Clear and simple: My managerial adventure

N

Numancia

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2011
Messages
280
Reaction score
0
Points
0

Ok, first of all I am not going to come up with some kind of story, I just want to take on challenge of becoming manager and see how far I can go, I would like to share my progress with other FM BASE users.

I decided to start my career with Barnet F.C, as I have been living in Barnet area for a while and even tried my luck on becoming football player with them through couple of trials, without any success though. I know the club relatively well, watching them over the last 3-4 years.

Little background on Barnet: They were founded in 1888, making them one of the oldest clubs in London. They enjoyed their best spell of succes during 90's when they joined the Football League for the first time in Conference. Barnet have been playing in League 2 since 2005-2006 season, but always have been a team that struggles to stay in the League.

Financially speaking, they are not in best position, the stadium, The Underhill only holds capacity of 6023 and 4000 on those are not seated. Barnet normally gets barely half full of stadium during their league games. Media predicts us to finish in the last position in League 2.



View attachment 227773



Youth facilities are not really good and needs to be upgraded sooner or later, for now though I will concentrate on getting some quality in coaching and players.

Naturally first thing to do when you take over the job is to analyse your staff and squad. After looking at my staff, I can say that this must have been one of the worst quality staff I have ever seen in Football Manager. Just to give you an example, my assistant had attribute of less than 8 for judging player's potential and ability, So I decided to fire all the staff and get a new member for every single position. Here is my newly hired staff list:



View attachment 227772




With the kind of funds available, about the best assistant I could get was Warren Neil, he has good enough attributes on judging player potential, ability, defending, discipline and working with youngsters, but he needs to improve in his tactical knowledge skills:



View attachment 227789



Now about the squad, if we are to beleive media prediction, we must have one of the weakest group of players in our league. I know most of this players in real life, and having played Barnet in FM before, our best players are probably Sam Deering and Mark Marshall. On the other hand two strikers who are not that efficient is taking up large lump of our wage budget: Steve Kabba and Izale McLeod:


View attachment 227790


So I decided to get rid off both of them, unfortunately no one wanted to bid for them, so I had to release them on free. This means I will need to buy at least two good strikers in transfer market. As you can guess, we have almost no funds for transfer, so will have to depend on free signings and loan deals.

Of course before I even start I need to set a goal. Realistically, with funds we have, we will have to fight to avoid relegation, but I have a target of three years to get us promotion into League 1:


View attachment 227791



On my next update I will be looking into transfer market and our transfer targets. Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated.


​
 
Last edited:
Ahmed Soukouna you can get on a free. I'm afraid I don't know too much about lower-league management, and he might instead go to a Championship team, but if you can get him, he'll be the best striker in the league.

EDIT: Oh, wait. I just saw how little you can afford to pay in wages. Sorry. Never mind me.
 
errm.. im afraid i tend to spend more time with title chasing premiership clubs so dont know how much
i can help im afraid. my only advise would be to get players in on loan from a division or two above, especially
if they aren't getting first team football.
also, look to get players in on frees, you won't sign anyone of decent quality in league 2 with £5K, so id
more the adjust budget and sacrifice transfer budget for frees and loans wages.
Last thing.. i heard somewhere that a rigid approach works better in the lower leagues,
but i cant say with much experience whether that works or not.

hope that helps :)
 
From my time managing United, I could give you a list of the promising youth loanees. Ben Amos and Tom Thorpe are great defensive options. Van Veltzen and vermjl are a decent pair of wingbacks. Pogba, petrucci and morrison are improbable but not impossible. Will Keane is a must get, class at league 2 level and would help ease your striker crisis.
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys, I will look into all of them, they all sound like great signings, so I will try my best.
 
Good luck mate, and by the way, United tend not to ask for wages for their loanees ^^)
 
I'll be following;) Also I'm not sure how he'll do in league 2 but Jamil Adam is scoring a goal a game on my Berwick Rangers save.Oh yeah you can also try Pablo Counago similar story with him on my Berwick R's save
 
Last edited:

Transfer targets


After spending some time looking around I identified main targets I want to bring in to the team, as you can guess, because we have virtually no funds to spend we had to rely on free agents and loans:



Luke Freeman
View attachment 228782
Although we can't get him on permanent basis, I am really keen on Luke to join us on loan from parent club Arsenal. He is definitely going to be success in this league, Arsenal accepted the offer, I am just hoping Freeman will agree to join us until end of the season.



Pablo Counago
View attachment 228783
We need some improvements in our attack as we got rid off our two main strikers to free up some funds and former Crystal Palace and Ipswich man is popular among FM players who manage lower league teams. He is proven goalscorer but we will have to pay him £1700 per week if he joins us which will make him the highest paid player in our squad.



