Gaming Football Manager 2024

[Alex99]

Anyone got a TLDR version?

Did tactics matter at all? For example if I played a 4-2-3-1 attacking formation and a 5-3-2 defensive formation, would it not matter if the game was set up to have a squad with those key attributes?

The team's CA ranged from 119 to 141, but won the quadruple. Squad view rated them from 1.5 to 3 stars.

The tactic was set to a custom 4-3-3 as apparently 4-2-3-1 is overpowered.

Decisions and Composure were set to just 7 for all players. Pretty much everything else not a physical attribute was set to 11, with the exception of dribbling, which was set to 16. Physicals ranged from 15-17.

General conclusion was that key attributes were effectively meaningless. Players were putting in great performances despite having poor to average-at-best attributes in everything but the physicals.

 

[SilentWitness]

The team's CA ranged from 119 to 141, but won the quadruple. Squad view rated them from 1.5 to 3 stars.

The tactic was set to a custom 4-3-3 as apparently 4-2-3-1 is overpowered.

Decisions and Composure were set to just 7 for all players. Pretty much everything else not a physical attribute was set to 11, with the exception of dribbling, which was set to 16. Physicals ranged from 15-17.

General conclusion was that key attributes were effectively meaningless. Players were putting in great performances despite having poor to average-at-best attributes in everything but the physicals.

The first line tells you everything really. Ffs.

 

[Chipper]

Yeah, it's long been known that good physicals are huge in the game.

Think people most commonly cotton on to it by noticing that they can go for advanced forwards with lots of pace and acceleration when they're on a bit of a budget relative to the league they're in. You also get these beastly target men knocking about. Not as commonly used by human managers but you sometimes notice them at AI clubs scoring loads, especially in weaker leagues.

Same thing for central defenders, where jumping reach is a big plus, pace and acceleration again if you can find them.

Don't think they're quite as important in some other positions but you still notice it. A common thing when you watch highlights is after clearance by a defender (kicked or headed) and when two players contest the ball. If you win it there by getting to it first because your player is quicker or stronger, and get away from your man then you can be running into space and you see a lot of attacks start that way when watching. Physicals must help.

I don't normally bother finding them specifically, but another one is that if you're lucky enough to have wide players with good jumping reach you can score lots of headers at the far post as full backs can often be small. The opposite is true, decent jumping reach full backs help prevent that.

Think another way to notice the importance of the physicals is just to look at how many players in each division have good attributes in those departments. In real football you might expect lower league players to be a bit better matched up in those terms, it's the one thing they might be relatively decent at if they were to play a higher team in the FA Cup etc. while not having anywhere near the skill. In FM they're always way behind on that too.

These from my current save:
PL players with 15+ pace 203 (20 clubs)
Championship 127 (24 clubs from now on)
League One 65
League Two 35
National League 13

PL players with 15+ strength 79
Championship 40
League One 23
League Two 13
National League 2

FM Arena did some similar testing on this - they too found pace and acceleration to be very important - https://fm-arena.com/table/26-player-attributes-testing/

Edit: If you can't be arsed clicking, a team that would get around 60 points a season would get 81 if adding 5 pace to all their players, 80 if adding 5 acceleration, 72 if adding 5 jumping reach, 70 if adding 5 dribbling.

If you take off 5 points pace they only get 29 points.

Adding 4 points to all technical or mental attributes gets 75 or 72. It does make you better but not as much as a difference maker as honing in on the pace/acceleration attributes if you had choose and you can often pick up fast but relatively unskillful players fairly cheaply.

 

[Alex99]

The first line tells you everything really. Ffs.

Yeah, by apparent overall ability, it should have been a championship squad.

They had a three game run in the league where the aggregate score was 27-2.

 

[SilentWitness]

It makes sense that this is the case the more you think about it. Beto, who is useless in real life was a 40+ goal a season striker for me. Just had a look and he has very good physicals....

 

[Maagge]

Anyone got a TLDR version?

Did tactics matter at all? For example if I played a 4-2-3-1 attacking formation and a 5-3-2 defensive formation, would it not matter if the game was set up to have a squad with those key attributes?

I don't think they've tested with a bunch of different tactics. They used 4-3-3 as apparently 4-2-3-1 is the "best" tactic. They didn't touch set pieces.

I'm guessing it will work unless you're playing a completely mad tactic.

