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My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble! Hey- whut? Oh, the "Continue" button issue is back and I'm gonna be in trouble. Well, at least I know that I can save with a new name, reload, and then continue.
Ouch. Between Caffrey and the tax man, we lost over £550,000 during June. At least I know that we'll probably get some of that money back from the English government as I don't foresee any sales that will drive us to a high profit.
They are still over the moon even though the season has reset and I get no credit for winning any competitions. I'm "Untouchable" at 88%.
All this leads to them offering me a new contract. They offer £850 per week and I pump it up to £1,000 for two years and make some concessions to make it acceptable to them. I do add a 25% promotion wage rise and an extra year if we get promoted. All of this took just a matter of 35 minutes from them proposing the idea to them announcing the deal was complete. Wunderbar!
Hey! I got the speech right when welcoming the players back and saying we should be able to win the title. I'll take this as a good omen.
This is going to be uncomfortable. I need to demote Jefcoate and I really should demote Macey. I want to make Stephen McGregor the new Vice Captain so next year he can be the Captain. Eddie won't be around then to hear McG say, "I'm the Captain now." I'm going to wait until the very last moment to make these decisions though.
Rae's tutoring of Ian Barnett comes to a close and Barnett felt he gained only a little. This is confirmed as Ian's Personality remained Fairly Loyal.
Colin Cockbill also only gained a little from learning from Stephen O'Shea. Colin's Determination didn't improve but his personality did go from Balanced to Fairly Sporting. Over two sessions he barely improved with his Determination going from 9 to 11. I was expecting better but kind of anticipated this, which is one of the reason's I felt fine not renewing O'Shea's contract.
A strange thing happened: Mark Curran's Bravery went up 1 point over the summer. Something must have happened while he was away with the Irish U19s.
Right off the bat, just before noon on the day the players return, Derby try to pile £45,000 worth of notes on my desk so they can leave with Alfie Barnes. Sorry gents, it's going to take much more to pry him away.
So with James Jefcoate having a broken foot I was wondering what would happen when his contract expired. I didn't set him for release so he is on a month-to-month contract until he decides to leave or I formally release him. I'll keep him around until he's healed then I'll release him.
With my players set in clay I need to work on some contract extensions. In priority order: Morris, Pope, McGregor, Marshall, Davies, Barnes, Lawford, Curran, and Lee.
Oh boy. Pope starts at £3,900 per week plus an £800 appearance fee. Damn. Should have offered him a contract the moment I decided to move on from Robinson. Ugh. The current highest paid player in the Conference National is left winger who makes £2,400 per week. Dammit.
I then do some rethinking. For Morris, Pope, and Lee I'm going to wait for their 18th birthdays. I'll start with the players whose contact expires after this season and do not have an option. That is Glyn Davies. Currently on £250 per week he wants £575 but I up it to £600 in order to bring his escalators down; the rest is standard Brixton fare. Offered on 24 July, signed on 27 July.
Next up is Barnes. He's getting lots of offers, and yes he has an option, but I think it's time to appease and make happy. He's on £600 per week now and he starts at £775. I move it to £800 with the usual bonuses.
So evidently Charlton is interested in Chick Legg. They are in League One. My AssMan tells me he is only a Conference National talent. If so, why is he drawing interest? Hmmm...
Fleetwood Town in League Two are interested in Angelino Ferreira. Predictions are they will finish 8th meaning they wont' be in League One next year and we should be in League Two next year. Hopefully he realizes that and won't want to take the leap.
The pursuit of Gareth O'Keeffe heats up with Liverpool offering £22,500 on 9 July. Absolutimente non!
A metric F-ton of players were released on the morning of 1 July and my greedy little mind immediately thought of firing up the Player Search screen. Then I noticed that I got an email earlier in the morning telling me a shortlisted player got a contract offer from Birmingham, in the Championship. Oh, it's the right centreback Ben Evans who I lusted after in late March and early April, then he refused to listen to any offers. Well, Manchester City cut him on 30 June so he's free now. Let's see if he bites on an offer. (Alfie Barnes is drawing A LOT of interest so Ben Evans would be insurance against his departure.)
I send my AssMan to take a look to update his scouting information and current wage demands. I offer Ben £600 per week, with normal bonuses, promotion/yearly percentage increases, and now that we are in proper leagues I have to deal with some release clauses. I doubt he'll be interested with B-ham chasing him. I'm banking that they'll probably offer him Hot Prospect status so he won't get game time there and will choose us. And THEN I look at his Transfer card and see 39 teams are interested. Facepalm of epic proportions.
(My first player I ever signed playing FM2014 who had Premier League potential was a centreback from Australia named Aled Evans. Should I change Ben to Aled if he signs?)
One of the players that was released that looked good and affordable is a right wing/striker released by Chelsea who is an 18 year-old named Peter Smith. I scouted him just because I'm not sure I can trust Chris Dryden to backup Ben Pope. My scouts confirm he is between Pope and Dryden in Current Ability but he is better than Dryden in Potential; he's 5 stars. On 2 July he was still recovering from a minor injury so that gives me time to renegotiate Pope's contract first. (But then I didn't; see above section.)
