FM 2017 - Blackburn Rovers RTG

The Club

Since the takeover of the Venkys (Indian firm) in 2010 the club has been in a huge downfall. Lies, poor management and no communication between the fans has caused the club to get relegated in the 2011/12 after 10 consecutive seasons in the top flight.

Despite this, the football club owns excellent training and academy facilities which are going to be great for the progress of my current and young players and has an incredible 31.500 seat stadium, Ewood Park which Jack Walker built. Blackburn Rovers has had some great success since the founding in 1875 most notable the Premiership in 1995 and the FA cup six times most recently in 2002. But 14 years without a trophy will hopefully soon change.










Currently sitting 19th in the Championship its going to be a long season for us supporters and the future is very dark with the owners not selling up there's only one direction the club is heading. Hopefully I can bring back the glory days to the club and make this story a exciting one!

Good to see you've returned to our career section @Elliott Kinsella-calverley, best of luck with Blackburn and let's hope you've success.

Good luck with this!

Know what it's like to support a club which the owners are doing their best to destroy...

Cheers Shedender, much prefer the user friendly website for creating FM stories, enjoyed last years campaign with Rovers on FM16 hopefully increase my skills in both Career stories and Football manager!

FA don't do enough these days for the smaller clubs but will intervene with the larger ones, the sport is massively going downhill in my opinion a sport I've have loved all my life. I've seen supporters of Charlton, Blackpool and Blackburn all rally together in support of one another that brings another side to the game though! Least in Football manager we can create our own fantasy world haha! #Venkysout #Oystonout

Season 1 - Pre Season

The Club

I honestly didn't think i'd make many changes to the club staff wise, as Blackburn have one of the best in league in all departments and believe it or not they have a decent squad, with good depth (beg to differ in real life). But like I do in most clubs I start at I clear out deadwood and get the best I can so most changes came within the backroom staff but, transfer wise we made some good signings. I evaluated the squad and looked and areas that needed to be improved:

- Goalkeeper
- Right back
- Left back

Key players


Ben Marshall - Been at the club for 3 years now always been a excellent player each season for Rovers he possess great technical abilities especially in set pieces which will give me a advantage in scoring from dead play.



Charlie Mulgrew - New signing for Rovers this season made by Owen Coyle, not really a promising signing in real life but seems to be a player of real quality in FM almost all attributes are 12+ hes a quality all round good player and will be the key in the heart of my midfield.



Tommie Hoban - Again another summer signing made by Owen Coyle, on loan from Watford Hoban is a promising player at only age 22 he'll be the main man in defence, highly rated by my assistant in his report Hoban looks a gem and hopefully if he has a good season we could snatch him up on a permanent.




Tactics

I do have a favorite tactic that has been kind to me in most football manager games 4-3-2-1 (wide). I've always liked having attacking wingers and one player up front and is one of the best formations in the Championship in my opinion. The tactic also favors the club, who usually play this tactic with Conway and Marshall switching wings which create a deadly duo, just missing the one and only Jordan Rhodes who was a god on last years FM.

I'm going to introduce my own philosophy into the club, a possession and passing style (unlike Rovers) but in all football games I enjoy a stylish pass and move play. During pre season I played a structure style but as you do in pre season you test various instructions and playing a more flexible team shape and been highly beneficial allowing my players do be more creative and do things on the pitch I personally wouldn't instruct them too but its worked! I've also kept "Work ball into box" instruction like I do each year as I find long shots on Football manager always miss the target and causes me to lose possession. One of the reasons for this maybe because I've always played with lower league sides and not had the quality players to pull off long shots maybe?






