False Start [2028]

Well I gave it a go but my heart wasn't in it. After 7 games in the premiership with Vasteras, despite being in a healthy 13th place, I decided to resign.

Things weren't bad but I wasn't enjoying it. To be fair this was my 12th or 13th season in Sweden so a change of scenery was probably about due.  I was also struggling with the fact that we had become a default selling club but the players weren't raising much even by Swedish standards, and there was little to reinvest it in. The facility upgrades cost too much and players just weren't interested, even those from lower down (not without a big price tag).

So I left. Head held reasonably high. Two promotions with Vasteras. All the way from the 3rd tier to the 1st on a shoestring. It had been fun, but it was time to go.

Where next?

Well I'd like a bigger club in a bigger league. Ideally a club without a great deal of history (silverware wise) or a league where there was a monopoly on the title that hadn't been broken for some time. I wanted the difficult balance of potential for building yet a size that meant I wouldn't be a complete minnow. Which league or country I didn't really mind.

At this point I had leagues loaded in England, Scotland, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Greece, Turkey, Portugal and Holland. Some only the top flight but there was plenty of places to go. I also didn't mind revisting somewhere I'd been before.

Career Recap

I would just put up the club history from the manager profile but it is horribly broken, and one of the few things in FM13 that really disappoints me. For someone playing a long career a working club history screen would be fantastic.

So I've broke it down into some key information. I think I'm at that the definite journeyman stage. Several clubs, some limited success. Silverware is silverware though.

Clubs Managed: 8

Oskarshamn
Eskilstuna City
Leeds
Aberdeen
Houstan Dynamo
Boavista
Degerfors
Vasteras SK

Countries Managed: 2

Republic of Ireland u19's (and 1 Republic of Ireland Senior game as caretaker!)
Morocco

Countries Managed In: 7

Sweden
England
Scotland
USA
Portugal
Ireland
Morocco

Silverware: 5

Swedish Second Division SS Title
Swedish First Division North Title (X2)
Scottish First Division Title
Scottish Challenge Cup

A brief interlude: From Houston, to Morocco, to Boavista, to the watching daytime T.V. in your pants

Bit of a mouthful for the title but I didn't think it was worth breaking things down into individual posts. Basically I got wanderlust and moved around.

Houston

The season started well and I shot up to 4th place! Even hit 1st but then I realised something whilst I had my 4th place and X amount of points I had played many, many more games than the teams around me. I had 23 points I think. The team in 5th had 23 points and had played 5 games less than me. As I looked around I realised all the teams in the division had played 4-7 games less than me thanks to the wonder of MLS scheduling.

So I wasn't 4th, I was more likely to be well out of even the wildcard places when the games were played. Disappointing. What also added it to it was my growing frustration with the youth system, or lack thereof, in the MLS.

I loved the draft but only being allowed 6 developmental contract players in the squad was making it a little hard to build a young team.

So I jumped ship.

Morocco

Seemed like a perfect move. They were without a manager but were in the 2022 World Cup. A good move I thought from MLS Houston to World Cup Morocco.

Wasn't quite to be though. We had a group with Saudi Arabia, Paraguay and France. I had my eye on just squeezing through. Saudi Arabia and Paraguay should have been doable.

We beat S.A. by an own goal, then got trounced by Paraguay 4-0 and then by France. We ended up bottom. So off I flounced.

Boavista

To newly promoted Portuguese Premiership side Boavista. Tiny budget.

Managed to build a good squad, all apart from the keeper position. Over 10 games we leaked goals like no ones business. Silly keeper errors and fantastic shots that should have been stopped ruined everything. My backup keeper? Even worse.

I  was going to persevere. We had picked up a couple of points, and the teams around us at the bottom were terrible too. But then I got linked to the Blackburn job...and when I expressed my interest they were flattered but said they couldn't afford the compensation. So I left....and they gave the job to someone else.


