Football Manager 2023

[Tommy Fresh]

14 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

Bank balance is £31m

 

Transfer budget is £8m with £75k spare wage budget

 

Still also got a sell on clause for Bellingham if I ever want to use it, or if he is sold I will get £16m

Not bad, and I imagine you'll get the random new sponsorship deal that usually appears with a Sugar Daddy owner.

[moore_94]

On 04/05/2023 at 16:15, Tommy Fresh said:

Not bad, and I imagine you'll get the random new sponsorship deal that usually appears with a Sugar Daddy owner.

1st May and this is the first one to come through... not bad 

 

[Dan LCFC]

On 23/04/2023 at 22:45, Dan LCFC said:

Now I'm onto a new one which I've fancied a while. You are to take over a Paris club other than PSG and become the European royalty of Paris. You must win more Champions Leagues than PSG. So the outcome is dictated as much on how they do too - if they win it 3 times while you rise up, then you have to win it 4. They won it in 2022/23 on my Leicester save. Gulp.

Took over Paris FC. This is a challenge where the dynamic could shift a lot and it depends a lot on PSG, but it should be fun, I've always quite liked starting with 2nd/3rd tier sides and building them up.

 

Season one is done.

 

 

Fairly comfortable league win. Didn't have much money at all but already had a pretty good squad in place for that level, albeit plenty out of contract, ageing and on loan, so regardless we would have quite a severe shift in the summer. Signed experienced Wesley Lautoa on a free and left back Victor Olmo for about £100k.

 

Interestingly, PSG won Ligue 1, I as Paris won Ligue 2, and Red Star won the National, so all three leagues were won by Paris teams. Wonder if that's ever happened before.

 

Oh, and PSG got knocked out of the CL in the quarters by Liverpool, so we are safe so far.

 

Been given around £1.2mil budget for Ligue 1 which is **** all. Though an OK amount on wages, and plenty of the players I had last season were costing me a lot (Phiri on loan from Turkey was about 5th choice CM on about £14k a week), so we've got a bit of room to play this time. Will be making around 10 signings hopefully.

[moore_94]

A shame we couldn't go that final step and make it into the playoffs but we have been smashing it in the league since I took over:

 

21 games - 13 wins, 6 draws, 2 losses, 42 goals scored, 15 goals conceded, 11 clean sheets

 

Birmingham weren't actually doing too bad performance wise before I took over even though they were 18th, just drew a lot of games:

 

25 games - 5 wins, 13 draws, 7 losses, 25 goals scored, 25 goals conceded, 6 clean sheets

 

Lovely to see Forest bottle it twice as well, lost on the last day to miss out on automatic promotion, then lost in the playoffs

 

An original transfer budget of £14m and £50k in wages for the summer was kind of disappointing but not even June yet and I have already sorted some sales worth around £55m so gives me plenty to play around with

 

Really annoying that 5 free transfers I was trying to line up couldn't get work permits so now need to find alternatives

 

[moore_94]

July 1st and all our first team transfer dealings are done, we have come out of it with a much better overall squad, and we have actually made a profit of nearly £10m!

 

Total spent = £51.15m

 

Total sold = £60.75m

 

I just had to bring both Jack Butland and Demarai Gray back to Birmingham as well haha

 

I can now spend the rest of the transfer window sorting out loans and going hunting for youngsters

 

 

[Tommy Fresh]

15 hours ago, Dan LCFC said:

Took over Paris FC. This is a challenge where the dynamic could shift a lot and it depends a lot on PSG, but it should be fun, I've always quite liked starting with 2nd/3rd tier sides and building them up.

 

Season one is done.

 

 

Fairly comfortable league win. Didn't have much money at all but already had a pretty good squad in place for that level, albeit plenty out of contract, ageing and on loan, so regardless we would have quite a severe shift in the summer. Signed experienced Wesley Lautoa on a free and left back Victor Olmo for about £100k.

 

Interestingly, PSG won Ligue 1, I as Paris won Ligue 2, and Red Star won the National, so all three leagues were won by Paris teams. Wonder if that's ever happened before.

 

Oh, and PSG got knocked out of the CL in the quarters by Liverpool, so we are safe so far.

 

Been given around £1.2mil budget for Ligue 1 which is **** all. Though an OK amount on wages, and plenty of the players I had last season were costing me a lot (Phiri on loan from Turkey was about 5th choice CM on about £14k a week), so we've got a bit of room to play this time. Will be making around 10 signings hopefully.

Put off being Paris FC after Bahrain bought a stake in them, aware cash isn't chucked at them or anything though

Edited 6 May 2023 by Tommy Fresh

[Dan LCFC]

We've been absolute comedy in our opening 10 games of Ligue 1. We're the worst defence, the third highest scorers, and there've been 8 crucial last minute goals in our games already - including Nice doing to us what Spurs did to Leicester, and ourselves doing the exact same to Metz.