 

[Alex99]

I don't think they've tested with a bunch of different tactics. They used 4-3-3 as apparently 4-2-3-1 is the "best" tactic. They didn't touch set pieces.

I'm guessing it will work unless you're playing a completely mad tactic.

Half tempted to re-install and try with different tactics, but can't be arsed with the admin of creating the squad.

 

[Maagge]

Half tempted to re-install and try with different tactics, but can't be arsed with the admin of creating the squad.

Yeah it's probably extremely time consuming. It would be interesting to do it for a bunch of teams and have all of them play different tactics to see which tactics are best for predominantly physical teams.

 

[Lay]

I kinda figured physicals were the most important and useful stat. Going up the leagues, you'd be advised to just sign physical players and that the other stats didn't matter.

A few editions ago, I was managing Inter and had Icardi up front who had great finishing but piss poor dribbling and I couldn't get him to score at all. I trained his dribbling so it went to 14 and he was a completely different striker. Ended up constantly scoring 40 goals a season. I've never signed a striker since with shite dribbling.

 

[padr81]

Some Chinese guy won the pl with a squad of 1 ca and a tactic of 4 defenders, 3 dms and 3mcs. He just put all the points from that ca into pace and acceleration. And jumping reach for cbs.

It's important to note all 1s for stats is negative 100 CA and all 20s would be 270 ca.

Also some really important hidden stats don't count towards CA. He also said a lot of mental stats do nothing and trekkers are useless cause of how the game works.

 

[Maluco]

Some Chinese guy won the pl with a squad of 1 ca and a ractic of 4 defenders, 3 dms and 3mcs. He just put all the points from that ca into pace and acceleration. And jumping reach for cbs.

It's important to note all 1s for stats is negative 100 CA and all 20s would be 270 ca

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore that’s it’s just an imaginary playpen and not really a simulator.

A lot of what we thought mattered (training, stats, coaches, shouts) doesn’t actually mean anything.

 

[padr81]

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore that’s it’s just an imaginary playpen and not really a simulator.

A lot of what we thought mattered (training, stats, coaches, shouts) doesn’t actually mean anything.

For sure. It feels like only 2 things matter. Physical Stats, pregame morale and tactics. But even then the Chinese dude who did the experiment said a huge chunk of how the match plays out happens before the game even starts.

Like everything they added in the last 10 years is just busy work.

 

[Maagge]

Some Chinese guy won the pl with a squad of 1 ca and a tactic of 4 defenders, 3 dms and 3mcs. He just put all the points from that ca into pace and acceleration. And jumping reach for cbs.

It's important to note all 1s for stats is negative 100 CA and all 20s would be 270 ca.

Also some really important hidden stats don't count towards CA. He also said a lot of mental stats do nothing and trekkers are useless cause of how the game works.

There's a description of a similar experiment in the post by @Berbaclass above.

 

[padr81]

That's insane and shows how easy it is to murder the game.

Using the Chinese training of 2 quickness, 1 match practice and 1 attack, plus 7 recovery, you can easily get every youth in your club with 90+ PA to 17 pace and acceleration by the time they turn 20 as long as they start at about 8. Combine that with 4231 or 424 gegenpress and the game is dead.

I might run a little test game for myself to see just how much you can break this by smashing together all the busted things.

Busted tactic, plus training to create pace monsters who kick a ball like sterling, and sign 2 193cm+ cbs with 20 jumping reach and do the near post corner routine where you set one of them 1 v 1 at the near post.

 

[Maagge]

That's insane and shows how easy it is to murder the game.

Using the Chinese training of 2 quickness, 1 match practice and 1 attack, plus 7 recovery, you can easily get every youth in your club with 90+ PA to 17 pace and acceleration by the time they turn 20 as long as they start at about 8. Combine that with 4231 or 424 gegenpress and the game is dead.

I might run a little test game for myself to see just how much you can break this by smashing together all the busted things.

Busted tactic, plus training to create pace monsters who kick a ball like sterling, and sign 2 193cm+ cbs with 20 jumping reach and do the near post corner routine where you set one of them 1 v 1 at the near post.

Yeah essentially you only need to look for a few attributes when scouting and training youth and not give a shit about the rest of them. Doesn't matter if they're half a star or whatever.

I wonder if it even matter which coaches you're hiring.

 

[Lay]

Yeah essentially you only need to look for a few attributes when scouting and training youth and not give a shit about the rest of them. Doesn't matter if they're half a star or whatever.

