Altrincham F.C. - Mission: Champions League

Well then, that wasn’t too bad. We achieved back-to-back-to-back promotions but it wasn’t just that… it was the emphatic way in which we did it! We absolutely walked League Two and 111 points smashed the previous record points haul.

fin table 23.png


David Parkhouse got 18 goals overall and was named player of the year.

parkhouse poty.png


He was one of 8 Altrincham players who were named in the League Two Team of the Season.

toty 23.png


And the manager of the year was no surprise…

moty 23.png


It truly was a team effort, we scored 91 league goals but there wasn’t really a standout scorer as every team member contributed.

squad view 23.png


The goal-scoring contributions from our central midfielders James Olayinka (8) and Tyrese Fornah (9) as well as centre backs Aaron O’Driscoll (4) and Timi Sobowale (4) was vital throughout the season.

olayinka apr23.png


fornah apr 23.png


odriscoll apr23.png


shob apr23.png


Having said that, Mitko Mitkov and David Parkhouse were the two standouts and had the highest average ratings in the league.

individual stats 22:23.png


parkhouse apr23.png


It still baffles me how we managed to get Mitkov on loan. He contributed 11 goals and 13 assists and his contract expires in the summer but he’ll surely be picked up by a club better than us.

mitkov apr23.png


One player that continues to deliver the goods is Callum Stanley. He joined us in the Vanarama North and in 3 seasons at the club has got 3 promotions.

stanley apr23.png


What’s more impressive is that he’s played a pivotal role in all 3 seasons and despite picking up a few injuries this season, he still managed 10 goals and 9 assists in all competitions.

stanley career apr23.png


Sadly, we’ll also be saying goodbye to some players who played an important role for us in the past 3 seasons.

Callum Wright will be released after 2 seasons at the club even though he performed out of his skin this season.

wright apr23.png


Captain Joe Lynch and left back Ryan Campbell-Gordon were pivotal players in our promotions from the Vanarama North and National Leagues but are no longer needed.

campbell apr23.png


lynch apr23.png


And after 3 loan spells at the club in our 3 promotion seasons, Tyrone O’Neill’s Middlesborough contract will be expiring but I don’t think he’ll be good enough for us to take him to League One.

oneil apr23.png


oneil career apr23.png


I started planning early and have already prearranged some transfers ready for our League One campaign. Once again a big summer beckons, but doing a big rebuild seems to have worked every season so far!​
 
As expected we’ve been busy in the transfer market and, as is now tradition, we have raided the under 23 sides of Premier League teams to find some quality players who were about to be released.

The first is Diamantino Carpinteiro, a left-back from Liverpool. He only wanted £700 a week but has a £450,000 release clause.

carpinteiro aug23.png


Next up is Callum Fletcher, a holding midfielder also from Liverpool who also has a £450,000 release clause.

fletcher aug23.png


And the final one is Zac Fryatt from Derby. He didn’t make an appearance for them but I’m really surprised they let him go. His release clause is £2.7m.

fryatt aug23.png


With wage rises handed out because of promotion, we didn’t have a lot more to spend after those transfers. So when Rotherham came in with a bid of £500,000 for Kwaku Oduroh, I accepted.

oduroh rotherham.png


He was 4th choice centre back and with only £300,000 in the bank it made sense to cash in on him. Thanks for helping us get promoted from the National League Kwaku.

oduroh career.png


That money allowed us to get a new first-choice keeper. Alex Bass arrived at the club after his Portsmouth contract expired. He spent last season in League One with AFC Wimbledon.

bass jul23.png


And Callum Hulme comes in after Leicester decided not to renew his contract. He also spent last year on loan in League One with Southend.

hulme jul23.png


Finally, we have made two loan signings. We are spending a combined £325 a week on Vanja Matovina and Kyle Cullen, both of whom add really quality to the side.

matovina aug23.png


cullen aug23.png


We’ve also added some experience in Kieran Wallace, Murrary Wallace and Gwion Edwards, all of whom have made over 200 appearances in the Football League, and brought in a lot of coaches to make our coaching staff the best in the division.

staff.png


So another great transfer window means that we are predicted by the media to finish 6th!

media prediction 23.png


Our first game in League One is against Wigan, who were relegated from the Championship last season.

schedule start of seaosn.png


After 3 promotions on the bounce, I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen this season!​
 
Our first ever game in League One was against Roberto Martinez’s Wigan. And it was business as usual for us within the first minute.

fornah 20 seconds.png


Just the 20 seconds it took for us to score….We went on to win 4-1.

