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The finances aren't great so that's true to life.  I've only got as far as the Brentford game but we won 4-0 at Luton so I might just stop playing as it won't get any better than that. 

I managed to get rid of Saville!  Only on loan though as the board refused a deal I had agreed to sell him for £245k 😀  Also loaned out Howson and Shotton as I couldn't sell them either.  Only player I could sell was Mejias on a free transfer 🙁

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I have just downloaded a lower leagues database. Trying to take Billingham Synthonia (Tier 10) to the Champions League but have set myself the nightmare challenge of using only players who come throug

Not a massive update but I signed Michael essien to vanarama national league side Altrincham for 200 quid a week. That is all

4 years in and im only realising now I should have been studying for my qualifications! No wonder I've never got an interview outside of Altrincham!

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Hopefully this will work so you can see it.  This is what I've started with.  Bola started but is now injured for 9 months and Fry is just getting fit so Wood plays.  Assombalonga also isn't fit but in this set up he doesn't seem to do anything and Fletcher has scored 4 goals somehow.

I suppose there's a lot of attacking mentality in it but the opposition teams all seem to have fullbacks bombing on all the time as well.  Anyway, what I've got there isn't really working properly so I need to change it.  We've played 4 games, won 2 and drawn 2 but we aren't dominating possession.  The two away games we did but only just with 51% each time - won 4-0 at Luton and drew 1-1 at Blackburn.  The two home games we've only had about 43% each time - beat Brentford 3-2 and drew with Wigan 3-3.  We seem to have lots of shots 20+ in both home games, 18 at Luton but the opposition do as well.  In some ways this is closer to what I'd like to see in real life than anything we actually see so I suppose I am at least being true to myself 😀

I think one of the things I might need to do is change it to be more disciplined instead of expressive.  We seem to play quite a few long passes but to be honest those long passes tend to actually work especially with Fletcher up front but I assume it's one of the reasons we don't have great possession stats.  Maybe I need to change the wing backs to full backs as well to make them a touch more defensive minded.  The last game I played was FM14 that you helped me with ages ago so this version is a lot different to that one and it's clearly changed a great deal.

 

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am at work so can not remember exactly

 

there is a young fullback at leicester James Justin (can cover right and left back) who can come in on loan very good player also get Saivet on loan from Newcastle

 

go with 4 2 3 1

 

central midfielders are box to box and deep lying playmaker wide men set to wingers support

 

tend to play attacking short passing high tempo wide seems to do ok

 

 

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14 hours ago, Changing Times said:

If you any thoughts please let me know!  Same goes for anyone else 🙂

If the tactics are anything similar to FM19, there is a greater emphasis on players in support roles (If I recall correctly). I'd potentially try the wingbacks on support and Wing (AP) on Support too. See how that goes.

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Thanks fellas I will try some of the suggestions.  

Yeah Wood looks pretty good from what I can see.  Wing so far is also very good, he's averaging nearly 9 after 4 games I think.  Small sample size I know but he puts lots of balls through for Fletcher and Tavernier.

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  • 1 month later...

Not FM20 but I was up until half 3 this morning finishing this one off. Look at the scores and the times of the goals in the Liverpool City game for extra 'OMG'.

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The final 3 games of the season across each of the top 3 teams included City v Boro, Boro v Liverpool and this last game with Liverpool v City. I was top going into that final 3 but it was tenuous. Every other game away at one of the top 7 teams, I had lost, made up 5 of my 6 losses going into the City game so I wasn't confident.

I ended up beating City 3-1 at the Etihad. Great result but Liverpool won their other game. City were out of the title race because us and Liverpool had to play each other and even a draw would put one of us too far beyond City.

Liverpool came to the Riverside and beat me convincingly as you can, 2-0 but I didn't have much in the game. Meant Liverpool top going into the last game and me hoping for City to go to Anfield and get something.

Half time, Southampton come from behind to be beating me and Liverpool winning 2-0 at home to City, I'm thinking it's all over but nonetheless give the players a rollicking. They come out and smash Southampton but means nowt without change in the Liverpool score. Getting late on and all of a sudden, not just one but TWO goals in the space of a minute. Absolute madness. Sodding won the league.

What made it better was I finished 11th the year before and Gibson had said I needed to win 4 of the first 6 games this season to keep my job. Got 16 from 18 points and barely looked back. Now I'm a legend in Gibson's eyes. 😂

Then went into the FA Cup final as underdogs, honestly wasn't too fussed how it went given I won the league but nontheless...

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  • 2 months later...

Caved in an got FM20 after the free 2 weeks. My laptop is just about managing to run the game with 4/5 leagues loaded. 

Started unemployed with no qualifications and Sunday league experience, took until about October for jobs to start coming up that clubs started to offer me interviews. 