I wonder if it even matter which coaches you're hiring.

Doesn't make a difference in my experience. Matches are the best way to improve the players.

 

[Chipper]

Going to the Premier League.

Almost completely bottled promotion from the Championship, 64 points from the first 25 games, 33 from the last 21. Home form kept us going because away was a disaster, 5 points in 10 away games since the new year.

I'm going to blame the squad for getting unhappy, all got upset in the new year saying we needed more depth in right midfield. To be fair to them, our second choice was rubbish on his attributes, but he started for us in League One. Told them no, but they were angry as hell, and I ended up signing someone just before the January window was up but it didn't improve the form despite them saying they were happy now. The new signing was useless when he played.

At the same time that was going on our 4th choice striker wanted a loan and I said no, we need at least 4 options in a 4-4-2 which pissed a bunch of them off too. He signed as a squad player, should have known what to expect! He ended up with 9 starts and 9 sub apperances for the season. Not bad for a 20 year old who had never played a professional game before I'd say. Got him for nothing after United released him.

Anyway, job done in the end. Lets see what sort of squad I can put together, sticking to all Welsh players. 2nd and 3rd nationalies allowed as we have a Scottish/Polish/Welsh centre back. The game considers him Welsh so it's good enough for me.

Got a transfer budget of 17.3 million and a wage budget of £325k a week. Hoping we can sign this guy on a free that we've had on loan for 2 seasons as his contract is up at his parent club, got to wait until the final month before I can offer him a contract if his parent club don't in the meantime. He can't take pens to save his life but with 8 penalty taking he was our highest rated taker.

 

[Alex99]

Yeah it's probably extremely time consuming. It would be interesting to do it for a bunch of teams and have all of them play different tactics to see which tactics are best for predominantly physical teams.

Didn't make a team, but loaded up all the European leagues, set the date for the start of the Irish season so it was after the winter window, and started unemployed. Team at the bottom of the Gibraltarian league binned their manager with 4 games left, having drawn 3 and lost 13 of their 16 matches, scoring just 6 goals.

Got the job the day before their 17th match, checked their stats and they had lowest averages for pace and acceleration. Filtered the squad to include the U23s, sorted by acceleration and pace and picked based on that. Literally had players with half a silver star rating, according to the tactics screen.

Lost the first game 3-2 after conceding two late goals, but the players were absolutely gassed as half of them had been sat in the reserves not playing. We also hadn't managed to train so I changed the training to basically all physical for the rest of the season.

Won the remaining three games, all 2-1, beating the team in 2nd in one of them too. This, despite having a squad half full of players that weren't even considered remotely good enough for the league, but were a bit faster than our opponents.

Game is absolutely fecked so I've just binned it completely.

 

[Chipper]

Premier League is wild with this sort of underpowered squad. Feel like an extreme version of Blackpool when they were in it.

Played 11 W4 D1 L6. 12th place so far, with a game in hand or two over others, not sure why. Sitting 8th on the xG table but everything our opponents hit ends up in the back of the net. Given up 16xG but let in 26. Conceded 4 penalties (joint most in the league), 4 from indirect free kicks (most in the league), 5 from corners (joint 17th in the league). Our team have turned into fouling machines, out of depth and we just kick everyone.

Need a new set piece coach and a new goalie.

Signed that player from the previous post in the end but not on a free, cost us 6.25m and he's already managed to break his leg. Don't know why the board were so stingy with transfer and wage budget, we're making money hand over fist from the TV deal and are projected to have 45m in the bank at the end of the season.

Tried to sign a 32 year old Daniel James on a free a couple of times seeing as we're keeping it Welsh, and he'd ask for about 20k a week before getting mad and turning around asking for 70k. Also managed to piss off an agent who pretty much controls all the Welsh players which wasn't good. He said he was tired of us enquiring and then not following up.

Did get Gabriel Biancheri, currently with United in the real world in on a free and am paying him top wage on 55 grand a week.

Oh, and our stadium is so weird. 6500 capacity in the Premier League which I thought wasn't allowed? Minimum is 10k as far as I know. We closed down one quadrant to convert it to seats but didn't bother converting either end behind the goals or one side so we just have one side open and the two corners on the opposite side.The rest is unused terracing.

