Believe

“You may call it in this evening, but you’ve only lost the night. Present all your pretty feelings, may they comfort you tonight”

Hello and welcome back to another instalment of our Football Manager 24 save, Sunderland Till We Die. When we last left you, we were flying high in the league, and showing we were by no means this years whipping boys. We also had the January transfer window to navigate through, so let’s see if there was any activity at the club.

These were the only players to leave. O’Nein was our captain and a good squad player, but he kept complaining about silly things at the club, and there was always a few supporters for him. So when Al-Gharafa came in with a £7.75M bid, I jumped at it. We also loaned out Aji Alese and Chriss Rigg so they could get more game time. This meant we had a chance to strengthen the team, so here is who we signed.

Lucas de los Santos was signed for £5.5M as competition to Allan Campbell. He is the direct replacement for O’Nein and should do a great job for us.

Tobi Oluwayemi was signed on loan from Celtic to act as cover in goal. The squad complained a few times that we didn’t have enough depth in goal so I felt this had to be done. He is a good keeper but we have Anthony Patterson and see no reason to drop him just now.

Last but by no means least, welcome to the Stadium of Light, Sverre Halseth Nypan. He is a wondered who was on my radar for a while but never had interest to sign for us, until now. I mean look at his value already?? We only signed him for £3.3M, outrageous. This does leave us with a bit of a dilemma as we now have a lot of very good players at CM and might struggle to keep them all happy.

As you can see it has already started. The one I don’t get is Jack Clarke. He is a regular starter and has played a lot of games for us but still complaining. He also hasn’t played that great for us at times.

As you can see, 3 goals and 2 assists so far this season is not a good return for a player who was our top player last season. Luckily we have had some players step up and show we deserve to be here. Jobe and Wharton are solid in the middle of the park, and Back has come into his own, just as Grant has stopped scoring.

So let’s see how we got on so far this season. Are we still flying high? or have the other teams figured us out?

Not a bad period, with a bit of a wobble in December, but ultimately some good results there. We are also through to the fifth round of the FA Cup, meaning we have another decent cup run this season. Our biggest result was the 5-0 thrashing of Newcastle. It really was an amazing occasion. So how has that effected the league?

We are still flying high in the league, albeit not fighting for the title anymore, but the top 4 and Champions League football is a very real possibility. There are some big teams really struggling this season, but Chelsea seem to be the big news. Pochettino was sacked at the start of December, and Unai Emery was hired as the replacement for him, and to be fair he has made a difference.

That is some amazing form, and clearly shows that Poch was massively underperforming with his team. They also have a chance of silverware this season, the Carabao Cup so this could be an amazing season for Emery, and the Comeback of the Year.

We have a decent run left, but the last 5 games do worry me a lot. I know we are safe from relegation, which is what the board wanted, and I am confident we can finish in the top half of the league. But Europe has to be the goal now after the season so far. Hopefully by the time the last 5 games come around we already have European football confirmed.

I will update the future of this save after the next post, as I am really enjoying this Sunderland team, but also don’t want to leave it too long to start our journeyman save this year. thanks for stopping by and listening to a bearded man ramble about Football Manager

“Oh say something, say something, something like you love me. Less you want to move away, from the noise of this place. I don’t even know if I believe”

Sophomore Slump, Or Come Back Of The Year

“Are we growing up, or just going down? It’s just a matter of time until we’re all found out.”

Hello everyone and welcome back to another installment of our Football Manager 24 Beta save, Sunderland Till We Die. When we last left you we had just finished our transfer window, and were ready for o0ur first games back in the Premier League. Now I was excited to be back and also a little optimistic about our chances of survival, but the media had us as this years whipping boys, which made me worry a little. I mean was I being delusional? Was last season a total fluke and we were going to come crashing down to Earth? We wont know until we play our first few games so, so let’s see how we got on.