Ended up at a struggling Darlington (15th placed). After looking at the team I decided to go for a more direct, fast, counter attacking approach. Didn't change any of the backroom staff, except I brought in an extra scout to scour the free agents. Did a bit of wheeling and dealing, trimmed the squad right down in terms of wage bill and a numbers and focused on quality over quantity. Annoyingly though the tactics never quite clicked and I was eventually sacked with Darlington 17th about March time.

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1130545014_ScreenShot2020-04-21at12_29_04.thumb.png.d770281fa8bd37d58cd001f1e41ed0df.png1577848780_ScreenShot2020-04-21at12_28_57.thumb.png.81b3cb846d473f675be9754380e00438.pngNearing the end of my second season with Darlington, having won the play-offs in my first. Just reached the FA Trophy final and will face Aldershot at Wembley.

Had a bit of  a slump in the last couple months but hopeful of back-to-back promotions. Signed a few Boro lads who are in my team; Fyrer (GK), Folarin (RW), O'Neill (LW) and Mahmutovic (CB). Very nearly signed Gestede on a free, but he opted for Northampton who currently sit top of the National League on £1.6k a week!

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Moving forward, my already low reputation took a hit from being sacked, so I wasn't able to get a new job until July. Six newly promoted teams came up from the regional leagues that feed into the Vanarama North/South, three of which had no managers. I took a punt on the team that looked the "best", Merthyr Town (actually a Welsh team). They were predicted by the media to finish 23rd.

Squadwise the team literally had about 8 players in the senior squad, no reserve players and 3 in the under 18's. So there was serious work to be done in terms of recruitment. The players already at the club took up about £120k per year in wages, for the upcoming season I had a wage budget of £290k per year, so I didn't have much to work with. I also only had £40k in the bank so I needed to be careful when recruiting as I didn't want to fall into the red too much. 

First thing I did was actually sell all the current senior players (for a combined total of about £20k). I did keep one of the players as he was a very good central midfielder. I assembled an entire squad together, most of the players were under the age of 23 and the wage spend ended up coming out at £270k per year. None of the players have any sign on fees (as that eats up the wage budget)  and none of them have clauses/bonuses. My top earner was on £30k per year, 2nd highest £19k per year and 3rd was £17k per year.

Tactics, I used a tweaked Vertical Tiki Taka system. It is a possession based system with the emphasis of getting the ball forward as opposed to just maintaining possession. Which worked incredibly well, we finished top of the table in terms of passes attempted (6000 more than the 2nd placed team), passes completed and overall possession (averaging 60% per game).

First season we finished 7th (which put us into the play-offs), luckily we picked up most of our points early in the season. As we had a really dodgy patch between game 36-46. Despite the ropey spell we did end up 8 points clear of 8th, but we should have finished much higher up the table. We managed to walk the play-off's with relative ease, although the final was a little bit of a tense affair!

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We also had some cup heroics too. The FA Trophy we only got to the 1st round losing to Yeovil in a replay 1-0. But the FA cup was where we really excelled. We managed to get to the 4th round of the cup. That cup run did boost the finances hugely our income for the whole of that season was just short of £1.1 Million (£266k of it was prize money). With the prize money combined with the money from gate receipts for the away games against Bristol and Sheffield Wednesday we ended the season with £500k in the bank.

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In February time I did get offered a new contract which was due to expire in 2022, but due to inserting a clause to extend it after promotion it now runs until 2023. Which "should" give me a little more job security.
I think season 2 with Merthyr is going to be a lot harder, as we have moved up a division, the quality of player in the squad is much lower than most of the teams in the National League and our wage budget is the same as last season. Realistically if I can keep them up in at the end of season 2, I'll probably then look at jobs elsewhere.

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  • 1 month later...

You can usually sell Shotton to Millwall for about 1.1-1.3m, Howson to Bristol for 1.3-1.5m, Ayala for 5m to Brighton (+40% profit), Britt to Burnley 10-12m (including add ons), 

Hiwula is a cheap signing from Coventry (after about a week for around 300k), 

The board often sign Baker for 2.3m Wood and Fry become beasts

Using the tactics below we usually get promoted in season 1 without buying anyone else major (I get bored in the prem and tend to restart the game)

The board after the sales will let you upgrade youth/training facilities and recruitment/training

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  • 2 months later...
1 minute ago, Neverbefore said:

@DanFromDownSouth your story inspired me to start my first unemployed save since maybe 8 or 9 football managers ago! Getting it booted up now. Will keep you informed on how it goes. Are you still playing yours?

Glad to hear it man! Sounds like a plan.

Yeah mines still going, off the top of my head I'm approaching the end of the 2023/24 season. 

Left Merthyr Town to join Crewe, currently at Swansea as it stands. I'll drop an update on the save a little later on. Didn't keep track to be honest, didn't think anyone was interested! 

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