I did offer Peter Smith a contract and he signed with us on 9 July. It costs us £800 per week but goes up to £1,500 after 20 league matches. It lasts until 30 June 2024 plus a one-year option.
Surprise, surprise! Ben Evans agrees to join on the afternoon on 4 July. Wow. I guess he wants to play right MEOW. Three hours and four minutes before that Derby made a non-negotiable offer of £45,000 for Alfie Barnes. I could have accepted it but really, I want to sell Jose Parker or Mitchell Nightingale. I finalize the deal for Ben Evans then change his name to Aled Evans, partly as a nod to that FM14 DC and partly because I prefer not to have repeat names in the squad. Last names I'll actually change, first names I usually don't.
Really liking that 16 Tackling. If he is truly 5-star potential and therefore Premier League, I wonder how high it will go. Not sneezing at the high Bravery and Aggression too. (Sure enough, he's not 2.0 stars in Current Ability, he's 2.5.)
I wasn't exactly looking for too many new players but then a guy who is Natural at all wing positions showed up in a scouting report. He's not the most Determined lad but he is Ambitious. Check out Sam Young. Just out there, free for the taking.
What height! I gotta offer a deal. If he agrees he'll be my fiftieth signing. He does agree, just in time for our last pre-season match.
Let's kick some booty!!! Let's integrate Caffrey and Lawford. Let's show the world what Brixton is made of.
For the first three matches I went with the 4-4-2 Control then switched to the Diamond Attack. We improved a little bit but this pre-season has not be as easy-peasy as previous year, until the very end. Very concerning. We finished strong after some worries and that was because in the last two matches I started the preferred Starting XI. The early injury bug thankfully went away pretty quickly.
The last of The Original 16 are gone. Well, except Jefcoate but we already know why.
On 13 July I got an email about the England Trial Day. I send my scouts to drool - er - look over the available wares. Nobody was worth signing.
On 24 July I'm required to submit the squad numbers, something I didn't have to do in previous seasons. I'm not sure why SI programs FM this way, that only the top five tiers of the pyramid get to have jersey numbers. I don't see how this would be a memory hog. The match engine will display numbers anyways so it's not a graphics thing. The mystery will go on.
Anyway, I research the traditional numbering scheme in English football for the 4-4-2 formation and use that as my basis. So, the numbers will be: 1. O'Keeffe, 2. Lawford, 3. Curran, 4. Caffrey, 5. Ferreira, 6. Barnes, 7. Pope, 8. Lemon, 9. Marshall, 10. Morris, 11. McGregor. Only Morris got his preferred number. And Peter Smith, who wanted 17 for some reason. I didn't use 33 as that is my favorite number and I'm reserving it for my son, should the game ever spit one out.
Also on 24 July I get an email saying that our opening match against AFC Fylde will be moved to 12:15 from 15:00 so we can appear on television. Our first!!! We'll get £5,000 for the honor. Another email lays out the expected league leader in scoring. Oddly though, none of our players are tabbed to be the league's top scorer. However... Mickey Morris came in second for the Golden Boot award for the European U19 Championship, scoring 3 goals. Will this draw the eye of teams finally? But then comes news that Mickey has the second-best odds to win the league player of the year. Jose Parker is rated at third. I guess the bookies don't realize he is my second-stringer centreback.
We're in a new competition this year, the Carabao Cup. Also known as the League Cup, it's supposed to only have teams from the top four leagues but all of Conference National is in it somehow. To please the board we have to reach the second round and in the first round we host another Conf Nat team, Kidderminster. We probably won't be so lucky in the second round draw.
On the last day of the month the mentoring of Tasos Noulas by Stephen McGregor comes to an end. No major changes. Same with the mentoring of Jordan Nickson by Stephen Lemon.
Also on 31 July, I accept loan offers for: Henson Debellotte to Bath (Conference South), Nickcolson Garcia to Dover (Conference South), and Dennis Hammond to Lewes (in the league we were in in the 2018/2019 season). Light the world on fire! (Not heard was the whisper under my breath of, "You ain't got a future here.")
I think we are set for a very good season. I know we won't get far in the Carabao Cup, FA Trophy, and FA Cup. We should win the Conference League Cup and the Conference National League.
I am surprised by the lack of pursuit of our players. Only O'Keeffe and Barnes received offers and they were embarrassingly low. I expect more to come throughout August and then again in January. So long as are pockets aren't picked we should have the players necessary to dominate once again.
On the other hand, we added three new players, plucking them out of the unemployment queue. Two of them just might be Premier League players and one is an insurance wing-sub should one of the three League One teams who are interested make a bid for Gary Leary.
Jose Parker. I never devoted much time to talking about him at first, during the 2019 Youth Intake, as he didn't look like much of a win. I did spend a lot of time talking about Kevin Jenkins but I should have talked about Parker. He's already League One-worthy but at the beginning he looked like only a 2-star prospect. Back then he had 9 Heading, 12 Marking, 8 Tackling, 11 Positioning, and 12 Jumping Reach. Now those stats are 12, 14, 11, 13, and 14. That's really good for this level but it's that pesky 11 Pace that makes me have zero interest in him. Dammit. I mean, considering he started at 7, he's come a long way.