An absolutely amazing start from the lads, with big wins against Tottenham and Chelsea, and a small cup run as well. The Chelsea game in particular was an amazing effort by the lads.

Chelsea went for it in the 80th minute, bringing on 4 subs and going all out attacking. They managed to equalize and were going for the winner when we struck on the counter, and hit them for another two goals. Now I don’t expect the team to continue on this form, and we are maybe just riding on the promotion high for now, but the players have shown in games that they wont give up. Here is how the league looks so far.

WE ARE FORTH! Now I know we will drop off and I am just aiming to stay out of the relegation battle, but we will enjoy it while it lasts. The biggest shock isn’t us though, it’s Chelsea sitting at 19th. With a team full of world class players, they just cant seem to get going this season. After a 6th place finish last season, they had a transfer window where they didn’t really bring anyone in, but also didn’t sell anyone of note either. Poch is still in charge for now but I will keep an eye on this situation and see if it is just a sophomore slump, or come back of the year. Lets see who has been the star performers so far.

Our players have been performing really well this season, with a few star players helping us turn draws into wins. As you can see our back up keeper, Okonkwo is top of the list. He had been our cup keeper, and showed he was a good performer in the couple of games we played. After our first choice keeper, Patterson had a few bad performances, I was willing to put him in for the league, but unfortunately he got an injury and is out for a few months.

This also didn’t help my case when our captain, O’Nein came to us and complained about the depth in goalkeeper position, earlier in the season. I told them it wasn’t and issue, but I should have learned from last year. Some players have been doing amazing though, and there is a new partnership in the middle of the park.

Adam Wharton has slotted straight in next to Jobe, and if I am honest, he has outperformed him so far. I have a feeling this player will have a key role in my season, and I am excited to see how he gets on. Him and Jobe are also backed up by Dack and Rigg, meaning we have quality in depth for these positions.

On a little more surprising note, Karlan Grant has turned into a goal machine for the team. Our first choice striker, Semedo wasn’t really performing for the team, and Grant took the chance to play by the horns. He is more of a poacher than Semedo, and I think this is the reason he has been so successful so far. Our next period of fixtures looks pretty favourable as well.

I think we have been really lucky with the spread of hard games this season, so hopefully this stops us from having any prolonged bad runs of games. The Newcastle, Liverpool double header will be tricky, especially as the fans want me to remain competitive with Saudi rich Newcastle. The board also have some unrealistic goals for us.

They expect us to play like prime Barce! I have had a few journalist questions about not playing attacking enough for the fans and board, but I can’t see how they will sack me for it.

Here is how we are setting up this season, with the mentality changing to Defensive against the bigger teams. This has been tweaked as I have went on with this team, we started with a 424, but changed as we were conceding a lot and not scoring as much as the 2 strikers warranted.

When we see you next, we will be at the end of January, so there may be some transfers to talk about and also our progress in the league. I don’t plan on doing any transfers but injuries and sales might change that. Thanks for stopping by and listening to a bearded man ramble on Football Manager.

“Take our tears, put ’em on ice, cause I swear, I’d burn this city down to show you the lights”

Dressed To Kill

“I don’t have time and it’s Friday Night, been sleeping with two eyes open looking for you, for you”

Hello and welcome back to our Football Manager 24 Beta save, Sunderland Till We Die. When we last left you we had just secured promotion to the Premier League and had all but been crowned champions. So let’s see how we finished the season.

Was a good end to a remarkable season. The team had outplayed themselves all season, producing some amazing performances, and ultimately showing their class. So here is how the table looked at the end of the season.

We ran away with the league, 118 points being a new league record, along with the record number of wins and goals scored. So all in all it was a remarkable season, in which the team outperformed even my wildest dreams, and set us up for a massive season ahead.

Now I got a bit carried away with the transfer window, and didn’t realise I hadn’t updated my progress at the end of the season, so I am missing quite a lot of the usual information you would have at the end of the season. So we will jump straight into the transfer window, and see if we have strengthened the squad enough to survive the Premier League.

