 7th on the league table, with two hard games coming up. Next month will be three league games and a cup game coming up, which is again against our local rivals, Cobh Wanderers, for the Senior Challenge Cup. The first two league games will be difficult fixtures away against Drogheda and UCD, after which we finish off with a home game against Athlone Town. Wish me luck!

[Aaps]

Update:

Wow guys, every now and then you get that feeling when you play FM, the feeling of pulling it off, the excitement in winning matches, important goals. I wanted to make this update in between because after 3 games we already saved our job. I think this is one of the only times I managed, and after the board demanded 8 points out of the next 5 matches, we managed to go ahead and grab 9 out of the first 3. What an amazing matches and what a great time to be the manager of Cobh Ramblers, the squad really pulled together and played amazingly.

The game against Drogheda United, we started of great, with the man Shane O'Connor who just signed for Galway scoring a brilliant goal from up close. It was very tight the rest of the game, but in the 87th minute Eoin Porter (what a player that is) ended all doubt and doubled our lead. Paul Murphy even thought it was necessary to make a move in the opponent's box, which could only be stopped with a foul, after which he stood up himself to give us a 0-3 victory.

Against UCD, who are top of the table, we were massive underdogs and I came up with a very simple strategy, all man back and wish for the best. Then after I was extremely delighted with getting a point and putting us in a very good position of saving our job, in the 4th minute of stoppage time, Stephen Kelly was propelled forward and he gave a beautiful cross to again my man Eoin Porter, to send us home with the 3 points in the pocket.

I am having a lot of fun with this save already and hopefully we can start building with the Ramblers now that I secured my spot as their manager!

 

[Aaps]

Update August 2019:

Naturally, after excitement and optimism comes disappointment! We managed to lose our two remaining games this month. Against amateur team and local rivals Cobh Wanderers we were pathetic, getting outplayed on every counter attack from them. The game against Athlone we were beating them heavily 2-0 up at half time, and they managed to score 3 goals out of 3 shots on target, very lucky to have beaten us there to be honest, but it left us with nothing.

I told you already the goal from porter against Drogheda was an amazing one and it gets reflected in his monthly award.

We become yet again the number 3 manager of the month could have won it for the first time if we won against Athlone there.

We are still in the playoff spot after the loss, but we really need to end the season well if we want to end in a respectable position. We are out of all the cups, so a taste of the playoffs would be great, but to be honest I am already happy if we get a new contract offered.

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

You've recovered well there. Always hard to hit those points targets with so much pressure on you.

[Aaps]

8 hours ago, Fer Fuchs Ake said:

You've recovered well there. Always hard to hit those points targets with so much pressure on you.

Thanks, they came more easy than usually this time around ;).

Update September 2019:

The season is coming to an end and it looks like we are competing with Wexford for that 4th place playoff spot. They ran away from us 2 points in September, although our results were pretty good with an eye on our competition. Against Galway it was a pretty equal game and we were rewarded for our play in the 86th minute thanks to a header of Cormac Raftery, who after a rough start playing as a centre back with a lot of mistakes, has seem to found his role as our defensive midfielder putting in weekly performances. Against Longford the game could have gone either way but we managed to score the 0-1 after, which we had some good chances to double the score, but failed to do so. 

With 3 games to go it will be pretty close between us and Wexford. I believe our schedule is a bit favorable compared to Wexford, only playing teams below us. However, we have seem to get most of our points this season upsetting the 3 teams that are clearly superior in this league, while putting in some miserable performances against the "weaker" opposition. I still did not get a new contract offered so I have no clue where our future lies next year.

With regards to the youth intake, which I never really follow that closely because I like to move clubs more than stay at a single one, we had some good prospects. I have no clue if any of them will make it but if the opportunity arrises we will give them some minutes of playing time in our senior squad. Can anybody enlighten me what the mercenary personality is?

[Nobby_McDonald]

From plodding to a brisk walk.

[Aaps]

Update October 2019:

So I did not update for a couple of days because I switched computer and it took me some time to set up FM19 on the new one with my old save etc. I finished the season and the last games were very poor. Against "lesser" opposition we did not come into our usual style of play and we squandered many chances. The loss at at Finn Harps was especially pathetic and this meant that we were entirely reliant on the results of Wexford and the teams below us to make up our standing at the end of the season.

Well lucky for us Wexford did even worse, they lost against Galway at the end of the season at home with 1-4 and this meant that because of the draw of UCD, Galway took the championship on the last playing day. We just abouts finished in the playoffs resulting in a happy board, but to be honest we did not deserve it in the end. Hopefully we can get some good players in during the summer and that is only of course when they give me a new contract. Lets see!

We play Longford in the play offs who we beat 2 times in the season and lost 1 to. This gives me a little bit of hope for a good result against them, but even though our chances are slim, I do not believe promotion is wise at this moment for Cobh Ramblers, as we would get crushed in the premier division. Just see how Limerick did and they got a squad that is clearly better than ours (they also stole loads of our players).

Cork City our local rivals are champions of Ireland and they also won the Senior Challenge cup. We got a long way to go to become the best club in this part of Ireland!

