Shooting for the Stars

[darth_timon]

Greetings everyone, and welcome to Darth Timon's journey from nameless, faceless manager to (hopefully) famous, successful manager, on FM21. For the first time on any FM game, I was looking to start out as a humble ex semi-professional footballer, seeking to try his hand at management. Onwards to the first chapter.

A New Beginning

It’s been a while since I have sunk my teeth into a new Football Manager game. I invariably return to the 2012 edition, which is familiar and to me, easy to beat. I’ve achieved it all on that version, but what about trying out the latest version of the series? With that in mind, I recently splashed out on the 2021 edition, and having played out a season where I’ll shamelessly admit to having cheated (via the in-game editor), it’s time to do things properly.

So, in this scenario, I’m a semi-professional footballer who has just retired and now unemployed. I’m looking to take charge of a club, waiting for someone to give me a chance. An early interview with Wigan Athletic… didn’t succeed.

We drift into September and there’s no immediate signs of any managerial positions opening up. I end up getting asked by a journalist if I’m concerned I’ll be rusty. I answer that I’m looking forward to getting stuck in when the chance arrives. The headline is that I’m rusty. Gee, thanks media.

October arrives and still no opening. The Wigan position is insecure (a bit harsh on the newly-hired Leam Richardson, especially given a couple of early wins), which I find to be rather ironic. I get asked about my thoughts on the position becoming available, and I say I find it rather unfair on Richardson to speculate. After all, that might have easily been me on shaky ground. I’m also asked about my thoughts on my unemployment… to which I give the witty answer that I’m getting good at Football Manager.

October ends and I’m still jobless. There’s a few insecure managers – Stoke, Plymouth, Chesterfield (I have history with them on FM 2012), and intriguingly, Romania and Slovakia – so there could be some prospects soon. In fact, as November begins I declare an interest in the Stoke, Plymouth and Chesterfield roles – to see if I can shake things up. I’m asked about the vulnerable Mansfield manager Nigel Clough, but once again I’m not getting drawn into speculation about another manager’s job, that just isn’t cricket.

Meanwhile, Chesterfield’s fans are derisive of my interest in their club. Sod them. I’m asked by another journalist about Clough’s Mansfield situation and I continue to not commit to an answer. A short time later he’s sacked and I declare my interest in the role, along with an application. What fruit will this tree bear? Along with my application is still another question from the media, asking about my interest in the role, to which I give an enthused answer – I want to start somewhere.

Meanwhile, non-league Aldershot sack their manager Danny Searle, and in the interests of keeping options open, I submit an application. It can’t hurt right? Stoke dismiss Michael O’Neill from his role at the struggling Championship side, and well… I try to pounce. In the meantime, I get an invite to an interview with Aldershot. I also apply for the newly-vacated position at Championship Middlesbrough, who part ways with Neil Warnock.

I get an offer from Aldershot, £900 a week. Well, that’s usually pretty good in anyone’s book right? It’s a one-year deal, so the team are clearly tentative, but beggars can’t be choosers, so here we go. Aldershot it is.

 

[darth_timon]

Part 2 - Aldershot give me a Shot

In Part One of my newest Football Manager adventure, I spent some time unemployed, waiting for someone to take a chance on me. In November Aldershot decided to give me that chance.

Straight away I set up tactics I feel would work best, a kind of 4 2-2-2 formation that will hopefully be suited for a non-league side (at least, that’s what the download link said). I set up new training regimes and set about preparing my threadbare team.

Non-league clubs are, by their very nature, semi-professional outfits and they don’t exactly overflow with resources. I’ve got virtually no transfer budget to speak of and the youth setup isn’t exactly bursting with talent, so I’ll have to make do with what I have. A meeting with the squad on the 29th of November grants me the opportunity to lay down a few expectations and the team comes out of it reasonably happy, which is a good start. A day later I’m enjoying my first press conference, a low-key affair compared to the Premier League circus.

My first game is away to Dagenham and Redbridge, it’s Tuesday 1st December 2020, how will this go? In a rare twist, I’m going to view the entire match (which could take nearly ninety minutes) to see what I’m working with. Conceding after just three minutes isn’t inspirational, but as I said to the media in the tunnel, definitive conclusions about the team cannot be based on one game. Also, the equaliser lands a minute later. I take the lead around the 20 minute mark, only for the goal to be scrubbed for offside.

I can’t fault the team for effort in the first 25 minutes of my managerial career. The quality in the final third is lacking, which is where we could get hurt. We seem to be fond of long throw-ins that end up in the Dagenham’s ‘keeper’s hands. By the 35th minute we’ve forced a few good saves from their ‘keeper, but I don’t feel we’ve truly carved them open.

After a period of being better than Dagenham, they hit the post, and my team narrow escapes. Still, come half-time I was quite happy – we’d played well, made chances, and looked sharp.