Transfers In/out

There was more activity in the transfer market than I had planned, I'm not one for spending big but with a transfer budget of £400k we couldn't do much. But, we had a whopping wage budget of around £60k p/w which I was shocked about, didn't think we'd have so much to spend so my target in the market was players without contracts or players loan listed. The club already had 6 loans signings made and with Championship rules of only 5 loan players allowed in the squad we couldn't go crazy in the loan market. Transfers out there wasn't much activity, there wasn't any players I looked to offload and everyone was on reasonable wages, each player had a role to play in my squad too and with no offers been made apart from the one I was just looking to mainly improve on the squad. We off loaded some of the youngsters with great potential on loan so they could get some game time elsewhere. The main talking point was my youngster Joe Rankin-Costello captain of the youth squad in real life, Joe has bags of potential but when Leicester made a offer I upped it massively which they then accepted, at £575K and add ons to come I had to accept.

Transfers In

Jose Manuel Casado - Free

Casado was my fist signing as Blackburn Rovers manager, Left back was my priority formerly of Bolton Wanderers and well known to the Spanish league Casado was free and would bring in some experience to the squad.



Diego Poyet - Free

A familiar name to most of you son of Gus Poyet, I was surprised we managed to capture him, he had lots of interest and is one of the better players available to sign on a free in FM 17. Not a postion I needed to strengthen as such but doing some research online he is a great player for many average clubs to get. At age 21 and almost potential ability he could become a leading man for the club.



Mason Holgate - Loan

Another English Gem Holgate we signed from Everton on a long season loan, he was the only other loan signing I made in this transfer window due to the amount of loan players in the squad With the new social media section (a great addition to the game) the fans voted 22% YES and 78% NO to signing him I ignored this and already after pre season he has grown on them with 64% confidence now. A position I needed to strengthen at right back, but Holgate can also play at centre back.



Artur Jedrzejczyk - £500k

Current Polish international was a magnificent capture for the club and my favorite one. Right back position was my main priority and I missed out on various signings in the window but Artur I was keen on getting he has great Work rate and fits into my full back (support role) perfectly.



Mikel Saizar - Free

Mikel was abit of a rushed last minute signing and I only signed him on a one year deal as he was just going to be a back up player for this season. Goalkeeping position really needed strengthening in the club and I spent most of the window trying to sign a player suitable for the role, but we kept failing in transfers mainly Vladimir Gabulov a quality free player available on FM17 who I had my eyes on he had a report "sign for whatever price" but we couldn't get a work permit huge huge loss. Jason Steele is a good player though and hopefully can do the job in goal but if he has some bad game Mikel Saizar can hopefully fill the role.



Igor Zubeldia - £800k

Biggest signing of the transfer window Igor I found doing research online, he's suppose to be a "wonderkid" in the game and this lad is for the future. I am limited to signing wonderkids for many factors such as club reputation and budget and Igor is one of the cheaper ones and getting wonderkids early on can be such financial benefit later in the game. As you may know from my FM 16 Road to glory I signed Maximiliano Romero who i bought at 18 for about £4.2M and I ended with offers from Barcelona of excess of £30M he wasn't even that great!



Transfers Overall




Staff In/Out

Like mentioned before I didn't plan to make changes to the backroom as it was already one of the best in the league, assistant manager is the most important role for me and Sandy Stewart (Coyle's puppet) didn't do it for me so I pulled this amazing signing off Rovers legend Derek Fazackerley most capped player for the club he was a great addition all round and hopefully can assist me to glory with the club. Another influence on staff transfers in was a lot of clubs were signing a number members of my staff and with failed attempts to keep them at the club we had to make replacements.








Pre season results/Expectations

So pre season overall went well, I feel I've built a good foundation at the club to start the season, each position seems to have lots of back up but one huge drawback is injuries 6 players were already injured when I took over including Conway one of the star players, and two more got injured pre season making the tally to 9 most in the league and I also missed out on many players I wanted. but overall I am happy with the staff and players at the club and hopefully got a good season ahead of us.

Pre season results didn't go to well at first but after testing different instructions out etc we had some great performances including a 4-1 win over our league competitors Brentford. Expectation wise we are predicted 19th but I believe we can go for minimum of play offs each time I've managed rovers in FM first season I've always gained promotion but never won the league can this be a target to aim for?






