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[FM18] Journeyman

NML

Well-Known Member
So after seeing you'll have all the fun, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the first FM I have since 2013, snagging 18 for $17. I've decided to do a journeyman save, slightly different from my normal club building stuff. Super simple rules and set up:

Four countries: USA, Ireland, Scotland, and Ingerland
All have their league systems down to the bottom
Starting unemployed
I have my RL attributes (USSF B, semi-pro, as close to my actual coaching attributes as possible)
Only make coaching moves that make sense (I could probably be hired by like a L1 side right away, but won't)

I added key staff so that everyone has a head corch to start the season. I'll likely look into one of the sixth tier of England, fourth tier of Scotland, or second tier of Ireland.

First job to open up in mid-September was Derry City in Ireland. Despite being in the relegation zone, they are a professional club in the top tier so I decided against it as I felt that was too high of a start. That was followed by some MLS clubs (obviously not an option) and a L2 club.

We've moved into October and still nothing...
 
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NML

Well-Known Member
So it took until November before an interesting and realistic job finally popped up!

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@Schauwn

Shortly after applying for that, two other six tier clubs let their head corch go - Spenymoor and Eastbourne. I decided to wait until I heard from Oxford before applying for either, but after 16 days I still hadn't heard anything and they were in last place with nine points, seven points just from next to last! I went ahead and pull the triggered on the other two, and got interviews the next day. Finally some appreciation!

Both offered me a couple days later - Eastbourne offered me roughly twice the salary, but the wage budget was higher at Spenymoor (though Eastbourne did have some transfer budget available). Both just asked that we avoid relegation, Spenymoor sat in 19th (one spot above) and Eastbourne sat 21st (two spots from safety, though they had more points). Both were predicted roughly mid-table (11th and 13th). There just wasn't a ton separating them. Even though it doesn't really matter since it's a 7 month contract and they won't fire me, I went more realistic and took the job at Eastbourne.

Time to get to work - leggo
 

NML

Well-Known Member
Here’s a quick overview of the club:

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So they were in the fifth tier not long ago, although it was a short stay. Been at the sixth tier (or higher) for over a decade and are coming off a mid table finish. All signs point to this team severely underperforming to be next to last in the league.

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Finances are fine. Slightly in the black, although our projection has us finishing in the red. Again, pretty average/mediocre for this level.

I’m also gonna add this next part for @GuyIncognito. Anytime I take a job over mid-year, I’m going to build my tactic around the players. I don’t have sufficient time to get players that fit my system or try and teach them new stuff with almost half the season gone. So this is just a simple look at how I’m going to build a tactic for my team:

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So let’s start with Torres - who is also my captain. Likes to play CM as an advanced playmaker and is a fairly significant drop off in any other role and any other position. Being our best player, captain, and guy who wants to run the show, this is an easy and obvious starting point.

Then we’ve got our second tier - led by our GK Smith, who is pretty typical and nothing really changes there. Then there’s Sturgess, who’s important as he’s our only natural left back. Our best RB, Udoji, also prefers the defensive fullback role (as do basically every lower level FB), so we will likely stay symmetrical with those two and a four man back line. We’ve got four CBs who are all basically the same quality, so I’ve got to look deeper there.

Then we come across our first issue - we’ve got a pair of attacking wingers on each side, but then a RM. can’t play all three. I can also see I don’t have anyone who’s a natural LM - so it becomes a little easier to move Johnson to the bench. As a bonus, he’s also on a non-contract so he doesn’t get paid as much when he doesn’t start AND he can play a couple positions, which is useful with a five man bench.

So now that we’ve narrowed it to a four man back line, with two attacking wingers, we are basically limited to a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 or very attacking 4-4-2, maybe Bob Bradley empty bucket.

Looking at the other CMs, I’ve got a wide range of talents. Another technical player that could sit deeper if I want to control possession, a Carrilero who can drift wide, or a ball winner if I need someone to break up counters. This gives me some options and I’ll hold up for now on making decisions here.

The last place to look is striker, and I only have two. That makes the 2 striker formations a tough ask, especially since they are both target men and those don’t work together in pairs.

So, with all that figured out, it’s easy to choose a 4-3-3. But 4-3-3’s can look vastly different depending on how you want to play. For me, it’s become obvious based on the roles we have, but I’ll go step by step in my thought process here for the sake of the exercise.