Forgive the switch to past-tense now, but that’s now I’m viewing it my head. In the 56th minute Aldershot scored again, and for the first time in my career I was winning a game. This was naturally quite pleasing and we appeared to be in control of the match as well, passing the ball reasonably well and not looking stretched. I can’t say I was thrilled to learn of four minutes of injury time (where’d that come from?!), and Dagenham nearly scored… but not only was their forward offside, they conspired to miss a sitter anyway. My first match ended with a 2-1 away victory, not a bad way to start.

I’d hope to upload highlights of my first win, but a snafu between the game and Google is preventing it. I might add the highlights to this video at a later date.
At any rate, one game doesn’t define a season. Winning is good, winning over and over is better. On to the next game, at home to Altrincham, who are 20th and only just above the relegation zone. Easy right?

Well, leading after 20 minutes was a positive sign. on 24 minutes the lead was doubled, after a neat pass to striker Reid, who had headed home from the corner earlier for the first goal. Fondop lashed home a third goal right after half-time, after some frantic flapping in the Altrincham penalty area saw the ball drop to his feet.

Losing the clean sheet on 52 minutes due to some sloppy defending was annoying. The team had a lucky escape on 71 minutes with an Altrincham striker through on goal managing to miss an easy chance. In the end a 3-1 victory came my way, two wins out of two, and the club has moved eight points clear of relegation. Again, highlights will eventually appear, as and when Sports Interactive and Google resolve their issues.

Two games, two wins, and two reasonably good performances as well. Some of the passing was a little sloppy and I need to look at the long throws – they seem to end up in the goalkeeper’s hands on virtually every occasion – but overall I’m pleased.

Time for a change of pace. For the first two games I’d watched full-length matches. This wouldn’t be practical for any length of time – assuming an average of two games per day (ambitious), it would take three weeks to complete a single season, and I am not that patient. I figured commentary with goal highlights would be enough. Having made that choice, my third game in charge rolled up quite quickly (one of the perils of non-league football is that the games come thick and fast, creating problems with player fitness). Match three was a trip to Notts County.

Prior to kick-off, Aldershot sat 15th in the table and Notts County occupied the lofty heights of 2nd. I faced quite a daunting task to take any points from this trip.
My fears were confirmed early on. Notts County pierced my defence twice in the first fourteen minutes, though I managed to get to half-time without conceding further. My team actually ended up with more shots and more shots on target at half-time, but clearly taking the chances had proven beyond my misfiring strikers.
Having taken a more aggressive approach in the second half, my team huffed and puffed and conceded a third goal on 65 minutes, ending any remote hope of points. We pulled a goal back on 87 minutes but it was nothing more than scant consolation.

Game four pitted me against Stockport, who were riding high in 5th – in theory, another difficult slog against superior opposition. We were leading after just two minutes, but goals in the 20th and 45th minutes allowed Stockport to take the lead. I absolutely despise seeing a team of mine throw away the advantage. I made that clear at half-time, and the team responded, conjuring up a 74th minute equaliser. 2-2 ended up as the final score, so I was left to reflect on seven points out of a possible 12. A good return for the squad I’d inherited?

Around this time I made my first two player signings, 21 year-old Callum Nicell and 19 year-old Louis Isherwood, for the midfield and defence respectively. Aldershot’s scouting facilities were limited but I felt confident enough in these two young players, and it wouldn’t hurt to send a message to the squad that I was quite prepared to make changes to the pecking order.

Match five was a cup game, at home against Bromley in the FA Trophy (a non-league FA Cup). Aldershot scored in the 19th minute and we were immediately pegged back in the 20th. We scored again on 27th minutes and the scored remained 2-1 at half-time. A positive sign was nine shots and four on target, along with absolutely dominating possession – 66% to 34%. Not too bad, not too bad at all…

The game finished 2-1, so onwards and upwards as far as the FA Trophy was concerned.

I’m not going to bore you with the details of the next few games, but my sixth game in charge yielded a magnificent 6-1 away win against Dover, match seven was a 3-1 home win over fierce local rivals Woking, match eight was a 1-0 away win over Wealdstone (and my Aldershot side’s first clean sheet), match nine produced a good solid 2-0 home victory over Hartlepool, and match ten (an FA Trophy fixture) saw a 3-1 away win (albeit a hard-fought win) over Altrincham.

So, ten games, eight wins, one draw and one defeat. Six out of eight league games won, and Aldershot have gone from languishing near the relegation zone to eighth in the National League. I can’t say I’m not pleased. The steady upward curve has to look good for this young, up-and-coming manager.

Ten games, eight wins, I am quite proud of that.

What does the future hold? Stay tuned…

 

[darth_timon]

Welcome back to Part Three:

We left our Aldershot boys on the back of eight wins after ten games in charge, and a decent climb up the National League table. It was fair to say I’d enjoyed quite a good honeymoon period, so to speak, but would this form be sustainable?