 

[Santos J]

Oh, and our stadium is so weird. 6500 capacity in the Premier League which I thought wasn't allowed? Minimum is 10k as far as I know. We closed down one quadrant to convert it to seats but didn't bother converting either end behind the goals or one side so we just have one side open and the two corners on the opposite side.The rest is unused terracing.

First year in the Prem is 5k with 1k seats but within 3 years needs to be 10k+ so you'll probably have a new one soon if you stay up!

 

[Chipper]

First year in the Prem is 5k with 1k seats but within 3 years needs to be 10k+ so you'll probably have a new one soon if you stay up!

Cheers for that.

We're definitely staying up at this point, been hammering the game. The table is weird, not many draws for anyone and there's distinct splits in it. Can't really see us finishing higher than we currently are, could maybe finish 14th.

The board gave us 14m to spend just ahead of the January window, picked up this guy from Fulham for 9.25m and a goalie potentially for the future, 600k from Cardiff.

Save is getting really fun now. Pretty sure we will end up in a new stadium soon like you said, and lots of money to spend to try and get all the facilities up to scratch eventually. Lagging seriously behind there but hopefully we'll start producing Welsh internationals from the youth team at some point.

Scouting is so easy as we're very limited to players we can possibly get being all Welsh, but I like that. Means the squad has been and will remain a bit more stable and I'd normally have in a save. We still have 3 players from when we were in League Two in the first team squad and a few from League One. It will get a point where we have the best Welsh player in a certain position and I just won't want to change him. Bit different from normal saves when there's always a new Brazilian wonderkid appearing and you change your players more often. Going to have guys here for years.

Still actually got 1 player on our books from the 7th tier, but he's out on loan in the Vanarama National League and his contract is up soon. Have been trying to sell him for a couple of seasons but it's at the point where I might renew his deal if he's interested and keep him at the club forever if he's interested out of sentimentality. We could loan him out, or he can play in the EFL Trophy/'pizza Cup' each year as our u21s are now in that.

 

[Chipper]

Finished 13th in the first Premier League season with Merthyr, followed up by a 4th place finish the season after. Champions League time!

Not managed to win a cup this save at all, got beat by Brighton in the Carbao Cup final, and never won the EFL Trophy when we were in League One/Two, or the FA Trophy when non-league. That's something I want.

Not expecting such great heights next season, but you never know. Think we might struggle a lot more with all the squad rotation that Europe brings. The board still expect us to fight bravely against relegation so there's no pressure.

Ground sharing with Cardiff City next year because the stupid board are obsessed with renovating our council-owned stadium. This past year we converted our final terraced stands to seats and now they want to expand the stadium to 10k capacity. At least we'll have much better ticket revenue at Cardiff, but then we're in that 10k stadium the year after. Only then I'll be able to ask for a new ground. Suppose one upside is that it's 2 more years of building up reputation and fanbase, the new stadium build will probably be bigger than if they built it now.

All the club infrastucture is still getting built up. Moving up youth level, plus junior coaching and youth recruitment is being increased every year now as well as improvements to the training and youth facilites. This is where we currently sit on all that with further improvements just approved.

It will be great if/when we can start producing our own players, going to need if we become European mainstays even if they're squad players. We don't have anyone homegrown at club for next season.

Starting to funnel a lot of players into the Wales squad/unders teams. Can't see any of the young kids here currently making it up to the first team that came through the ranks. Still, nice to see, onwards and upwards!

 

[Chipper]

Started the new season with a switch in formation to a 4-2-3-1. Didn't look too convincing in pre-season but were getting the wins.

11 points from 8 matches plus dumped out of the Carabao Cup at the first opportunity and I've moved back to what we were doing previously.

The switch loooked like a good idea at the time. Our best player had been our left footed right winger cutting inside etc. Thought I could try and replicate that on the left wing where we'd had a more orthadox left-footed player so moved one of the right-footed strikers there who can play all across the front line. On top of that one of our backup forwards from the previous campaign was asking for more game time and he can play as a AM too so thought why not?

Failed experiment in the end. The only player who was still playing well was the right winger, the players in the 3 other attacking roles were stinking the place up.

Feel a bit bad for the player I signed to be a backup AM as he doesn't offer much else. He can play up front (badly) so will hardly get a kick now. He was also left out of the European squad due to restrictions and him not being very versatile. Will be binning him off after just one season.

Got a win and a draw since all that so now have 15 points from 10. Board and media expectations are all still seeing us as relegation battlers so no pressure at all from that perspective.