Pre Season Star Players

Artur Jedrzejczyk - AV RAT 7.77
Mason Holgate - AV RAT 7.68
Ben Marshall - AV RAT 7.40

Season 1 - Hard life

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted, I've decided to do an update at the beginning of the new year on FM as there has been some controversial circumstances and also it midway into the first season!

WELL I'm not going to lie this years football manager has been a lot more tough than previous versions of the game and tactically its not been easy. As each year I play similar formation and instructions but they have had to be adjusted as we had a woeful start to the season. As mentioned also in the first sentence I explained there has been some controversial circumstances, a position I've never been in, in my mangerial caeerer that been...

The board have given me 5 more games and a target of 9 points to keep my job

NOW I was expecting this as I couldn't get going, nothing was going right but the ultimatum came at a time I've managed to turn things around and go on a good streak but I suppose drawing and been a factor!

BUT I am 3 games into the 5 so I'd thought it would be a great time to do a update on the career as this could be make or break but so far we have collected 7 points from 3 games but we have Newcastle at home (2nd) and Ipswich away (12th) to play to determine the outcome, two sides which are above me in the league things could be interesting.

SO the season so far

Championship

I've been very disappointing with some of the performances by the players and I definitely know who to keep and who to get rid of during the January/Summer transfer window. As in real life this is a problem but also the growing debt the club has, are destroying the clubs finances. As previously mentioned I was the highest in the league for the most injuries and this really did affect me as top players like Conway, Bennett, ward etc... didn't come back till late. This meant my new signings had to make an instant impact and not really blending into the squad this hindered performances early on in the season as you can see from the schedule below. But the squad is almost clean bill of health we have been lucky with injuries only afterwards Sam Gallagher (Cold) and Charlie Mulgrew are currently injured.

To note Mikel Saizar, Wes Brown and Liam Feeney have all been dropped to the U23s squad.

To note H. Schmidtgal and D.Van de Beek were late signings

To note Steven Hendrie returned to West Ham as I felt he wasn't good enough




The good and the Ugly

The Good:

Charlie Mulgrew - 7.20
Hope Akpan - 7.18
Tommie Hoban - 7.05
David Raya - 7.05
Elliott Bennett - 7.05
H. Schmidtgal - 7.02
Adam Henley - 7.00
Diego Poyet - 6.97

Due to my new tactical change Raya was a sweeper keeper and I tried him in goal and game after game he puts in a shift and has taken over Steele for the No. 1 Keeper position. Schmidtgal last minute a signing I made for Left back position as Casado has been terrible has been very effective. Henley came up from the U23s as either Right backs in my first team was performing and he has but in some good performances. Diego Poyet and been a exceptional signing this season can play both CDM or MC hes only 21 and his stats are growing rapidly.

But talking point is Hope Akpan and Charlie Mulgrew. Akpan has been incredible he's like another version of Kante he is everywhere always controlling the centre of the field putting in a shift. Charlie Mulgrew leads the best average rating with a 7.20 hes a all round good players always seems to be the standout each game, he can play midfield and defence and is my main set piece taker, although currently injured he is back very soon.

The Ugly

- Mason Holgate - 6.44
- Anthony Stokes - 6.50
- J. Casado - 6.60
- Martin Samuelsen - 6.63
- Jack Byrne - 6.67
- Derrick Williams - 6.68

Very disappointed with the likes of Holgate who I thought was a magnificent capture for the cup he makes mistake after mistake and I don't dare play him while my job is under threat. Casado as mentioned has been a abyssal signing too, already on loan Samuelsen a player I like in real life cant get going and Jack Byrne no longer has a position in my new tactical change.










14th after 24 games is decent for the quality of the club but the fact I promised the board play offs this season has affected my job security BUT we are only 4 points of the play offs.

We are currently on a 7 match unbeaten run and only losing 1 in 13 games (after making tactical changes) things are looking up, but draws keep on happening and we are just losing out on the 3 points, the biggest factor is crossing with a can't seem to deal with.


Best Score so Far



Worst score so far





EFL CUP

Well this was the most humiliating start to the campaign and the biggest defeat I have suffered as a manager to a club in a lower league ever. Knocked out in the 1st round of the competition we fell very sort of expectations of reaching the third round.