[Aaps]

Update November 2019:

Before going into the playoffs games against Longford I was clinging to a little bit of hope of a good result, but when being realistic I was already prepared for the worst. We already signed for our doom in the first match when we got etched 0-3 at home. To be honest, we were the better team, we hit the woodwork 3 times, had some absolutely incredible chances, but simply failed to capitalize. Longford on the other hand, scored out of every single shot on goal they produced. After this first game we were already sure that we were defeated in the play offs, however during the second game away from home, after the quick 0-1 we had some serious sitters that we missed for doubling our lead. In the end they scored from one of their rare counters and we had to settle for a draw.

You see a slight improvement of our side throughout the season and in the end we could be happy reaching the play off in the end, although a little undeserved. Let's see if we are still at Cobh next year to start improving. We actually came third in the manager of the year award, which I would not have expected. Actually coming back to the playoff topic, Longford got beaten by UCD in the final and UCD then went to beat Shelbourne over 2 games to earn promotion.

Chester from the Vanorama North offered me a job interview and since I have not heard anything from the board of Cobh Ramblers I decided to attend it. Also I was named at Shelbourne and Limerick the two teams that went down this year from the Premier Division as the potential new manager, and I did not scuff at that opportunity neither.

Let's see where our future lies!

 

[Whalix]

Unlucky! Great season overall though, lots of ups and downs. Looking forward to seeing if you go to Chester or stay on the Emerald Isle!

[Aaps]

1 hour ago, Whalix said:

Unlucky! Great season overall though, lots of ups and downs. Looking forward to seeing if you go to Chester or stay on the Emerald Isle!

Thanks for the kind words!

Update December 2019:

For the last month it was the moment of truth where I would end up. I got job interviews with Shelbourne and Limerick, which would both be an upgrade compared to Cobh and as I did not receive a contract offer yet I went with them. In the end none of the three clubs offered me a contract and choose other candidates to be their head coach. After which...

I got a 75 Euro a week salary increase and a new 1 year deal, I am happy to give the Ramblers a go for a second season. Also my DoF brought in some new players, the first one Eoin Wearen is more of a back up player in an area where we could use some depth. We could use him both in central defense as in midfield.

The second player was a lot more exciting for me, because this guy seems like a great addition to our squad. So far we lacked any left footed defenders and we played with a loan inverted wingback on the left, and a right footed defender on the left position in the centre of the defense. This guy can play on both!

Hopefully we can get some more players in, one of our best players Shane O'Connor left as mentioned before and our striker and top scorer with 7 goals, Paul Murphy, left on a free. He did not get a contract extension from the DoF, but honestly he was not that great. We definitely will need a striker for the upcoming season!

 

[Nobby_McDonald]

Here you were, striding along when you walked into Longford. Hard cheese.

[Aaps]

Update January, February & March 2020:

Here I am back with an update after a month of absence. I was very busy with work and I picked up another game which I was playing and enjoying a lot giving me less time for FM. I started the new season and so far things have been going very well. To start off with the transfers of my DoF, which he used to bring in a very nice striker loan player from Bohemians, as well as a back up striker for him from St. Pat's Athletic. Magnerusan who is half romanian half Irish gets his first chance for play time with us and is really showing to be a good signing. He started the season of with 5 goals in 6 matches!

As far as results go we made a tremendous start to our season by winning 6 out of 7 to go top of the league. We are looking very solid especially in the back. After the first 2 wins where we played with an attacking midfielder we got torn apart defensively by Wexford conceding 5 goals. The decision I made to switch our attacking midfielder with 2 central midfielders to 2 central midfielder and a defensive midfielder paid off. I am really looking forward to what we can achieve this season, I am also giving some chance to some of our youth prospects who seem half decent after all. And our star player so far this season has obviously been Eoin Porter, he is an absolute beast, giving assists, scoring goals (3 direct free kicks already) and going head first into battle. What a player!

Top of the league!

We won both of the manager of the months awards for February and March, which should positively influence our reputation:

The board is loving me and especially the support I am getting from the squad is contributing hugely.

Even though we are getting good confidence ratings for our club finances we are in the red and hopefully with a good run this year we can start working towards earning some money for the club. At the moment I am unable to obtain any coaching badges or to improve the quality of the club's facilities, which I really would like to start doing. 

[Aaps]

Update April, May & June 2020:

Where to begin, a lot has happened in these months, which I will now share with you. Looking at the games played we started the month decent, winning in the first round of the league cup and putting in a very strong performance against Shelbourne who relegated from the top flight last season, by crushing them 0-4. The draws against well performing sides Longford and Cabinteely, were none to be ashamed for. After the loss in the league cup second round against Cork City, things started going down hill a little till we played a magnificent game away from home against top of the table Longford, to claim that number 1 spot. We drew like 5 games in a row, simply because we failed to tuck away our chances.

Well as you may see in the league table that our name is not blue anymore, our good performance with Cobh this season was causing my name to be subject of speculation quite often lately. After a quick interview, which were unsuccessful so far with other clubs, a day later the following reached my inbox.

The champion of two season ago really fell down the table since then and made me an offer I could not refuse. This job would give me a big pay rise and they really got a decent squad that I love to work with. Naturally I accepted and I am looking forward to this new challenge.

The expectation of the board is top half finish and at our time of arrival we sit just there. It is going to be very interesting to see where we stand and I will be sharing some details about our players and the club itself in future updates. One thing that was disappointing, although their financial status mentioned okay, they are actually 400.000 EUR in debt!