wigan 4-1.png


The result partly owed to Martinez playing a weird 3-4-3 formation but we were still brilliant. All our goals came from players who played a pivotal role last season and Connor Stanley has now scored in every division for us (just the Championship and Premier League remaining).

stanley aug23.png


The game was also played in front of a full stadium. Season tickets have doubled for us in the past year.

season tickets 23.png


The Wigan game was followed up by a crazy 4-3 win over AFC Wimbledon.

wimbledon 4-3.png


Before we faced the favourites for the league Sheffield Wednesday, who are managed by Vincent Kompany

shef wed 3-1.png


We also won that game because Zac Fryatt is a genius.

fryatt august23.png


The rest of August panned out just how the past 3 seasons have, with us winning games and top of the league.

table 6 games 23.png


We were knocked out by Championship side Rotherham in the Carabao Cup, but other than that we could not have started the season any better!

schedule aug23.png


I’ve never had a team that is so dominant no matter what division they’re in!​
 
It’s October 2023. In 2021 we won the Vanarama North, in 2022 we won the National League and in 2023 we won League Two. We are now 7 points clear at the top of League One.

table sep23.png


Our form has been more than solid, but nobody in this league can string more than 3 wins together so we’re already building a significant lead at the top.

sched sep23.png


We have an annual salary of £1.6m which is the lowest in the league. In comparison, Sheffield Wednesday’s is £8.8m.

salries sep23.png


On loan striker Kyle Cullen is proving to be deadly in League One and has 9 goals in 12 games.

cullen sep23.png


But it is Tyrese Fornah who has been our player of the season so far.

fornah sep23.png


He has 4 goals as a ball winning midfielder and the highest average rating in the division at 7.48 despite just about being good enough for this level.

fornah career23.png


I’m not really sure why everything is so easy and it’s getting to the point where the save is getting less and less enjoyable so I wanted to take a deeper look into it...

-

Firstly, the tactic is simple but seems to be working no matter who we play. Something else which is having an impact is the incredibly strong partnerships between both centre backs, both centre midfielders, and our right back and right winger which were formed last season in League Two.

tactic sep23.png


Another thing is the dressing room atmosphere and managerial support. I don’t think any of them have ever been bad so I dread to think what will happen once they do deteriorate.

managerial support.png


An additional factor is the coaching setup. It’s very easy to get the best coaches available to you, especially as you can literally search for them by star rating, and this is something the AI can never match you on.

staff search.png


One other thing I have noticed is that the quality in League One is poor. If we take Hull City, for instance, they are predicted to finish 3rd and should have a squad that is miles better than ours considering the financial difference between the clubs.

But when I filter their starting 11 by ability, there are 5 or 6 players with a 2 or 2.5 star rating which means they are League Two quality.

hull squad.png


The same can be said for nearly every team in League One and I think that it is part of the reason why we are constantly predicted to finish in the top half of the division we have just been promoted to. We make a couple of decent transfers and suddenly we’re predicted to finish 6th even though we’ve just gained 3 promotions on the bounce.

In comparison, our squad has 11 players that are 3 stars or over. That makes them good League One players and the fact they’re young means they’re only going to get better.

altrincham squad.png


In comparison, Derby are 18th in the Championship and asked me to attend an interview (which I declined), but looking at star ratings their squad is miles better than ours.

derby squad.png


So surely at some point, it’s all going to come crashing down?

To be honest I expect things to continue as they are. We have a squad with high morale who cannot stop winning and could seriously be on for 4 promotions in 4 seasons.
 
All going well and hopefully another league title is on the cards for you
 
Since complaining about things being too easy, we’ve had some mixed results.

sched nov 23.png


The most annoying of which was getting knocked out, undeservedly, of the FA Cup by Blackpool in the first round. That’s 2 years in a row we’ve failed to make it to the third round.

blackpool fa cup.png


But despite the increased amount of losses, we’re still 7 points clear at the top of the league.

table nov 23.png


And we also finished top of our EFL Trophy group. Seeing as it’s the only cup competition that we’re left in, I might actually put out a strong team in the remainder of the competition

efl trophy group 23.png


We will face Liverpool Under 23s in the Second Round.

liverpool u23.png


They’ve basically been a feeder club to us, with 4 of our current players signed from them after their contracts expired.

One of those is Diamantino Carpinteiro, who has just signed a new contract that gets rid of his £475,000 release clause. Instead, it is now £2m.


carpinteiro contract.png


I can honestly see him playing in the Premier League for us in a few seasons time if all goes to plan.
 
With our league form being so positive, I was hoping to make an impact in the EFL Trophy seeing as it could be our last opportunity to win the competition.

