Dan

Have played on with this save and it is going pretty well. First year I got promoted but never felt entirely confident or comfortable with how we were playing despite the decent results and I did think we would be quite a big relegation risk. However I did have quite a bit of money left over from the sale of Lenz to Porto so I was able to bring in plenty of players and the recruitment ended up being pretty spot on. I started slowly in 2026/27 with two 2-0 losses but I tweaked a couple of roles in the system, it was a bit naive playing a DLP as my deepest CDM as a newly promoted side and instead rotated between that and BBM alongside a destroying DM (the nearest thing to the old anchor man). As you can see, 17 incomings, but these alongside Japanese winger Tawaratsumida were the key ones. Amoako was the pick for me, very consistent and developed into our most valuable player over the course of the season. Despite being in borderline relegation danger for a lot of the season we ended up going on a really good run in the second half of the season and only missed out on Europe on the final day. I can't emphasise enough how dreadful Koln were. They had a good run late on but they hadn't even broken 10 points by April. We beat them 0-6 and 5-1. Our real highlight was beating Dortmund 3-0, despite their earlyish red card we absolutely hammered them pretty much throughout, including at 11 v 11. Someone pointed to Mustermann FM's video series and I tell you what I love it. Exactly the sort of nerdery I love about this game. I was a little bit influenced by some of it even if I didn't go the whole hod and quite piss around with spreadsheets. He's even more ruthless than me in terms of contracts and being a tightarse and once you get into that habit it's quite hard to break, but it definitely works if you know which sort of players work. The following season was different, but similar. What I mean is we spent most of the season towards the top of the table, but ended up narrowly missing Europe this time through a terrible late run of results, losing 7 of our last 10 games and ensuring we missed out. I could be barking up the wrong tree completely but I wonder if two of my key players, both Amoako and Baur deciding they wanted to explore options at the end of their contract took the sting out of us, because both dropped off quite a bit. Both would be sold in the summer. Key signings ended up being attacking midfielder Laurin Ulrich and winger Jacob Ondrejka, both in for small fees but both outperforming more expensive buys in Noah Darvich and Kasper Davidsen. Baur and Amoako raised about £20mil in total which was good profit. I was still being pretty tight with my spending but I loosened it to bring in Ezechiel Banzuzi from Leipzig for a club record £12mil. Striker Marezi, who'd scored 15 goals in both of his seasons here, left for a small fee but was upgraded on with an even smaller fee for Nelson Weiper from Augsburg. Despite Banzuzi himself not being particularly instrumental, we didn't just make Europe but actually managed a 2nd placed finish this season. We won loads of games and looked pretty comfortable throughout the season. The one black mark against the season was losing 8-1 at Bayern on the final day. Bayern, frankly, are a machine. Even by their standards, they feel ridiculously overpowered. I think even despite coming 2nd in the league, we are probably nearer to a 2nd tier team in ability than we are to them. We have overperformed massively to finish 2nd, but we are nowhere near hauling them in at all. Paderborn's one win all season came on the final day which was quite funny. My general tightness and overperformance (still only 15th in the wage bill list) has left us in a very nice financial position for next season with a massive budget. But I still think I'll probably spend under half of it It's going well, but Bayern are a real problem. So many other saves I've done have seen the big team drop off. But where it's needed most, they've decided they'll average 4 goals a game. There is no doubt this has been a good save, but I can see what happened in the season just gone becoming a bit of a norm, and we've got to learn a way to really play against them because they're absolutely fisting us every time. Bochum have one of the best academies I've ever had on this version. I seem to get numerous 5 star potential players every season. Will post a few of them soon but I have three that are in and around the first team, or will be soon - two are out on loan at Bundesliga teams and one of them is regularly starting at 18.

My scepticism of them wasn't as high as it is now but I couldn't believe even they had gone for that. He'd never been anything other than dreadful in the Premier League, was older than last time and under Maresca was beneficiary of playing in a team that could dominate the ball 90% of the time. They had just about gotten through that period with a bit of grace at the end so end up falling for it and doubling down on it. Completely unserious operators.