 

[Chipper]

Is there absolutely no way in the game to defend throw ins properly?

I know I'm late to the party but it does my head in.

I just want to do this.

The spare man near the throw in taker cuts out the one-two with the throw in taker and cross. Can't figure out a way to put someone there. As far as I know it's impossible, and it's stupid.

All they have to do is throw it and pass it back to the taker who is always free because you can't put anyone there. He then always has time to cross and AI manager puts at least 2, often 3 guys in the box attacking it at your far post which is way more than real managers do from a simple throw in. Doesn't matter if you have defenders that have higher jumping reach than them, they eventually get outjumped and you will concede.

So annoying.

There's other defensive breakdowns from throw ins all caused by not being able to put anyone there. They always have 2 v 1, 3 v 2, 4 v 3 because of it. They can play it around you so easily, and to be fair my teams score loads in the same way as AI teams can't deal with it either. It's so dumb.

 

[Chipper]

Really loving this save, feels like an Athletic Bilbao save with the restrictions I've given myself on players, or a bit like Atletico Madrid in the real world, going up against the big guns and trying to disrupt them.

Picked up a bit in the league, want to push on and qualify for a second season in Europe. At this stage it could be CL again or no Europe at all.

CL itself has been a mixed bag. Sitting in 13th in the league phase with 2 games to go on 10 points.

One of the cool things I like about this save is that good Welsh players possibly become available that don't fit my current tactics and I have to decide if I want buy them or not, and switch my tactics up or not to accomodate who are ultimatley better players. Played 4-4-2 until we reached the PL, switched it to a 4-2-4, tried 4-2-3-1 at the start of this season before moving back to the 4-2-4.

Now this guy is available in the January window, thinking I could back to the original 4-4-2 and play him on the left, or even in CM in a 4-3-3 set up. I don't really like him as an AMR, his finishing isn't too clever and my best performer is already in that slot. Don't think I'll change the tactic now, but could buy him now and channge in the summer, put a bid in now to buy him in the summer or whack in a bid as soon as the window closes if nobody else picks him up.

He's been playing of England U21s but he still counts!

 

[Chipper]

Finished 8th in our 3rd season of the PL. Missed out on Europe with 7th and 9th both qualifying one way or another. Made it to the CL last 16 where Benfica knocked us out.

Currently sitting in 4th with 32 points from 16.

Did sign that player from the post above, put in a bid during the January transfer window to sign him in the summer and he's doing well. 4 goals and 7 assists playing in the ML slot on support.

Changed out to an assymetric formation to accomodate him. Rocking this currently:

It's just a dowloaded one as always with me but I can see how it all works together nicely from a tactical point of view. He's not cutting inside so much playing as a traditional wide player on the left so the volante can drive forward into that space. It's also space vacated by the AF on that side. There's a nice pocket for him to get forward into.

Not sure I Iike the IWB slot on the left, and the players there are getting shitty ratings although again makes sense to have a player moving into the space vacated by the volante.

Struggling a bit with AMR slot, but that's a me thing. Moved this guy there who'd been playing as an striker for us the past 3 seasons and as a right-footer being asked to play as an inside forward it's not ideal.

Had been using this one there who was a bit of a talisman for us and was perfectly suited to play the role although he's not quite as talented as a player overall and I have other strikers coming through so made the switch.

He's now also getting some playing time in DM as segundo volante due to injuries. It's a mad role where you can plug attacking players into it in an emergency and they hold up well.

Youth team is now starting to produce some nice players that are potentially first team squad members. The problem with changing tactics is that they've now been played all over the place, hope it doesn't ruin them! This one is the cream of the crop:

Hopefully we'll get that new stadium at some point, the board are doing that thing where they're looking for a new site. They usually find one, but I've also rarely seen it where they say they can't find anywhere suitable. Board pissed me off at the end of last season, refused to upgrade the training and youth facilities further, saying my results had been poor lately. Had a spell in April where we lost 5 out of 6 before taking 7 points in the final 3 games of the season.

 

[saik]

A winger with no pace. Yup, that seems right. I don't think I ever had a youth player with appropriate attributes for their positions. Always lacking in some key attributes for their role.

 

[Red Star One]

Finished 8th in our 3rd season of the PL. Missed out on Europe with 7th and 9th both qualifying one way or another. Made it to the CL last 16 where Benfica knocked us out.

