My FM19 Plans - New challenge, club reveal and an extra twist

[LutterworthFox]

Hi all, NEWGENFM here, if you don't know me I am active on Twitter, Discord and also have my own Blog. FM Base asked me to put my blog on here for FM19 so here is my opening post telling you my plans and what my challenge is for this version

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After an amazing save on FM18 where I attempted my own challenge "The Hall of FM-ame" I have big expectations that my FM19 save can be just as good, I managed around 45 seasons on my save and although the Hall of Fame idea finished earlier than that (alongside the blog after 30 seasons) I continued that save on in my own time and had just as much fun.

So what am I planning for FM19? Well I have created my own little challenge, and with thanks to some lovely members of the FM community who I sounded out and got some advice from I think I have come up with a really good idea for the next version of the game.

So welcome to.......

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So I'm guessing from the title you know my general idea but let me give you a bit more information.

One thing that's always bugged me on FM has been the state of the Steam Achievements, there are way too many for starters but also a lot of them are pointless and some impossible (yes I know sometimes tough is good) but who wants an achievement for putting a video on YouTube or posting on Facebook, I'd much rather have a set of achievements which are a) achievable and b) interesting.

So after listening to a well known podcast, (go check out OneMoreGamePodcast) where they discussed the achievements on FM18 I decided I would take matters into my own hands and create a brand new set of achievements which I will be attempting to get during my FM19 save. There are 48 of them and I feel all of them can be got in one save but there are some tricky ones in there to add some difficulty to it.

I've decided to split them into 5 sections to make it easier to follow but as you can see below I have transfer related ones, club/player, hall of fame (yes it had to be in there!), competitions and personal achievements.

Transfers

Record purchase for club

Record sale for club

Record purchase for country

Record sale for country

Club/Player

Invincible season

Take a club from bottom to top

Youth Intake player gets international debut

Record appearance holder for a club

Record goals for a club

50 games unbeaten

20 wins in a row

10 games without conceding

Goal of the season

Get a club to record high league position

Obtain a bank balance of over £500m

100 goals for a newgen

300 apps for a newgen

Youth Intake player gets 100 caps

Win world player of the year

Win continents player of the year

Hall of Fame

Top a Nations hall of fame

Top Swiss National hall of fame

Top a Continents hall of fame

Enter Worlwide hall of fame

Top Worldwide hall of fame

Competitions

Win Domestic double

Win continental trophy

Win Club World Cup

Win Champions League with new club

Win League with a new club

Win Cup with a new club

Win World Cup

Win International trophy

Win Confederations Cup

Win 20 cups

Win 10 leagues

Win 3 consecutive league titles

Personal

Ground in my name

Ground built

5 seasons at a club

10 seasons at a club

Club Legend

Get FC Sion job

Get Switzerland job

1000 games total

Win 10 manager of the years

Be able to select an affiliate

30,000,000 leaderboard points

So it's as simple as that, collect as many achievements as I can in one single save! Easy!

The Extra Challenge

Now for the interesting part! I love that people follow along with my save and this year I've taken this one step further and recruited 7 people to take on the challenge. Who will prevail? Who will win the most achievements? It's gonna be interesting to see.

I've told them they can start anywhere, any club, any country, any league. I've also given them the opportunity of changing two of the achievements, "Get Leicester Job" and "Get England Job" can be changed to their favourite club and the country they are from.

The 7 people getting in on the action (and their chosen starting club) are:

Alex (Alex Parkin90) - Twitter - FC Europa (Custom Team in France)


Damian (Mezzala FM) - Twitter - Brescia (Italy)


James (FM Novice) - Twitter - Shijiazhuang Ever Bright (China)


Dylan (Dylan_WFC) - Twitter - Vereya FC (Bulgaria)


Andrew (Andrew_Journey) - Twitter - Salford


Mikael (Mickaelinho) - Twitter - Stockport County


Tom (FM Poacher) - Twitter - Derby Midland (Created club starting in National League North)

I have asked all 7 of them to do at least a season by season blog post on this, it won't be on here but on their own personal blogs so please*say hello, drop a follow on Twitter and keep an eye out for their blog posts and wish them luck!! I will attempt myself to do a little roundup as to how they are getting on at the end of each of my season blog posts.

