Prematurely brick-walling

[MillerJA9]

I find myself in the summer of 2018 with Leganes in the BBVA. I achieved back-to-back promotions to the top league after a consolidation season in 2B and after a first top-season finish of 7th including a UEFA place, followed by a finish of 3rd in this latest season, I find I've done rather well. With the UEFA cup money, an incredible league table finish and now Champions League football and moneys I find myself in a nice position. However...

My chairman is looking to leave and I find myself with a measly £350k a week wage budget and a transfer budget of £1mill. Two failed takeovers in the past six months, average/adequate training facilities, a poor stadium with an attendance limit of 11,000 and it's all looking a bit shaky. I was going to post this in the frustrations thread but I wanted to see if others have experienced the same. I had another previous save with Coventry where I did something similar, but despite a move back to the Ricoh Arena I couldn't get attendances above 5k despite European football. I imagined a glitch of some sort but it just ruined the gaming experience for me. Now I'm concerned with what is happening at Leganes and whether FM just isn't prepared for the growth of small teams, and doesn't sufficiently support them.

Finances are secure, club rep is on the way up and yet it's near enough impossible for me to progress from here in terms of signings as I simply don't have the money to invest or the facilities to bring through players. My youth recruitment has been consistently terrible (one 3.5* player in three seasons, the rest 2* and below), and with an inability to sign quality HG players at the moment I could find myself struggling to comply with HG player rules (despite me having a largely HG squad at the moment, issues could arise with lack of players trained at club a young age unless I hold on to the poor ones). I could sell my star player for approx £50mill but who wants to do that?

Essentially I have the potential to really progress but the game is holding me back and could see me decline after hitting this FM-brick-wall. Is there any way of increasing the chances of a takeover? Or will I most likely have to hope I can hang on until next season in the hope of investment?

Anyone else experienced similar to me?

 

[Crane]

I'd say the club structure is holding you back, not the game. It's clear the chairman wants to go, so why would he invest in facilities etc? I'd play the long game and wait until you get a take over, new stadium or better facilities. Very hard in the Spanish league as well, with Madrid and Barca having a monopoly of the TV money.

 

[MillerJA9]

We now have continental reputation, and are a small-valued club with huge potential both financially and in footballing terms. There should be investors throwing money to get involved! Just annoyed as I've had transfer embargo's put in place for the majority of both windows and nothing has come of it. Actually, the board did invest and improve the facilities over the summer and have even agreed to improve junior coaching and youth recruitment network. Just no money to invest in players! The lack of quality youth recruitment is especially peeing me off. Got all the right staff in place but just no quality coming through. Guess it's because I'm in the Madrid region and they pick off the best players! Grrrr.

 

[FreakDJ]

Since you are money tight you must be strict with your wages/budget!
Here is what I use and I have 1b in the bank currently with Crewe Alexandra in the English Premier League!
3-4 Key Players that take up 30% of my wage budget*
~8 First team players that take up 30% of my wage budget*
10-13 Rotation/Backup players that take up 30% of my wage budget*
Reserve and Youth players that take up 10% of my wage budget*
*If budget can support you using up 100% of it*
-With a structure like this, your players should complain less of wanting a new contract to match a player of similar quality who is on better wages.
-When signing a new player, if he doesn't fit in to your wage budget, pass. No player is worth more than the club. Also, you can always find a player of similar or better quality for cheaper.
-Try to negotiate contracts with a current player with 2 years on his contract so you can see if he will demand more than what he is worth.
-Negotiate a player to the lowest squad status possible.

Also, try to get the best deal you can when selling players (obviously) but along with that, tack on a "Percentage of next sale" (Don't mistake for percentage of profit of next sale).

This should help you have available money to spend on improving the squad. If you need further help or want to talk about other things too just contact me!

 

[MillerJA9]

Since you are money tight you must be strict with your wages/budget!
Here is what I use and I have 1b in the bank currently with Crewe Alexandra in the English Premier League!
3-4 Key Players that take up 30% of my wage budget*
~8 First team players that take up 30% of my wage budget*
10-13 Rotation/Backup players that take up 30% of my wage budget*
Reserve and Youth players that take up 10% of my wage budget*
*If budget can support you using up 100% of it*
-With a structure like this, your players should complain less of wanting a new contract to match a player of similar quality who is on better wages.
-When signing a new player, if he doesn't fit in to your wage budget, pass. No player is worth more than the club. Also, you can always find a player of similar or better quality for cheaper.
-Try to negotiate contracts with a current player with 2 years on his contract so you can see if he will demand more than what he is worth.
-Negotiate a player to the lowest squad status possible.