1) my fullbacks aren’t going to contribute to the attack much, mostly because they are technically limited. This isn’t a huge deal because my wingers want to stay way and stay forward

2) I’ve got a target man striker, which is unique. It also pairs extremely well with two natural wingers who can ping the ball into him

3) with only two technical players in the starting 11, we want them to run the show. Torres wants to go higher, and Jez wants to sit deeper. So we don’t get overrun, putting our ball winner, Kane Wills, in there is a must.

4) at this point, our basic strategy is in place. Then we have a couple preferences within this system to choose from. Namely:

- how high of a backline do we want to run?
- how much pressure are we putting on?
- in possession, do we want to slow the game down, or counter?

The great news is that our set up allows for either side of all of those options. With a TM and out and out wingers, we could easily sit back with seven and have our CMs pick out passes wide to spring our wingers for a cross to the big target. Or, we can patiently build up, having the striker keep his back to goal and connect with Torres, or recycle the attack with Jez deep.

One consideration here is that my players are not particularly advanced in their tactics. Playing in the lower leagues, it’s unlikely that they’d have any familiarity with a high line, high pressure system, despite that being my personal preference. Because we only have six months to turn this around, we are going to play traditional, lower leagues, English soccer in an untraditional formation.

Finally, I’m going to start with almost no instructions on anyone or for the team to see how the game flows for us. My big concerns right now are:

1) our target man being isolated up top. Okojie has the attack duty set, so hopefully he stays high and let’s the creative midfield and wingers find him near goal.

2) a weird CB combo. Simpemba is one of the longest members of the club and a veteran overall, so I’m going with him to help grind out results. He likes to play stopper, which is great because Golan has 13 pace, which is excellent for a CB. But Golan has no technical ability. So we’ve got a central defender with stopper and defensive center back with cover.

3) we get into a track meet and my midfield three is working too hard both ways. Other than Willis, they need to focus on their attacking duties. I ultimately think we will want to control the game with those two, but not yet.

Onto the matches
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
Did you consider using a 4-1-2-3 Wide, a pretty popular formation in the lower leagues and it looks like you have a DM that could become a star with some training/play-time. I'm sure you did, just wondering why that wasn't one of you options you mentioned. I'll hang up and listen...
 
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NML

Well-Known Member
I consider it basically the same as a 4-3-3, just with one of the CMs sitting a little deeper.

I actually really like that formation/set up, especially if my fullbacks push up so that the anchor can sit back and break up quick counters with the CBs. Since my FBs are sitting back, I think he’s somewhat redundant that deep, which is why I went with a CM with “ball winning midfielder” and support duty. So he serves a similar role, but higher up the field and with the ability to help keep possession a bit more.

As an aside, holy shit so much has changed in this versions. The whole dynamics tab, medical center, pre game chat thing, all brand new to me. Scouting has been completely redone and it seems like I have a budget that I dip into even when I just try to get a scouting report on a player?

Need to do some research on all this, or I’ll likely struggle. We open with an FA Trophy match against a fellow sixth tier side.
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
I'm interested to see how your team scores...I've not had any luck in the lower leagues with a 1-striker formation. I usually need someone playing an attacking role from AM/CM, or the wingers to be IF, especially with a TM as the striker.
 

NML

Well-Known Member
I'm interested to see how your team scores

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NML

Well-Known Member
Mid-Year Update

It's the mid-year only for me, as we have 12 games under our belt with 12 left in the season. When I took over, we had already been eliminated from the FA Cup, were about to kick off in the FA Trophy, and were sitting in 21st (out of 22) in the league table. Not much has changed since:

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While I haven't been that disappointed with the team, we somehow have made up no ground - in fact, we have a massive eight points separating us from safety. The slight silver lining is that eight points also is all that is between 16th place, so we just need one of those teams to struggle down the stretch if we can get hot.

We have generally been very competitive, getting six results in 11 league matches:

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The issue is only one win - and we just got it, snapping a 14 game winless run for us dating back to before my time. Going three months between wins has been brutal for our standings and the morale. Luckily, that three match unbeaten run was a kick in the ass and suddenly everyone is upbeat!