So now I've told you the idea of the save I guess I better tell you who I am going to start with.

My Starting Club

I have to say it's been a lot lot tougher than I expected to pick a side. The main sticking point was do I start with a bigger club with a better rep or a smaller club where I could build myself up, but at the same tick off a few achievements quickly.

After a chat with a few people I've decided to start with a smaller team in a smaller country but in a top division where I can instantly start gaining achievements.

And my choice for my starting club is.......

Barry Town United AFC!

The reason? Well Gavin and Stacey was one of them! But mainly it's the fact they have been successful in the past but have since fallen apart, they won the league seven times in eight season between 1996 and 2003 before their decline due to financial issues, since then they have won nothing. Another reason was the fact it's a different league that I've never been to in any FM, so it'll be new and fun for me as well!

So it's my job now to bring back the good times, put a smile on good old Uncle Bryn's face!

A very strange choice you may say but it certainly ticks a few boxes. A smaller team in a smaller league but with the potential to start winning trophies and ticking off achievements quickly.

I hope you follow along with the save, there will be season by season posts, I did that on FM18 and much preferred it as I play rather quickly and it means less stopping to write posts. I like my writing style and although it's not to everyone's taste this style suits me best. This save will be solely on here, there won't be any updates via Twitter or other social media channels, this, for me leaves all the suspense until the post and doesn't give anything away or any teasers.

The Twitter account will be staying and will be used to tell you all when my posts are out, the main idea for my Twitter account this year is to help promote others content, I love keeping up-to-date with what people do and I want to make sure the content gets out there to as many people as possible. So for anyone that follows newgenfm on Twitter let me know when you release your content and I'll make sure I give it a RT (Or Quote RT).

So for now it's goodbye, there will be a Barry Town Team Guide blog post once the Beta is out where I can get proper FM19 screenshots to show you, this will also take you through my aims and goals during my time a Barry.

Thanks for reading and speak to you all soon

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Looking forward to this!

 

[Lippo255]

Very interesting... good luck to all, may the best FMer win!

 

[LutterworthFox]

The Achievement Hunter #1 - A shock appointment at Barry Town United

FC Sion legend Patrick Hodler has retired from football and has taken over as Barry Town United manager in Wales with immediate effect. 30 year old Swiss International Striker Hodler had an fantastic career at FC Sion scoring 140 goals in 233 games before a terrible training ground injury, a shocking two footed tackle by jealous fellow Striker Thomas Breitenmoser broke both his legs in 4 places. During his 18 months injury lay-off he fell into depression and alcohol and in the 3 years since returning only played 2 games.




Patrick decided he had no choice but to retire, with ex-Manager Stephen Robbins being from the United Kingdom he knew where he wanted to go to get away from Switzerland, where he had lived since birth, so he decided to emigrate to the UK where he can be as depressed and unhappy as he wanted whilst fulfilling his destiny of sharing his footballing knowledge and wisdom, this time as a football manager.


He comes to Wales with no coaching badges, Barry Town United state the reason for his appointment was his standing in the game, being a full international for Switzerland where he scored 11 goals in 22 appearances.




So far we have heard very little from Patrick Hodler, he has only made one quote in the Barry news and that was:

"I've always admired British TV Comedies and Gavin and Stacey is one of favourites, Nessa is my type of girl as well, once I heard Barry Town United wanted me all I could think was "that sounds lush", so I jumped at the chance"

​

So welcome to Barry Town United Patrick, enjoy the beach and the funfair and watch out for Uncle Bryn.


Although he has said he is excited to be here he still doesn't look very happy! Good luck Patrick!!





Now let's take a little look at Barry Town United a little more closely

#1 - The Club​

Barry Town United Football Club is an association football team based in Barry. They are known for representing Wales in Europe as winners of the Welsh Premier League and Welsh Cup during the 1990s and early 2000s, and have also competed in England's Southern League and FA Cup. The team, which has contained more than 50 full internationals, is now run by supporters. They play at their traditional home of Jenner Park, Barry, which holds 2,000 spectators.