So there we are. Whistlestop tour of my most recent folly. It's only been 4 years since leaving 'Tuna City and I have managed Leeds, Aberdeen, Houston, Morocco and Boavista. Some success and a lot of failure in that time. I've learnt some lessons though.

1) Good 'Keepers are valuable - sounds a bit obvious but I hate buying keepers. If you get it wrong you get it horribly wrong. But they can undermine everything.

2) Be flexible tactically - I thought I'd learnt this from my disaster save before this one but I keep falling into the trap. I love playing my two main tactics. A counter attacking 41221 or a controlling 4312 but there's more to the game than that, and it needs the right players for the level you're at. I've been missing the mark on that.

3) Stop moving around! - Not because I'm concerned with loyalty but because it's easier to build if you actually stay somewhere long enough to do so. If I'd stayed at 'Tuna, Leeds or Aberdeen I think I'd be progressing much better.

So with that in mind my next team needs to be a project. I have to stick with them through thick and thin. I need an enjoyable league, with potential. A transfer system that makes a bit more sense in regards to youth and building and a team I can see myself with for sometime.

I've had it [2018/19]

I've had enough of Leeds. And it's not just because I don't like them as a club.

After the pick up in form I brought in a couple of players in the January window.

Both stars of the future I think and both for less than £600k, combined. Allen I knew about from my U19's role. I put both of them to work in the 1st team. Usually from the bench.

Our form became hit and miss though as you can see.

Not terrible, in fact we still had a pretty good run. At one point I think I had 1 league loss in about 20 games. But we started to drop points and fell off the pace a bit. At one point we were just outside the playoffs. Oddly enough our drop away happened around the same time that Danny Rose got injured for the season....

So we ended up 12th. Not what the board wanted but better than when we had started and something I was fairly happy about. Throughout my first season with Leeds I had the dreaded 'one bad performance away from the sack message' about four times. I also had the fans or fan favourites (ta Nigel Martyn) say they wanted me to have more time.

My job security fluctuated from secure, to precarious and all shades of worrying in between. By the end of the season I back on very insecure. I had a feeling I was going to be sacked after the playoffs and the manager merry go round started, or that maybe I'd get the start of next season but it wouldn't be a very forgiving one. Which left me with a bit of a choice. Did I want to stay and chance it or jump ship - hoping the season (ish) I'd done in the championship had enhanced rather than harmed my standing?

On one hand I was starting to build a team. I had my two new players and two new youth players coming in on a free at the end of the season. I had room in the wage budget for some more and some dead wood to clear that might bring a little bit of cash in.

On the other hand the players irritated me. The best I could hope for in a team talk was no reaction across the board. What I tended to get was players switching off or getting angry. Now I'm not grand master when it comes to team talks but I wasn't saying anything to them that was horribly wrong. They just didn't respect me or what I had to say. The way around this was to increase my rep or get rid of them. Increasing my rep meant doing better which the players didn't seem to care about, and getting rid of them involved a pretty extensive clean sweep.

Rose and Gosling occasionally seemed to dislike me and my talks but they were the heart of the team. I couldn't really get rid of them (though getting rid of Gosling would have please half the team who hated he was captain).

So I decided to leave. I didn't care about the club. They were going to be nothing but a stepping stone. Although I had a soft spot for the players I'd brought in I wasn't tied to a long term development of a club.

Lesson's learnt:

1) Love for the club matters - If you hate them or don't think you want to build with them then it's not the move for you. Battling relegation and failing with Eskilstuna City would have been more rewarding than being snubbed by Leeds.

2) Rep and Respect matter - If your rep is low and the players don't respect you...you're going to have a bad time. I was constantly fighting in team talks, and in team meetings, to combat morale issues. It was an uphill battle because ultimately most of them didn't care what I had to say unless it was something they already agreed with.

3) Personalities matter - They had plenty of clashes within the team which meant we became less effective. Gosling had an amazing season as captain but that didn't filter down because so many of the team struggled with him.

