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Welcome to League One! We're getting closer and closer to the big time. Again, I'll say we should struggle but this time I think we just might. Why? Because we'll probably lose John Burns, David Caffrey, and Ben Evans. But first we need to improve our match fitness through several friendlies.
[Ed. Note: This was a long month measured in real time. There was so much scouting that had to be done that I just couldn't move things along quickly. Not to mention all the friendlies! Oy vey, iz mir!]
We're looking good in this arena. So far this season we have made £2,340,660. We're getting really close to having £24,000,000 in the bank.
Alan Coates, a DMC who came up through our Academy in 2019 and then moved on to Cardiff (Championship) in 2021, is now moving on to Bournemouth (Premier League) for £1,600,000. Ergo, we are getting £400,000 for the 25% sell-on fee. What, what! We're now closer to having £25,000,000 in the bank.
If you remember Marcus "Thriller" Thirlwell you'll remember he went off to Bradford (League One) for £100,000 back in July 2020. We had a 20% sell-on fee and now that he is going to Grimsby we'll get £29,500 plus another £24,500 in installments. Every little bit helps!
We start the season at 90% confidence. That's where we started last year so this is good news.
More interview offers come in for me! All German teams, three in the First Division, four in the Second Division. Nein, danke.
Less than 90 minutes later the board want to give me an new contract. How could I say, "No?" Formal negotiations start at high noon on 2 July. I'll wait for them to make the first move. (Well, what choice do I have?) The first offer is pretty close to what I was thinking, £1,900 per week. Let us make it a round number, an even £2,000, plus a 20% promotion wage gain and a 50% regulation drop. Look at that! Everything is awesome!
I don't know where to put this but it seems here is a good choice: Early on the 1st I started looking at possible players to bring in, mostly driven by the impending departure of John Burns, David Caffrey, and maybe Ben Evans. There are a lot of good players who've been released but most of them are European so I can't scout them. About a week prior to this in real life I was watching some YouTube FM2026 videos and the guy was able to go to his board in League One to get an expanded scouting range. Why not me?!
With the aroma of fresh ink from signing my contract still in the air I ask the board for an expanded range. They agree so now I'm allowed to scout Europe. (I was expecting Scandinavia like what happened in FM2014. Not complaining! :-))
This is...problematic. I have to make the decision to demote Eddie Macey and Stephen McGregor as they are no longer starters. Desmond Brizan and Luke Matthews need to be Captain and Vice Captain. Fortunately for me I don't have to make that decision until some point in August.
But have no fear! During his international stint Pat Lawford moved up to the "Highly Influential Player" rung. This is great news!
Not going to do a Youth Watch this month but Giannis Veloudos had a great summer. He grew a centimeter and put on two kilos.
Shaquille Bailey looks to have declared for England as his Barbados badge no longer is used in the squad screen. I wonder if that will inhibit his ability to be an internationaler.
The player development email of 11 July brings news that Gael Barbier is now considered a League One talent. I did not expect that. He will for sure be going out on loan.
League One side Shrewsbury offer up to £150,000 for Mark Marshall. I don't want to see him go but I do want to bring up some youngsters. I go to make some adjustments and make the counter offer when I see that they want us to pay £625 of his £2,900 per-week wage. Uhh...no. Why the hell would we do that?!
After what seems an eternity, Burns makes up his mind on who he wants to play for next. West Ham. Just like Kemar. Sigh. Sure, we made £1,000,000 and then immediately had to cut a check to his original team, Glenavon, due to a 20% sell-on fee. Rats! What will this do to my formations. If Richard Phillips or Jethro Swain can't hack the left striker slot then it defaults to Eddie. Does he still have enough in him to carry the weight? Hopefully this is the last time we lose an amazing striker because out Reputation is too low.
Brizan is attracting curiosity too and on 8 July someone finally breaks the silence. Grimsby* want him for £110,000 but his Value is £140,000. To us he's more valuable than that. I deny them.