 

 

I've chosen chaos. It's still getting us enough results to survive and we're looking good enough to do so. The Angers and Lille wins make me think we'll be fine even if we do need to sort out some of the stupidity. I'm glad we're actually scoring goals though.

 

We're on an incredible run of cards as well - averaging 4.5 a game so far.

 

My signings:

 

 

 

Still think I need to buy another centre half and probably striker, but think we'll stay up - still got a million to spend somehow.

 

Pembele is a steal and hopefully I'll make it permanent in the summer for free. Michut, Pavlovic and Schablas are all really decent youngsters. Dortmund are twats - signed Seslar from under our noses and then put him straight on the list to loan out to make an eventual profit. He's a comfortable £10mil player for me, would've been a cracking signing and eventual money maker for us.

[CosbehFox]

Went back to Schaan and the Liechtenstein challenge. 

 

Won the second tier and now into the Swiss top flight. Both our two best players (a Swiss RM and an Irish CM picked up for free from Dundalk) sold during the season for a combined £2m. Loaned in an Uruguayan striker, Alvaro Doglio and he blasted the goals to see us through. He's been signed on a permanent for £1m on a 5 year deal and the fool didn't get any release clause in his contract. An exciting Paraguayan coming in on the right wing for next season.

 

Europe was great for once - Conference League - came 2nd in a group with Willem II, Maribor and Panathinaikos. Then beat Ferencvaros over two legs before losing 3-1 on aggregate to Valencia. Won the Liechtenstein Cup - so will begin the ascent again. But the run made us £3m. Hopefully being in the top flight means our games will be Thursday-Sundays rather than Thursday-Saturdays. Young Boys are completely dominant to the point they regularly reach the CL knockout stages. 

 

Some of the money we won has been invested into the youth academy (because ultimately want to get Liechtenstein better youngsters). 

 

Liechtenstein - we won the Nations League Division C Group over Georgia and Hungary. Aiming for 3rd in the European Champs qualifiers but lost to Israel 1-0 away which isn't a great start. Ukraine and Wales are the other two contenders. Ranking high of 110th in the world. 

 

We have three players of considerable quality in the squad; a CB who plays for Bayern, a LB for Milan and a ST at Sevilla. Then there is about two Swiss top flight players and then a good drop. The Under 19s regularly reach the second round of qualifiers for Euro Champs. 

[moore_94]

We won the Championship with Birmingham but Bournemouth were a pain in my ass all season long

 

We were 1st until the 20th game, then Bournemouth got ahead and stayed 1st with us always just a few points behind until the 41st game when we finally got back ahead for a few games, but then we lost in the 45th game and Bournemouth went back 1st...

 

But then absolute scenes on the final day as we score an 86th minute winner, Bournemouth draw, and we win the league on goal difference!

 

South Korean Tycoon owner has given us £45m and £640k (!) wage budget to spend in the upcoming summer

 

Already got 4 transfers sorted - Neco Williams from PSG, Harwood-Bellis from Man City, Alvaro Fernandez from Man Utd, and Tommy Doyle from Man City - all for about £12m total

 

Also looking at Ilaix Moriba from Leipzig on a free, so going to have plenty left over if I want to go big for a couple of players

 

[Newbold Blue]

Fought the urge for so long to buy this and go a year without but couldn't help myself!

 

Done one season and managed to get Boro back to the big time. Akpom/Archer on flames as well as Jones, Giles and Forss.

 

Difficult to transition to the Prem as a lot of the squad were on loan and with only £25m to build a squad it was always going to be a challenge.... rooted to the bottom after 8 games 

[Beliall]

 

[moore_94]

First game in the Prem with Birmingham was a fun one, just had to be against Wolves as well

 

[Tommy Fresh]

21 hours ago, moore_94 said:

First game in the Prem with Birmingham was a fun one, just had to be against Wolves as well

 

Even FM is against Wolves, just like the entire footballing world

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

24 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Even FM is against Wolves, just like the entire footballing world

This is a safe space where the Bear won’t be homophobic against me for disliking his boring football club, despite the fact I’m straight and love to kiss women

[Dan LCFC]

Totally unconvincing, but Paris FC are safe.

 

 

We fell over the line, but getting over the line was all that was needed.

 

Playing the pressing 4-2-3-1 seemed to be the only way we stayed in games. I had the phase of trying to defend our way out of it and we were appalling.

 

Been given another toss budget for next season so it's going to be another season of the same unfortunately unless we can find a game changing attacking player. Not holding out much hope of that though.

 

PSG went out of the CL in the semis so we're safe for another year. Inter knocked them out to my relief, after Barcelona had produced another pathetic collapse to allow them past the quarters.