Currently sitting in 4th with 32 points from 16.

Did sign that player from the post above, put in a bid during the January transfer window to sign him in the summer and he's doing well. 4 goals and 7 assists playing in the ML slot on support.

Changed out to an assymetric formation to accomodate him. Rocking this currently:

It's just a dowloaded one as always with me but I can see how it all works together nicely from a tactical point of view. He's not cutting inside so much playing as a traditional wide player on the left so the volante can drive forward into that space. It's also space vacated by the AF on that side. There's a nice pocket for him to get forward into.

Not sure I Iike the IWB slot on the left, and the players there are getting shitty ratings although again makes sense to have a player moving into the space vacated by the volante.

Struggling a bit with AMR slot, but that's a me thing. Moved this guy there who'd been playing as an striker for us the past 3 seasons and as a right-footer being asked to play as an inside forward it's not ideal.

Had been using this one there who was a bit of a talisman for us and was perfectly suited to play the role although he's not quite as talented as a player overall and I have other strikers coming through so made the switch.

He's now also getting some playing time in DM as segundo volante due to injuries. It's a mad role where you can plug attacking players into it in an emergency and they hold up well.

Youth team is now starting to produce some nice players that are potentially first team squad members. The problem with changing tactics is that they've now been played all over the place, hope it doesn't ruin them! This one is the cream of the crop:

Hopefully we'll get that new stadium at some point, the board are doing that thing where they're looking for a new site. They usually find one, but I've also rarely seen it where they say they can't find anywhere suitable. Board pissed me off at the end of last season, refused to upgrade the training and youth facilities further, saying my results had been poor lately. Had a spell in April where we lost 5 out of 6 before taking 7 points in the final 3 games of the season.

What's the mod that gives regens those realistic photos?

 

[Chipper]

What's the mod that gives regens those realistic photos?

That particular one is the URAN facepack installed with FMZ tools.
https://sortitoutsi.net/graphics/style/33/ultra-realistic-newgan-faces-megapack


There's another one that I usually use, the newgan one using newgan manager to install - https://beta.fm-base.co.uk/articles/sagkrzealand-facepack

I've actually got both active in this current save, went the first few seasons with the second of those, decided to switch to the other one to try something new.

 

[Chipper]

A winger with no pace. Yup, that seems right. I don't think I ever had a youth player with appropriate attributes for their positions. Always lacking in some key attributes for their role.

Haha, always the way isn't it? Still, might have to use him seeing as I'm going all Welsh. Looked behind the scenes and he has a PA of 177 which would make him the best player from there in this save should he reach it even if he doesn't fit the role perfectly.

 

[Red Star One]

That particular one is the URAN facepack installed with FMZ tools.
https://sortitoutsi.net/graphics/style/33/ultra-realistic-newgan-faces-megapack


There's another one that I usually use, the newgan one using newgan manager to install - https://beta.fm-base.co.uk/articles/sagkrzealand-facepack

I've actually got both active in this current save, went the first few seasons with the second of those, decided to switch to the other one to try something new.

Cheers. Looks so much better than the plastic generated faces

 

[Chipper]

Cheers. Looks so much better than the plastic generated faces

Absolutely! And no worries mate, glad to help.

Got this guy who looks a bit like crackhead using that facepack but it's still much better.

 

[Berbaclass]

Absolutely! And no worries mate, glad to help.

Got this guy who looks a bit like crackhead using that facepack but it's still much better.

Looks like the guy Brad Pitt beats up on the ranch in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

 

[Chipper]

This save is one of the most fun ones I've ever done, glad it's come around at a time when FM25 got delayed and now cancelled. Something to really get my teeth into.

Never done a build a nation save, feel like it borrows some of the elements from it. At the stage where I'm signing Welsh players I know deep down will never truly be good enough for us, the same when it comes to giving youth players pro contracts. Doing it anyway just in case I need them, and maybe I'll be offered the international job next time it comes up so it's good to develop as many as I can. Also feels a bit charitable to help a guy out, even if he only ever has a career in League Two or the Vanarama leagues. Taking care of my players!

Finished a distant 2nd in the PL to get back into Europe with a bang and won the Carabao Cup, our biggest ever trophy. So that's 13th, 4th, 8th, 2nd since reaching the PL.

Haaland is about turn 34 and he has 1 year left on his contract. Feel it's all up for grabs after that. He scored 41 in the league this past season.

