Altrincham F.C. - Mission: Champions League

[Hampus Silverholt]

All going well and hopefully another league title is on the cards for you

Definitely looks that way, can't believe League One is so easy!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Since complaining about things being too easy, we’ve had some mixed results.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I can honestly see him playing in the Premier League for us in a few seasons time if all goes to plan.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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…​

 

[Froug]

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?

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Man, I've never seen such a demanding board! You sure your chairman isn't posing as Roman Abramovich?

I loved the "Completed 5 years ahead of schedule" part of the message...

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Championship awaits us next season!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Once again we dominated the league. And I really mean dominate… We were literally top of League One all season.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

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!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Lastly we have Abdullahi Ikechukwu, a winger from Liverpool

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

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

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.

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.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

For the second year in a row, the amount of season tickets we have sold has doubled.

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.

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.

It was a sickening first game.

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

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.

His two goals came at a price though.

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.

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

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.

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.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

We’re almost a third of a way into our first season in the Championship and things are going well.

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.

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.

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.

It’s so far so good. We have another big month in November where we play 4 teams in the top half.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.​

 

[anej]

Why did you only sign 5 loan players? I imagine it would make sense to sign 7-8 due to likely injuries and suspensions. Assuming at the more often than not seems possible to sign brilliant loan players on the cheap, often much more value for money than permanent signings, at least when you are not an established top 6 premiership club or around there.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Some good young players being brought in there and hopefully unless anything going horribly wrong you should be safe and can build on it from there

Yeah I'm finding momentum to be a big thing in this years game so as soon as we win 1 game we seem to win a few on the bounce so don't have any worries about relegation this year.

Why did you only sign 5 loan players? I imagine it would make sense to sign 7-8 due to likely injuries and suspensions. Assuming at the more often than not seems possible to sign brilliant loan players on the cheap, often much more value for money than permanent signings, at least when you are not an established top 6 premiership club or around there.

Yeah I get what you're saying. I think I'd just prefer to give players who I actually own a chance rather than flood the squad with loans. Ideally I want to have as few players on loan as I can as I don't want to be developing players for other clubs all the time. It was just in this instance that we needed to get 5 loans because the quality we had in the squad was not good enough to stay up in the Championship

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

With 10 games of our first season in the Championship remaining, we are comfortably in 9th position and a top half finish seems likely.

Morale and momentum seem to have a massive impact on FM this year and we seem to be winning games that we should not be because of it. For instance, we beat Burnley at home despite having nowhere near a good enough squad to do so.

Our success has also been purely because of the performances of the 5 players that we have on loan. We have 6 players that average above 7.00 in the league and 5 of them are the loan signings.

Rio Corbett (on loan from Arsenal) is second top scorer and Ollie Fraser (on loan from Man United) has the highest average rating in the league.

Centre back Tim Roberts (also on loan from Man Utd) averages 7.13 and is the main reason why we have 15 clean sheets this season.

And right back Richard Sutton has 2 goals and 4 assists for us.

With 10 games to go I’m not expecting a playoff push but we can safely say that we’re not going to get relegated. It’s once again been an incredible season, even if it is the first time in 4 years that we haven’t won the league!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

We ended up losing 6 of our last 10 league games but who cares? We finished 11th in the Championship!

It’s amazing that we stayed up never mind a top-half finish. What a season!

In the final games, I gave Christian Norton a run in the team. His 5 goals in 10 games gives me a decision to make on whether he should be first choice next season.

Another player that got a run in the team is Connor Stanley, who has now made 200 appearances for the club.

Not only that, he has scored for Altrincham in every single division. Just the Premier League to go!

We’ve been given a paltry budget of £1m for next year, which is even worse considering the wage budget.

But I’ve got some Northern Irish teenagers on loan in League One this season that could make the step up. The first is Shane Ryan, who helped Wimbledon to 10th place

And the next is Paul McVeigh, who has 6 senior caps for Northern Ireland but only scored 3 times in 17 matches for Scunthorpe last season.

The playoffs mean it's not officially the end of the season yet but I'm expecting Altrincham players to be amongst the individual awards at the end of the campaign.​

 

[Jedd95]

Just caught up - fantastic effort. Championship is a difficult league as I'm experiencing with Exeter right now!
Great to see you steamroll all the way here, and great first season. The budget is tiny but hopefully you can work some more magic!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Just caught up - fantastic effort. Championship is a difficult league as I'm experiencing with Exeter right now!
Great to see you steamroll all the way here, and great first season. The budget is tiny but hopefully you can work some more magic!

Yeah it's more of a challenge but I actually don't mind after finding the last 3 or 4 seasons so easy. I'm happy to spend this season around midtable and go for promotion next year but we'll see