Thank you Wikipedia for that fantastic introduction. If you had read my last post I mentioned that Barry Town United during the mid-late 90's and early 00's were one of the most successful teams in Wales, they won 7 league titles between 1996 and 2003 and have also won the Welsh Cup 6 times, 4 of these in that golden era I mentioned.

One of their biggest feats came in 2001 when they became the first League of Wales team to win a Champions League match, beating Azerbaijani side FC Shamkir.

Their final League title in 2003 came amidst a severe decline, a new owner and John Fashanu becoming Chairman were all attempts to stop the rot but it was to no avail. In the Summer of 2003 the club went into administration and lost nearly all their first team squad. The club was bought in December 2003 but it got worse as at the end of that season they were relegated.

They were promoted back to the Premier League in 2008 but there were still financial issues behind the scenes. There were numerous issues over the next 5 years, fan led fightbacks, attempts to withdraw the club from the Welsh Football league and court rulings. The court ruled in favour of the Fans association but they had to re-enter the in the 3rd Division, 3 promotions in 4 years got them back into the the Premier League where they ended 7th, narrowly missing out on a European spot after a play-off semi final defeat to Cardiff Met.

This was a very short description of what has happened, and I've shrunk it down after reading and attempting to write it in my own words. I may have missed things but check Wikipedia for the whole story!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Town_United_F.C.#History

​

So as you can see above they have fallen sharply but are now back where they belong, it's now Patrick Hodler's job to bring back the good old days!

​

Above are the club facilities, etc. We have a decent sized ground, probably middle sized for this league. The facilities are pretty poor with Junior Coaching being the highest at Adequate.

The playing squad in comparison to the rest of the league isn't too bad, above is the average for the whole squad and this does translate to the other areas. We are pretty much in the middle. The highest average is TNS in nearly every department, we average between 7 and 9 in most areas. It's a good base to build on but we have a long way to go to catch TNS.

#2 - The League​

The Welsh Premier League consists of 12 teams, who play each other twice before the league splits into 2, the top 6 entering the "Championship Group" and the bottom 6 entering the "Playoff Conference" where they play each other twice more. As you can see below Barry are forecast to end 5th, TNS are as expected massive favourites but below that it is quite tight between 2nd and 5th.

So the league splits to decide the winners and also the 1 team that gets relegated but that's not the full story. The teams that end between 3rd and 7th at the end of the season enter the "European Places Playoff"

The 4 teams play semi finals and then a final to decide who gets that last European Spot.

#3 - The Players​

So we have looked at the club and the league structure, now let's take a look at the playing squad and I have to admit when I looked I was shocked at how small the squad was!



So there are 17 players in the first team but when I loaded the game there were only 12! I have moved 5 players from the reserves to bolster the squad but it still looks very thin. Goalkeeper wise we are very poor and we are short in defence, we have some great option in central and attacking midfield and also a couple of decent strikers, we do however really need to try and bring a few players in, something I am very reluctant to do in the first season, I really don't like de-stabilising things straight the way.

So who are the best players?

Well first up is Striker Momodou Touraywho is on loan from Newport County, Touray is a massive prospect and has recently received a Welsh U21's call up. He has some great physical attributes and most attributes are above average for this league.



Next up is right-sided player Macauley Southam-Hales, he can play anywhere down the right, his versatility will really help a very small squad. He has good natural fitness, work rate and teamwork, I will probably look at playing him as an attacking RB to start with.



Attacking Midfielder Tom Fry is next up and this boy also looks very good for this level, his mentals are very good and can also take a decent freekick.



By far my best defender is Curtis Watkins, his defensive attributes are really good all round and at 22 could be a good player for the future with a bit of nurturing.



And finally is Striker Kayne McLaggon, hopefully alongside Touray these two could become a deadly partnership, McLaggon has good pace and also decent composure and finishing, I have to say I'm really excited by my Striking options.