(* Grimbsy are an interesting team. They'd been in League Two for several years and finished in 3rd place in 2021/22 and then this past year they finished 6th in League One. They won their playoff matches and are now in the Championship, where they are predicted to finish last, with 1000-1 odds to win. I took a peek behind the scenes and they do not have a Sugar Daddy. Just some luck is all they had.)
By 9 July the offers for Caffrey are getting closer to £1,000,000, with Fulham (Premier League) offering £875,000. He's super-pissed right now so I kind of have to let him leave but it's gonna be for a cool mil.
At the same time Leeds (Premier League) offer £600,000 for Chris Keegan, not close enough to £1,000,000 so it's auto-rejected. I think he would be a greater loss.
Oh well, there you go. Caffrey is leaving us. On 11 July Fulham finally pony up a cool mil. What kind of sell-on fee can I squeeze out of them? Twenty-five per cent it is. He leaves us on 13 July, right after the Enfield Town friendly.
Now why oh why would Grimsby be interested in GK Niall Crook? He's not Championship-level, is he? I currently have three goalies in the U23 squad but I hope to loan out Barbier and maybe Kris Newton. Is there a goalie out there I can pick up on a free who would be better than Crook? (FYI, the deal could go up to £120,00 over time and considering we've been only paying him £300 and he cost us nothing originally... Pure profit, baby!) And....The Thief leaves on 20 July.
Better late than never! Wolverhampton (Championship) offer £425,000 for Evans at 1100 on 31 July. It's not his £500,000 release clause but what if we massage the numbers? Let's meet that clause and add 40% sell-on fee? They accept! I mean, I'm happy but I'm not. He's a great player but his Stamina is only 10, not good enough for a starter. (And it took him forever to get there! He was at 9 for like a year.)
I totally forgot to show Caolan Millar's player card last month. Pretty amazing, eh?
It'll be interesting to see if he turns out to be better than Raymond Devlin.
I signed that kid from the Isle of Man, Gavin Doherty. I offered a fulltime contract at £250 weeks until 2026 and he agreed immediately. He doesn't have to move far, just 3.5 miles.
He's not much but he does fill a need.
Remember how when I was looking for a better backup to Lawford than Jordan Nickson and I thought the solution was a kid from Arsenal before I found Sean Gray? Arsenal released him and I asked my AssMan to update his 52 day-old scouting report to get his latest wage request. At the top of the range is £375 per week. Well now. Seems I'm gonna have my right fullback of choice.
Chris Egan starts at £325 but I crank it up to £400, £200 per match and clean sheet for 1 year. I do also crank up the wage to £1,500 if he gets into five matches, which will also trigger an extra year. My thinking is if he pans out or Lawford leaves in January instead of this summer, I'll have my DR2 still. I guess he liked it a lot because he signed immediately. He definitely isn't an offensive threat so maybe I'll ease him in as solely a defensive fullback to maintain a lead.
When I was setting up the U18s for their first friendly on 2 July I realized I only had 22 players in that squad. We're kind of short at ST or AMC so I go a-hunting. I find a kid named Dominic Mooney who is Natural at AMC, Accomplished at ST, and Awkward at MC. He's Fairly Determined, Determination of 16, and he has the Player Preferred Move of "Dives Into Tackles". With a Tackling of 1 I'll have to get the coaches to remove that. He comes from a super-small club called North Greenford, up in the northwestern outer suburbs of London, only 2.5 from Wembley Stadium.
He wants only a Youth contract but I offer Fulltime at £250 per week until 2026 plus one. He agrees immediately.
There's been this central defender named Keith Sharpe who is also Natural at DMC and MC who I've had my eye on for several years. He was always employed and too expensive but he's now out of contract. He was always with Stoke except this last year he got to go out on loan to Accrington, where he was marginal for a 6.73 average. Keep in mind that Accrington finished 23rd in League Two last year and are getting demoted. My scouts rate him at 2.0/4.0 with the 2.0 meaning League Two capable and I'm assessing the 4.0 means Championship-worthy. I'm going to sign him because I can. How about £750 per week for one year, with a one-year option?