The reality is we are running out of time to find our groove, so I really can't afford another run of four straight losses. I'm hopeful that this recent blimp is the start of a few wins. Even in the 2-3 loss, we were down 3-0 in the 12th minute and had several chances to equalize late. Team seemed pretty happy after the match with the way we came back.

Locker room is mostly good. Team responds well to me, although I can be lazy and push it off on my ass corch more than I should. Obviously being shit doesn't help, but hopefully we have turned that around.

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My initially simple tactic has taken a wild turn. We just couldn't score with the 4-3-3 as I started with (hence my response to Schauwn). Our only goal in three matches was an own goal. We kept it tight at the back with a traditional 4-4-2 and looked promising in a friendly and first league match, but it quickly fell apart as our CBs just weren't good enough. I stumbled onto Suljic through my scout, and he was instantly one of the top two players at the club. Even though it put us over our budget, I jumped at the chance to sign the former Chelsea youth player. He had great speed, so I paired him with an American at the club who is also pacey, switch to a high line, and started to see some success.

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As predicted, our finances have dropped off and we are now in the red with still over two months to go. This could be a problem going forward, but right now I'm just focused on this season.

I'm more than a little nervous that we won't be able to stay up - we likely need more than 40 points, probably 45, to do so, meaning we need to win about half the matches we have left. Yikes
 

NML

Well-Known Member
So after we grabbed one win in the next four matches, the locker room was terrible and I couldn’t see us staying up, so I resigned. Then this happened:

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Well then.

So they managed to stay up and I started looking for new gigs that I could have a full preseason with. Once they were assured relegation for the fifth tier, Bromley fired their coach. I applied, although I wasn’t particularly optimistic since they were coming from a higher tier and are professional. Still, for some reason they felt I was the right hire.

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They had a relatively short stay in the national league, but it’s been a club that’s been climbing in the past two decades.

With some sort of glitch, I’m guessing based on when the coaching change happened, my players never had a vacation. This was great for me because I was able to get lots of training with my squad and bring in trialists to fill out the club. Here’s our tactic heading into preseason:

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I was able to keep a handful of players from the squad that got relegated, namely the left winger. He’s a stud.

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3 stars is considered a “leading National League South player.” So you can see we are quite talented.

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Expectations are reasonable. I promised a handful of players we’d get promoted right back up.

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Our finances are in very rough shape. I expect we will be in the upper echelon of attendance and our wages come in under budget. We also have a few money making friendlies, most notably vs Crystal Palace who, as our parent club, allows us to keep the entire gate.

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We have a massive preseason schedule thanks to the glitch, so we should head into the season with an entire squad of match fit players with full understanding of the tactic.
 
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Yankee151

Hot Girl Summer
Why are you running a Mezzala? Also, have you been doing that the entire time, or only just now with the professional players?
 

NML

Well-Known Member
To create overloads wide. In theory, with him sitting deeper than the wingers, they shouldn’t occupy the same space. Didn’t notice it happening in the first friendly

And yeah, I haven’t had a professional club since like FM13
 

NML

Well-Known Member
I’d assume the latter, but I guess I’m not sure. Imma have to pay closer attention in the next friendly
 

NML

Well-Known Member
Quick preseason recap post

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Here’s how our tactics stand going forward. As Yankee pointed out, I needed to switch my roles in the midfield and have instead gone with two ball winners, which seems to work well with the high press. A strong end to our preseason has a lot of green lines for good connections, which is encouraging.

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I mentioned fitness as a big priority - mostly met that goal. We will definitely come into the season as the most fit team, although I’d have liked to be closer to fully match fit for my starters and for my bench to be better as well. Still, happy where we are.

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Friendlies went mostly as expected, with a surprise road draw against Fulham and a strong run at the end.

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Heavy favorites to be promoted back up. Media actually predicted us to finish second.

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Great locker room after a great preseason. This was a big priority for me too after I lost it at Eastbourne.

We are talented, fit, and (mostly) healthy.
 
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Yankee151

Hot Girl Summer
Fwiw, I was more asking a question beacuse Im dumb and my eyes lit up at the thought of running two Mezzalas at once

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 

NML

Well-Known Member
I think either of the “CM drifts wide” roles would work very well as a pair in a midfield three. I’d probably do it if I had someone capable and/or a more possession based style

The two ball winners - and occasionally if I’m leading I’ll sub off the CM with a third - seems to destroy other teams in the midfield when I’m pressing all over.
 
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