My 11th game in charge would be a home game against Torquay United, managed by Graham Westley. At half-time Aldershot enjoyed a 2-0 cushion and this became 3-0 shortly after the break (with striker Fondop scoring a magnificent hattrick). However a sloppy second-half performance allowed Torquay to pull two goals back, raising the ugly prospect of letting a very comfortable advantage slip (recall if you will, how much this annoys me). However the team held on and Reid added a fourth goal in injury time to seal another three valuable points.

Westley actually has a tenuous connection to me in real life, in that I’m originally from Stevenage and he managed Stevenage on two separate occasions, including a spell of promotions for the club. It was quite satisfying to defeat his Torquay side and maintain Aldershot’s strong run of form. We now had five consecutive wins to our name, a nice run.

Up next were Bromley, who we’d recently dispatched quite convincingly in the FA Trophy, only this time we were heading into the match as visitors. The team earned a hard-fought 2-1 victory, coming from behind to win in a game that saw both sides have goals disallowed and Aldershot claim the points via the penalty spot – but I wasn’t complaining! The Bromley fixture was quickly followed by another away game, this time at Boreham Wood. A 4-2 win followed, however after cruising at half-time the second half brought an unacceptable drop in performance, something I stressed to the players. They didn’t like that.

Match 14 and a third consecutive away fixture waited for me. I didn’t know what I’d done or who I’d offended to end up with three away matches in a row, but that’s football for you. Prior to the game Reid, who had scored seven goals in his last five games, won the National League Player of the Month, and I won the Manager of the Month award! Go me! To celebrate, Aldershot beat Eastleigh 2-1. Clean sheets are a distant memory, but with wins continuing to come, I wasn’t too fussed. The points mattered more than the performances.

For match 15 we returned to the FA Trophy and a home tie against recently beaten Torquay. A red card for Brewitt after just 13 minutes did not please me. Consequently a more defensive approach became necessary, and an early substitution. I ended up conceding and the game went a bit funny after that, not showing any match highlights. The game ended 1-0 to Torquay, a disappointing end to a promising cup run, and the end of my run of consecutive wins.

My 16th game in charge was back in the National League, and guess what? Aldershot’s fourth away game in a row. Wrexham were 3rd in the league, whilst we had risen to 4th, so the opportunity existed to leapfrog them.

In the end, despite going 2-0 down and then 3-1 down, two late goals (including one right at the end of stoppage time) rescued a point. Whether that point was deserved or not I’m not entirely sure, but I wasn’t complaining! The result meant we were maintaining our solid run in the National League, sitting nicely in the playoff places.
Cast your minds back to the first chapter of this Football Manager story, and the jeering, derisive Chesterfield fans when my name was linked to that club. Well, now Chesterfield would be visiting the Recreation Ground (the name of Aldershot’s snug stadium). Would their fans be so dismissive after the match? Chesterfield were struggling near the wrong end of the table, so could I pile on the misery?

I can answer those questions with an emphatic YES. Quick-fire goals in the 11th and 13th minutes put Aldershot in control, and a second penalty (the first goal also being a penalty) on 50 minutes ensured victory. Although towards the end of the game Chesterfield began to threaten (and even had a goal disallowed), the damage had long since been done, and to make the win sweeter Aldershot had only their third clean sheet under my stewardship.

My 18th fixture was potentially the toughest one yet – Aldershot had a (rare!) home game, but we were hosting league leaders Yeovil. Reid (one of my top scorers) was out with a bruised ankle, so my team felt hindered going into the match, but I still had a number of good performers in the line-up. Would they be enough?

Aldershot led 2-1 at half-time thanks to goals from Tanner and Rees, and generally speaking we’d been the better side. However we conspired to throw away our advantage and lose 3-2, and I was not happy. At one point we’d been 2-0 up, and to take no points from such a position was deeply disappointing. One angry conversation later I had some players doubting my ability, to which I let them know I am in charge, not them.

A trip to Sutton followed very soon after the annoying Yeovil defeat, and I needed the team to quickly bounce back. We duly did, a 2-1 win that was never really in doubt, following some rather sweeping squad rotation.

My landmark (eh) 20th game in charge would be at home to struggling Maidenhead. They sat 21st in the table, and Aldershot had climbed to 3rd. My team’s form had been pretty good, theirs… hadn’t. However, form and football can often make strange bedfellows, so nothing could be taken for granted. To assure possession of the ball I adopted a cautious approach, and Aldershot wound up 2-0 winners.

So, twenty games in charge, fifteen wins, two draws and three defeats. An early exit from the FA Trophy but up to third in the National League and not far off the leaders. That’s not a bad return for an inexperienced guy in his first ever managerial role (if we ignore the considerable Football Manager experience accumulated elsewhere). We’ve played 28 games out of the 44 league fixtures, so there’s still a long way to go, but things are definitely looking up!

Can we maintain this form? Find out next time!