[Tommy Fresh]

On 13/05/2023 at 21:45, Dan LCFC said:

Totally unconvincing, but Paris FC are safe.

 

 

We fell over the line, but getting over the line was all that was needed.

 

Playing the pressing 4-2-3-1 seemed to be the only way we stayed in games. I had the phase of trying to defend our way out of it and we were appalling.

 

Been given another toss budget for next season so it's going to be another season of the same unfortunately unless we can find a game changing attacking player. Not holding out much hope of that though.

 

PSG went out of the CL in the semis so we're safe for another year. Inter knocked them out to my relief, after Barcelona had produced another pathetic collapse to allow them past the quarters.

How you getting on now? Started one with Nancy got them promoted after 25 games, managed to bin off a few of their loans back to Oostende who were earning big, and reinvested in young French free agents and 3 teens playing in Senegal, plus they already had a handful of decent players as well. Also got that Bahebeck guy on a free and he's scoring at just under 2 a game. Nimes look set to drop from Ligue 2 and I'm tempted if they sack their manager to join as their intake looks very good, Ligue 1 looks like anyone from bottom to around 12th could go down and some big sides down there.

[Fox92]

On 09/05/2023 at 22:14, moore_94 said:

We won the Championship with Birmingham but Bournemouth were a pain in my ass all season long

 

We were 1st until the 20th game, then Bournemouth got ahead and stayed 1st with us always just a few points behind until the 41st game when we finally got back ahead for a few games, but then we lost in the 45th game and Bournemouth went back 1st...

 

But then absolute scenes on the final day as we score an 86th minute winner, Bournemouth draw, and we win the league on goal difference!

 

South Korean Tycoon owner has given us £45m and £640k (!) wage budget to spend in the upcoming summer

 

Already got 4 transfers sorted - Neco Williams from PSG, Harwood-Bellis from Man City, Alvaro Fernandez from Man Utd, and Tommy Doyle from Man City - all for about £12m total

 

Also looking at Ilaix Moriba from Leipzig on a free, so going to have plenty left over if I want to go big for a couple of players

 

Incredible points there. Sunderland on 83 didn't even make the play offs. 110/110/100 for the top 3 is incredible, never seen anythig like it.

[Dan LCFC]

4 hours ago, Tommy Fresh said:

How you getting on now? Started one with Nancy got them promoted after 25 games, managed to bin off a few of their loans back to Oostende who were earning big, and reinvested in young French free agents and 3 teens playing in Senegal, plus they already had a handful of decent players as well. Also got that Bahebeck guy on a free and he's scoring at just under 2 a game. Nimes look set to drop from Ligue 2 and I'm tempted if they sack their manager to join as their intake looks very good, Ligue 1 looks like anyone from bottom to around 12th could go down and some big sides down there.

Funnily enough was about to post an update in here as I'm in the winter break of season three. We've sort of caught fire.

 

 

Wasn't given a big budget again so was fully expecting us to be fighting relegation. The sale of left back Victor Olmo for £1.4mil was quite significant though - he was an OK player but I'd paid £125k for him just a year ago and he hadn't really kicked on, with a year left on his contract so it was an easy sell, replacing with Sainte-Luce on a free who is just as good.

 

This is turning out to be one of the best windows I can remember having. With the exception probably of Retsos, who isn't even bad, everyone seems to be largely smashing it. Munoz is a huge coup, thought we were going to get done exactly how we did for Seslar a season ago with a bigger club stealing him only to try and make profit on. The rest are either frees, loans or players who were transfer listed. Nobody aged over 25 with the exception of Boateng.

 

The only mistake I've made is I'm paying out too much on wages and it's a collective issue, although we still have the leagues lowest wage bill so that tells you something.

 

 

Some quite remarkable goings on. We're predicted 18th so we're having a bit of a miracle season all considered. I changed to 4-4-2 after losing 5-0 at Lens as it was clear that something needed to change. Despite defeats to PSG, Marseille and Nice we were clearly playing quite well still and I did think the results would come. In one mental half at Montpellier where we scored 5 times everything just seems to have clicked and nobody can do any wrong.

 

Pretty remarkable that we're 4th in the table, we have the 3rd best attack yet the 3rd worst defence, but as you can see over the last couple of months the defensive form has really picked up as well despite playing some fairly tricky opposition in that period.

 

It's a tight table so a touch misleading and I still don't think I quite expect us to get a European place. We can't strengthen in January because of our lack of money and the fact I've overpaid on wages means we're probably going to have a couple of players poached for nothing which is a ****up on my behalf. I think given it's obvious that we aren't going down we should just speculate to accumulate but so be it.