The first bit of good news is the board gave me a new contract.

I was never going anywhere but its always good to get a new contract and see the board values me a lot. There was also a surprising contract extension which threw all my plans into panic mode.

Thats right, Patrick Roberts realised that this was the place to be! Actually it was more no one was interested in signing him and he sort of U turned on the contract front. I don’t care though as he is a brilliant player and it means we have some well needed experience in our squad. Now the board gave us £35m to spend and a massive wage budget compared to what we had and I may have gotten carried away, we signed a few players so bare with me as there will be a few to show you.

Brandon Williams comes in for a free and I believe that is a steal for a player of his level. He can play on both sides of defence but we will use him mainly as a LB.

I mentioned in the last post that we had signed Joe Aribo for £2.2M from Southampton. He was signed as the replacement for Patrick Roberts but now will fight for that AMR place, as well as be cover for other positions in midfield.

This man showed up on a scout report for £2.9M and I snatched him up straight away. He has bags of potential and will be one of our starting CB.

Allan Campbell was signed to be our starting DMC, he just has more about him that Luke O’Nien. He did cost us £7.75m and this is where i began to be a little silly with the transfers.

Karlan Grant was signed for £7.25m as the back up striker. Now I know we are a Premier League club, and that isn’t a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it is a lot for a back up player.

The marquee signing of the window, Adam Wharton was signed for £17.25m from Blackburn. He is touted as a wonderkid and I am excited to have him in the squad. He will start in the middle with Jobe Bellingham and hopefully make a great partnership.

We signed the son os Paolo Maldini, Daniel. He was once touted to be a top winger and at 22 he can still make it in my eyes. We got him for free which was an actual steal. He will give Jack Clarke competition on the AML, and I am excited to play him in this squad.

Arthur Okonkwo was signed to be the back up keeper to Alex Patterson, and we will play him in the cups as well to get him game time. He has a lot of potential and to get him for free was amazing.

Our final signing was Marcel Ratnik, he showed up on our scouting reports and I had to go for him. He cost us £1.5m from Olimpija and he will be our other starting CB along with Marsa. We struggled to sell players during this window, so we had to look for bargains and I think we done well. We also struggled because of our reputation, losing out to loads of other teams for players we were after. The ones that annoyed me was players that went to Leicester and Leeds instead of us. So here is the complete list of the players we signed.

So that was the incoming transfers, £38.85m spent in total and I feel that is some good business. The problem came when I saw the wage bill and instantly panicked. I was struggling to offload the players I didn’t want and no one had came in with a good bid for any of my top players so it was time to start panicking. Here is how we got on with the outgoings.

The only deals worth talking about were Rusyn for £4.4m, Ekwah for £3.2m and Aouchiche on loan for £1.8m. Luckily all of these deals managed to allow us to adjust the wage budget and still have a little in the transfer budget to get by. Only time will tell if we had a good window or not and I am quite excited to see how we get on. Let’s see our first set of fixtures in the Premier League.

It’s not the hardest start but the period between Chelsea and Tottenham will be a massive proving ground for us. I hope we can stay clear of the relegation battle and maybe even have a cup run this season, as these players all deserve to do well, but that’s not how the Premier League works. Plus the media don’t have high hopes for us.

It is a bit of an insult to not even have us close in the relegation fight, but maybe they know something I don’t. Hopefully when we come back it hasn’t been too bad and we have proved everyone wrong. Thank you for dropping by and listening to a bearded man rambling on Football Manager.

“I’m dressed to kill and if I don’t, somebody else will. Like the glass that’s glued to your hand, baby, I’m gonna be your man”

Bruises

“Counting days, counting days since my love up and got lost on me”

hello everyone and welcome back to another installment of our Football Manager 24 Beta save, Sunderland till we die. When you last left us we were riding high in the league, and were looking like an unstoppable force. We had been humbled a little in our last game against Premier league Newcastle, but hopefully that doesn’t derail the momentum we have accumulated in the league.

