Ok so around a week ago I decided that I wanted to play with a lower league team. I didn't wanted to go that low but I definitely wanted that rush of fighting for promotion and bring a team all the way to champions league glory over the course of many seasons. I've managed multiple teams in FM20 but they've all been at least first division teams. Chelsea 12 seasons. Man Utd 9 Seasons, A. Villa 14 seasons and Dormund 6 seasons.
I decided Skybet League One would be a nice challenge for my first lower club and then spent quite a bit. I didn't want to make the challenge too hard on my by picking Bolton (they start with -12 points) but I also didn't want a "wealthy" team like Sunderland where I would just have the ability to buy monster player (for League One level ofc) and absolutely demolish everyone. After a while I decided to settle with Coventry. First because they start with no budget which meant I would have to work with what the team got and the very low payroll available meant that I couldn't get too many loans and not of high quality. The second reason is because on my A.Villa save Callum O'Hare ended up becoming one of my best players and ended up retiring as my team captain at 37 and he's on loan at Coventry at this first season.
https://preview.redd.it/uc7kd5y8iyd61.png?width=1366&format=png&auto=webp&s=a46feec2edc1fbc93a07ae600b1318721a676d22
GK - Marko Marosi: Slovakian GK with a good rating for the first team. The team has another option in Ben Wilson but there's definitely no competition here, Marosi is far superior. At first I wanted to bring a better GK on loan as I didn't fully trust Marosi but he ended up proving me wrong. He ended up being the keeper with most shutouts (19) and only conceded 31 goals. He played all but 2 matches and he's honestly a monster shot stopper with amazing reflexes.
WBR - Fankaty Dabo: The Sierra Leone beast! Well kinda. For sure one of our best players with his very high pacing and acceleration paired with very good passing and decent crossing... But holy shit does he have abysmal fitness. Seriously he ended up missing 15 League One matches cause he would end up demolished after every match and sometimes wouldn't get back in time. He was a monster every match but would need to get subbed around the 70th minute consistenly. He ended up being the captain in most matches and gave us a solid 14 assists in 43 matches across all competitions.
DCR - Josh Pask: Supposedly our young player with the brightest future. He started the season injured and had a long way to go with being 4 months out. Started with Rose in this position but as the season went on, he was making a lot of mistakes and after a month of so of Pask being back to the team he told me he wanted more play time and ended up making it a lot better than Rose and even scoring some key goals! He's very physically strong and ended up becoming a started very fast after he recovered.
DC - Dominic Hyam: Ended up being our best defender and definitely rock solid. I think he's the reason my defense worked so well, having amazing positioning, tackling and marking meant he rarely made mistakes and would often fix some mistakes the other defenders made. He's a slower defender but I always trusted him and it payed off. Rarely goes attacking but his defense is so good you can't ask more honestly.
DCL - Kyle McFadzean: One of our experienced players. I had my doubts, he's already 34 yo and I was fearing he would be too slow. I gave him a started spot cause he's basically Hyam but older, pretty similar stats but he's insanely determined and also has a high leadership so I thought he'd be the one to keep our defense in control. He's also physically strong but it's one of those players that only knows how to do one thing. He wasn't spectacular but never dissapointed honestly.
WBL - Sam McCallum: One of our loaned players. He was the other fantastic wing back I realized the team has. He's on loan from Norwich and boy am I happy he have him. He's very fast and a monster at tackling. He's also physically gifted and would run up and down the entire match. Surprisingly ended up being out 3rd goalscorer and most of those goals would be headers cause he would usually enter the box unmarked and just net a most good crossings. He ended up being top 5 in the average ratings on the league and I'd say he's like our 3rd-4th best player. 7 assists.
MCR - Zain Westbrooke: Is slowly becoming our star. This is the position I had a lot of doubts with. Most other positions I knew the players that would start but this one changed a lot. I started with Liam Kelly, team captain but he's an older defensive midfielder and with already 3 defenders in the back he didn't seem necessary. Then I tried Jordan Shipley. He's defintely good and I'm happy we have him on the team but never ended up being as good as I needed. Then came Westbrooke, he was decent at first but as the season went on started to become better and better. He's definitely the one doing the dirty work in the middle often coming down to support in defense and he was usually the one starting the attack. Insane passing and the definition of consitency. He ended up 4th in the average ratings and also managed to give 7 assists across all competition. He's not as notorious as our other midfielder but he definitely was a key part of out title run. If you want to make a comparison to better understand his role, he's pretty much Makelele for Los Galacticos, he might not be as appreciated as his partners but he's fundamental for the whole team to function.
