Ipswich Town Youth Academy Challenge

[JonoFM]

Hi everyone!

I'm Jono, and I wanted to share my FM adventure with you all. I'm undertaking a youth academy challenge light with my hometown team, Ipswich Town. It is a light version of the challenge as I am taking charge of Ipswich, and not a newly promoted side. I am also allowing myself to sign youth academy graduates who have subsequently departed the club.

I'm posting videos of the series on YouTube, and I'll link those at the end of this post.

Season 1 - 2019/20
This was the club's first season in the third tier of English football since the 1950s, and the aim at the start of the season was to get out of this division at the first time of asking. I'd also love to take the EFL Trophy along with us.

In the league, things went swimmingly. We dominated the league, suffering just one defeat on our way to 113 points and the title! Oxford made the step up to the Championship, and Doncaster beat Sunderland in the Play-off final. Sunderland experienced a spectacular collapse after being top during our December wobble.

Cup competitions
In the FA Cup, we reached the 4th round, beating Blackpool and Boreham Wood in the 1st and 2nd rounds, before beating Everton in a 3-2 thriller in the 3rd round at Portman Road. Unfortunately our reward for that cupset was a tie away at Man City who went full strength ...

In the Carabao Cup, we beat Portsmouth in the 1st round, before pulling off a shock as we beat Championship side Cardiff 4-0 in round 2. Again, we faced Premier League opposition away from home, losing 3-0 at Crystal Palace. It was a fairly even game, but the quality of finishing was the difference.

Finally the EFL trophy. We made it through a group consisting of Plymouth, Newport and West Ham U23's, but struggled to score in the knockout rounds, coming out on the right side of penalties against Walsall, before losing to Cheltenham by the same method. A shame, as I wanted to win the EFL trophy in what was likely to be our only season at this level, but it wasn't meant to be, and we will have to hope our beefed up under-23 side will win the title in the future.

I'll do a separate follow on post about my tactics, key players, and youth development strategies in the near future! Now preparations for the Championship can begin!

YouTube
As I mentioned at the start, I'm posting 4-5 videos per season on YouTube. Feel free to check them out, the support would be greatly appreciated!

Jono FM

www.youtube.com

Thanks for reading, and take care!

 

[JonoFM]

Hi Everyone! It's time for another update - this one will cover the first half of the 2020/21 season.

Season 2 - 2020/21
We settled into life back in the Championship with a comeback victory at home to Stoke, and since then our form has been nothing short of remarkable. We've lost just 5 times in the first 25 games of the season, and are right in the promotion picture. Given that we were predicted to finish just above the relegation zone, we are massively overachieving. Can we sustain the challenge?

Carabao Cup
We had a good run in the Carabao Cup, reaching the 4th Round. We got revenge on Cheltenham for our EFL Trophy defeat last season, before beating Premier League sides Fulham and Bournemouth. Unfortunately, just like the FA Cup last season, we were drawn away at Man City. We managed a more respectable 4-1 defeat this time, against a second string side featuring the likes of Mendy, Depay, and Ricardo.

FA Cup
The briefest of stays in the FA Cup this season. With our league form looking so strong, I decided to focus on the league tie against Nottingham Forest just 3 days after the match against Aston Villa. Despite us playing a 2nd string side, and Villa going full strength, we matched our more illustrious opponents in every metric apart from the scoreline.

I thought I'd share a snapshot of my tactic at this stage, as we seem able to very competitive despite having inferior players at this level. It is a very aggressive 2-4-3-1, designed to create overloads in the wide areas, with our two full backs pushing on. I had feared this tactic would leave us exposed at the back, but we had the best defensive record in League 1 last season, and the 5th best in the Championship this season.

Thanks very much for reading, and take care!

 

[JonoFM]

Hi Everyone!

Welcome back to my Ipswich Town youth academy challenge. In this update, I will cover our progress to the end of the 2020-21 campaign. When we left off, we were right in the promotion picture, a few points away from the automatic slots.

