The 'Unemployed' Man United Legend - FM16 Journeyman Story

[nickmajfc]

Unemployed - Man United Legend Story - Football Manager 2016

Hello there FM Base community, my name is Nick and I am here to bring you a unique take on a journeyman series and challenge created by DerbyJack. As you can all see, his Footballing Mercenary story is very popular and my favourite here on FM Base. I have taken his story as a guide and tweaked it with a twist.

My goal is not to become the richest manager in the FM world, my goal is to simply don the world famous jacket.

View attachment 149362
My goal is to become the manager of my real world favourite club, Manchester United. This will not be an easy task, as I will be starting unemployed, as a Sunday League footballer. This is going to be quite the challenge and it will require me to likely journey my way through quite a lot of countries and face a lot of tough relegation challenges first. This may taken 5+ years to complete (in-game time), so you will have to bare with me.

There will be a lot of ups and downs along the way, but the goal is simple and that is to do whatever it takes to become the manager of Manchester United and hopefully lead them to a few seasons of glory. I will be covering this story in a first person point of view, just giving you my thoughts on players, how we are doing and that sort of thing with brief reviews of each match I play.

Every update will consist of 5 or so matches that have been completed and reviewed including transfers and ladder updates. World news from across every country will be provided too. My next post will be more than likely my first club, an overview of that club and how I plan on taking them forward.

Let the journey to Manchester begin.​

 

[nickmajfc]

View attachment 149177

Let the hunting begin!

The road to Manchester has officially begun as I have started job hunting. Yes, that feeling of job hunting feels the same in the management world. As I began my job hunting, I immediately wrote up a list of all the current vacant jobs going around the world, and gee are they limited.

View attachment 149360

Since the amount of jobs available was limited, I thought it may aswell apply for every single position available. So that I did and came back with 4 offers for an interview.

View attachment 149359

The first was from Belgian club KFC Vigor, who participate in their "Third Division A". That league is pretty low, and I mean very very low so I actually decided to reject that interview. The second offer came from Jianxi Liansheng, a Chinese club playing in China's second division which is actually called the "First Division". It is one division lower than the big one, the Chinese Super League. With a lot of money being poured into Asian football I decided I would accept the interview.

The third position was a potential venture into that same Belgian division as KFC Vigor, this time for the club named Rupel Boom FC. I accepted this one, I just went with it. Finally, I was offered an interview for Russian first division club, Baikal, but rejected this interview.

View attachment 149358

Out of nowhere, sudden news regarding a potential contract offer from Argentine second division club Atletico Union came out. After taking a look at the club, I have come to realize that they are already 20 games into their season, they have 0 wins, 2 draws and 18 defeats which means they sit last. If I do get an offer, I likely will not accept.

View attachment 149357

Well there you have it; I ended up signing with Jianxi Liansheng. I only just noticed now that the season there has already started too and we find ourselves in 12th​ place. The board wants a top half finish. Originally they offered me 675AUD for the position, but I managed to negotiate my way up to 1,000AUD. Just to give you an idea as to how tough this is going to be. Currently United boss Louis Van Gaal is earning 275,000AUD a week. Yeah I have a long way to go.

That will do for this update. The next will feature an overview of the club, the players and a preview of our upcoming fixtures and any other important news that needs to be addressed.
​

 

[CurtisJ]

I am liking the idea of this mate! Looks like it could be a very interesting career starting in China.

 

[nickmajfc]

I am liking the idea of this mate! Looks like it could be a very interesting career starting in China.

Yeah I actually have never managed there before. Should be interesting, thanks for following the story.

 

[nickmajfc]

View attachment 149175

I have managed to go over my squad and get a starting XI I think will fare well in the league. It is an Asian nation so it will be tough for me to memorize names and remember who plays in what position; thankfully I have documents to help me with that. Here is the squad and main starting XI I have gone with;

View attachment 149170

So my biggest worry immediately is injuries to my main men. My main central defender Zhai Zhaoyu is out for 5-6 weeks and my main striker Zhang Zhichao is out for 6-12 days. My left midfielder Li Jiaxing is out for 4-5 weeks but I am looking at signing a left winger to play higher up as my right midfielder can play in an advanced role too.

With only 110k to spend, it’s going to be tough to find a decent left winger, but we will give it our best shot. Now on to the instructions.

View attachment 149169

The board has requested that we play a defensive, direct style of play. I have in fact gone direct, but I don’t plan on sitting back too often, especially at home. I am going to let the shape stay flexible, with the mentality changing depending on opponent and venue. We are going to play with a high tempo and balance our width. I feel this is the best way to manage the side and we will find out if it works soon enough.

View attachment 149168

The club has accepted my request to begin training for a Continental Class C License. This will benefit me in the long run as I look to make my way to the giant that is Manchester United.

View attachment 149167

Finally some transfer news as we have managed to have our transfer offer accepted by Jiayunhao. Now we just need Zhang to accept the contract offer and we have ourselves a decent Left winger. Time will tell if we get him to the squad.

Now onto the fixtures. With my first game approaching, there is a lot of nerves, let me tell you that now. My squad is thinned out due to injuries and Zhang hasn’t signed yet. Here are the upcoming fixtures and the ones likely to be presented to you in the next update.