Quinton Fortune
View attachment 228784

We need some experience in our line-up as we have one of the youngest squads in Football League. When I found out that former Manchester United and South Africa midfielder was looking for a club in England, I didn't think twice about offering him a deal that will make him highest earner in our team alongside Pablo Counago. I just hope he will accept the offer.




Ellis Deeney
View attachment 228785
Former Aston Villa youth player is young, fast and looks to be good prospect for the future. I needed a left-back as I don't have any good enough left-backs in Barnet at the moment.



Kevin Pariente
View attachment 228786

Kevin has top league experience in France with AS Cannes and I hope he will bring some good performances from left wing position. His attributes are quite impressive for a player who is free and not asking for too much wage at the moment.



Completed transfers:

View attachment 228787


Unfortunately my main target Luke Freeman rejected the offer from Barnet. However I managed to get all other targeted players to join us. I signed no fewer than 11 players during the transfer window, but Micheal Uwezu was released after some shockingly poor performances. Luckily he was on "pay as you play" contract, so I didn't have to pay any compensation to release him.




Tactics:


I decided to create my tactics from scratch as I really want to take credit if we do well in the future (H)...
Anyway my main tactic will be 4-5-1 with two wingers and lone striker with strong defencive midfielr. I decided to play in rigid philosophy and counter attacking strategy as we will be underdogs against majority of the teams in League Two:

View attachment 228790


For my back up tactic I wanted to try something I never tried before. I decided to create something little bit different. I still kept the same philosophy and strategy but formation line-up is 4-3-2-1 in so-called "Christmas Tree" tactic:

View attachment 228792


Now that I am all set up with my squad and staff, I can't wait to start playing and testing out my team with brand new tactics and some pretty good players. I will have the next update ready soon with results for the first few months.


​
 
Barnet are in the Championship in 2015 on one of my saves. I'm sure you can get somewhere equal, or better, than that :)
 
man,forgot to recommend Pele(he is from the Cape Verde Islands not Brazil) got an average rating of 7.07 or something on my Berwick save.
 
wonderkid360 said:
man,forgot to recommend Pele(he is from the Cape Verde Islands not Brazil) got an average rating of 7.07 or something on my Berwick save.
Click to expand...

thanks man, I will have a look at him, see if I can afford him
 
He SHOULD be available on a free as i think he's playing amateur football.
 

Kick Off

I am already half way through my first season as Barnet manager in League Two. It hasn't been perfect, but we are still well within board's expectation of staying clear from relegation zone. Here is the list of results so far:

View attachment 228958

Mixed results overall, but we had a great run in November, winning all of our league games. In fact, I was voted as "League 2 Manager Of The Month".

Our best result came recently against one of the strongest teams in this division, Swindon:

View attachment 228959


I took a gamble by playing high defence line in attacking strategy, however it paid off and we managed to defeat Swindon in seven-goal thriller.

On the contrary our worst performance was against Port Vale, where we 5-0 at home and were absolutely diabolical:

View attachment 228961


As you can see from the stats that Port Vale visited and dominated us in every department. I had to change few things after this game including our training schedules.

View attachment 228963

Quality of our training is still far away from what I want, but with coaches I can hire, this is probably about the best I can get at the moment.

Now about the League Two standings, we are in 15th position at the moment after 23 games played, which is not too bad considering we are only six points off the promotion play off places. The board seems very satisfied with my work so far and at least for now my job is secure.

View attachment 228966


Best Barnet players so far:

1. Kevin Pariente
The French winger has been in impressive form ever since he joined us on free transfer in September. He makes great runs from left flank and has few assists and goals in his name. He also has quite high average rating of 7.17

View attachment 228968


2. Sam Deering
I expected Sam to do well at the start of the season and he hasn't dissapoint me. Like Kevin, he makes good runs on the opposite flank and has really good eye for passing, I just hope he doesn't get himself injured.

View attachment 228969


3. Pablo Counago
Another player who we expected to do well at the start. Unfortunately he was injured for three month and only started playing from end of October. But he is already our top goal scorer with 7 goals so far and I hope there are many more to come. Only worry is his natural fitness is quite poor, so he is injury prone.

View attachment 228970



Barnet squad by average rating:

View attachment 228971


I am not planning to get too many players in winter transfer, however would love to add Luke Freeman on loan from Arsenal and one strong central defender as we have one of the poorest defencive record in our league.
Next update will be on January transfers and results.

​
 
Last edited:

Barnet sign Pele


After repeated suggestions from wonderkid360 I decided to go for Pele. I never heard about Pele (or at least this one) before and my scout gives him average rating, so I just have to take wonderkid360's word for it as I really need to tighten up my defence.

View attachment 228987

View attachment 228988

View attachment 228989

Here is Pele's profile, my assistant thinks he is a quality player and I managed to sign him until end of the season on £1000 per week contract, but will extend it if he does well:


View attachment 228990



​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

FMBase

Beta

Resources

Top