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What a season! I'm glad we are getting promoted as I really want to get into the real English football leagues, League Two and above.
This will be a short update as I did the team rundown last month and not much else happened in June.
As the season is finished and everyone is on holiday already I get no Training Report email. Fine by me! I don't need the heartache.
We lost £166,316 last month. Imagine what it would have been if we didn't have those matches at Wembley!
I finish the season at 96%. Wow. Maybe if we had won the FA Cup I'd be at 100%? Okay, I know, that's ludicrous.
Just after the game advances to the next season, meaning formally putting us in Conference National and setting up the schedules, the board once again asks to meet to discuss available wage budget for scouts. Yes, please!
No news but that's the calm before the storm as a significant number of Senior players will be gone and the Dynamics Pyramid will see all kinds of shuffling.
Left fullback/defensive midfielder Kenny Holden had a great month with only Heading, already 13, not seeing an increase, but all his Physicals did and half of his Mentals, with Determination actually going up a whole point to 11. Maybe he will pan out after all.
Similarly, Marshall rocked it in May, with the only thing not improving in Technical was Long Shots. Half his Mentals and Physicals went up.
Do you know who didn't impress me? Mark Flitcroft. That dude had so many red arrows and drops that he's on the verge of being dead to me. His 16 Pace is now 15. Grrrr! (In the other timeline he gets traded away and we are crowded at striker and this decline it pretty much is a guarantee that I'll sell him again, if a buyer materializes.
One of the reasons it was easy to say goodbye to Connor Smith, aside from being part of The Original 16, is that despite two years of a good number of matches, he never went Natural at DC. I guess being Natural at three positions was too much to ask. (He started as an MC then learned DMC before being moved to the back.)
Alfie Barnes is now "very well-suited to League Two football." Sweet!
Mark Curran had a phenomenal month of training with all his Technicals showing green as with his Physicals, less Natural Fitness. About half his Mentals went up too.
Dean Rice's Bravery is up to 9.8 now. At the rate of 0.2 points per month I wonder if he'll ever make it back to 12. Even better is his Determination is up to 10 now. Considering he started at 6 and has not had any tutoring I'm very pleased.
On 7 June the mentoring of GK Adrian Lee and ST Mark Marshall come to end. Lee only gained a little while Marshall was delighted. I think the assessment on Lee is wrong as his Determination when from 10 to 18 and his Personality went from Balanced to Driven. Marshall went from Spirited to Light-hearted and his Determination improved from 12 to 17. And he picked up the Player Preferred Move "Knocks Ball Past Opponent".
All the young punks are getting new contracts. Rory Collopy signs his on the evening of the 1st and Padraig Murphy signs his later that night.
Ben Pope is being a pain. He wants ridiculous money (£4,400 per week) and I ain't gonna pay for it. I'm going to find a solution at AMR and string him along for as long as possible.
I'm not really sold on Tasos Noulas afterall. I need to find someone better. I find an Irish lad but he has a £375,000 release clause. Oh. But he's quite the catch and a lefty. I go straight to my AssMan to get an assessment as quick as possible. This guy could really help us have a clearly favored DMC. Oh my. I think I'm gonna do this. A 14 in Tackling?!?! A 13 in Free Kicks and 12 in Penalty Taking. And the best thing? A 15 in Vision, great for the Regista role! I heart David Caffrey.
My AssMan's report is very good. He has 5-star potential though right now he's somehow only 2 stars. He's clearly better than anyone we have so I'm sure if he arrives he'll be graded upward. The report also reads that Caffrey is likely to fit very well into the core group of the squad. No outrageous wage demands. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna trigger that release clause, something I've never done playing Football Manager. Swinging that Sugar Daddy money around!
I offer £500 per week, which graduates up to £750 after 15 league matches and £1,000 after 30 league matches. I add some standard appearance fees, bench fees, and a goal bonus. Some yearly and promotion escalators all to keep him for two years plus a one-year option. In the negotiation screen I see a button that says, "Ask Curran to Endorse Move". I don't push it but I look around the players' cards trying to figure out if they are each other's "Favoured Personnel". Nope! They are teammates on the Irish U19s team. This also makes me realize just how many Irishmen I have on the team. He signs with us on 8 June.
We released the seven players we don’t want on the morning of 30 June. This means that other teams have released theirs. Ergo, Ben Evans, Peter Smith, and Sam Young are now free agents. Time to open that checkbook.
Ouch. Peter Smith is playing hardball with two release clauses, a general one and a non-promotion one. Evans does too but no as drastically. For Evans, his scummy agent immediately starts trying to drum up more contracts but Ben remains silent towards the media.
One of my scouts, an American with a 17 Adaptability, and 13s at both Judging Player categories, announced his retirement on the 2nd for the 21st. I've got my eye on a fairly decent Dutch scout who knows all the major Scandinavian countries well. That won't matter now but if FM2014 is anything to judge things by, come our elevation to the Championship I should be able to scout those northern countries. Keeping him all the years until then could be troublesome.
One scout and my Head of Youth Development have expiring contracts. I renew my HOYD , he agrees on 5 June. The scout...he's not great so I'll wait until the end of the month to see who is available. There's a Scottish scout with a 20 Adaptability I have my eye on.
I end up signing the Scot the moment my American scout retired.
Oh fiddlesticks. My U23 Defense coach is gonna get poached by a League One team to be their manager. Damn. That's a step up! He agrees on 14 June and I start my poaching. A team way down the pyramid has U23 Manager who has a 20 Defending training attribute but he wants to be a manager. Back to the drawing board! I manage to find someone who is almost as good. His name is Paul Burgess and he agrees on 16 June.