View attachment 149166

We clash with 8th​ place Zhongyou away from home first up in a tough early mid-table test. That is followed up by clashing with mid-table club Tianshan, league leaders Qingdao, mid-table club Wuhan, currently 4th​ placed Huaxia and finally another mid-table club Quanjian. An interesting period ahead and I can’t wait to bring you the results!​

 

[DerbyJack]

Great to see you get started Nick!

You've already taken a more bold leap then I ever have into the realms of Asian football also very glad to read that I am not the only one that struggles with the names alone!

Best of luck with your goal, I'll be following for sure

 

[nickmajfc]

Great to see you get started Nick!

You've already taken a more bold leap then I ever have into the realms of Asian football also very glad to read that I am not the only one that struggles with the names alone!

Best of luck with your goal, I'll be following for sure

Appreciate the words, it is your story that helped me get going thats for sure!

 

[nickmajfc]

Just a quick word that the next update is coming very soon, will have it out in the next few hours hopefully!

 

[nickmajfc]

View attachment 148655

Well, it’s time to get the season under way as our quest to manage Manchester United officially begins. I have played all those games that I mentioned in the previous update and here are all the results with a small overview of each.

View attachment 148654
A cagey affair, and to be honest, I was very pleased. We broke the losing streak in our first game, away from home. We really probably should have scored on a few occasions, but I was very pleased to take a point on the road. The only set back here was an injury to our right midfielder Huang Jiaqiang; he’s out for 4-5 weeks unfortunately.

View attachment 148653

Disaster as already injured Zhang has re injured himself whilst playing in the youth squad as he was trying to get back to full fitness after returning. Out for another 5-6 weeks!

View attachment 148652

A bit of good news after the bad injury news as we managed to gain a decent left midfielder named Xie Fuquan. He has been on the fringes of a lot of major first team clubs and will finally get a chance to flourish here.

View attachment 148651

So… we were $11.00 outsiders heading into this one, insurmountable odds. We also went into the game with a bench full off all defenders bar one midfielder. That’s how short we were on numbers yet we managed to pull out a 1-1 draw. We scored early on and actually never looked like conceding, but we did 15 minutes from time. Positive result though, I was very pleased.

View attachment 148650

We just had to. After starting the last game with 1 midfielder and all defenders on the bench, I signed a new midfielder. Not really the best, but not the worst and we needed someone. Transfer window shut hours after the signing. If I had more time I would have signed a new striker too.

View attachment 148649

You have got to be joking. One of our two main central defenders now gets injured for a lengthy period aswell. This update has not gone according to plan. Luckily we have way too many central defenders… lucky me.


View attachment 148648

Our toughest game to date up against 2nd​ placed Qingdao. We went down 2-0 before half time, although we actually looked pretty comfortably, oddly enough. It stayed that way after another decent half. We lost 2-0 but overall I was pleased with the effort against very tough opposition.

View attachment 148647

Once again, $11.00 outsiders and a tough task ahead as we travelled to Wuhan. Still missing numerous players through injury, some now minor. Left back Ma Chongchong was also out due to numerous yellow cards suspension. Somehow, we managed to walk out with a 0-0 draw. There was one highlight the entire game and it was a Wuhan corner that had a header go miles wide. Very good draw and I’ll take those away from home.

Injury News;
Finally some good news as Huang Jiaqiang and Li Jiaxing return from injury. Very good timing as we had two games we might expect to win coming up.

View attachment 148646

$8.00 outsiders this time, it’s getting tough. A little bit of good news prior to kick off as main central defender Zhai Zhaoyu has been fully cleared to compete. Resting him for this game though. Against the likes of Lavezzi and Gervinho, this was always going to be tough, and the score line showed. Our goal was one of the worst own goals you will ever see. Pathetic performance here.

View attachment 148645

What on earth is going on? Now our main defensive midfielder is out for a month or slightly more. This season just isn't going to plan. One more game before I show you the league standings… not that anyone wants to see them right now.

View attachment 148644

I don’t even think I can comment on this. Unbelievable.

View attachment 148643

$11.00 outsiders again, enough said. Two penalties in 12 minutes found us 1-0 down early as the second was thankfully saved. We ended up going 2-0 down, bringing it back to 2-1, going 3-1 down and again mounting a fightback to 3-2 but it wasn’t enough. No wins in any of my games in charge thus far.

View attachment 148642

So as you can see, we sit in 14th​ position, two points above the second last relegation spot. We have done worse than our predecessor already. We need to finish 8th​ or higher to equal or surpass our league expectation, but that looks extremely unlikely with only 10 more games to play. We are 11 points behind 8th​ spot, so it’s nearly impossible. But we will keep clogging along and see what happens.

View attachment 148641

So I will spit the next two updates over the last 10 games, and do a separate update for the post-season review stuff. Next update will contain the above fixtures’ results and injury updates plus much more.​

 

[MrWisdoman]

Wow I hope you team can get structured and hopefully stop losing can't wait for next update.

 

[nickmajfc]

Wow I hope you team can get structured and hopefully stop losing can't wait for next update.

Thanks man, apologies for no updates recently. I am juggling two stories, one here on FM and another on MLB The Show on a different forum, I will get onto these games asap.