Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge

Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge

I'm sure we're all aware of the SAF challenge by now and I've started a couple of them myself in the past, I lost an fm21 save file of one with West Ham and abandoned one on fm24 which I documented on this website but with less saves to focus on this year I'm finally committing to one, last time I got Crystal Palace and that wouldn't have been bad this time around however unfortunately I wasn't that lucky, as you'll have seen when you clicked on this, we got Wolves this time around… the team bottom of the prem and 6 points below 19th place Burnley, but without further ado, here are the rules.

Rules

Take over the club 19th in the table on November 6th - SAF took over Man Utd on November 6th when they 21st (League is no longer 22 teams hence why I'm taking over the club in 19th who are second bottom in the table)

Stay at that club - SAF was at United for 26 years and never managed elsewhere in England

No transfers with your direct rivals - whether that be selling, buying, or loaning players

No more than 11 signings per season and only 8 of those signings can play for the first team that season

Must have at least 1 homegrown player in every matchday squad however it is encouraged to promote as many youth players as possible

Must promote at least 1 youth academy player to the first team each season, once again the more the merrier in this aspect 

Goals

The main goals of the challenge are as follows…

Win a Domestic Cup within 4 seasons - SAF won his first cup in the 89/90 season beating Crystal Palace 1-0 in the FA Cup Final replay

Win a League title within 7 seasons - SAF won his first title in the inaugural Premier League season in 92/93

Win a League and Cup double within 8 seasons - SAF won his first double in the 93/94 season

Win the League, Cup, and Champions League within 13 seasons - SAF won the first ever treble in English football history in the 98/99 season

All Ferguson's Trophies at Old Trafford

Premier League (13x)

FA Cup (5x)

League Cup (4x)

Community Shield (10x)

Champions League (2x)

Europa League (1x) - Replacing Cup Winners Cup

Super Cup (1x)

Club World Cup (2x) - One replacing Intercontinental Cup

I will be attempting to win all of these trophies and will keep track on a spreadsheet which will be shown at the end of each season

November 6th

As previously mentioned we will be managing Wolves, but here is the table on November 6th:

If only Fulham had conceded 3 more goals and we could've gotten one of the more exciting teams in the Premier League, but it's fine, I don't mind a challenge and this is certainly bound to be one. Taking charge of Wolves will be the 34 year old Steven MacDonald, who, after retiring at the end of the 2024-25 season has been given his first big break in management with a struggling team and lofty objectives.

On the topic of objectives, the club are demanding a mid-table finish and require us to be competitive in the FA Cup having been eliminated from the Carabao Cup before Steven's arrival. The supporters are significantly less demanding as they wish to simply remain in the league, which is a lot easier than jumping up to mid-table but ultimately the board has the final say so we know what we need to do.

With a severe lack of English players in the squad it is surprising that we not only have one homegrown player, but rather three, unsurprisingly none of them are English as we have the Irish nationals Matt Doherty (who is out for the next 2-3 weeks) and Nathan Fraser who will be solid bench players and backups for busy schedules, and the Spanish national Hugo Bueno who will provide serious competition to the ever so slightly better David Møller Wolfe. With one of the best academies in the league we shouldn't have to worry about the youth quotas which is ideal because I like to integrate youth in my normal saves anyway.

The squad on paper isn't as bad as the game and real life would suggest with the star players being;

Brazilian Midfielder André:

Colombian midfielder Jhon Arias:

And Cameroonian wingback Jackson Tchatchoua:

With the objective of mid table being difficult enough with Wolves start to the season I will be using a 5-back system for the remainder of season one with the goal of changing to a 4-back system for season two after a full pre season to work on it, here is the shape and roles that will be used for season one:

Before I go off and play out November I thought I would show the fixtures we will (probably not) be looking forward to during our first month in charge starting with an away day to London to play Chelsea in two days time:

As you can see Wolves have already played out a 1-1 draw with Fulham so we only have three games this month as we hope to get off to a flying start with the Old Gold.

Updates will be every in-game month

Great save and good luck for the season !