The first thing I want to show you is probably my favourite part of Football Manager, the youth intake. Now I have seen some amazing intakes on FM 24 so far, and also some “meh” ones so I was hoping for the former. Without further delay here is what we got at the mighty Sunderland.

Overall it was a fairly good intake, with three stand out prospects. I have shown them like this as there was a bug in my intake screen which didn’t have them showing up, even though I had the message through for them.

Wu Chein-liang Looks to be a brilliant prospect and with the right nurturing, he could make it into the first team squad sooner rather than later. His mentals are really good for a 15 year old, and that first touch stat is amazing. I have already tied him down to a contract till 2028 as I didn’t want to risk losing him.

Ayrton Moynes Looks to be a decent CB and has decent stats all over. His work rate and natural fitness, coupled with the fact he is 189cm make me really excited to see how he develops.

Last, but by no means least, Luke Williams is another one to watch. With 15 dribbling and a decent spread of attributes for a 15 year old, I feel this lad could turn out to be a very good player indeed. Only time will tell mind you.

Now I let my DOF sign the youth candidates he wanted to and then as soon as they were signed I locked all the ones with decent potential to long contracts, meaning if anyone wants to poach them they will have to pay top coin for them. The other interesting thing that happened during this period was this.

Once again in this save I have lost my starting and back up keeper to injury. The Hennessey one isn’t too bad but it happened on the day of a game. I do have Nathan Bishop as a third choice keeper, but he doesn’t fill me with confidence. While this happened we already had a injury crises at defence, and also both starting midfielders and striker were out. Were we going to be able to weather the storm?

In short, the answer is yes. We did have to grind for results, and ultimately come undone against Cardiff, but mostly we had a successful couple of months. The loss to Cardiff did mean we weren’t going to have an unbeaten season, but we are massively overachieving at this point so I am not overly worried. Plus some of our players are coming back into the team soon so we should be back to full strength. This unreal form did mean something amazing did happen.

That’s right we have secured promotion to the Premier League and all the riches that go with it. This young squad has a lot of potential and with the right signings we could avoid relegation next season. So lets take a look at the league table.

With some distance between us and second place Leeds, the title is all but wrapped up. All I have to do is win one more game, or Leeds lose one, and then we are Champions. We are on he verge of breaking 3 records in the league, most wins, most goals, and most points. I ultimately don’t really care if we do break these records but it will be nice to do it. Now lets see how the players have gotten on so far this season.

I have tried out a different look for the stat screen and not sure how I feel about it yet, but on to the players performances. It seems to be the same old story with this team, as the same players are carrying the rest of the squad to the Premier League.

Jack Clarke has been the stand out performer in this team so far this season, turning out every week, and also showing up with moments of greatness when they are needed. he has been responsible for 35 goals so far this season, either scoring them himself or setting them up for others, this alone was the reason I gave him a new contract as soon as he asked for one. I absolutely smashed our wage cap knowing we were all but confirmed to get to the Prem and it would be worth it.

What can I say about this man? He has absolutly smashed this season and showed that there must be something in the water at the Bellingham household. Other than getting sent off for silly challenges twice, he has been outstanding. Always doing the dirty work in midfield and also chipping in with 18 goals. I truly believe we can build a team around this man, and we may already have the building blocks in place to do it.

I said this man would be key for us this season and I was right. He has played in central midfield and also up top for us and always puts in a shift when needed, and we miss him when he isn’t in the team.

The man who is trying to replace Patrick Roberts in the team, and doing a fair job at it, Jewison Bennette. He is young and full of potential, so I have started to phase him in, as I have all but given up on Roberts signing a new deal. I have also signed someone to compete with Jewison next season.