FA Cup

We have been draw Millwall at home on the 7/1/17 a game I expect to win!


Financially

We are projected to pass the FFP but the club has declined massively in value over the 4 months, we are only worth £19.25M (81M debt) our overall balance so far this season is -£7.8 million we are struggling to make any profit of any kind with players wages still a huge problem like its been for years we may need to offload some key players.







Overall

We have hit a good form with a change of tactics and players finally gelling thing are looking up and we need only 2 points in our next 2 games to keep the job as Blackburn Rovers manager.

I'm now playing a more structured style of play and moving the CDM position into a shadow striker and brought better performances and more out of Ben Marshall. The complete wing backs have been massively succesful compared to Full backs. Also, when we play away I do move the Shadow striker role to CDM to tighen the defence.



I am hopeful of keeping my job and if we do I still set my eyes on the play offs but positions need improving and deadwood needs getting rid off. we will keep on fighting RTID

Ouch, tough season so far. Blackburn is an interesting save. Hopefully you can keep your job, only four points off the play-offs as you say.

Good News

QUICK UPDATE





Quick update I managed to keep the job as Blackburn Rovers manager with a unexpected 2-1 win against Newcastle and a draw against Ipswich meant we well surpassed the target of 9 points!

Cheers managed to keep the job what a disaster this road to glory would of been aha! 1 loss in 16 so far with this new tactic! Should be a good second half to the season!

Good news! Best of luck for the rest of the season!

Have you managed to avoid going into administration yet?

just about avoiding atm we are swimming on the surface, the finances are in debt status now, I have a few players worth value and contacts going this summer if we can get to July we'll be safe, Marshall for instance who Swansea are after could go for around the £6m mark

Season 1 - High Flying

Finally, the club is heading in the right direction! Sitting in 9th position, 1 point off the play offs with 10 games to go things are getting exciting!

After a very tough start to the season floating above relegation, a horrendous 4-0 loss off Fleetwood town in the Cup and the board giving me a ultimatum we have turned the club round in form and financially too!

Championship


With a tweak of tactical changes we managed to get the club heading in the right direction only 5 losses in the past 25 games and getting vital points against teams around us in the table has shot us up the table! Making adjustments such as counter style football against better opposition and controlling football against weaker sides as made us get points in different circumstances but most importantly my philosophy of a controlling passing style of football has been a success we have more possession than the opposition every game and have become one of the best passing teams in the league! We even had more possession than Chelsea in the cup which you will see below!

Only 4 other teams have won more games and conceded less than ourselves in the league impressive










EFL Cup

Huge congratulations to Watford who won the EFL Cup over Manchester City on penalties, much better than my 4-0 loss to Fleetwood







FA Cup

Only a short spell in this competition but a very exciting one, we got further in the competition than expected! After thrashing Mill Wall we got our first Premier League side as manager against title Holders Leicester which we won.




We then got Chelsea in the next round of the Cup at home a very exciting fixture especially for the fans, Ewood Park was a sell out and we got a unbelievable draw! But... It felt like a defeat we was the better team and missed many opportunities but I was still proud.




We then went to Stamford bridge in the replay which we put in a excellent effort and only lost 3-2 Marshall was outstanding. All three matches against the Premier leagues side were on TV so that generated some decent income.









Finances

The club finances were deteriorating like we are in real life, but I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Scott Dann who signed for Palace for £2.75M couple of years ago, had a £12M RELEASE CLAUSE HOW?? I checked at the beginning of the game all release clauses and I never noticed this pleasant surprise! I thought it might be a bug so I cashed in right away! We was at a £10M loss this season... now we are £3 million in PROFIT! Delighted especially when summer is arriving the club is in a better financial state.

We are still in a huge £80 million debt but we are heading in the right direction both Financially and on the pitch!





Conclusion

10 games to go 1 point off play offs we have decreased the gap and with the current form I am hopeful we can claim the play offs, Newcastle as expected are high flying in the league at the top and seem impossible to catch atm!

