Rising to the top

[benb107]

On FM 2015 I find many people post about Winning all the trophies with all the top sides with best budgets available. I find this boring and easily achievable for most managers.

This Thread is for us to Share how we turned our lower rep team into a Top team challenging for he UEFA places.

I have started a save with Brighton. In my 1st season I won the championship and to be honest I had a very small squad and very old. Free Signing - El Hadj Diouf was my best player! I was not ready for the Premier League at all.

In the 2nd Season I made many good free signings and I was just above the relegation zone coming into January. I couldn't believe it..... My Chairman gave me 10m to spend to keep us up! I signed Victor Ibarbo for 6m and Nick Powell for 675k who was currently on loan with me. I went on to Finish 9th with Victor scoring 17!! he was a Beast.

Again with a very small squad I made some very good free signings. Timo Horn (GK), Rafinha (CM), Vagner Love (ST) and a few more. Just before the start of the season Monaco came in for Ibarbo. I was gutted.... he wanted to leave. I managed to get 25m!!! for him. So i signed Jordan Rhodes for 8m to replace him as Poacher. and spent the rest of the money on Ricardo Kishna and Viktor Fischer from Ajax.

I went on to have another Fantastic season. Rhodes scored 22 in the League and we finished 6th!! Only losing 8 games. Chelsea and Man City came in for Rafinha and now he wanted to leave. I have accepted Chelsea's 30m bid. Not bad profit considering he came on a free.

Now onto my 4th Season with the Albion!!

Please share yours...................

 

[addug]

I started as a 25 year old with no coaching badges or experience. By November I finally got a job at third tier Spanish side Coruxxo with them sitting adrift at the foot of the table, managed to finish 14th with them which I was fairly happy with altogether, I was around 3rd highest scoring team in the league, but with about the 3rd worst defence so it evened out.

The financial situation of the club was very difficult so I decided to leave and got a job at Berwick Rangers, an English side (gives it a bit of an edge) in Scottish League 2. Finished the first season as Champions, then after finishing just outside the play offs the next season I managed back-to-back promotion via the play offs both times to take me to the promised land of the SPL.

First season in the league, pitted as a relegation certainty I finished 4th, taking me to Europa League qualifiers unfortunately I didn't get as far as the competition proper. Nonetheless a substantial profit the previous year allowed me to fill out my squad with a lot of young talent. Last season I came very close to the title, a disappointing home draw on the final day allowed Celtic to take it from me.

Currently on a break for exam period at uni, but looking to win the league this year and want to do it strongly rather than on the last day! Need to do a lot of work on the financial side as we made a loss of a couple of million last year and to compete long term in the SPL and to do anything in Europe I'm going to need to start making money somehow.

My average home crowd of 3000 isn't helping, but hey that's about a quarter of the towns population so what did I expect.

Also, Helder Postiga's younger brother.. Signed for £65K, scored 31 in his first season and is now worth £3.4 million. Not too shabby!

 

[CDXtreme]

1. I started with Derby County and they were predicted mid-table of play-off must say very surprised with how easy it was to win the championship... It was very close until February then I just ran away with it...

2. 1st season in the EPL was a joke as well I finished 5th, I used to play a very simple 4-3-3 and I would change things based on what was happening in the game... I grinded out a lot of 1-0's I had Danny Ings as CF but couldnt unlock his goalscoring ability luckily I had the likes of Lingard, Grealish and Ibe on the wings those three were my main scorers... I didnt draw a game for 5 months between December and End of Season lots of 2-0, 2-1 and 1-0 games...

3. Iv just finished season 3 (2nd in EPL) and I again finished 5th I couldnt break through the glass ceiling... I actually finished 10 points worse off than the previous season but I managed to beat Norwich in the FA Cup final... I had a strong team but due to my increased reputation I soon found I had a huge flaw in my tactics... If a team sat back to soak up pressure I really struggle which led me to having a leaky defence as I pushed forward for a goal...
That season was the most frustrating season of FM I have ever had... apart from a 12 game undefeated streak between December and March where I thought I had fixed my tactics I would have ended up around mid-table... Either side of that was an absolute struggle I couldnt defend... I had the worst defensive record in the top half not sure how I managed 5th...