Later's 'Tuna - it has been fun [2018]

Well it was on the cards. Let's recap where we are first though.

I'd stuck it out with the team despite dropping into the relegation zone at times. With 27 games played, so only 3 to go till the end of the season, we were 9th. Same place we finished as last season and with only 3 less points than our final total at 37. In theory we could finish higher and/or with more points than we did last season. Technically we were better than we had been before which is nice. It just didn't feel that way. I think it was because of our form.

We had bad runs and good runs. When we were bad we were very bad, and most of the time when we were good we were a little lucky. Don't get me wrong, we were still playing some good football, and with Granqvist in the team things were picking up. But overall we seemed a little weaker than the season before.

At this point I was happy to just get to the end of the season and see how things were. None of the players I'd gone in for during the transfer window had wanted to come but I thought maybe if I get to the end of the season and survive they'll change their minds?

I won't know though because I got this job offer...

It wasn't completely out of the blue. When they sacked the previous manager I put a cheeky application in. I was told I wasn't one of the favourites but they must have seen something and the offer came in. Now, let me be clear, I really don't like Leeds. I'm a Huddersfield fan. But on FM it was too good an offer to turn down. They're under achieving but have a good squad, no real debt that I can see and in a much higher league. I also have the benefit of not caring about the team too much if it goes horribly wrong - I can be mercenary about it.

Struggle at 'Tuna (as much as I love them) or try the championship? It sadly didn't take too long to decide.

So I'm off but what of 'Tuna? Well they've done well under me. Promoted from the 4th tier to the 2nd, with two (albeit minor) titles on the way.

From a piddling little balance to one of over a million, with a youth facility improvement on the way. I'm rightfully one of the favoured. I've enjoyed it. Even though I've been moaning this season. The only thing stopping me from staying on and rejecting Leeds is we can't turn professional yet. If we could I'd give it another season.

But it's been a good run and hopefully my favourite Bergh who is now the assistant manager will take over from me (nice to have a bit of continuity!). I think they might stabilise and become part of the First Division Elite furniture even without me.

Had some good players whilst I've been there. Felic has done well though I think he's on his last legs. Owe much behind the titles to his goal scoring prowess. A real lower league Treq.

Kamara, Sunday, Wikstrom, Celsing, Cirak, Sundberg, Manns - all main stays and all bar Sunday with the club initially. To their favoured (by me) ranks I can happily add Hansen (the traitor), Svensson (who'll be playing the Swedish top flight soon I think), Moller, Backstrom and Viggeborn.

I was going to put a screenshot of each of my favourite players up but it's so many. I've saved the game before I left though so I can always go back and look at them if I need to.

Bye 'Tuna City! All the best!

Career Recap

Just got to hold on.... [2018]

My doom and gloom view was justified. Look at the form!

I was a game away from resigning. We had four defeats in a row, and we slipped down the table.The team were unhappy and I was furious. Both my key strikers, Felic and Viggeborn, were on 8 or 10 match goaless runs respectively. So I gave this guy a start as striker.

I signed him at the start of the season. I didn't mention him, or the AMLC I bought because I didn't think they'd be much use for a good long while. But I figured it was worth giving him a go as striker. After all even if he couldn't score it would still take 8 games for him to be as bad as Felic and Viggy.

It worked out quite nicely. He grabbed a great goal from outside the area, which spurred Viggy on when he came off the bench, and we beat Brommapojkarna 4-1. Which then triggered a run of wins allowing us to just move up and out of the relegation zone and sit in 12th place. The screen shot at 20 games messed up so here it is at 21.

Team are doing...okay. A lot of them won't be here next year simply because I'm not renewing their contracts.Bjorkebaum for example will be going. He's getting on and he's not impressed.

The final 10 games? Could go either way still. A bad run will suck us back down, a good run will keep us afloat. I want to finish this season and survive at the very least. I'll be left with a bit of a decision at the end though.

I think if we survive and can recruit the players I'm looking for in the upcoming transfer window (got my eye on about 5 players, all decent) then I'll stay for another season.