Just signed this player to give us major competition in central defence. Had my eye on him for 3 years now and he had a £39m release clause after Leeds got relegated from the Premier League. Don't like paying those clauses as you have to pay it all in one go, I'm more of an installment kind of person. Leeds aren't in great financial shape right now so got him for 7.5m upfront, then 2 more payments of 7.5m over the next 2 years.

He, Callum Doyle and Ashley Phillips (real players with Welsh dual nationalities) can all fight it out for starting spots and seeing as we're in the CL we're going to need more squad depth.

We're about lose our 4th choice central defender anyway, a club legend in my eyes if not the game's that was with us on the journey up but hasn't really played much the past 2-3 seasons.

Other major signing so far has been this right back with useless jumping reach. Big risk, but everything else makes him the best young Welsh full back out there. A bargain 3.9m from Liverpool.

Just had a 75m bid for our 'keeper from Arsenal that I'm going to turn down. He wants to go and it might cause disruption but I need to keep the best Welsh players I can. There's another one at West Ham that is about as good, but he's not going anywhere unless I have to sell. He has a 93m release clause which might get activated and if it does so be it.

Pondering a move for this player too, we can reach him if doing the installment thing, something like £25m upfront and then 50m over 2 years and he would be our best central defender. Record transfer and higher wages than everyone else if I do it. Not sure because I've just bought that other player in the same position. Now Callum Doyle, one of our guys there can actually play left back and would possibly be our best player there so maybe.

Building a new stadium finally, 2 years to complete and will be 26k in capacity. Feel it could have been a bit bigger than that but it's still nice.

 

[Chipper]

Running into the well known problems of it being difficult to offload players during this window.

The right back we brought in will be first choice and I've been trying to sell the player who was first choice there past few seasons. The player we had as 2nd choice is now as good as him and has some further improvement in him so I was wanting to keep him as 2nd choice.

Best offers we got were well below market value on loan to buy deals to foreign clubs wanting me to pay 90% of his wages. In desperation I accepted but he turned down the move.

That's the problem when you have overperforming players, he's reaslistically a mid to low end Championship player but is on more money than some of those clubs want to pay in wages. Nothing ridiculous, £30.5k a week, and plenty of Championship players are on that kind of money if not more for the richer clubs but the bottom end ones are reluctant to make him among their top earners.

Ended up deciding to keep him and loan out the other player I was wanting to keep hold of. His playing time will improve him further and we'll try again next summer.

Similar thing happening at left wing, 3rd choice became 2nd choice after a loan last season. Denizilspor in Turkey offered £13.5m for the guy I was trying to shift but he's turned them down. Nobody esle biting after reducing the asking price repeatedly all the way down to £4m. Loaning the one out that I would rather integrate into the squad again.

 

[Berbaclass]

Finally dived back in.

I've taken over Bohemians in the Irish Premier League.

Just wanted a fun save with a small league to build with no HG restrictions etc.

Going to build the biggest loan farm ever.

 

[Chipper]

You love to see it. Don't know exactly how good these are going to be, is it relative to squad strength like the stars?

If it is then they're not necessarily going to be legitimate wonderkids as our first team squad has CAs ranging from the 120s to high 150s. Anything 135 or 140+ PA would be great though.

Think legit wonderkids are 180+.

 

[Chipper]

Finally dived back in.

I've taken over Bohemians in the Irish Premier League.

Just wanted a fun save with a small league to build with no HG restrictions etc.

Going to build the biggest loan farm ever.

Go for it! Sounds fun.

With '25 cancelled might as well eke out as much value and fun out of '24.

Already thinking of my next saves even though I'm loving this one. Got a few ideas.

- Find some sort of mega database and go on a jounryeman save throughout Africa or Asia
- Build a nation
- Youth only save
- Another 1 nationality save like I'm currently doing, Turkish in Germany perhaps seeing as there loads of dual nationals there
- Never liked it before, but one of those clubs where they have B teams or even C teams in the league system, the lowest one I can possibly find in an extended database. Just to use those teams as the proving ground instead of loaning out young talent, micro managing everything.

 

[paulscholes18]

Just had my fastest ever red card with Sancho getting himself sent off after just 14 seconds, went on to lose 3-0 to Everton with 3 headers with a combined Xg of 0.44

 

[Berbaclass]

First big result of the save in season 2 in the CL qualifiers. Praying we can do something at home in the second leg now!