Scottish Odyssey

Having thought about a new save idea for quite a while and struggling, I stumbled across third tier side Falkirk ("the Bairns") in the Scottish cinch League 1. 

There are several things I like about Falkirk and this save so far. Firstly, the club's vision is to play attacking and entertaining football as well as developing young players to sell for profit later. Being a general play-it-safe manager with a focus on defence through a back 4 and defensive midfield, working with a positive or attacking mentality feels like a stretch.

Falkirk has had a reasonable amount of success in the past, having won the Scottish FA Cup twice and runners-up three times. They've also won the Scottish Challenge Cup 4 times, the most of any Scottish club. They've recently lost some of their mojo, now finding themselves in the third tier (i.e. the league below the cinch Premiership and cinch Championship) and the board expectation is promotion. This is not desirable but required.

I have no funds left in the transfer budget and 4 players on loan who, with the exception of attacking midfielder Aidan Nesbitt, are probably the best in the squad.

With a league that runs for 36 matches, we'll play each of the other 9 sides a total of 4 times each. As I like to watch matches live and in full at normal speed (does anyone else even do that???) it could be a long season and we're not off to a great start but it's early days.

This is an initial post and I plan to build this as a blog if there's interest. I'm keen to become a better manager and learn a lot more about the game in the process. Stay tuned!

There's always interest bro

A scrappy 1-0 away win against Airdrie earlier this evening takes us to 3rd position in the ladder after match day 5 of League 1. This is despite our analysts saying we are weak defensively and are fairly poor in attack! We apparently don't provide much of a threat at the moment and are quite easy to roll over.

This feels right, having been under pressure for so much of our recent fixtures. Cohesion remains poor despite very good support for me and club atmosphere is starting to build, albeit still average. Some training and development conundrums after a heavy match load. Should I rest players for a couple of days, reduce intensity of training to half, or give the squad a few consecutive team bonding sessions? Tactically, 2 of our 3 formations are fluid and our squad depth and squad comparisons are fine. It's difficult to say if the squad is overrated or we're just yet to gel. Thoughts on a suitable training regime welcome.

With no transfer or salary budget to spare, we still managed to lock in 3 loan transfers at minimal cost to the club as well as a back-up goal keeper on a free transfer. Although the fans aren't as ecstatic, we've managed to get 2 x A+, a B+ and C from the board, mainly due to value for money.

So how to take things from here? With a club vision of attacking and entertaining football, do we go hell for leather and sacrifice points, or should we stop leaking goals at the back and then start to build our attacking play? 

To have a time out from this dilemma, we've scheduled a friendly against a lower league side to hopefully get a bag full of goals and also see our new signings in action.