So overall we have some decent players but we do need to strengthen, we can only do that however if we have the funds to do it, so let's take a look at the finances

#5 - The Finances​

Well clearly I'm not expecting millions, or hundreds of thousands to spend but we have £0 in the transfer kitty, not unexpected for this level, the good news is we do have a bit of wage budget to play with, around £1.5k per week spare to spend. This should mean we can bring in a few players, even if they are on free's or cheap loans.



We also have a healthy starting bank balance but the projections are for us to lose around £100k this season, European football is massively needed to just help bring in a little bit extra cash to help the balance become a bit more stable.
#4 - The Staff

A very quick word on the staff and it really isn't good! We have no scouting or medical team so need to go out and get a few in. We have 2 coaches (1 general coach and 1 GK Player/coach) and then the 2 other staff below.

Michael Cosslett is my "*** Man" and to be honest he looks poor, I will definitely be looking to replace him as soon as I can.



Doctor Ceri Bowley is my Head of Youth Development and looks pretty good, 10 for judging PA is not bad and there is also some other decent attributes. I will definitely be keeping the good Doctor around.

#6 - My thoughts on Tactics​

Everyone who reads my posts will know I am not good when it comes to tactics so I'll keep this short. Clearly we have a thin squad, we have a lot of good midfielders and 2 good Strikers and with no real option on the wings bar 1 player so this is the tactic I'm swaying towards at the moment.



This will clearly change if I get some players in but it looks OK, it makes the most of our decent central players, and in this league there's no point in gegenpressing or tiki-taka so I've just gone for sit back, soak it up and hit them on the break through the middle. Will it work? Probably not!

#7 - Aims/Objectives​

So what are my aims for my time here? Well I guess it's best to tell you which achievements I hope to get whilst here. I won't go into details but here are the ones I think that are doable:

• Record purchase for club
• Record sale for club
• Top a Nations hall of fame
• Win Domestic Double
• Win 3 Consecutive League Titles
• 5 Season at Club
• Club Legend

These are a few of the ones I hope I can achieve.
So I really want to spend at least 5 seasons here which for me is usually about the maximum I do at one club!
For my first season I want to :

• Improve the quality of the squad
• Replace my Assistant Manager
• Qualify for Europe
• Try and give some of the younger first team players a shot

Hopefully by getting European football we can bring some extra revenue which i hope after a couple of seasons will mean I can start improving facilities to bring players through the youth intake.
I fully expect it to take us 2 to 3 seasons to be challenging TNS but I would expect by season 3 to be challenging for the league title. Here's hoping anyway!

#8 And Finally​

Now Patrick Hodler has taken over for this save I have decided to tweak a few of the Achievements to suit the main man.
So 3 of the Achievements have changed:

• Get Leicester Job is now Get FC Sion Job
• Get England Job is now Get Switzerland Job
• Top English Nationality Hall of Fame is now Top Swiss Nationality Hall of Fame

This makes the save a lot more personal to Patrick where we hope he can eventually return to Switzerland at some point in the future and take FC Sion and Switzerland to glory!

So anyway I think I've gone on enough, I hope you liked the little different post, I wanted to add something fun to it and I hope it's come across that way! My next post will be at the end of the first season.


Thanks for reading!

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Look the back story (always helps I find) looking forward to seeing how Patrick gets on!

 

[LutterworthFox]

Thank you mate, he was a Newgen player in my FM18 save who came through my first youth intake with FC Sion, went on to become the clubs record goalscorer and my favourite ever Newgen player in any FM! Glad you enjoyed it

 

[LutterworthFox]

The Achievement Hunter #2 - Barry Town United 18/19 Season Review

The Achievement Hunter #2 - Barry Town United 18/19 Season Review​

Welcome back to my Football Manager 2019 series where I'm playing the self made "Achievement Hunter" challenge. If you haven't already then please go and check the opening post telling you about the challenge and the team guide of my starting team in this challenge Barry Town United. I also posted a little review of my 41212 tactic which has performed so well for me so far. So enough of the self-promotion let's get into the post where I will taking you through the up's an down's of my first season in charge.



I have to say this has been one **** of a fun season! So let's firstly take a look at the players I brought into the club.