MLC - Liam Walsh: Without a doubt the star of the team... Sadly, he's only a loan. A classic box to box but he's definitely more offensively oriented. He's the creative machine on my team. It's insane how good he is with amazing dribbles and unreal passes, he would eat up entire defenses by himself leaving our strikers wide open to score. I can't tell you how many times he made long range passes that I was just like "How the fuck could he see that and execute it with such precision". He was decent at defense as well. He ended up being the 1st player on the average ratings in League One and gave an insane 22 assists to also be ranked 1st on that regard. He was definitely the most important piece of our title run cause the kid simply drops assists left and right. He's also a fucking machine and would never stop running. Sadly I don't think I can bring him back cause he's too expensive and with Bristol City getting promoted to the Premier League there's no way he can get him on loan again, they're gonna need his insane passes if they plan to fight and not get relegated next season.
AMC - Callum O'Hare: My boy. As I said, in my Villa save he ended up being a club legend so I had high hopes with him. He never was amazing tbh but was always fairly consistent. I wanted him to be the star of my team but never trully managed to do so. He definitely got better in the second half of the season and started to give a lot of assists and managed to end with 15 in the league and finally started to meet my expectations around february. I sadly don't think we can get him back on loan next season.
STCR - Jordy Hiwula: Monster goalscorer. This dude for sure was the surprise of the season and a very pleasant one. I had him here mosly as supposed for who was supposed to be my main striker. Jordy is a natural right winger with insane pace and acceleration and very good passing so I thought he would be feeding a lot of passes to my striker. He doesn't even have high finishing at all but holy fuck he put the team on his back this season. 36 goals across 49 matches in all competitions, with 28 being in the league which allowed him to finish as the top goalscorer and 3rd in the average ratings. He's a bit irregular cause he can destroy a team in a matter of minutes but some matches he would simply not show up at all. I think a big part of his success was Walsh feeding him with insane long passes and him beating defenders with his absurd pace. He would also miss a lot of 1 on 1 vs the GKs but with the amount of times he got to the box without any pressure he definitely scored often.
STCL - Matt Godden: Decent striker but definitely deserved more time. I thought he would be our top goalscorer and he definitely didn't do bad, getting 18 goals in 31 matches across all competitions. At the beginning of the season I got Alejandro Marqués from Zebre and had high hopes on him and gave him a lot more time than Godden. While Maqués wasn't bad, he definitely missed a lot of shots, like he would get stopped by the defense and the keeper very often. I realized Godden was the more solid option in the last like 2-3 months of the season and he scored a decent amount of goals.
We obviously won the league with an amazing 34-4-6 record (I never save scum no matter what). Here's the full league table in case someone is interested:
Last team is Southend with 30 points and a 6-12-26 record
The odds at the beginning of the season had us finishing 5th which meant we would have to work extra time to even get to play offs. But we started winning a lot, scoring a lot of goals and we never dropped more than 3rd place in the entire season. By February we had a a consistent 8-11 points difference between us and the 2nd-3rd and 4th place (which you can see ended very much with the same points) and while we ended with almost a 20 point diferential we only got our first title fight with 5 matches left, in what was the most aggravating match of my FM career. It was against Burton who finished 20th and it started as expected. We ended with a great 3-0 in the first half. They scored a goal at 63 and I was still calm. Then nothing happened for the rest of the match, I was getting ready to lift the trophy with my boys. The ref gives 4 minutes of injury time, whatever. Their fricking right back with abysmal finishing and long shots scores an absolute screamer in 92, I started to get scared. The match keeps going, 94 minutes have passed and it's literally like the ref is waiting for them to score again to end it and welp they did... On the 96 MINUTE FOR FUCK SAKE. I was so mad that I stopped playing for a couple hours, couldn't believe the bullshit. I knew we would still win the title but that tie was so infuriating, just cause how it happened. The fight for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th places actually got very intense at the end as literally all 3 teams crashed terribly in the last 4 matches and didn't even manage to get a win, like none of them lol. The last match Peterborough was at 86 going into the last match, same as MK Dons also with 86 and then Oxford with 85, so yeah, all 3 had the worst end season possible. As of writing this MK Dons and Oxford will play the final and I'm rooting for the Dons, they deserve it, they were 2nd place for most of the season and just had terrible luck in the last month of the league. It also didn't help a lot that they got 17 ties! But they even have less losses than us lol.
