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I found an old thread of mines with no comments from FM13 that I decided to recycle, by chance it was the same sort of career. My main focus will be player development. Something I always do for the first season subconsciously but never follow through.

What I want to install in the club is a philosophy somewhat like Barcelona or Ajax.
1. Play attractive and entertaining football with and end product.
2. A hard working and team oriented squad.
3. Focus on brining youth through the system (u19 to reserves to the first team).


First thing I done was set-up the pre-season training programme. Get the lads fitness up and used to the new tactics for the new season. 2/3 weeks of this and then mix it up.

I brought in a few of my own coaches to improve the standard at the club. It isn't the finished article, but I'll do until the end of the season. I still need to upgrade a few areas such as attacking/technical coaches. I could do with a few more scouts, I’ve only really got the UK & Ireland, Scandinavia and central Europe sorted the now.

Transfer budgets are disabled in the first window to give me a better feel for the squad. I'll wait until January to make my first signing and start sending scouts to have a thorough look at targets in November.



Decent results over pre-season to go undefeated and win all but the match against Anderlecht. It gave me a real chance to give all but a few u19's a run out and see what they can do. I've settled on an adventurous 4-5-1 with no centre mids but I'm not sure how it'll go down in the SPL.

A good start to the season and I'm really enjoying it. We sit 4th in the table (thanks to a couple of draws) and booked a place in the Champions League group stage. I've fiddled the training again this time on a more balanced approach and still working on the tactics that I'll go into more once I'm settled.

The league hasn't got off to the best start as we sit 4th behind Inverness, Ross County and Kilmarnock. The main thing is we haven't lost. My goal is to reach at least January undefeated and get the tally up to over 2 goals/game.

We put out Shirak, Maribor and HJK to reach the Champions League group stage where we drew Man City, Porto and Olympiakos. Racking up a tidy £7.2 million in the process. We also drew Rangers in the League Cup 3rd round.






In other news the board have agreed to upgrade both the youth and training facilities costing a grand total of £4 million and will be completed September 2014.

Things are still going pretty well. Our form have picked up from the start of the season and at the beginning of November and have been given just under £5 million thanks to out now £23 million balance.

Won every league match in September and October and beat Rangers in the League Cup. In the Champions League we picked up 2 points in 3 tough matches. A win over Hibs booked us a place in the League Cup semi-final against Motherwell.

I done something a little different. I used the base shape of both Bayern Munich and Manchester City to create two tactics. Bayern's 451with holding midfielder will be my 'main' tactic and I will use Man City's modern take on the 442 for when I need to change things up and have more threat on goal.

Each tactic will have a secondary strategy for controlling the match (e.g. 2-0 up after 70 mins). Both formations produce fairly similar heat maps in the analysis as I hoped but the 451 seem to push up slightly more whereas 442 seems to have more of a focal attacking point.


Moving on to the squad. I've went through and after a few months of contract talks here is where I am. Each transfer wind I’m going to update this spreadsheet that mainly focuses on the next two season and also long term.

As you can see I need to sing a few youth players to fill the squad up but that will come in the youth intake. For the first team I'll look to keep Commons, Samaras and George on and keep an eye on Mouykolo's contract demands.

All teams will play the same tactic from the u19 to the first team, the first team will consist of 25 players and the reserve/u19 will have 16. I will not be paying for players to fill any of the sub spots (unless its very small fees e.g. £40k), and I will always look to promote a player before I buy.

Ah crap. Looks like we won't bee going to January undefeated. Underachieving in the SPL and punching above our weight in the Champions League, overall we're doing well and I got a new deal.

Just a few bad results spoil a good run of games. We dropped 10 points, thats too many for just the months of November and December. I think this was because of a focus on the Champions League nights. 7 points from the final fixers booked us a place in the last 16 where we face champions Bayern Munich.

The bad news is key player Kris Commons was ruled out for 3 months at very crucial time in his career with a torn hamstring.

Well the past two months have been fantastic. We won all but the tie with Bayern in the Champions League and even that was a great result. Theres been a few changes and a few injuries.

Only one player joined us this transfer window, Hendrie will spend the rest of the season in the reserves/u19s as its a position we're a bit light at those levels. Hull midfielder signed a pre-contract to join the club in the summer.

Both Kayal and Lustig handed in transfer requests so I accepted and let them go. Bangura got a chance after returning from loan but has nothing to offer so he was sold to clear his massive £20k p/w wage. Mouyokolo broke his leg the end of February and agreed to end his contract for £90k saving the club a fair bit.




A great run of results to take us 15 clear. We seem to be scoring a lot more now, the goal/game ratio has went from 1.5 to 1.8 in just two months. The aim for the season is to get it over 2 goals/game. It was great to get a draw in the home leg of the last 16 but I'm not going to get ahead of myself I know the dream is over.

More injuries to report this month, James Forrest tore his hamstring and Joe Ledley damaged his achilles. Both face up to 3 months out. Up next in the Scottish Cup we face Rangers for the 2nd time this season.






As you can tell I've had an exciting Friday night.. And I promise this is my last one. (deleted my last one to prevent me playing it but uni timetable isn't so bad)

Great to see another Celtic save!! Doing really well to ! And so are Ross County! Champions league is very good!

Cheers man . Gutted I couldn't continue my other one, I had a back up of it but it was from then end of the first season so wasn't much point in going from there.

Another great two months, unfortunately a single defeat taints the picture. We wrapped up both the SPL and League Cup as well as booking a place in the Scottish Cup Final against Queen of the South. Unfortunately the Champions League run is over, but for the squad we have I think we over-performed this year anyway.

Now that the transfer window was out the way and I had some money to spare I decided to invest in the coaching staff. I no have a vey good set-up with just a few adjustments that I'd like to make but that can wait until the end of next season.



As I said we were on fine form. We managed to will all but a single league game and extend the lead at the top to 20 points. I was disappointed with the Partick Thistle result but we just couldn't get the ball in the net depute numerous attempts. We faced Rangers twice more after a rotated squad forced me into a replay that we won comfortably. I think we gave Bayern a good run for their money considering they are current holders.

The final fixture of April was quite significant. Commons came back from 3 months out to net a double and show what we'd been missing most of the season and Stokes ended a 13 game run without a goal, after a great start to the season.

So finally got my MacBook back from Apple, didn't waste much time before cracking open FM. Season one is wrapped up and we claimed the domestic treble and reached the Champions League last 16. Pretty good if you ask me. Hopefully I can keep the squad together next season but there are a few clubs keeping tabs on my players.

Our great form continued until the end of the season. We had a scare at home to Aberdeen but two quick fire goals saved the day, the Scottish Cup Final wasn't ever in doubt as we romped home with a 4-0 win.

So we're reaching the start of pre-season in Australia. We moved up 16 places to 45th in the coefficients and Scotland dropped to 24th.

I'm happy with the squad I have but I'd like to add a striker who can guarantee me 20 league goals every season. I have a decent budget and won't even need to sell if I don't want to, but a few strikers may face the exit door.



We're in a great position financially right now. No loans or debt and a projected profit for the season. I could spend my full budget and still be pretty safe. We're now 43rd richest club in the world.

Great..

ah gutted to see another of your Celtic save ends always awful when that happens

I don't even know how it's happened, I was playing it last night and then went to play it today and it won't load.