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Excellent training news! I’m especially glad to see an increase in Strength in my defenders.
As expected, we lost just over £200,000 during April and face the same fate for May unless that match at Wembley attracts enough fans. Yes, we are now below £12 million in the bank.
Still Untouchable, still at 78% approval.
Excellent news! Ben O’Donnell is now an Influential Player alongside Chris Day.
While looking around the Dynamics pages I notice that our Match Cohesion is Abysmal. What the heck? Off to the Internets! I guess I didn’t realize that flip-flopping 11 players all at once and not spending time training Match Cohesion would drag it down. I remedy that instantly and wonder if that’s why our early match ineptitude developed.
Oh how neat! Recent Youth Candidate Bill Taylor now has a Media Description of “Hard working midfielder.” I think this is because his Teamwork and Work Rate both climbed to 15 each. He’s gonna probably make the Seniors this summer. The challenge for him is getting his Marking, Tackling, and Positioning up to respectable levels.
More offers are coming in for our players. Canvey Island, on a reclaimed island on the north side of the Thames, east of London, offer £650 for ST Derek McLeish. I pass. Also, of course, are two additional offers for Collopy and of course I say no.
With only five matches left in the season I want to get Kemar some game time so he starts today over Macey, who is the twelfth sub just in case something goes pear-shaped.
at AFC Croydon, 5 May 2018
Formation: Spade (GK, DR, DC r, DC l, DL, MC r, MC l, AMR, AMC, AML, ST c)
Starting XI: Legg, Maguire, Spearing, Carroll, Al-Ziod, Barlow, Smith, Pearson, O’Donnell, Duckett, Kirkpatrick
Subs: Webb, Clark, Day, Duggan, Jefcoate, Nixon, McAdam, Jones, Taylor, Martin, Rae, Macey
My pre-match speech draws no favorable reactions, which is a bummer because I had been on a good streak. Nothing’s doing until the 20th when Croydon get a corner despite us owning them in possession and shots so far. After 30’ I have to Demand More and switch to Attacking in the hopes of getting something to happen. Within two minutes it works when a Kemar-Pearson-Duckett-Kemar combo pulls us ahead. In the 37th I have to take Pearson off due to a knee injury. Dammit, I really want him to get his AMR up to Natural!
After the half it takes 15 minutes for us to get in gear again and Al-Ziod gets his first career goal, a blast from 21 yards out. At 65’ I take off Carroll and his yellow, my midfielders so Nixon and McAdam can get more playing time, and O’Donnell so Rae can get his Match Fitness up. With this I drop Kemar down to Shadow Striker. The rest get swapped out at 70’. Despite switching to Defensive at 80’ we give up another late goal and mostly it’s Legg’s fault as it came right to him with very little velocity. Therefore the squad get the Don’t Get Complacent speech and they surprisingly don’t ignore me.
POM: Daniel Duckett (1 assist, 3 key passes, 3 chances created)
And the butcher’s bill on Pearson is…drumroll…Bruised Knee, Out 1 to 2 days. Oh praise Cthulhu!
Macey’s mentoring of McNulty comes to an end. His Personality went from Balanced to Resolute and his Determination went from 12 to 17. McNulty was “delighted at the results of his link-up” and so am I.
Obligatory offer report. McLeish, £525, no, x2.
I’m really hoping we snap out of our “funk” and dominate from whistle to whistle. We now are drawing only 800 fans. Fudge...
vs. Sheppey, 12 May 2018
Formation: Spade
Starting XI: Legg, Maguire, Spearing, Carroll, Al-Ziod, Barlow, Smith, Pearson, O’Donnell, Duckett, Macey
Subs: Webb, Clark, Day, Duggan, Jefcoate, Donaldson, Cullen, Jones, Taylor, Martin, Rae, Kirkpatrick
Things seem to be working. I Demand More after 10 minutes of nothing and two minutes later Carroll gets a boot on the ball from a corner kick and we’re up one. Ten minutes later a Maguire cross goes errant but so did one of Sheppey’s defenders and Duckett sinks the penalty. And 5 minutes latter Duckett gets an assist off a Benny goal. Second half was tame with just me subbing out players in a strategic fashion. Literally that was all the happened; there were no highlights whatsoever. Good to see us come out of our funk.
POM: Daniel Duckett (1 goal, 1 assist, 5 key passes, 4 chances created)
Sheppey had two strikers go off with serious injuries, one at 17 minutes and his replacement at 78 minutes. Out of curiosity I looked at their player cards. The second one has a pulled groin and will be out for six weeks. Ouch!