In the Leasing.com Trophy we actually managed to get our second title of the season but it was honestly always easy af. We got Bristol Rovers in the Southern Section Semis (Regional Final) which we smashed 3-0 and then got Sunderland in the Finals, which was our only close match but even then we managed to get a 1-0 win.
submitted by Mackie26 to footballmanagergames [link] [comments] I decided Skybet League One would be a nice challenge for my first lower club and then spent quite a bit. I didn't want to make the challenge too hard on my by picking Bolton (they start with -12 points) but I also didn't want a "wealthy" team like Sunderland where I would just have the ability to buy monster player (for League One level ofc) and absolutely demolish everyone. After a while I decided to settle with Coventry. First because they start with no budget which meant I would have to work with what the team got and the very low payroll available meant that I couldn't get too many loans and not of high quality. The second reason is because on my A.Villa save Callum O'Hare ended up becoming one of my best players and ended up retiring as my team captain at 37 and he's on loan at Coventry at this first season.
The Formation
I knew I wanted to try something different. I didn't want to go with the classic 4-2-3-1 Gegenpressen. I started looking at my options in the team and realized I had a decent amount of DCs, 2 fantastic wing backs, a decent midfield and one pretty decent striker with a right winger that could also play up front and had ideal stats to be a second support man for my striker. With my sick wing backs, and the lack of a decent left winger (at least if I wanted to make it to playoffs which was my initial goal) I decided I wouldn't play wingers. And after like 4 or 5 league matches I ended up sticking with what would become the definitive formation. A nice 5-2-1-2 which allowed me to have a strong middle with very creative players (cause the 3 DCs fixed a lot of the mistakes and lack of defense they had) and also exploit the wings. Here's my full tactics (I would change some things here and there for some matches but this was what I used the most) and I'll also give some details about each player:
https://preview.redd.it/uc7kd5y8iyd61.png?width=1366&format=png&auto=webp&s=a46feec2edc1fbc93a07ae600b1318721a676d22
GK - Marko Marosi: Slovakian GK with a good rating for the first team. The team has another option in Ben Wilson but there's definitely no competition here, Marosi is far superior. At first I wanted to bring a better GK on loan as I didn't fully trust Marosi but he ended up proving me wrong. He ended up being the keeper with most shutouts (19) and only conceded 31 goals. He played all but 2 matches and he's honestly a monster shot stopper with amazing reflexes.
WBR - Fankaty Dabo: The Sierra Leone beast! Well kinda. For sure one of our best players with his very high pacing and acceleration paired with very good passing and decent crossing... But holy shit does he have abysmal fitness. Seriously he ended up missing 15 League One matches cause he would end up demolished after every match and sometimes wouldn't get back in time. He was a monster every match but would need to get subbed around the 70th minute consistenly. He ended up being the captain in most matches and gave us a solid 14 assists in 43 matches across all competitions.
DCR - Josh Pask: Supposedly our young player with the brightest future. He started the season injured and had a long way to go with being 4 months out. Started with Rose in this position but as the season went on, he was making a lot of mistakes and after a month of so of Pask being back to the team he told me he wanted more play time and ended up making it a lot better than Rose and even scoring some key goals! He's very physically strong and ended up becoming a started very fast after he recovered.
DC - Dominic Hyam: Ended up being our best defender and definitely rock solid. I think he's the reason my defense worked so well, having amazing positioning, tackling and marking meant he rarely made mistakes and would often fix some mistakes the other defenders made. He's a slower defender but I always trusted him and it payed off. Rarely goes attacking but his defense is so good you can't ask more honestly.