Also, try to get the best deal you can when selling players (obviously) but along with that, tack on a "Percentage of next sale" (Don't mistake for percentage of profit of next sale).

This should help you have available money to spend on improving the squad. If you need further help or want to talk about other things too just contact me!

Thanks for the detailed reply, FREAKDJ. I follow most of this to the tee at the moment. My top earner (who is phenomenal, wanted by Barca, Real etc etc) is a 20 year old striker on £36k a week. Only three other players are at the £30k a week mark, meaning that almost exactly 30% of my budget is on these star players. The rest are on £14k or below, with some star performers somehow happy with a measly £6k. Quite a few contracts to run in the two years so an increase in wage outlay will be unavoidable. Hopefully within the next six months we will have an investor as supporting a Champions League team on a Championship budget is rather difficult at the moment!

Did you say you have £1b in the bank? As in a billion? Kudos on your success with Crewe! It's always interesting to see how other FMers do with other teams. Never been a fan of "big club" management so it's good to have some common ground.

 

[FreakDJ]

Thanks for the detailed reply, FREAKDJ. I follow most of this to the tee at the moment. My top earner (who is phenomenal, wanted by Barca, Real etc etc) is a 20 year old striker on £36k a week. Only three other players are at the £30k a week mark, meaning that almost exactly 30% of my budget is on these star players. The rest are on £14k or below, with some star performers somehow happy with a measly £6k. Quite a few contracts to run in the two years so an increase in wage outlay will be unavoidable. Hopefully within the next six months we will have an investor as supporting a Champions League team on a Championship budget is rather difficult at the moment!

Did you say you have £1b in the bank? As in a billion? Kudos on your success with Crewe! It's always interesting to see how other FMers do with other teams. Never been a fan of "big club" management so it's good to have some common ground.

No problem man, I love to help people if they need it. This structure works wonders especially when tight on money. If you keep this structure in mind and get players in on frees while selling older player or players who don't want to sign a new contract that fits the structure you should be making millions in no time.

Yes 1 billion in the bank I always like to start new FMs (in beta) with a big club just to get used to the ME, then I have three saves I like to do throughout FM, rotating through them when I get bored of one ( A low EPL team, normally Crewe as they have top facilities but I like to mix it up, a Travelling manager one similar to pentagon challenge, and a youth challenge save ). In my current Crewe save I've been trying to use a lot of youth and only buy youth players for my team and spend ~20m a year on ~4-5 good youth prospects, while selling older players for buckets of money ( normally sell a few players for a total of 70m or over a year). Once brought in a free Mexican player then sold him the next season for 75m plus bonuses! Its wonderful!

 

[MillerJA9]

No problem man, I love to help people if they need it. This structure works wonders especially when tight on money. If you keep this structure in mind and get players in on frees while selling older player or players who don't want to sign a new contract that fits the structure you should be making millions in no time.

Yes 1 billion in the bank I always like to start new FMs (in beta) with a big club just to get used to the ME, then I have three saves I like to do throughout FM, rotating through them when I get bored of one ( A low EPL team, normally Crewe as they have top facilities but I like to mix it up, a Travelling manager one similar to pentagon challenge, and a youth challenge save ). In my current Crewe save I've been trying to use a lot of youth and only buy youth players for my team and spend ~20m a year on ~4-5 good youth prospects, while selling older players for buckets of money ( normally sell a few players for a total of 70m or over a year). Once brought in a free Mexican player then sold him the next season for 75m plus bonuses! Its wonderful!

The star regen I got on a free I could easily sell for £50mill now but I'd rather not! Of course he has just gone and torn his calf muscle so is out for three months!

My board finally agreed to give me more money but have decided to do so after the transfer window closed so I haven't invested and have had a poor start to the season

Takeover bid going on at the moment apparently but we will see where that leads us!

 

[FreakDJ]

The star regen I got on a free I could easily sell for £50mill now but I'd rather not! Of course he has just gone and torn his calf muscle so is out for three months!

My board finally agreed to give me more money but have decided to do so after the transfer window closed so I haven't invested and have had a poor start to the season

Takeover bid going on at the moment apparently but we will see where that leads us!

Just remember no single player is bigger than the club itself! It is important to sell players if the bid is too good.

Also, don't only search for players during the transfer window, you can buy them when its closed and just wait to receive them next transfer window. January is the best time to buy, as players are possibly under performing and the coach is looking to unload cheaper, and summer is best time to sell as clubs have the most money as they just got their bonuses for their position in the league. Also, at the begging of the season, check the league below you and look at the three clubs who have been relegated because their players will likely be unhappy now due to relegation, and will be sold for cheaper.

If you want to discuss anything with me or just talk message me and we can chat through steam