Transfers In

I mentioned in my team guide post we were incredibly short of players, 17 total first team players and only 5 players in the youth team. So I had to bring some players in, we were short in defence and needed a decent GK, we also needed to add some depth.
There were a lot of in's so please bear with me.


Gary Taylor-Fletcher - AM/ST - Free Transfer

The big man joins, I needed some experience and also a versatile player, Gary can play upfront or in attacking midfield and will be a good back-up option for the season. I also signed him as a good mentor for some of my younger players.

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Charlie Busby - Goalkeeper - Free Transfer

Signed as my No. 1 GK for the season, I really struggled to bring anyone better into the club due to financial constraints, Busby will be decent for this level where all the GK's average around 8 for each attribute.

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James Graham - CB - Free Transfer

A young CB who will be back-up for the season, he has good mental attributes for a young player in this league.

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Adam Hesp - CB - Free Transfer from Cefn Druids

Another CB comes in but Hesp will be my first choice alongside Curtis Watkins, this guy looks really good, physically good for this level and also has a good long throw.

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Jordan Barrow - DM/CM - Free Transfer

Barrow's mental attributes drew me to him, he will provide good competition with Patten at DM. Again his mentals drew me to him and his PPM "Tries Long Ranger Passes" which will be great for my direct counter style.

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Emlyn Lewis - CB - Free Transfer from Cardiff Met Uni

Another CB comes in, we only had one CB when I joined hence the deluge of new players. Emlyn looks really good and will be back-up to Hesp and Watkins. His leadership will also help a very inexperienced squad.

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Hugo Logan - AM - Free Transfer

Signed in January, I had earmarked Cotterill to playas my No. 1 AM but he was dreadful and declined very quickly. Logan came in as I was really struggling to get anyone to play the AM role well. He looks quality with good mentals and some great technicals.

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Christoper Jeffries - ST - Free Transfer from Connah's Quay

I really struggled with Strikers during the first half of the season, Touray and McLaggon were amazing but I had no decent back-up of any nore. Jeffries caught my eye as a free young player, he doesn't look amazing but hopefully with some mentoring he can start improving.

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Will Evans - CM - Free Transfer

Another January signing, I had quite a few midfielders but playing 4 every game we needed a few more back-up players. Evans is on very little wages and looks decent for this division.

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Rhys Williams - GK - Free Transfer

My final signing and another January one, Williams was needed as my back-up keeper had a meltdown and I sold him off. Williams looks really good and for free as well. It also gives a bit of competition to Busby.


So that's all my signing during the season. Quite a lot but all needed due to our thin squad.


So transfer's down, let's see how the season went:

Welsh Premier League

What an absolutely incredible season, if you read my tactical post you will know I commented on how well we were doing, 15 games in and we had only lost 1 game. We even managed to beat TNS away in the first game of the season, courtesy of a 93rd minute goal from Adam Hesp.



An amazing start and we continued in great form until a shock 2-0 defeat in game 7 to Cefn Druids. our good run continued all the way up until game 16 where the wheels kind of fell off a little bit, 3 defeats in a row, 2 against TNS (1 in the league, 1 in the cup) which meant TNS overtook us at the top, we were still so far over-exceeding expectations and as we entered the league split after 22 games we sat 2nd in the league.





Not a bad start, only 2 points behind TNS and well over 2 points a game. Now with 10 games to go we just had to do keep pushing, I didn't expect us to win the league but 2nd would give us a guaranteed Europa League spot without having to play the silly play-off (between 3rd to 7th) to get the final Euro place.


Results before split

After the split we played 10 games, only lost 2 games (yes both to TNS!), drew 2 and won the other 6, an amazing season is over but did we get anywhere near TNS?

Results after split


One word - No!



We can however looks at this season as a massive step forward. Only 9 behind TNS and 20 clear of 3rd. We averaged over 2 points per game. And with that we qualify for the Europa League Prelim Round.


And because of our fantastic season Patrick Hodler was named Manager of the Year.


Welsh Cup

A very quick overview on this competition, we were handed the toughest draw possible in the 3rd Round (where we entered the competition), away to TNS, we played OK but they showed their class beating us 2-0.