That’s right Joe Aribo. He has experience at playing in the Premier League, he is also a very good player still, and we got him on for an absolute steal. He has cost us £2.2m and is on £36k a week for 2 years, I think that’s a no brainer.

Here are our final fixtures of the season and honestly, they are all winnable. When we come back the season will be over and I will discuss out plans for next season, transfer plans and goals. Thank you for stopping by and listening to a bearded man ramble about Football manager.

“I’ve been told, I’ve been told to get you off my mind, but I hope I never lose the bruises that you left behind. Oh my lord, oh my lord, I need you by my side. There must be something in the water”

As It Was

“Holdin’ me back, gravity’s holdin’ me back, I want you to hold out the palm of your hand, why don’t we leave it at that?”

Hello everyone and welcome back to our FM24 beta save, Sunderland Till We Die. When I last left you we were flying high in the league, with a squad full of potential, and dreaming of the promise land that is the Premier League. The main goal for us at the moment is to stop all the other teams from stealing our best players in January, and it didn’t quite work out.

So in a shock turn of events, Watford recalled James Morris as soon as January hit. Apparently his loan agreement wasn’t being adhered to, which tells me he is playing better than their defenders at the time, and they needed him back. I wasn’t too bothered to lose him at the time, as we have a good LB in Dennis Cirkin in the squad and decent cover, until this happened.

The Beta injury curse happened again. Dennis Cirkin broke his ankle on the first game after Morris was recalled. This was made worse by our other back up left sided defender Aji Alese leaving on loan because I didn’t give him a new contract, and that hadn’t gone down well with some of the squad. To be fair he had been injured at the start of the season meaning he hadn’t played a lot and he still had 2 years left, I was never giving him a new contract. So into the transfer market we went. I was totally having a reactive transfer method this January and only signing people if others left. Here are the out goings.

We got some big money for players, and the only one that was a first team regular was Daniel Ballard.

I was disappointed to see Daniel leave as he was a very good player for us and solid in our early season form, but he wanted to go and was a squad leader, so didn’t want to cause more unrest with the rest of the squad. I felt £7.5m was a fair price and he is on more wages than we can offer him at the moment.

The next to leave was promising youngster Abdoullah Ba. He was a rotation option for us and mostly played back up to Jack Clarke, to which he done a good job, but to get £11m for a back up player wasn’t something to be sniffed at. We did get him back on loan for the rest of the season as a lot of big teams were circling around Jack Clarke and I was scared we would lose him.

Another rotation player in Dan Neil left us for decent money and honestly I think it was my fault he wasn’t a better player for us. Me pushing for Jobe Bellingham to be successful has hampered Dan’s opportunities, so I didn’t begrudge him leaving for relegation threatened Wolves. Hopefully he can help save them, but if not he might be a cheap back up option in the summer.

That was the major outs we had, the rest were loans or young players who weren’t going to make it in this save. I was quite happy we kept the core of the squad, but there were some weird bids that came in. Celtic tried to take our first team keeper on loan, and Brighton also tried that with Jack Clarke both were rejected straight away. So now we seen the outs, Let us have a look at the ins.

Yeah there weren’t many options that jumped out at me if I am honest, and I wasn’t gonna sign players that wouldn’t improve the first team if I didn’t have to. I like to use the scouting team when making my signing as it is a little more realistic, but I maybe should have set up my scouting assignments a bit better. Ultimately it doesn’t matter too much as we still have the core of our team and really only needed to sign players for strength in depth in defence.

Lyons-Foster was brought in on loan as cover for the left side of defence. We have Scales already here who can play both LB/LCB but having another back up after letting Alese go on loan and Cirkin getting injured made sense. I did spot Sergio Gomez from Man City on the loan list but they demanded we pay all of his wage and we just cant afford that.