Before the match I get the weekly (or bi-weekly?) Player Development email and the moment I’ve been waiting for is finally here, the suggestion of my AssMan for Macey to tutor Kirkpatrick. I’d love to see Macey’s Driven personality transfer to Kemar to say good-bye to his Balanced personality. Also, to get his Determination from 12 to 19 would be swell. Thankfully, the initial meeting went well.
Fifteen minutes before the match begins Kevin Parker is removed from the injured list. I make him my 12th sub and might bring him in for 15 minutes if things are going right.
vs. Canterbury, 15 May 2018
Formation: Spade
Starting XI: Webb, Clark, Day, Duggan, Jefcoate, Nixon, McAdam, Jones, Taylor, Martin, Kirkpatrick
Oh my god, this is so what the doctor ordered. A quick start with Martin crossing to Kemar for an easy goal just before 4’. Thirty-five minutes later Taylor gets an assist when he sends an early cross to Kemar who is free and clear, out-juking the GK. Just over two minutes later in stoppage time Clark gets an assist and Kemar gets a hat-trick.
The second half passes quietly with strategic substitutions, including Parker getting his 15 minutes of fame.
POM: Kemar Kirkpatrick (3 goals, 1 key pass, 1 chance created)
The scouting report for East Thurrock comes in and we have a better team. We should win this match. Other pre-match emails flow in. Only 4,000 fans are expected and there goes my dream of a nice payday. But on the bright side, we are 5-4 odds to win.
Their manager is acting all calm in the pre-match presser. This is my least favorite part of Football Manager. Some questions are just dumb and there’s never any good response so I tend to use “No comment” a lot.
Bath win the Southern League Cup so I guess things are a little less bitter losing to the eventual champ. Oh well, what could have been.
Though I’ve run out of money for scouting packages my scouts occasionally request meetings to go over players they somehow have found. The players are generally above our reach or are just bad, i.e. someone with a single digit Natural Fitness, really low Determination, and/or bad Personality.
This kid gets a rating of 82 according to my chief scout and I learned over the previous month that really good players who are playing Championship or Premier League level with PL potential are around 94 to 96. I think he might be worth a stab come June. If I sign him I’ll get his DMC up to Natural because he’d make a great Anchor Man, something I like to use in my Defensive formation. (He’s from Gravesend, about 20 miles down the Thames from London, so he’s kind of local but he plays way out in Bristol on the “west coast” of England, across the River Severn from Wales. That should help?)
Woohoo! Forty-three hundred spectators! Come on big money! No whammies, no whammies, no whammies!
vs. East Thurrock (at Wembley), 19 May 2018
Formation: Spade
Starting XI: Legg, Maguire, Spearing, Carroll, Al-Ziod, Barlow, Smith, Pearson, O’Donnell, Duckett, Macey
Subs: Webb, Clark, Day, Duggan, Jefcoate, Donaldson, McAdam, Jones, Taylor, Martin, Rae, Kirkpatrick
Nothing is going our way: missed chances, dispossession, and then a Barlow injury at 35’. Finally in 44’ Smith finds his old self again and steals the ball, sends it up to O’Donnell who spots a streaking Macey and he gets us on the board.
We enter the second half with orders to Attack but the kiddos ain’t attacking. I shout for more creativity and get a corner shortly thereafter. It leads to a goal that went from Duckett’s foot to Spearing’s head to O’Donnell’s head to Spearing’s foot and down the chute. I dial us back some. Spearing picks up a yellow but I keep him in as things are going quite well. At 80’ I go full defensive in hopes of sealing the victory. I also take off Donaldson for McAdam and make him a Ball Winning Midfielder with a Defend role.
Hallelujah! There were some tense moments in the final 10 minutes including a free kick that almost went in but we did it! Our first cup trophy!
POM: Ben O’Donnell (1 assist, 5 key passes, 3 chances created)
Barlow’s injury is moderately bad; twisted ankle, out 3 to 5 weeks. He’ll only miss one game because that’ll all there is. I’ll give his start to Nixon.
We made around £12,500 from the match but we are still running a deficit for the month. Bummer.