DCL - Kyle McFadzean: One of our experienced players. I had my doubts, he's already 34 yo and I was fearing he would be too slow. I gave him a started spot cause he's basically Hyam but older, pretty similar stats but he's insanely determined and also has a high leadership so I thought he'd be the one to keep our defense in control. He's also physically strong but it's one of those players that only knows how to do one thing. He wasn't spectacular but never dissapointed honestly.
WBL - Sam McCallum: One of our loaned players. He was the other fantastic wing back I realized the team has. He's on loan from Norwich and boy am I happy he have him. He's very fast and a monster at tackling. He's also physically gifted and would run up and down the entire match. Surprisingly ended up being out 3rd goalscorer and most of those goals would be headers cause he would usually enter the box unmarked and just net a most good crossings. He ended up being top 5 in the average ratings on the league and I'd say he's like our 3rd-4th best player. 7 assists.
MCR - Zain Westbrooke: Is slowly becoming our star. This is the position I had a lot of doubts with. Most other positions I knew the players that would start but this one changed a lot. I started with Liam Kelly, team captain but he's an older defensive midfielder and with already 3 defenders in the back he didn't seem necessary. Then I tried Jordan Shipley. He's defintely good and I'm happy we have him on the team but never ended up being as good as I needed. Then came Westbrooke, he was decent at first but as the season went on started to become better and better. He's definitely the one doing the dirty work in the middle often coming down to support in defense and he was usually the one starting the attack. Insane passing and the definition of consitency. He ended up 4th in the average ratings and also managed to give 7 assists across all competition. He's not as notorious as our other midfielder but he definitely was a key part of out title run. If you want to make a comparison to better understand his role, he's pretty much Makelele for Los Galacticos, he might not be as appreciated as his partners but he's fundamental for the whole team to function.
MLC - Liam Walsh: Without a doubt the star of the team... Sadly, he's only a loan. A classic box to box but he's definitely more offensively oriented. He's the creative machine on my team. It's insane how good he is with amazing dribbles and unreal passes, he would eat up entire defenses by himself leaving our strikers wide open to score. I can't tell you how many times he made long range passes that I was just like "How the fuck could he see that and execute it with such precision". He was decent at defense as well. He ended up being the 1st player on the average ratings in League One and gave an insane 22 assists to also be ranked 1st on that regard. He was definitely the most important piece of our title run cause the kid simply drops assists left and right. He's also a fucking machine and would never stop running. Sadly I don't think I can bring him back cause he's too expensive and with Bristol City getting promoted to the Premier League there's no way he can get him on loan again, they're gonna need his insane passes if they plan to fight and not get relegated next season.
AMC - Callum O'Hare: My boy. As I said, in my Villa save he ended up being a club legend so I had high hopes with him. He never was amazing tbh but was always fairly consistent. I wanted him to be the star of my team but never trully managed to do so. He definitely got better in the second half of the season and started to give a lot of assists and managed to end with 15 in the league and finally started to meet my expectations around february. I sadly don't think we can get him back on loan next season.
STCR - Jordy Hiwula: Monster goalscorer. This dude for sure was the surprise of the season and a very pleasant one. I had him here mosly as supposed for who was supposed to be my main striker. Jordy is a natural right winger with insane pace and acceleration and very good passing so I thought he would be feeding a lot of passes to my striker. He doesn't even have high finishing at all but holy fuck he put the team on his back this season. 36 goals across 49 matches in all competitions, with 28 being in the league which allowed him to finish as the top goalscorer and 3rd in the average ratings. He's a bit irregular cause he can destroy a team in a matter of minutes but some matches he would simply not show up at all. I think a big part of his success was Walsh feeding him with insane long passes and him beating defenders with his absurd pace. He would also miss a lot of 1 on 1 vs the GKs but with the amount of times he got to the box without any pressure he definitely scored often.
STCL - Matt Godden: Decent striker but definitely deserved more time. I thought he would be our top goalscorer and he definitely didn't do bad, getting 18 goals in 31 matches across all competitions. At the beginning of the season I got Alejandro Marqués from Zebre and had high hopes on him and gave him a lot more time than Godden. While Maqués wasn't bad, he definitely missed a lot of shots, like he would get stopped by the defense and the keeper very often. I realized Godden was the more solid option in the last like 2-3 months of the season and he scored a decent amount of goals.