4. In the process of beginning season 4 just in the middle of pre-season... Looking at my team I should really be happy to have finished 5th because its a small squad with only a handful of players good enough to play Champions Lge and and another few who are solid top 6 but after that the backup are poor... Iv cleared out about 10 players and brought in 10 better ones I also sold a few stars because I cant see a time where I will get the money for them...
Benteke and Destro were steals the fee's may eventually get up to 10-15m each but it will only happen if they perform... Bernard, Stones and Ward-Prowse were the bigger money players... Martins-Indi and Murru came in for reasonable fees and then Iv got a few loans to add depth... This year should be the break through and hopefully a good run in Europa...

 

[ScarySquirrel]

I also started a Brighton save this year. I'm not in front of the game so I may get some details wrong:

1st season - 2nd in the Championship, I was mid-table most of the season and then suddenly had an amazing end to the season. Kazenga LuaLua scored about 26 goals for me, he was amazing. He got injured early in the second season and very quickly wasn't good enough for the team so I sold him.

2nd season - Finished 12th in the Premier League, can't remember who I bought. But I spent most of my budget on young players for the future, many of whom went out on loan for the next season or two. Made some stupid free transfer signings, like Joe Cole on a 3 year contract on very high wages, he barely played and sucked me dry. Del Piero too, useless.

3rd season - Finished 7th in the Premier League. Amazing home record but worst away record in the league, changed up my tactics and managed to turn it around towards the end of the season to grab a Europa League qualification spot. Team at this point included Begovic, Ivanovic, young brazilian defender called Emerson, Paulo Oliveira, Felipe Melo, Fabio Borini, Solly March (amazing player for me still now)

4th season - Finished 12th in the Premier League. Qualified for the Europa League through the qualification stages, made it out of the group but got knocked out in the 1st knockout round. Made it to the quarter final of the league cup but lost. League performance was terrible, by this point I'd bought Andre Silva and he was hammering them in for me. Had some great business in the transfer market, I had an amazing young Brazilian defender called Emerson, bought him for £6m and he had a great first season with me. Juventus were interested and he kicked up a stink about me not selling them, he threatened to ruin squad harmony so I let him go for £19.25m. He only got 10 games with them and was then transfer listed, so I bought him back for £12m. So all in all he was almost free!

5th season - Finished 3rd in the Premier League. Runners up int he FA Cup, losing 2-1 to Man City in the final. Best season yet! Qualified for the Champions League.

6th (current) season - Not doing so well in the league, sitting 7th-8th, trying to qualify for the Europa League to meet expectations. Went out in the 3rd rounds of the FA and League cup. The real surprise though is the Champions League, I'm in the semi-final having topped my group which included Atletico Madrid, Wolfsburg, and Galatasaray, knocking out Inter in the 1st knockout round and Real Madrid in the quarter final. 2-2 home draw with Juventus in the semi-final first leg so not holding out much hope of making the final but still very happy with my performance in the competition so far.

Some of the squad for me at the moment is:

GK - Simone Scuffet (bought for £35m - expensive but he's young and good)
Defence - Andre Wisdom, Emerson, Emanuel Mammana, Alberto Moreno
Midfield - Joaquin Correa, Angel Correa, Solly March, Cesc Fabregas, Gylfi Sigurðsson, Nabil Bentaleb, Kelechi Nwakali
Attackers - Andre Silva, Maximiliano Romero (not played much yet), Nabil Fekir, Olivier Giroud




3rd season -

 

[Steve*]

I started with Parma in the Serie D, used the Serie D batch file on workshop and within 4 years I was in Serie A and by the end of my 7th season I have just won my first Serie A and also won the euro cup and 2 italian cups.