Going to be a exciting remaining season!

Much better! Unfortunate against Chelsea, so close to winning that first meeting.

Amazing how we out played Chelsea! We dominated from start to finish without my first team, finally got my tactics right after a dreadful start to FM 17! Started reading your career too very interesting!

Great turn around, mate. I'll be reading this with interest. By the way, what skin is that?

Thankyou about to do a update on the season! And the skin I'm currently using is Vitrex17 1.0 beautiful looking skin .

Season One - WE DID IT

After all the stress of a dreadful start to the season and almost losing my job at Christmas we turned things around and climbed the Championship table!

We started the first game out of the 10 with a triumph at Carrow road beating Norwich 4-0! We were holding a strong play off position until towards the end we dipped slightly winning 1/4 games remaining which took it down till the last day. All results went the right way for the other sides around me in the table and even at 2-0 up I was worrying, if we slip that's it! THEN Brentford scored to make it 2-1 literally thought Football Manager was going to do me over on the last day. After dominating the play offs towards the end of the season one more Brentford goal would of knocked us down from 6th to 9th.

LUCKILY WE HELD OUT AND WON FINISHING IN 6th POSITION!







SO the Play offs begin, I will do a full end of season review after the Play offs have been completed, last time I was in the play offs in the league was with Accrington Stanley which we lost. I'm not a fan of them and always aim for automatic promotion BUT we have much improved since the start of the season especially tactically wise! We unfortunately lost our best player Charlie Mulgrew but we have good depth in midfield and I have called youngster Zubeldia (signed at beginning of the season) into the first team.









PLAYOFFS SEMI FINAL DRAW - SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY - 13/05/2016

Sheffield did the double over us in the league but I can see this game been such a different occasion players are going to perform different and I'm sure we will put the previous two results behind us and be more encouraged. Should be a very exciting draw, QPR and Leeds Untied are the other sides competing.

Season One - It wasn't to be






I told you I hated Play offs!!! We couldn't progress through the semi-finals, very poor and gutted but it was very close encounter we put up a good fight but the first leg at Ewood Park we should of won, the draw at home killed us.






So that's 4 games against Sheffield Wednesday this season and 4 games we haven't won against them, I hope they don't make it to the Premier League so I can revenge them next season!

On the plus side we can get rid of dead wood this summer, bring player wages downs and make some great signings one I have already made for the new season!

Always gutting to lose in the play-offs! But you improved massively so upwards and onwards, mate!

Season 1 - End of Season Review

AH it's not been too bad of a season I mean this hasn't been the most successful first season I have had at a club, the previous 2 Football Manager games I have gained promotion in my first season with Blackburn Rovers BUT we have had a much better squad available with the likes of Super Jordan Rhodes, Tom Cairney, Rudy Gestede and Marcus Olsson Etc... AND it took me a little longer to get used to this Football manager and getting a tactic going. The current squad and financial state makes it very tough to play in FM17 but that's what I enjoy and it gives me a challenge!



Championship

So we finished in a play off position as expected finishing 6th we hit our target But getting knocked out straight away was difficult to take but tbh I'm glad we have another season in the Championship, This will allow me to rebuild the squad, get rid of unwanted players and hopefully get a better financial state as we wouldn't last long in the Premier league.









Elliott Bennett scoring the first Hat Trick for me!!






FA Cup

This competition I enjoyed and how we played so well against the big boys, BEATING Leicester City current Holders of the Premier League was one of the highlights of my season and drawing to Chelsea was a magnificent effort, even the second leg we should of won... Chelsea did go on to win the competition so says a lot on how we did and if we hadn't of got them in the early draw maybe we could of gone on a better run?










EFL Cup

Glad the season is over so I can forget about this result, at a time I didn't know my squad or tactic it was a horrendous result one of the worst I have experienced in my Football Manager career.