Our league form over the remainder of the season was solid without being spectacular. Defeats to promotion chasing Brighton, Watford, and Sheffield United could be tolerated, but slipping up against Sheffield Wednesday and Blackburn proved costly. We ended the season in good form, despite a poor goalless draw at relegation threatened Barnsley on the final day.

The final day slip up at Barnsley left us in 4th place at the end of the season, as Brentford and Sheffield United secured the two automatic spots. That meant that we were up against Brighton in the play-offs, a side we lost to in both fixtures this season.

As we finished the higher of the two sides, we would be at home for the second leg. So we were away for the first leg, and despite a bright start, we slipped to a 1-0 defeat, with an Ollie McBurnie strike just before the break.

We needed a bright start for the second leg, and we got it, with goals from Andre Dozzell and Jack Marriott putting us ahead in the tie within 20 minutes. However a lunging tackle from Marriott earned him a straight red on 22 minutes. The remaining 70 minutes were the most tense minutes of my FM career, but a great rearguard effort saw us through to the final.

We would face Nottingham Forest in the final, who surprisingly overcame Watford to reach the final. We twice held a two goal lead thanks to a hattrick from Charlie Brown. However we struggled to deal with Forest in the second half, and late goals from Da Costa and Yates saw Forest to a dramatic 4-3 win.

All the highlights from the Play-off journey are on my YouTube channel.

So, an incredible season ended in disappointment, and we would face another season at least in the Championship. Given our current squad and lack of available signings (only players to have come through our academy), we would have struggled massively in the Premier League, so this is probably the best outcome. However, holding on to the likes of Flynn Downes, Andre Dozzell, and Luke Woolfenden is likely to be a struggle.

Thank you very much for reading, and take care

 

[JonoFM]

Hi Everyone! It's time for another update, this time our 2021/22 Championship campaign. Could we bounce back after our Play-Off final defeat last season?

Transfers
We suffered an early season blow, as our key anchorman Flynn Downes left for Burnley at the end of the transfer window. We did collect £30m for him, which will enable us to significantly develop the club's facilities, so there are positives to take from the deal. In terms of additions, we have signed Harry Clarke (CB) and Ben Knight (CAM), both of whom were poached by Arsenal and Man City respectively.

League
We were in sublime form in the league this season, and were promoted as champions with a record equalling 106 points! We started quite slowly with only 4 wins in the first 9 games, but after that we were relentless. Promotion was secured with a 3-0 win over Crystal Palace, and the title with a 1-1 draw with Birmingham.

Cups
We reached the 4th round of the FA Cup before being knocked out by Premier League Wolves. In the League Cup we reached Round 3, again losing to Premier League opposition, this time Bournemouth.

Awards
For the third year in succession, Andre Dozzell won the Player of the Year award, with a 7.62 average rating from DM. Our striker, Jack Marriott took home the top goalscorer award, seeing off Troy Deeney (Watford), and Kenan Kodro (West Brom).

As always, you can follow my escapades on YouTube. Our promotion clinching episode is linked below.

That's all for now. Thank you very much for reading, and take care

 

[JonoFM]

It's been a while since I last updated this story on here. I've been rattling through the seasons, and focusing on my YouTube channel. So, without further ado, let's get up to speed. I'll post a season per update over the next few days

2022/23

Transfers
As this is an academy challenge, our transfer business has been minimal. However, there was one player who could strengthen us, and we managed to bring him in. Welcome back to Portman Road, Nick Pope! Our former No. 1 Tomas Holy left for his native Czech Republic, and a few youngsters left us, including Bailey Clements and Zanda Siziba.

Premier League
This was our first season back in the big time since 2001/02, so remaining in the division was a key ambition.

We got off to a flying start, winning 4 of our first 5 matches, before impressive wins against Wolves, Everton, and Southampton. However, our form tailed off dramatically over the second half of the season, with victories against Brentford and Leeds all our fans had to shout about after the win at Southampton in January. Apart from our matches against the big teams, we were quite tough to beat, as evidenced by the number of draws we managed.

