• Registration is disabled due to constant spammers. Email [email protected] and we will temporarily re-enable registration for you.

FM21 - Jersey Shore

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
With the release of the full English leagues, down to level 10, I thought I'd start my annual run of taking someone at/near the bottom and seeing how far I can get them before I get fired, or tired.

This year I decided to start with the...Jersey Bulls. This little team is located in Jersey (duh) in the channel islands (@hayvis).

16289

As you can see, we've managed success since day 1. As an amateur club, we were able to win the league our first year and immediately turn semi-pro. We predominately played a control-possession 433, while on the smallest "pitch" possible. This season, we've switched to a 343, still playing with a control-possession mentality. After struggling our first few games up, we've found our stride and are currently in first place. Only 1 team is promoted from this level, so it's imperative that we keep our first place position if we want to go 2 for 2 in promotion chances.

16290

Godalming was the other team promoted with us last season and we've been the two best teams in the league all year. Fortunately, just like in the league below, we're a bit better than Godalming and we were able to beat them 3-1 last game.

16291

We still have what feels like a hundred games left in the league:

16292

As for the board and myself...the board are of course happy with the direction the club is heading after gaining a promotion the first year and sitting currently in first place:

16293

Club Culture is kind of a joke...we played a controlled-possession, positive/attacking/very-attacking mentality all year to win promotion, AND THEN they came up with the OPPOSITE as the club culture. LOL GJGE.

Finances are going well, as I'm able to keep payroll just above 60k and we have a budget for almost 170k. Plus, we a made a decent (for us) run through the FA cup and got a couple pay days with that:

16294

I'll have an update as I finish the season, hopefully in first place.
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
We've done it!

16298

Pwned these fools. Beat Godalming 4-0 in the last game of the season.

16299

Board still wants me to play counter-attacking and defensively solid football, which...cool
 

goblue96

Disney and Curling Expert
I may do something similar in Holland. There's a database that has the Dutch leagues down to Level 8 but it's a lot of players (44 divisions in level 8 and 22 divisions in level 7)
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
About halfway through our 3rd season and we've ascended to first place in Pitching in Isthmian League South East Division:

16406

We struggled at the start of the season when carrying over our tactics from the first two seasons, so we've changed our formation and mentality to tighten things up and utilize our speed/target man up top. We've got to the classic lower-league 442 Wing-Play.

16407

We've continued to add to our bank account and have almost 400k in the bank. I did ask the board to Improve the Training Facilities, as we're currently at Poor.

I've also tried to get a Senior Affiliate, but since we're doing so well financially, the board isn't interested and I'm not getting the chance to even talk about loaning players. Hopefully this changes next season as we'll be closer to the Vanarama league.
 

goblue96

Disney and Curling Expert
See if you can improve the Junior Coaching and/or Academy Recruitment. It doesn’t have a one time coat like facilities. The cost gets added monthly into the youth setup expenses.

Junior coaching improves Current Ability of the Youth Intake
Academy Recuritment improved PA of the youth intake
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
See if you can improve the Junior Coaching and/or Academy Recruitment. It doesn’t have a one time coat like facilities. The cost gets added monthly into the youth setup expenses.

Junior coaching improves Current Ability of the Youth Intake
Academy Recuritment improved PA of the youth intake
Yeah, I usually do those after I have an affiliate club and/or training facilities done because then I can actually count on them reaching their potential.

Youth setup cost me $4663 last season, is that the same as Junior Coaching? or will that come out of staff?
 

goblue96

Disney and Curling Expert
The best way to think of improving Junior Coaching is you are improving the “pre-youth intake” coaches that you can’t see/hire in the game. It’s like your U8-U14 staff. So, the youth setup expense will increase because you are paying those coaches more money.

Same with academy recruitment just replace coaches for recruiters/scouts that you can’t see or hire.
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
Yeah, was just wondering which line item the expenses would show up under on the Finance page.
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
16523

We finished last season just out of the playoffs in 7th place. This year, we started out really well again, 5-1-1 through our first 7. And now...it's getting difficult to find goals. Both of the trophy games we were playing people in lower divisions and the team just didn't look like they were up for it and we missed our first 3 pens in both games. We SUCK at pens. I think I've seen at least 4-5 missed during games, plus the bunch missed during our multiple cup matches.

These last 4 games have been with a 442 direct and we've at least gotten some goals, but we've given some up to...we're currently in 4th as November winds to a close, but it feels like we're doing much worse. Top 3 teams have 36, 31, and 31 points. We're at 23, 5th place has 22. 4th to 14th are separated by 5 points. So we could end up falling quite a bit with just 2-3 more losses.

Board is expecting mid-table, which I THINK will be doable, but I dont have ANY options for improving this squad, so we have to find the system that's going to work best for these scrubs.
 

goblue96

Disney and Curling Expert
View attachment 16523

We finished last season just out of the playoffs in 7th place. This year, we started out really well again, 5-1-1 through our first 7. And now...it's getting difficult to find goals. Both of the trophy games we were playing people in lower divisions and the team just didn't look like they were up for it and we missed our first 3 pens in both games. We SUCK at pens. I think I've seen at least 4-5 missed during games, plus the bunch missed during our multiple cup matches.

These last 4 games have been with a 442 direct and we've at least gotten some goals, but we've given some up to...we're currently in 4th as November winds to a close, but it feels like we're doing much worse. Top 3 teams have 36, 31, and 31 points. We're at 23, 5th place has 22. 4th to 14th are separated by 5 points. So we could end up falling quite a bit with just 2-3 more losses.

Board is expecting mid-table, which I THINK will be doable, but I dont have ANY options for improving this squad, so we have to find the system that's going to work best for these scrubs.

If you got the horses to run a 4-3-3 DM, I've got a formation that could be of some use.
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
If you got the horses to run a 4-3-3 DM, I've got a formation that could be of some use.
I dont have any fullbacks that can cross a ball to save their life, but I've also never had much luck with lone-striker formations.

But at this point, I'm willing to take a look if you want to DM me your team instructions
 

goblue96

Disney and Curling Expert
A couple of the players have individual instructions to fit their attributes. I've got a bunch of Messi wannabe small forwards.
 

Attachments

  • 433 .png
    433 .png
    227.4 KB · Views: 4

goblue96

Disney and Curling Expert
what are your numbers/naming convention?

It's a from a youth only save. The number is denotes their intake year. The letter denotes where they rank within that year (A = top rated player on potential, B = 2nd highest rated player, etc.).

The left forward is an inside forward when Stoneman isn't in the lineup. Stoneman is a small guy with great pace, dribbling, and the off the ball. So, I let him hunt open space as a Raumdeuter.
 

Schauwn

Well-Known Member
Well, after 4 or 5 years and reaching the Regional Premier division, I'm having to restart my save here.

Ran into a bug with the editor data I was using that wasn't letting me offer part-time contracts to any of my players, even though I was a semi-professional team, with 200k-400k in the bank, and all the other teams in the division able to offer contracts.

So I couldn't get any of the players to come to my team that would be actual upgrades and my good players were getting poached.

So, it's my first season with the new save and I've already lost a game, which I didn't do my first season of the previous save. However, still top of the table after 7 games, with 11 goal differential.
 
Top