Squad Review


Goalkeeper




Like in all FM games I always have two goalkeepers battling it out for No.1 Raya and Steele decent in goal keeping a number of clean sheets 4th team team with the lowest conceded in the league was impressive. New signing Mikel Saizar didn't feature much and when did was not impressive, his first game in goal he conceded 4 goals. As I only signed Mikel on a one year contract he'll be a free agent this summer.

Defence




I was satisfied with the defending this season, again the fact mentioned above, the 4th team with the lowest conceded in the league says a lot. Stand out players were of course Charlie Mulgrew he was magnificent all season, all round great player. Artur Jedrzejczyk at right back was a consistent player, I was delighted about signing and also has featured for his national squad which is a huge achievement. On the other end of the stick I'm gutted to see Hoban return to Watford bags of potential and another solid player, his value is £3M which makes him impossible to sign but he had a good time at the club. Holgate was poor at the beginning of the season but ended up been a completely different player later on, he ended up with a average rating of 7.42 in his last 5 games another player I will miss as he returns to Everton. Casado and Schmidtgal weren't the greatest of signings and this is area I need to strengthen at Left back.

Midfield





Really enjoyed the central park of this tactic, using two ball winning midfielders was very effective in FM17, only problem I had too many players to choose from and some getting unsettled with low game time. We managed to equally fit everyone in, Hope Akpan, new signing Diego Poyet and Mulgrew were all fantastic this season. The up coming of two youngsters Darragh Lenihan and new signing Zubeldia (just broke to first team) give the team some potential for the new season. On the wing Elliott Bennett had a magnificent season probably the best player of the season (9 goals!) and I'm sure some premier league clubs will come bidding this season. Craig Conway on the left was a fantastic player and hopefully despite his age and replicate his form into the new season. On the downside the biggest star of the club Ben Marshall was very poor. Despite getting 13 assists he was too inconsistent and with a value of £6.5M any bid around the £10M Mark will have my attention this summer.

Forward




An area we struggling in despite Graham scoring 15 goals this season he was very poor he could of had double that with the amount of chances he had. Anthony Stokes didn't feature much towards the end of the season and tbh didn't do anything all season with a average rating of 6.79 says it all. I was delighted with late loan signing Ashley Fletcher from West Ham as Sam Gallagher was poor, Fletcher has just broke into the first team in real life for West ham and with 4 goals and 5 assists in 10 games he helped out a lot in little time. The strike force is a area I'm looking to strengthen the most in the summer as each position looks decent at the club, BUT we need a consistent goalscorer, we need a Jordan Rhodes in the squad.


The Good and The Ugly

The good:

- Elliott Bennett - 7.13
- Charlie Mulgrew - 7.12
- Hope Akpan - 7.08
- Tommie Hoban - 7.07

The Ugly:

- Mikel Saizar - 6.62
- Anthony Stokes - 6.65
- Sam Gallagher - 6.76





Favorite Result







Worst result




Transfers

With a low spending of £1.4M we did well this season but the free player of Diego Poyet has to be my favorite signing very solid midfielder for any club in the Championship, Ashley Fletcher was my favorite loan signing and Artur Jedrzejczyk the most impressive money signing.





Finances

The club has deteriorated to a value of £22M and a loan debt of £79M will make it very hard to have money to spend this summer but that's the challenge of the game. We was in profit though last season by £5.2M mainly from the Scott Dann buy out clause of a whopping £12M and we gained £5.2M from the league position lets hope this continues as I look to decrease player wages this summer.




A very low budget for the season ahead!








End of Season

We hit our targets and above in the league and FA Cup but fell way short in the EFL Cup getting knocked out in the 3rd Round.





Charlie Mulgrew made it into team of the year!











NEW CONTRACT!



I've already made two early signings for next season which you will see in the next update, with contracts running out I will be able to get rid of unwanted players and hopefully generate some decent profits off others. I'm going to remain patient and only make a move for the right players. This summer will give me more flexibility in shaping the squad as I wont have already made loans and contacts in place like you do on a new save!






RTID

Can never win the Play offs! aiming least I have a very good squad a tactic for the new season!