 

What's quite mad is that despite the amount of players I've signed, there are quite a few unexpected key players in the side. My winger Gory is still here from Ligue 2 and he's smashing it in a new position on the right. My backup goalkeeper, Ziga Frelih, has made the position his own by comfortably outperforming my first choice Filipovic (though Frelih is one of the players I'm likely to lose for nothing as he has interest), but the biggest revelation has got to be striker Alejandro Marques. I bought him a year ago for £75k simply as a "I can probably make a couple of hundred grand on him". My top scorer last season, Hamel, has been injured virtually all season so Marques, my fourth choice striker has come in and seems to score virtually every game. I'd sell him for a good offer because I think he's in a purple patch but fair ****ing play!

 

 

 

[Dan LCFC]

Chaotic Paris are back!

 

[Newbold Blue]

Struggling for ideas for a save, has anyone got any inspiration for me?

[Dan LCFC]

19 hours ago, Dan LCFC said:

Chaotic Paris are back!

 

Vile Paris are back!

 

[CosbehFox]

On 09/05/2023 at 12:06, CosbehFox said:

Went back to Schaan and the Liechtenstein challenge. 

 

LEAGUE - Finished 7th in Swiss top flight. Started terrible, recovered and then at the end of the season it was a panic to see if we could hold out. A big win at Zurich did it for us. 

CUP - Only went and lost to bloody Vaduz! Slightly annoying but I think a season solidifying in the league would be good without the stress of European football.

EUROPE - Made it to Conference League Semi-Finals, lost to Feyenoord, 2-1 on aggy. 

 

TRANSFERS IN - Danish LW and Paraguay RW were the highlights but the late signing of a Colombian CM from PSG on loan done wonders. He's signed on for next season. Need to know strength the spine. Keeper is a must. Financially we are sweet

TRANSFERS OUT - Brought in £9m on an AMC prospect who we found in the lower leagues of Swiss pyramid. Having to think contracts wisely to avoid getting stung on transfer release clauses. 

 

LIECHTENSTEIN NATIONS LEAGUE - Into Division B

EURO QUALIFIERS - Finished 3rd behind Ukraine and Wales, lost in playoff to Bulgaria 3-2. Much improved. 

Up to 102nd in World now. Highest ever. 

 

Confident we can haul up to 5th in the league and get a team good enough to the Conference League. Young Boys are ridiculously good. 

[Stinkenzo]

Considering starting a save in England. Help me I am ill 

[Dan LCFC]

Paris are going to Europe.

 

 

We complete a pretty remarkable season and will be in the Europa League group phase next season. We finished pretty badly with just 1 win in 7, but it was enough.

 

 

We were exceptional at home but pretty rubbish away. Funnily quirk is we only failed to score 5 times all season - and two of them were 0-0 draws with Metz, managed by, of shock horror, Claude Puel.

 

Rodgers manages Nice as well. Kisnorbo manages Lens  

 

I continue to be handed buttons to work with. I've been able to renew contracts with the exception of goalkeeper Ziga Frelih - somebody I brought in as backup initially who ended up making himself first choice, but we'd gone overbudget on wages so I couldn't offer him any more money, and Genoa took him on a free. Everyone else is sorted.

 

Ideally we're going to get some offers for our players to fatten our budget. I've been given £3mil to spend but barely anything on wages. I've admittedly got to take the blame on this because some of the younger players I bought in my first summer are simply on more than they're worth. They're not 'really' developing too well and I'd cash in on nearly all of them if I could given what I'm paying them.

 

I only had one player on loan who I can make permanent, and I want to but it will take up half of my budget and I don't know if it's actually the best use of resource at this point. I may bide my time on it and hope that Gladbach lower the demands on him.

 

The ideal sell I think is somebody like Aranda. I like him a lot, he's a good player, but I've got Munoz who can play his role just as well as him and some Romanian kid lined up to replace him if we get the £7-8mil he's supposedly worth.

 

Boateng had a great season but I think he's another who played above his real ability. The key for me is cashing in on the likes of these while we can. I've always been quite in favour of selling to my advantage, unless I have an absolute generational talent on my hands (unlikely at these yet) I'm happy to cash in because I can back myself 90% of the time to get somebody better for what I'd generate. For example Olmo last summer, paid £120k for him, sold him for £1.4mil and had a free agent lined up who was of a similar ability. On Olmo, I can cash in on clauses for him to take the fee up to about £3mil but I think I'll leave them to run unless we get desperate.

 

I have no big expectation of next season, but I didn't expect this at all. Predicted 18th, smallest wage bill in the league, but finished 5th.

 

Oh and most importantly we were appallingly behaved again. We had a red card in I think 7 of our 17 away games.

 

[Tommy Fresh]

On 17/05/2023 at 21:47, Newbold Blue said:

Struggling for ideas for a save, has anyone got any inspiration for me?

Do one in South America, if you get in to it properly, it'll become your favourite place to do them. Try Chile or Uruguay, Chile is probably the simplest out of all of them, no opening or closing stages.