Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge - Goodbye social life.

[msc008]

Evening folks,

Not done one of these stories before but love FM17 so thought I would take on the ultimate challenge after reading about it online here: http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/94644/t2216735-sir-alex-ferguson-challenge/so credit goes to them as well as the original creator back in 2013.

For those not aware of it, the rules of the challenge as stated there are:

• Holiday until November 6th in your first season.
• Take over the team 2nd bottom in the Premiership.
• Stay at this one club for a long period.
• Aim to bring youth players through.
• Persuade long term players to become part of your backroom staff and/or managers.

The goals of the challenge are:

1. Win a domestic cup within 4 seasons.
2. Win a league title within 7 seasons.
   
3. Win a league and cup double within 8 seasons.
   
4. Win a league, cup and Champions League treble within 13 seasons.

Having done my holiday, here is how it ended up on November 6th:

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Not a bad piece of luck!

Everton are naturally a top half club usually sitting just outside the top six. Not quite sure how they have managed to drop down to 19th but its a good club with lots of potential. The squad looks as follows with the 17.3 update:

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Gerard Deulofeu is on loan at AC Milan which is a bit of a pain as its stats look very good for a winger.

Have decided to create two main tactics having looked at the squad and the players available to me. One conventional 4-2-3-1 with Barkley as a number 10 and the other a 4-1-2-3 with a holding midfielder. The extra man in a holding midfield position allows for more attacking wing backs overlapping Inside forwards. I want a high tempo, direct pressing game with a more defensive option for the likes of City / United away.

1.

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2.

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The recent results and upcoming fixtures are:

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So Man City up first. Could have been easier but at least it's at home.

Will post some more updates once the save is up and running.

Come on you Toffees!

 

[Ralph2211]

Good luck. As an Everton fan I'll be interested to see how you do.

 

[Rick1990]

Good luck on this one!

 

[eagleheartf1chl]

Good luck, i follow the story

 

[msc008]

Update - in choppy waters.

Thanks for the good wishes on this journey everyone.

Update:

Six games in and we are struggling. It's becoming conceivable that however talented this squad is, the morale and defensive mistakes that I inherited could end up leading to relegation and early challenge failure.

I haven't been able to pick them up at all. We are conceding penalties and leads for fun and Lukaku is suffering from a confidence crisis. We sit bottom of the league, 14 games without a win and have had some really painful defeats to teams around us.

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My next step is to try and strengthen the foundations of the club. The quality of the coaches and scouting teams seem well below what you might expect from Everton so I have made wide scale changes as follows:

Before changes:

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After changes:

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This could be a risk as a lot of change short term normally destabilises a club. Having said that, changes need to be made before its too late and they could really benefit the club long term if we can come out of this sticky patch.

I also don't like what is happening tactically. While we aren't getting outplayed, we are conceding too many and not scoring enough. A combination of those two factors are lethal in football. I'm not sure about you but I have struggled to create effective tactics with width in this years edition. My best tactics have involved central play and a holding midfielder to play between the defensive and midfield lines. It's not ideal as Everton have a lot of wingers in the squad (Bolasie, Lennon, Valencia etc.) but change is definitely required. Therefore I am switching to the following:

View attachment 101521

Ashley Williams has surprisingly been an absolute liability so is going to spend some time out of the team.

There is an opportunity to bring in some players in January but I don't think the problems are down to a lack of quality. The main issue is morale which means the players underperform and lose leads (and games). We will see how we get on in the next few games before January before making any decisions.

One thing is for sure, I won't last too much longer bottom of the league.