What a season it has been! They say that you can learn as much from defeat as from success and I would certainly say that’s the case here. I’d like to remind everyone that I never played FM until a few weeks ago so my learning curve has been a bit steeper than most.
I learned that team morale is a massive factor in performance, that there is nothing wrong with playing defensively and grinding out some wins and that your bargain basement signings will often be the most loyal players when the stuff hits the fan.
I’ve also learned a fair bit about tactics, team and personal instructions and how they will influence the game. That weather plays a factor and that your assistant manager might as well be Jon Snow for all he knows.
I have thought long and hard about quitting this challenge, or even starting it again. In the end the fact that I have invested so much time into it and a decent transfer budget means I have decided to give the challenge a 1 year extension.
Season 5
Minimum result – Qualify for Champions cup
Ideal result – Win the Premier League (yeah right)
Season 6
Minimum result – Win the Premier League
Ideal result – Win the Champions cup
During my relatively successful first 3 seasons I feel I fell into a habit of coasting along, I had what I considered to be a solid tactic and a team that was developing nicely and saw little reason to look too closely at things.
That all changed when the fire nation attacked… er.. wait no, I mean during season 4 when a nightmare start to the season saw morale slump and the cracks start to show.
Taking a closer look I realised that my team was starting to show its age. I lacked pace and acceleration across the board and in fact, discovered that my team was considered the slowest in the league!
I was also particularly concerned by my inability to keep a clean sheet. In the second half of the season I took more notice of the matches and noticed that I was frequently being hit in the counter by faster teams with slicker passing.
I soon steadied the ship by reducing the tempo of the play and adapting to a more defensive style of play once ahead against better teams. I rotated between two main tactics designed to exploit the wide areas and the centre of the pitch respectively and I feel that brought me success against formations I have struggled against in the first part of the season. I also felt that playing a DLPM may have caused my attacks to quickly turn into counters when the ball was lost, so i'll be adapting that this season.
It's been a busy closed season so far. Finally having a transfer budget worth talking about and a 100% return on sold players has made a big difference in terms of the calibre of players I'm able to draw in. My core goals have been to strengthen my midfield and my wing backs and sign a backup GK with decent potential for the future.
In addition I've come to believe that my relationship with some of the current players has broken down after a tough season and I'll be looking to replace some of them with players who know what loyalty means. Also one of two of my players simply don’t bring enough to the table to justify their large wage bills, so I’ll be looking to offload them as well.
I'm aiming to have a core playing squad of 20 players, with 5 youngsters as backup. I have a number of kids who look like they could develop well with some first team football and now is the chance to bring them in.
In addition I’m going to try and post monthly updates with more details as this seems to be the popular format here.