Will also be their logic. Job done. We've got one of our two strikers. They will half arse it like always, this doesn't really signal any sort of shift in transfer policy. That article says we want up to 11 signings. I bet they don't manage 6 permanent.

Is it not a bit of a red flag that immediately a lot of people's reaction to this is "it's only a year". Instinctively that just tells you even they think it's not a particularly good signing. I'd rather we had players you were happy to see tied down for a while rather than ones where we're already counting down the days until the exit. It isn't impossible that he's a steady option for us but there are too many similarities to the sorts of transfer that have put us in this position in the first place for me to overlook. The Southampton link again just tells me it's probably another off the record chat with Glover where they've gone "do you know anyone free" and in his contacts list Danny Ings name alphabetically arrives before Nathan Redmond. I did quite like Ings, was a decent player, and doesn't seem a bad egg. But I'd not be surprised if we're sat here in October and have realised oh shit, he can't move or impact a game even at this level. If he's coming in it should be as 3rd choice. But it won't be.

32 nineties isn't he's managed 90 minutes 32 times either. That's accumulatively how many minutes played. There is a world that there's sense in this but it is a red flag.

It's like the Kevin Phillips comparison elsewhere. Phillips was a supplementary 4th choice signing that made sense. If we were reliant on him as 1st choice we wouldn't have gone up. Knowing what we're like these days I'd say it's likely we end up overly reliant on him. In the last five years he's managed 32 nineties in total. Average of just over 6 nineties a season. Simply cannot be plan A.

That contract extension was one of the most phenomenally dumb moves I've seen from us. The chances of success were so tiny.

Everything should be about getting this owner out. Absolute waste of time trying to be constructive with them. We need to step it up as a fanbase this year.

Can't wait to see some of the crowds this season. Will be genuinely hilarious.

My retort to that thread a few weeks ago where they say the fans are to blame and that this place is a cesspit should remember this. This is a long term thing, chipping away at the fans bit by bit, pissing them off at every turn, often for the sake of a few quid which they almost always waste anyway. This fanbase is not unreasonable. I actually wish it was, because they've taken the piss for years.

All of it. They listen and do the opposite. You just know there'll be some divs who pay for this as well.

After how it went with Mukasa I can't see them loaning him to us. They'll loan him to someone like Birmingham I'd imagine.

£19.99 to watch the barely even cobbled together, mostly 90% of last years wasters stumble past a load of dross the club haven't realised we're playing in the league. Yeah this'll be a tough dilemma.

As ever with Switzerland, always just a bit better than you expect.

How do they ****ing do it

So did Argentina apparently.

I'm extremely prepared to look silly and I do think they'll win this but I'm less convinced by Argentina the more I see of them this tournament.

I'd made peace with them being a dull but effective team so decided to put money on a few angles of them absolutely ragging Qatar who were in my head probably the worst team of the 48. Obviously they draw 1-1. Then of course proceed to be exactly what I imagined anyway, but without managing to profit. They're bloody annoying.

Another disasterclass from the so called best in the business. Surprise surprise. That EFL transfers pod I heard over the weekend hit home that, as usual, we are lagging way behind.

The worst thing about the Martin appointment is he's enough of a clown to become a good distraction from the real problems at the club. It's important to remember he is a symptom. He is their vision. But there is only so much he can do. I have far more contempt for these players and his bosses than I do him.

They've improved since dropping De Bruyne though is my point.

Being set up to fail by those above as per.

Belgium resting their bigger names and pissing it while their old manager panders to Ronaldo.

The Neymar inclusion was ridiculous and I think the main reason they ended up going out yesterday. I think you bring Ancelotti in to avoid emotional decisions like this and he still caved in. Their midfield is a problem though. It's just 'OK' rather than top drawer.

I really don't think they were terrible. They could've definitely won that game yesterday. They had pretty bad moments in games but on the whole I don't really get some of the criticism that's been aimed at them. I'm guessing a lot of it was to do with the first half against Morocco and Japan. But by the end they were probably worth the draw and the wins they picked up respectively. Second half yesterday they were poor. In the humidity of Miami I'd sooner not have yet another essentially away game straight after the last. Norway are a good team but at least it's crap conditions for both teams.