Cup Winners: TNS

Nathaniel MG Cup

The second cup in Wales and you don't really get anything for winning it, except if I won it then it would tick off an achievement!


So we started brilliantly but were lucky in our draws, we missed out on all the bigger teams in Wales playing 3 lower league teams en-route to the final, the semi final however was a little nervy as we only scraped through on penalties.





And then to the final where we faced Caernarfon Town, our toughest game in the run and boy was it a tough game. We scored early but they really did throw everything at us, our tactics worked perfectly as we scored a 2nd catching them on the break. The did get a goal back but it wasn't enough and we had won, my first trophy in my first season!




And with that cup win it means I get the first achievement in the challenge. More on this later.

The Youth League

Something I wasn't going to talk about but when I saw it I had to show it. Barry have won the Youth Development South League. This is such good news for the future!




Player Performances

So who were my best performers I hear you ask?


My Player of the Year - By far and away my best player was on-loan Striker Touray, 27 goals in 37 games was amazing, he ended at the 4th top scorer in the league with 21.


Fans Player of the Year - Right Back Southam-Hales was also fantastic this season, he ended 3rd in the assists charts for the league with 11 and ended with the highest average rating of any Barry player with 7.26 from 34 games.


And finally a special mention to Defensive Midfielder Patten, playing as a BWM he shielded the defence fantastically winning 93% of his tackles, 78% of his headers and a pass completion of 73%, not bad seeing as we were playing direct football. He also scored 7 and assisted in 6 goals.

Youth Intake

I also want to take a quick look at the Youth Intake because boy it looked incredible when it came through!



FIVE 5* potential players! On the surface it looked amazing and after looking a bit deeper it does look OK but not as good as you would think. I think this shows how poor my first team squad is when the 15 year old's coming through nearly all have more potential than 90% of my first team!


So after delving a bit more I picked 4 players who look really good and will go straight into the main squad to add some good back-up.
And here they are:




Clearly all of them need a lot of work, but with some good mentoring and training and a bit of match time I'm sure I'll be able to improve them.

The Achievement Hunter?

Just a little note on the Achievements. I now have 10 other people playing in this challenge now so I have had to tweak a few of the Achievements due to certain circumstances. I don't think I need to go into too much explanation on this so here are the ones that have changed:

• Win League with New Club is now just Win League (that's any league)
• Win Cup with New Club is now just Win Cup (that's any cup)
• Win Domestic Double has to be a Top League and Cup where the top teams enter (i.e FA Cup not Checkatrade Trophy)

I never ever expected one person to join in this challenge with me so I set the achievements solely based on my own save, clearly with so many people joining I've had to change a few things.


Now to myself and I only gained the 1 Achievement which was "Win Cup", 1 down, 45 to go!


Below is the table currently as of this post. Some people have started, some are having to wait but below is everyone in the challenge, what season they are at, who they are and how they are doing.

Please make sure you go and follow all these guys on Twitter and keep an eye out for their blog posts where you will be able to see how they are getting on and the achievements they have gained.

Next Season

An amazing season, a cup win, a decent run in the league and we were closer to TNS than I expected. We did fall away a bit but our main issue was our results against TNS. As you can see below, apart from our opening win, we lost all the other games against them. Maybe I need to revisit my tactics and change it a little bit against them.





So my aim for next season is to win at least 2 games against TNS. I also want to end 2nd with a view to be getting closer to them.


Other than that I really need to start looking closely at the finances, we are currently £140k in the red. Hopefully a couple of wins in the Europa League will help boost the finances a bit but clearly we have to be lucky with the draws. For next season I'm going to try and cut the wage bill down and hopefully with Europe and us doing well in the league we can boost the attendance figures, this year our average has been just over 400 fans per game which is around 15% of capacity.


Squad wise I will be shipping a few of the poorer players out, give some of the younger players a shot but also bring a few players in, hopefully for next to no wages. We are losing star striker Touray as his loan is up and he doesn't want to join so I need a new 25+ goal a season man. Other than that 1 or 2 new players, but you know me I may end up signing 10!


Anyway that's enough from me for now. I hope you enjoyed the post. Thanks for reading and speak to you all soon.