If we get relegated then I'll go down with the ship like a good captain should be then...once the bubbles have stopped rising I'll quietly hand my notice in.

Anything in between that I don't know.

Ireland U-19's

One friendly, one win. Beat Iceland 1-0. Some of the players look promising but it doesn't mean much at the moment. It's the comparative games and the squad I can put together for them. I've arranged several friendlies so I can play around with tactics and cynically tempt some dual nationality players into declaring for Ireland! But the important games won't be for at least another year.

Saving Grace [2018]

A new season, a new start and a whole new set of...disappointments.

Actually that is a little harsh. This season just hasn't been going very well. It's been very hectic but not positive for 'Tuna. I was actually getting to the point where I was counting down and thinking, "...at game X if the table looks like this then I'm off." And other variants. I just wasn't enjoying things. I was enjoying FM but it seemed like things were getting a little stale at 'Tuna.

Part of this was down to some terrible form in the league...

...that lead to us being here after 10 games.10th with 12 points. Not great, but not terrible either.

What was making it worse was that the recent change in form had pulled us up and out of the relegation zone but we seemed to be fairly lucky with results. The team was playing okay and deserved points but we weren't finishing games off very well and key players just weren't stepping up. As you can sort of see here...

...I know it's only 10 games in but there's not a lot of goals there, and that's part of the problem. We don't look like scoring anywhere near as many as we did last season and we look pretty limited in what we can do on the pitch. Totally down to not having a decent left back I think. I know I said I was eager to recruit because the team was good enough but I was wrong. Horribly wrong.

Svennson on the right is playing amazingly well. Last season he only played a little there and moonlighted as an emergency left back (though not very effectively). This season he's at right back and he is just marauding down that wing. In a similar style to Molder. He's carving space open, getting involved and is a really attacking threat. All whilst staying secure at the back.

On the left....well Nino Johnasson is okay defensively but isn't offering anything going forward. Wallinder likewise, and when I play Manns there I get a little more out of the DL position but then I leave a huge hole in the middle of the defence, that my other DC's don't fill very well. I don't gain enough in attacking threat by moving Manns to offset the loss in security at the back.

The knock on effect of this is that who ever is playing as AML is having to do pretty much all the attacking work down that side. Which gets tiring and predictable. The left back will move forward and be a passing option but they won't run and attack with the ball, they won't run without it and open up space...they just sit there for the back pass from the tired and frustrated AML.

So I need a DL. Problem is no one who looks half decent wants to come. I don't want to panic buy so I'm not going to rush but it leaves me with two options really.
1) Change the formation so attacking from the DL/R positions is less important.
2) Retrain Wallinder a little for the wingback role and hope that he improves. This option also involves crossing my fingers that I can scrape by this season if he doesn't get more attacking.

Ideally there would be that extra option of bringing someone in but that's not working. As I mentioned nobody wants to come and I think I know why. We're still semi pro. I want to ask the board if we can go pro but I don't even have the option - apparently even with no debts and 1m in the bank it is still too expensive. I then asked, well can we at least scout a little bit outside of Sweden then to try and recruit? I thought maybe Finland and Norwary might be a good place to get a few less fussy players. The board said no, apparently Sweden is good enough for us...

Another issue (I know, moan moan moan) is that squad morale has plummeted. A few squad players want to leave because they want to play more, a few want to leave because they think they've peaked here (may be some truth to that), a few in the reserve team are sick of being there and others are just a bit down because of our form.To the point where the board are paying attention to squad harmony.

My plan to deal with this has two parts. Part 1 has been implemented. Every complaining player in the reserves was released on a free. Part 2 is a work in progress...just play better and get some results. We're still doing better than the 15th predicted by the media but the players are unhappy all the same (as they should be - we're better than 10th).