So confidence was high going into our 2nd round match versus Liverpool Under 23s… until I saw their team

liv u23 team.png


Haaland and Sancho. Ridiculous.

That’s not to mention the Jones, Daramy and various regens who were all Premier League quality. It’s amazing we only lost 2-1.

livu23 2-1.png


So, just like last season, by December we were knocked out of all 3 cup competitions and just had the league to concentrate on.

In our next 7 league games, we played only one team in the bottom half of the table.

sched feb24.png


But still only lost one game. We picked up huge wins against Doncaster, Wimbledon and Wigan to ensure that we remained comfortably top of the league.

table feb24.png


Only 3 of our players average over 7.00 this season, so it seems strange that we’re so far clear of the rest of the league.

In all honesty, it’s been a strange League One campaign. Not many teams are standing out and despite 33 games being played our striker Kyle Cullen, on loan from Southampton, is the top scorer in the competition with 14 goals.

cullen feb24.png


There was also one piece of transfer activity that occured in January. The £450,000 release clause of Callum Fletcher was met by a number of clubs and he eventually went to Fulham.

fletcher fulham.png


I can’t say I’m too bothered. Because of the form of Olayinka and Fornah, he was backup and £450,000 is still significant money for us.

fletcher career.png


No replacements were brought in as I want to see if the current squad can match the form they have shown so far this season. With 14 games to go, it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll be in the Championship next season.
 
At the start of March, the board gave us the vitally important news that we had met their vision objectives of finishing in the top half of League Two.

vision objectives.png



Considering that we are 14 points clear at the top of League One, I’d say that we’d just about achieved those objectives.

table 38 games 24.png


We just keep on winning games, and have won 5 of our last 6 games in which we’ve kept 4 clean sheets.

sched mar24.png


Alex Bass has the most clean sheets in League One with 18 and has proved to be a great signing on a free after his Portsmouth contract expired.

bass mar24.png


And Kyle Cullen has been in real goal scoring form of late and now has 18 for the season. With 7 goals and 2 assists in his last 10 games, his contribution has taken us to the brink of the Championship.

cullen mar24.png


I make it that we need 10 points from 8 games to confirm promotion to the Championship. To be honest I think if we lost our remaining 8 games we’d still get promoted…
 
At the start of March, the board gave us the vitally important news that we had met their vision objectives of finishing in the top half of League Two.

View attachment 499049


Considering that we are 14 points clear at the top of League One, I’d say that we’d just about achieved those objectives.

Man, I've never seen such a demanding board! You sure your chairman isn't posing as Roman Abramovich?
 
Our 40th game of the season was against 3rd place Oxford and a win would confirm promotion for us. But it was not to be.

oxford 1-0.png


Still, the work had already been done and it was only a matter of time before we were promoted.

That news came when we drew 1-1 at home to Colchester and other results went our way.

colchester and title.png


With 4 games remaining, we have clinched the League One title and will be playing Championship football just over 3 years after winning the Vanarama North.

table title.png


It turns out the players went on holiday as soon as it was confirmed, as we drew all our remaining games.

schedule apr24.png


Not that it mattered one bit. We have achieved 4 promotions in 4 seasons!

4 promotions.png


In the end, we finished 12 points ahead of second-placed Sheffield Wednesday. Once again we’ve not just been promoted, but we have strolled to the league title without really breaking a sweat.

table 46.png


The Championship awaits us next season!
 
Once again we dominated the league. And I really mean dominate… We were literally top of League One all season.


1st all season.png

We were promoted alongside Sheffield Wednesday and Oxford, both of whom were relegated from the Championship last season.

final table 24.png


Yet despite dominating the league, only 3 of our players averaged over 7.00 so it never really felt like we were overwhelming teams like we had done last season.

squad view 24.png


However, we still had 8 players in the League One Team Of The Year. O’Driscoll, Sobowale and Fornah were also in the League Two TOTY last season.

toty 24.png


Kyle Cullen, who is on loan from Southampton, ended up top scorer in League One with 20 goals. I’m probably not going to renew his loan as I honestly think we can get better players to join us on loan next year in the Championship.

cullen top scorer.png


cullen june24.png


Our best player this season was left back Diamantino Carpinteiro, who is genuinely the only Championship quality player in the side. He also was flagged offside 28 times (the 13th most in the league) which is crazy for a left back that only appeared in 35 matches.

carpinteiro june24.png


I mentioned goalkeeper Alex Bass in the last post and he finished the season with the most clean sheets in League One with 23. But special praise has to go to captain Aaron O’Driscoll and Timi Sobowale who have been our starting centre back pairing in League One and League Two.