He agrees on 10 July, after the Falkirk match.
With the departure of Burns, Mark Flitcroft untrustworthy, and doubts about Phillips and Swain, I go hunting. I take a peak outside the neighborhood and turn my eyes to Europe. I find an amazing Swiss named Wegmann. Though his team doesn't want much for him, he doesn't want much of us.
And then I find a 17 year-old Serbian. But I didn't realize that Serbian laws says someone under 18 can't sign for a foreign team. He turns 18 in October but I'll have to wait for the January window to open before he actually moves. He already is good at English so I hope his Adaptability is high to get him to fluent. They accept my offer of £200,000.
Nebojsa Nesic too accepts my offer and on 13 July we open negotiations. He wants to be a Backup, my staff suggest Hot Prospect, but I'm going to offer Rotation to actually get his interest up. I also mention that we are going to win the league as he wanted a Promise. He accepts and now it's on to the money. We settle on £1,500 per week; £10,000 sign-on bonus; £500 per match and goal; plus £20,000 for Team of the Year and £2,500 per week after 30 games. He signs on the evening of 15 July, right after a U18 match.
It has been really hard finding a replacement for Caffrey, which just goes to shows what a find he was. I find our second Balkan player but he was actually much closer, at Wigan.
There were a lot better players to be had but they were all in the £9,000 to £14,000 per week range. Vedran Remic is gonna cost us £85,000 for the transfer and £5,000 per week. Additionally, he gets £1,500 per match (OUCH!) and £30,000 for Team of the Year. We get to keep him until 2025, 2026 if we get promoted that final season and he gets into 5 games. Don't mind the fact that he's a bit older, I just need to buy time before Lee Beirne and George Bunn are ready for Prime Time. He signs on the afternoon of 21 July.
Once I realize the Crook is gonna leave and I was fine with that I decided to find a replacement early. I find a 21 year-old Jamaican who used to be with Reading. I need to get back to that Brixton-Caribbean theme.
On 17 July I offer £500 a week plus £200 and £200 for just one year. Gavin Williams agrees immediately.
Finally on 3 July I settle down and start looking for staff. I have one U23 and two U18 slots open. I'm making one of the U18s a Fitness Coach as the others are under a heavy burden in the pre-season. For this position I select Gregor Halford; he sign immediately. For the other U18 Coach I select Ellis Law; he takes his sweet time, agreeing on late at night on 5 July. For the U23 Coach position I choose Anthony Hamill; he agree immediately too. None of them are really that good but they have Continental Pro licenses so I feel they can improve immensely.
I initially went for 10 matches but near the end of the month I realized that we needed some extra time on the pitch. Some of the opponents were chosen because they are creampuffs, some to fill the Windmill Gardens.
I fined Curran a week and he accepted his fate, acknowledging he screwed up. What was he thinking?!
Wycombe was unexpectedly promoted to League Two, finishing 7th in Conference National then winning the Playoff. They had only 15 players on their entire team. That meant two-thirds of the subs were Greys. The whole of the U18s are Greys. Yikes. They going back down.
By 9 July we have sold 820 season tickets, with another 500 expected to be sold by the start of the season. I need more, dammit. By 23 July we are up to 1,240; not too bad. Then comes news on 30 July that we are moving 1,505 tickets. Better than expected!
Right after David Caffrey moved across the Thames to Fulham Sam Sterling, Desmond Brizan, Luke Matthews, Yossi Berkovic, and Gary Leary were quite unhappy and wanted to discuss. I explained that he was becoming disruptive in his poutiness and it was affecting him on the field. They accept my reasoning and I'm able to improve their Morale but just by one step.
Pat Lawford's time with England U19s paid off for him. He was named to the Euro U19 Championship Dream Team.
I have strong concerns that we won't do well in League One despite the Board's demand that we win. Losing Burns was brutal, Caffrey slightly less so. Evan's impending departure could be bad if Thamindu Noel, Jason Cosgrove, or Colin Cockbill don't step up. Hopefully by January that Serbian wonder will help us forget ol' Whatshisface.