On 2 June I offer GK Robert Webb, DC Jose Parker, DC Mitchell Nightingale, and DMC Liam Roberts to clubs without any kind of pound value on them. Will they get any bites?
Bradford offer a non-negotiable £1,000 for Webb, which I accept. He agrees on the 5th.
Two offers come in for Roberts; a £4,400 offer from York and a £3,200 offer from Crewe. Forty-nine minutes after David Caffrey signs with us Roberts agrees to go to York.
Four teams from League Two, League One, and Scottish Premiership offer £5,000 for Nightingale. I add a 25% Sell-On Fee clause for all the offers and "Arrange a Friendly" for the English teams. He signs with Motherwell on 9 June, which is a blessing because we won't have to face him.
No offers came in for Jose Parker. But a question about Andy Robinson does; a journo is wondering about his chance of leaving. Seeing there is probably a market, I decide to offer him out. Again, a Scottish Premier team and three English teams want him but they are all in League Two. I accept the offer from Hearts but not the others because I don't want to face him next year. Shortly after Nightingale leaves the nest, Robinson agrees to go to Hearts. Excellent, two players off to Scotland!
Queens Park Rangers think they can pry Alfie Barnes from Brixton for pennies. I deny the bid because he's a first teamer. Of course he doesn't like that I blocked him but I explain that we have an awesome atmosphere here and we're going places. He agrees and drops the matter. They come back a couple of days later with an increase but I still tell them to take a running jump at themselves.
Port Vale, the winners of League Two going up to League One, offer us £42,500 for Stephen McGregor. I think not! I was shocked, shocked!, I tell you that his agent then asked for an improved deal. No way, José.
Well, it took teams long enough to realize that Gareth O'Keeffe is up for grabs. Swindon, League One, offer £65,000. I have to accept it after bumping it up to £75,000 or I'd anger him as I made a promise. But he deserves to go to the Premier. Then Burnley, Premier League, make the same offer. That gets jacked up to £100,000, 12-month loan-back, a 25% sell-on fee, and a £10,000,000 buy-back clause. And they accept!!! And on the evening of 23 June, he agrees to move on to Burnley. At least we get him for one more year. Hopefully in this timeline he doesn't mope and phone it in.
I intended for the Gareth news to be the last in this section as it was the biggest news. But then early on 25 June Stockport, a pretty good team in the Conference North, make an offer for McLeish. This gives me pause. He's our fifth/sixth best striker and our best Target Man. Really, our only Target Man. Sure Alex Rae can play there but he's not even going to be in the Seniors this year. Hmmm...he's making £1,100/week...they are offering 30% of the profit of the next sale… Yeah, I'm gonna do it. The transfer has a potential value of £10,750. McLeish rejects Stockport’s offer on 30 June so we’ll keep him around, for now.
In England, the Top Ten Most Reputable Teams are:
1. Man United
2. Arsenal
3. Liverpool
4. Tottenham
5. Man City
6. Chelsea
7. Stoke
8. West Ham
9. Leicester
10. Southampton
Not much of a change there. West Ham finished second in the league behind Kemar's 15 goals and 8 assists. I was expecting he'd have more but he did open things more for his teammates. Liverpool and Arsenal swap spots. Still kind of surprised West Ham didn't move up despite finishing second...
Meanwhile, in South London, we are now the 177th most reputable club in England.
Henson Debellotte got called up for the Grenada team. He'll get to face off against Puerto Rico and Canada. Curran also got called up so the Irish can take on the French U19s.
In a match against Cameroon U20s, Gareth faced two shots, saving them both, on England's way to a 3-0 victory.
It's also time for the Euro U19 Championship and for that O'Keeffe gets to represent England, and Morris and Doran get to represent Wales. Ouch. They are going to miss a lot of the pre-season.
I didn't have to schedule many friendlies as a lot of teams approached me, including Blackburn up in the Championship. We'll host them and hopefully pack the stands.
On 30 June the board once again wants to meet to discuss improving the club. What will it be this time? A new contract for little ol’ me?! You shouldn’t have!
Let's take a look at the best product the Brixton Youth Academy has ever produced, Kemar Kirkpatrick. Below are his cards from Youth Intake Day and the end of West Ham's season.
He's grown a centimeter and put on 11 kilograms, not surprising as he's seen a 7-point improvement in his Strength, his greatest gain. His next best gain was Determination courtesy of Macey's tutoring. He gained 4 points in Off The Ball, Acceleration, and Pace, which has to be part of the reason he got double-digit goals. I am a bit surprised that he didn't see anything greater than 3 points of improvement in his Technical skills. I guess I should take this as a way to understand how Football Manager handles player development. Physicals improve easily in many aspects, especially Strength, and Mentals generally improve with age. So Technicals are the ones that really need to have training pitch and game time. I think? Right?
Anyhoo, he's amazing and he's about to turn 19. This past season he won the European Championship Best Young Player and European Golden Boy awards, as well as being named Captain of the England U19 team. Will I be able to buy him once we get to the EPL? Not looking promising. Hell, that £42 million Value is daunting.
(Noticed that I said "when" and not "if" we get to the EPL? My intent is to keep playing this save until we win the FA Cup, Champions League, and English Premier League all in one season. Also, at a minimum, I want to post 250 updates. For reference, this is update 55.)
No point in talking about Consistency this month as there were no matches.
I do however want to talk about "Enjoys big matches" and its evil twin "Loathes big matches". I find it very odd that we aren't seeing a lot of those Pros/Cons for our players. We have a few and they came to us from other clubs. In FM2014 is was pretty prevalent but in 2018 I've never seen it for new players, and by that I mean from our Youth Intake or players I've scouted who were 18 or younger.
I do not know why SI decided to change this programming but I don't like it. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to figure out if this is just the way it is or something that happens when you use a non-standard database to start a save.