The poor form, moaning, lack of turning pro and general board arseyness left me wanting to leave but two things have happened that mean I'm not going to make a hasty exit. I'm going to hold on. So long as I'm not in the relegation zone at one of the key points in the season (15 games, 20 games and 25 games), and even then I might hold on for a while if it's only a few points, then I'm staying.

So what has changed my mind and staved off my general 'Tuna weariness?

First of all the board did agree to this...

...I know I won't see the benefits for a while but at least they're willing to invest. My youth products are already pretty good, this would be a step towards maximising the potential of them and maybe progressing (or making money).

Second I got this...

...oh yes. I know it's not the most glamorous role but it is a stepping stone and I like the (semi) realism of it. I'm not jumping straight into international management. I've earnt some kudos domestically and now my half Mexican-half Irish manager gets to cut his teeth with the youth team. I would have preferred the Swedish youth job but because the Swedish league is active I just can't compete with all the Swedish staff for the job. Not yet. So Ireland U19's it is. They have no competitive fixutures to speak of after being knocked out of the Euro Qualifiers so that gives me plenty of time to sort the team out.

Anything else to report? Well I did add the MLS, which will become active in December. Mainly because I was reading a chapter from Soccernomics and a quote stood out in it - 'The MLS is crying out for a dynasty'.

I might give creating one a go in the future. I know the plan is to stay with 'Tuna for now but if a job in the MLS came up then I'd be off. Building a real dynasty there is too tempting. Likewise a move to Scotland to break the Old Firm completely. Kilmarnock won the title this year, and Dundee Utd the year before, but no other team in recent memory in the game (or real life I guess) has put together a run of titles like Rangers or Celtic.

Off the pace already [2016]

 

It's odd. Things aren't going well but they're still going better than the board and media expect. We hit a sort of slump. Or perhaps more accurately we're still getting results but we're dropping points.

2nd is still good. But we're 7 points behind 1st. And they just beat us. We're performing okay but we're just not clinical enough. Games aren't getting finished off and some of the players (the unhappy ones) seem a little lacklustre. You can see it in the stats to an extent.

An injury to Hansen revealed something as well. Without him I have to play Manns at left back and we suddenly become very bad at attacking (in comparison). Whether we're controlling or counter attacking. We can still do it but it's not as effective. It means my next buy, if I want to stick with this system, is another attacking left wing back.

There was another knock on as well. With Manns moved over Gregorcik went in at DC. Suddenly we became a bit frailer in defence. Which put me in a bit of a pickle. He's not as good at soaking up the pressure that the defence might come under when counter-attacking, but he's also not very good if we get outnumbered when trying to control. Luckily Hansen came back after a short while but I was left a bit stuck. I had no idea which one to choose and in the end I was looking at just going back to standard for a while.

Prospects for the season? If we keep dropping points like we have done we won't get first. In fact we need a big improvement to pull Vasalund back. What I think is more worrying is that I can see us being over taken by Vasteras and Karlslund if we're not careful too.

Getting that playoff place is essential this season. Well getting promotion is one way or another. We've hit our wage limit for this level I think at around 5k. It's not going up anymore. A few players are getting on a bit, like Wikstrom and Felic, and the replacements aren't quite ready yet. Some players just want to leave as well. Kamara isn't interested in signing an extension. If we don't get promoted the team for the 2017 season will be older, weaker and I'll have less room in the budget to fix things.

Which would leave me with a career/journeyman dilemma. Do I stick around if the going gets tougher? I have to admit I'm already feeling a certain amount of wanderlust. I've had some job offers and although they weren't more tempting that 'Tuna City they were at a good level.

Now I don't want to make the same mistake as my previous career game - I don't want to leave a club that I've been gradually developing for a new club that actually might be a bit of a downwards or horizontal step. I would just have to build again but I'm not looking forward to the idea of repeated seasons in the First Division North.

If I don't get promoted this season I think I would have to stick with 'Tuna but consider very carefully any job offers that come my way. Hopefully though it'll be a moot point, I'll turn things around a bit and get promoted. That's the plan.