odriscol jun24.png


sob jun24.png


Also, the mesmeric rise of Connor Stanley continues. He has 4 promotions in 4 seasons and has played a pivotal role in every campaign.

stanley june24.png


He scored 10 goals in League One, which was his best goalscoring feat for us. It’s honestly crazy how he has just continued to produce the goods for us.

stanley career june24.png


Another player that defies expectations is Tyrese Fornah. He’s League Two quality but was one of our most consistent players. He also produced 107 key passes despite being a ball winning midfielder.

fornah june24.png


fornah key pass.png


In other news, our stadium will be expanded to 7,000 seats which is welcome news considering that 19 of our home games were sellouts last season.

stadium expansion.png


In more annoying news, we are subject to a takeover bid from a Fans Consortium and so can’t make any transfer dealings at the minute.

fans takeover.png


We have a £2m budget but that is going to have to be adjusted for wages. The takeover bid also means that we can’t ask to expand the scouting range so we’re still only able to scout the UK and Ireland at the moment.

budgets 24.png


So it is going to be an incredibly long summer. The step up from League One to the Championship is huge and might be a step too far for us. But to be honest I’m looking forward to a challenge after 4 seasons of winning all the time.
 
Always good to see the stadium being expanded but not so good news around the takeover. Hopefully don't miss out on too many targets with it
 
Always good to see the stadium being expanded but not so good news around the takeover. Hopefully don't miss out on too many targets with it

Takeover was sorted pretty much straight after so thankfully didn't impact things too much!
 
The summer started off with the news that we have been taken over by a fans consortium, which is the first time it has happened to me in FM.

fan takeover.png


It finally meant that we were able to make some signings and we have bought in 9 first team players, including 5 on loan.

Firstly, we have SMASHED our transfer record to buy Christian Norton from Southampton.

norton.png


How much was he? £88,000. We’re in the championship and our record transfer is less than £100,000!

record transfer.png


Chay Cooper comes in from Spurs after his contract expired. He was on loan at Coventry in League One last season.

cooper aug24.png


And Neil Farrugia comes in after his Wigan contract expired to add competition to both flanks. It’s a bit mad how he was backup in a team that finished 18th in League One last season but he’s the only kind of player we can get on a free transfer as still can't afford to pay players big wages.

farrugia aug24.png


And now for the loan signings. Put simply, these 5 players will decide if we stay up or not.

First, we have Ollie Frasier and Tim Roberts from Man United.

roberts aug24.png


fraser aug24.png


And from Arsenal we brought in right back Richard Sutton and striker Rio Corbett.

sutton aug24.png


corbett august24.png


Lastly we have Abdullahi Ikechukwu, a winger from Liverpool

corbett aug24.png


Those 5 are all Championship quality but have accumulated just SEVEN first team appearances in their careers.

But it shows where we’re at as a club. We don’t have the money to buy quality players so this is the only chance we have of staying in the division. We do have £1m in the bank and will get over £2m in TV revenue but I didn’t want to ruin us financially when it’s likely we’ll be back in League One next season

finances 24.png


The board want us to fight bravely against relegation and we’re predicted to finish 22nd.

preiction 24.png


To be honest I’m looking forward to a battle. I just hope if it goes wrong then the board don’t sack me. I expect to get thrashed a lot of times this season and we’ve got a difficult start against Crystal Palace, Middlesborough and Burnley.

schedule start of season.png


But this is what you get in the Championship. I’ve said this every season but I really, truly have no idea what is going to happen this year. It’ll probably be my best achievement yet if we stay up.
 
For the second year in a row, the amount of season tickets we have sold has doubled.

season tickets 24.png


And just to give an insight about how big a challenge this season is... Burnley are spending £1.1m a week on wages. We’re spending £80k. I don’t think I can emphasise how much out of our depth we are.

salaries 24.png


Before our first game against Crystal Palace we were met with the news that Zac Fryatt was out injured for 6 weeks. We also had 4 players in our starting lineup that joined us in League Two.

fryatt injury.png


It was a sickening first game.

palace 2-1.png


Rio Corbett scored a penalty then got sent off and the 2 goals we conceded were both from corners.

corbett august24.png


We lost our next 2 games and it was already starting to look bleak for us until Corbett came back into the side against Bristol City.

bristol 3-1.png


His two goals came at a price though.

corbett injury.png


That’s 2 games, 3 goals, 1 red card and 1 injury... I like him already.

