The third in-season update always tends to be rooted around the youth intake, which, as you can see if you’ve skim read the images here, is no different. However, the relationism idea, as posted by @Slipky, has stuck in my head and I’ve been really intrigued – technically – about what we’re doing. Looking through the linked article, I can absolutely see elements of this in my build up ethos and want to further explore managers and case studies of this. The one quote, below, has particularly stuck with me: “Relationism is about movement and change. It is a process of ..read more

After staying up, It is obvious we cant continue like this. Our squad needs a overhaul and we need to start working towards the identity on and off the pitch for this club. I went to the squad planner and looked at next season what we could potentially have at the club and it looks very light for a 46 game season just 16 players. So we needed to promote within and make some smart recruitment. Sales First I want to look at the outs and the reason behind them. At first I looked at our most sellable assets and 26 year old Chair was the main one. He is soon to be 27 and both Bristol City and Celt ..read more

I’ve had a really busy week or so and playing time has been at an absolute minimum but I can’t help but feeling a little like Unai Emery right now – a man very close to my heart – in saying that I’m learning so much about my team at the moment. The full table shows that we’re doing really well given the difficulty our fixtures – Leipzig, Dortmund and Gladbach already played and no points dropped against them. Where we may come unstuck in the quest for our title though is the dropped point against Furth and the Dusseldorf defeat – two games that we dominated but ..read more

Last 8 fixtures As mentioned in the previous post I’ve taken over the save in a real world update, So we find ourselves just outside the relegation zone by 1 point with just 8 games to play. In this post I’m going to go through the 8 games and discuss how I approached the unique situation. 8 games, 4 home and 4 away. I know every manager wants to have a tactical identity, But with just 8 games, no knowledge of the players at the club. I’m going to rely on my reports and analysts and react to the opposition until we land on something that feels like it suits. Hopefully stay up then we can imp ..read more

I think the above infographic is really important there, and, probably, a harsh reminder that I haven’t quite hit the mark with this window. Buoyed with the performances of last season, I didn’t really want to change much but, actually, I’ve come out of the summer window feeling like the squad is a little stale and not addressing a couple of things that’d cost money to change. I secured the outgoings that I had planned: Stierpermann moved to the Middle East for a decent fee, Minami brought me a decent profit on a player who’d really stagnated and Helmes&nb ..read more

Three weeks to the day after accepting the role, I took charge of the Japanese National Team for the first time as we kicked off our 2027 Asian Cup campaign. This was my first major international tournament since taking Uruguay to the 2030 World Cup on Football Manager 2021, and my first time ever managing an Asian nation, making four continents that I’ve now managed in at international level.  We were heavy favourites going into the tournament, with our World Ranking of 17th being trailed by the likes of Iran (31st), Australia (35th), South Korea (=37th) and Saudi Arabia (46th). To add t ..read more

The curse of Bayer Neverkusen strikes again! I know the plan was never to compete for the Bundesliga this year – Bayern are simply too good – but my intention was to take on the Pokal and the Europa League, hoping that our league form would mean this would be the last foray into the competition. We performed admirably to get there – overturning a really drab home defeat at Napoli into a dominant performance and solid win in Naples. We then crashed out of the Pokal in dramatic style, pegging Bayern’s early lead back and dominating until Bauer’s poor pass gave them the easiest ..read more

Inspired by Les Ferdinand In this video Ferdinand talks about his time as a Director of Football at QPR, How QPR see themselves as a club to develop players to sell basically due to the situation the club found themselves in and the fall outs with certain managers demanding signings of more experienced players. It gave me some inspiration to have a save with QPR. The save I will be approaching the save as a Head Coach, whilst the main focus will be to get results I want to develop youngsters and build a tactical identity with the players we have and bring in. Which leads me on to recruitment ..read more

Yeah – we’re getting there! We’d have beaten Man Utd in both legs if we were able to execute the final touches to a counter-attack but, overall, to knock out the team who sit atop the Premier League is great and shows just how far we’ve come – however, the form around those games, probably to be expected, has somewhat dipped. With seven games left to go, I need to get Minami scoring again and pick up the confidence and match fitness of a few players who’ve been left on the sides a bit lately. With Napoli – eighth in Serie A – to come next and a Pokal semi final against ..read more

January Out After selling nearly half a billion euros worth of talent in the summer the big clubs came circling again. Centre back Torres who we signed from Barcelona for €20m leaves us for their rivals Real Madrid for €48m. Pinto leaves the club for the second time in his career this time for 18.5m to RB Leipzig. Blomberg was signed 6 seasons ago for just €800,000 from Sirius in Sweden, after 103 games for the club and two loans away he leaves for a massive €50m to join FC Bayern aged 23. Following loan spells ay Union SG and Luton and an injury to Gomez Contreras has emerged this season on ..read more