Trophies
We participated in 4 competitions:- Skybet League One
- FA Cup
- Carabao Cup
- Leasing.com Trophy (EFL)
We obviously won the league with an amazing 34-4-6 record (I never save scum no matter what). Here's the full league table in case someone is interested:
Last team is Southend with 30 points and a 6-12-26 record
The odds at the beginning of the season had us finishing 5th which meant we would have to work extra time to even get to play offs. But we started winning a lot, scoring a lot of goals and we never dropped more than 3rd place in the entire season. By February we had a a consistent 8-11 points difference between us and the 2nd-3rd and 4th place (which you can see ended very much with the same points) and while we ended with almost a 20 point diferential we only got our first title fight with 5 matches left, in what was the most aggravating match of my FM career. It was against Burton who finished 20th and it started as expected. We ended with a great 3-0 in the first half. They scored a goal at 63 and I was still calm. Then nothing happened for the rest of the match, I was getting ready to lift the trophy with my boys. The ref gives 4 minutes of injury time, whatever. Their fricking right back with abysmal finishing and long shots scores an absolute screamer in 92, I started to get scared. The match keeps going, 94 minutes have passed and it's literally like the ref is waiting for them to score again to end it and welp they did... On the 96 MINUTE FOR FUCK SAKE. I was so mad that I stopped playing for a couple hours, couldn't believe the bullshit. I knew we would still win the title but that tie was so infuriating, just cause how it happened. The fight for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th places actually got very intense at the end as literally all 3 teams crashed terribly in the last 4 matches and didn't even manage to get a win, like none of them lol. The last match Peterborough was at 86 going into the last match, same as MK Dons also with 86 and then Oxford with 85, so yeah, all 3 had the worst end season possible. As of writing this MK Dons and Oxford will play the final and I'm rooting for the Dons, they deserve it, they were 2nd place for most of the season and just had terrible luck in the last month of the league. It also didn't help a lot that they got 17 ties! But they even have less losses than us lol.
In the Leasing.com Trophy we actually managed to get our second title of the season but it was honestly always easy af. We got Bristol Rovers in the Southern Section Semis (Regional Final) which we smashed 3-0 and then got Sunderland in the Finals, which was our only close match but even then we managed to get a 1-0 win.
Going Forward
Ok so we are a Championship team now, that feels amazing! But we still don't have any budget to buy players and like a 1M debt so we'll have to keep living off loans from young starts from top teams that need to give them more playtime. My aim for next season is to not get relegated, I'm trying to be realitic and I know the Championship can be vicious. I honestly don't care in what position we finish but I need us to stay in the Championship. I think a realistic plan is for us to stay in the Championship for like 4-5 more years which would help the team with its debt so we can actually start getting a budget and purchease players of our own.- Loan extensions: I actually managed to extend McCallums loan for another season and I couldn't be happier, that's some weight off my shoulders. As I said I think getting Walsh back for another year is impossible, specially cause Bristol is now a Premier League team and Liam is literally better than every other player in his position that they currently own. I also tried to get O'Hare for an extra year but Villa said that they actually wanted to keep him as an squad player and he definitely will gain more importance as the season goes on, both wil. I'm proud of my boys regardless and wish them sucessful careers. I won't try to get Marqués back he simply wasn't good enough.
- Purcheasing players?: I actually got an increase on my payroll and with Walsh and O'Hare leaving I managed to get enough money to get a great improvement of a GK in James Talbot which used to play for Bohemians (Irish league) and for how cheap he was, he's already better than Marosi and a good for Championship level. Sadly he'll be the only purchease of the season.
- Loans I'm looking for: I currently don't have like an specific player that I want on loan and I'll spend the next few days scouting as much as I can to build a solid team. I do know the positions I want to get players tho. I need a right winger that can help Dabo. I need an starter DC. I need a new Walsh lol, just an star midfielder that takes charge of creativity. I need an starter AM or AP cause I already have a decent academy kid but he isn't ready to be a starter. And finally I need an Striker that can really put pressure on Godden and maybe even do better. I definitely need all these guys if we are to have a chance and not get relegated. I also think a defensive midfielder for the more diicult matches against the top dogs in the championship but we'll see about this one as the transfer window goes on.