Talking of which, injuries have massively impacted us already. We have 5 first-choice players out and that was before Corbett’s injury so it’s amazing we even beat Bristol City.

injuries aug24.png


But 2 wins on penalties in the Carabao Cup means that August was a decent enough month for us.

schedule aug24.png


wolves league cup.png


We are 21st, which is where we need to be at the end of the season. Cardiff and Nottingham Forest have already sacked their managers (Hassenhutl and Bruce) after dismal starts and it’s a bit concerning to see Oxford in 8th when they were predicted to finish below us.

table aug 24.png


We’ve basically established that we’re rubbish away from home and we constantly concede from set-pieces. Fix those two things and we might be okay! We will have key players returning in September to hopefully move us further away from the bottom.
 
We’re almost a third of a way into our first season in the Championship and things are going well.

table nov24.png


We are 5 points from the relegation zone and have won our last two matches against Sheffield Wednesday and Millwall after losing 3 in a row earlier in the month.

sched nov24.png


There was a point where Rio Corbett was literally our only goalscorer in the league but now inverted winger Zac Fryatt has 3 league goals and on-loan winger Abdullahi Ikechukwu has 2 in 2 after not registering a goal or assist in our first 12 matches.

fryatt jnov24.png


ickehi nov24.png


Ollie Fraser, on loan from Manchester United, is excelling in a deep lying playmaker role. He averages 7.28 which is brilliant for a team in a relegation battle.

fraser nov24.png


It’s so far so good. We have another big month in November where we play 4 teams in the top half.
 
With 2 wins on the trot, things were looking up for us. Then we played Preston at home in what was the craziest game of the save yet.

preston 8-2.png


8-2. We beat them 8-2. Eight! (Not going to make a joke about how I’d 8-2 be Preston)

Corbett and Fryatt both scored hattricks and Callum Hulme got 4 assists in the match. He only achieved 7 assists in the whole of League One last season!

hulme nov24.png


But it turns out that it was only half of the story… We also won our 2 games after that meaning that we won 5 consecutive games in the Championship.

5 in a row.png


In fact, our unbeaten run lasted 10 games and only stopped when we lost away to Villa.

10 matches unbeaten.png


So, after going 10 games unbeaten, this is what the table now looks like.

table 23 games.png


Unbelievably, we are in 11th position halfway through the season!

Rio Corbett now has 12 for the season and is one of the top scorers in the Championship despite only playing one senior game before joining us on loan.

corbett dec24.png


There’s still a long way to go but unless we hit a real bad run of form, it looks like we could be staying up quite comfortably this season!
 
It’s January and for the first time in the save we have made some significant January transfers. To be honest, both of them were prearranged but add some more competition to the squad for the remainder of the season.

The first is Felix Baker, who joined us for £50,000 from Crusaders in Northern Ireland.

baker jan25.png


I always look for cheap prospects in Northern Ireland and for some reason Crusaders produced someone who is good enough to be in the England under 19 squad and looks like he’ll be a future England international.

baker career.png


I also look to the Welsh league, particularly TNS, as they sometimes produce some good players that you can pick up on the cheap. It was there that I spotted Richie Belcher.

belcher jan25.png


We didn’t need a right back but £13k for a 18 year old English right back who is already Championship quality was a no brainer.

belcher career.png


Another important piece of business was the loan extension of Ollie Fraser until the end of next season. He’s been our best player by miles and has one of the highest average ratings in the league.


fraser loan extension.png


fraser jan25.png


And we are also bringing in Mamadou Bamba at the end of the season on a free. We couldn't scout him but he was recommended to me by a scout and I thought I’d offer a deal just to see what happens. Even though he was wanted by Man City, they didn’t offer a deal so he will be joining us in the summer.

bamba feb35.png


There was also a significant transfer out as James Olayinka has joined Peterborough for £575,000.

olayinka fee.png


olayinka peterbro.png


Even though he was still part of our squad, he had 18 months left on his deal and it made sense to get a bit of money for him with Baker joining from Crusaders. Still, it’s sad to see him go as he played a vital part in getting us promoted from League One and League Two.

olayinka career.png


In terms of results, our crazy form in November and December hasn’t been matched and we have lost our last 3 games in the Championship.

sched jan35.png


But we’re still 12th in the league, 17 points above the relegation zone.

table jan25.png


The really annoying thing was getting knocked out by League One Plymouth in the FA Cup 4th round.

plymouth facup.png


All we need to do us pick up the occasional good result and that should see us stay in the Championship for next season, which will be a massive achievement.
 

Attachments

  • olayinka career.png
    olayinka career.png
    122.9 KB · Views: 85
Top