In the end, we achieved Premier League survival relatively easily, in fact finishing in the dizzying heights of 12th place, and a comfortable 13 points clear of the drop. Leicester, Villa, and Burnley made up a slighly surprising bottom 3, whilst Liverpool ran away with the title once again.

FA Cup
Our FA Cup campaign was disappointingly brief as we were embarrassed at home by Barnsley.

League Cup
Our League Cup campaign wasn't much better, as we were beaten 3-2 by Cardiff.

Summary
Despite our disappointments in the Cups, it was a successful season as we comfortably achieved Premier League survival. The system seemed to work pretty well in the Premier League, particularly against sides of similar or slightly higher stature than us, although there's work to do against the big boys.

Our team of the year is below, and only Kane Vincent-Young didn't come through the Ipswich academy. Our first promising newgen, Steven Hoult, also broke into the first team squad this season, and made the bench of the team of the year. Andre Dozzell secured Player of the Season after pulling the strings from the regista role.

Thanks for reading! Take care!

 

[JonoFM]

2023/24

After staying up relatively comfortably last season, could we avoid second season syndrome and improve on last season's 12th place finish?

Transfers
After Burnley's relegation last season, I couldn't resist bringing Flynn Downes home. He'll slot straight back into the team and improve us defensively. With Downes returning, we let Emyr Huws leave for Russia for £4.9m. Fringe players Gibbs, Morris, and Crowe also departed.

Premier League
We had a much more consistent season this time around, although once again we were better in the first half of the season than the second. A crazy 7-3 defeat at Old Trafford actually saw us draw level from 3-0 down before United scored four more. The highlight was definitely the 5-1 thumping of Arsenal at Portman Road.

Our improvements were reflected in the final table, as we finished 8th, at the top of the best of the rest pack, although still some way off qualifying for Europe. Liverpool dominated once again, finishing comfortably clear of Arsenal.

FA Cup
We fared much better in the FA Cup too, making it all the way to the semi finals, where we were outclassed by Liverpool. Goals for newgens Steven Hoult and Connor Crookes in the early rounds was particularly encouraging.

League Cup
We improved here too. A penalty shoot out win at Brighton, and victory against Swindon, before falling at home to Arsenal in round 4.

A much improved performance this time around, and we look to have established ourselves as a solid mid-table side with a 19 point buffer to relegation, and 22 point gap to the Champions League places. There's still some work to do against the bigger sides, particularly defensively.

The team of the year showed a few changes to last season, as Harry Clarke and newgen Ollie Smith came into defence, Flynn Downes returned to midfield, and newgen Steven Hoult took over from Jack Lankester down the right. Once again, Andre Dozzell took home the Player of the Year award, as Jack Marriott was top scorer once again.

Thanks for reading, and take care!

 

[JonoFM]

2024/25
We managed to confound expectations and ****** 8th place last season, can we improve further this time around?

Transfers
From this point on, there will be no more signings as we rely solely on our academy for new players. In terms of outgoings, right winger Jack Lankester departed for Cyprus, whilst back up right back Dylan Crowe headed to Scotland, and Teddy Bishop left on loan.

Premier League
Once again, we performed admirably this season, although it was a bit of a mixed bag. The impressive moments such as the 5-2 win over Liverpool, 1-0 over Man City, ad 8-0 against Newcastle were tempered by big defeats, mainly against the big sides.

In the end, we did enough to secure 8th place once again, just 6 points away from a European spot, and comfortably clear of 9th placed Everton.

FA Cup
Unlike last season, our FA Cup journey was short, as we were toppled by Stoke in round 4.

Carabao Cup
Like the FA Cup, we fared poorly in the Carabao Cup, seeing off West Ham, before losing the Leicester on penalties.

Summary
Another good season, and an improvement of 12 points even if we remained in the same position. More newgens progressed into the first team picture, as Ollie Smith, Rory Boyle, Steven Hoult, and Valentine Ogbonna all became first team regulars.