A Dynamics update! Chick Legg is now an Influential Player. He’s on par with Chris Day (our Vice Captain, for now) and Ben O’Donnell. Eddie Macey, our Captain, is still a Highly Influential Player but not a Team Leader, the highest tier on the Dynamics pyramid. Come the new season I’m pretty sure Day will be gone, especially if we get that Shane Pilcher kid, so I’ll probably make Chick Legg Vice Captain as I think O’Donnell might get pilfered.
Alright, it’s the last game of the year. Can we sweep the league? In the pre-match press conference I said we’d win. What? Me worry?!
at Lordswood, 26 May 2018
Formation: Spade
Starting XI: Legg, Maguire, Spearing, Carroll, Al-Ziod, Barlow, Smith, Pearson, O’Donnell, Duckett, Macey
Subs: Webb, Clark, Day, Duggan, Jefcoate, Donaldson, McAdam, Jones, Taylor, Martin, Kirkpatrick, Rae
Princesprick almost draws first blood as they out-Controlled us in the third minute. It’s been a while but the Duckett-Pearson combo for a score rears its lovely head(er) and we take Control after 11’. The D-P Combo strikes again 18 minutes later and the boys are having fun out there. Smith even gets in on the action sending in a squeaker from 17 yards out.
Five minutes after the restart I begin making subs as I want everyone to get a chance to play today, even Webb. I start with Macey (6.5) and Maguire (so Clark can get some before Parker comes in). I move O’Donnell up to ST and put Taylor in at AMC. At 55’ it’s DL and the MCs. At 60’ it’s the ST and DCs. At 65’ it’s the Wingers and Goalie. Then at 75’ it’s Clark off and Parker on. The good thing about all these starts-and-stops is that Knightsknob never get any momentum going.
Just on 81’ a free kick on the left side makes its way to the right side where Jones sends in a cross aimed for Kemar’s noggin. I don’t know if he plays pool but he sure knows how to get English on a football using his head. I’ve never seen a Beckham bend off a header!
POM: Daniel Duckett (2 assists, 4 key passes, 4 chances created)
In the post-match email dump I get notice that the manager of Wolverhampton was in the stands watching O’Donnell. I knew the big teams would come. Though calling the Wolves a “big team” is a bit of a misnomer in this Alternate Universe FM2018 as they finished 21st in the Championship, 4 points above regulation. Gulp.
Our players certainly dominated the league. I really didn’t expect Macey to score more than O’Donnell but that path was set even before I adopted the Spade formation; in the 4-4-2 Standard, Macey was the Advanced Forward so he was being fed the ball more. If Benny is still with us come the next season I’m going to change that up. I’m also quite relieved to see Chicken Legg win the most clean sheets battle.
After sending the lads off for the summer the board request a meeting. They want to discuss club improvements, youth level more specifically. Turns they want to improve our youth system to qualify as a Level 1 setup. I couldn’t be happier.
The final Board Confidence comes in. I’m still Untouchable but now I’m at 88%. Not too shabby.
As far as player development, I was really bummed that Pearson could not get to Natural at AMR. I want to institute a 3-2-3-2 formation but I don’t want to do that until Pearson is done with learning AMR then I can use him and Duckett as Mezzalas.
The only surprise here is Day making the cut. I guess I waited too long for Spearing to get that spot.
The players will not report back until 2 July, which equals 5 weeks of pre-season. I was hoping for more. Oh well, fewer matches to get my formation familiarization up to snuff.
Well, that was an easy season. Hopefully my readers didn’t mind it too much. I knew having a Sugar Daddy was going to make things go smoothly but not that smoothly. It’s a valuable lesson learned about the database and game set-up. A lot of teams in the County League levels of the English pyramid don’t have any real players, just the Greys, because I didn’t select the “Add Players to Teams” button when starting the game. A quick examination of the league we’re going into shows that about half the teams are 100% real players and the other half are 75% real players. So things should be tougher.
I’m going to continue on with this team, naturally, but if for some reason I have to restart things I’ll make adjustments so I don’t walk away with things from the start. I’m really intrigued by Kemar, Benny, The Jordanian Prince, Chicken Legg, and Connor Smith. If I’m being realistic, Kemar, Benny, and Daniel Duckett have no business being this far down and teams should come hunting for them. I originally thought that teams high up wouldn’t look this far down based on how the game engine is built but having that Wolves manager watch Benny I guess proved me wrong. If they do get sold Brixton will struggle. If it turns out that we start off the season easily then I’ll make it a point to change the formations frequently so we don’t get too good at any one. That should level the field.