Rekik was brought in for extra cover over the CB position, after we let Ballard go to Saudi. There were a number of options we could have went for, Maguire was up for sale, along with Matip and Harry Soutter. All were options I explored, with only really Soutter being one we could afford the wages of, but we went with Rekik in the end. Him being 22 and having potential was what done it for us really as the board want us to sign players under 23 for the first team.

So now we have gotten to the end of Jan, did we manage to keep up our momentum and stay top of the League?

You bet your top dollar we did. Now from the outside it looks like it has been plain sailing for us, with only 8 points dropped, but this team has fought for these wins and certain players have let their quality shine through. The other question is did we remain completely unbeaten during this time?

No, we did not. After absolutely flying in the league and seaming almost unbeatable, we came up against our bitter rivals Newcastle in the FA Cup and they gave us a harsh reality check.

The score line flatters us a bit as it really was men against boys out there, and if it wasn’t for a Patterson masterclass in goal it could, and should, have ended up really embarrassing. They came and nullified our play perfectly, marking Bellingham off the ball all game so he got a 6.2 rating. Our striker barely touched the ball, and both wingers are still in the pockets of the Newcastle full backs to this day. Hopefully this is just a blip though and it doesn’t effect the lads too much, as they have all been playing really well.

These players have been having the time of their lives and long may it continue. The only position I am surprised about is up top, with Luis Semedo coming in from nowhere to absolutely smash defences in the league.

Luis has had a lucky break with other strikers getting injured and he took the opportunity with both hands. A whopping 17 goals in 26 games is fairly impressive, and I couldn’t have asked for more really. He is still very young and has loads of potential left in his game so hopefully he can keep growing with this team. The future really is bright for this young lad.

I called him the other Bellingham in my last post, which was maybe a little harsh, but he has become his very own player in such a short time. Jobe really is the heart of my midfield and the stats don’t really show the whole picture. He is always playing the defence splitting passes just before the assist, or winning the ball back in the middle to stop the counter. This man will be a star in this save, I just hope it is for us and not off somewhere else.

Jack Clarke has been sensational for us and he really is showing the form that got him that move to Tottenham as a teenager at Leeds. I was surprised no one came in for him in the January as he was touted by the media to have a lot of interest. The only bids were all loan bids with options to buy and they got rejected straight away. He does want a new contract but I cant afford the wages he is demanding so hopefully he can hold off till the summer and we can give him the Premier League wages he wants.

Finally there is Patrick Roberts. What can I say about this man? He is a brilliant player for us and a key element to this teams success, but with him wanting to explore his options at the end of the season, do I continue to back him in the hope he stays, or drop him now and back his understudy who is nipping at his heels? I did really hope someone would come in for him in January, as I would have sold him and searched for a replacement but it never came about.

Finally I leave you with this.

Now there have been rumours of this for a while, but this is the first proper message that has come through. Ultimately it means nothing until a takeover is finalised, but I have been sacked after a takeover before. If that happens we take over Middlesbrough and try our hardest to ruin Sunderland for their disloyalty.

Thanks for stopping by and listening to a beaded mans ramblings on Football Manager.

“In this world, it’s just us, you know it’s not the same as it was”

Sunderland Till We Die

It’s here, finally. The Football Manager 24 Beta has dropped and I honestly can’t wait to get started. As you may have guessed from the title and image on this post, our Beta save team is the mighty Sunderland. It wasn’t to hard a decision to find a club for the beta, and hopefully we can take this great club back where it belongs, The Premier League. Before we check out the team and history, Lets see who will be taking over from Tony Mowbray as manager.

In real life Sunderland are doing pretty well with Mowbray, even if they did get thrashed by their local rivals Middlesborough in their last game. Sitting 4th in the table its clear that Mowbray has built a capable squad and is willing to push this team as far as he can go. In our universe though, Sunderland have parted ways with Mowbray and brought in a new manager in the hopes of future glories. Let me introduce you to Bulgarian superstar, Yuliyan Naydenov.

Yuliyan was a wonderkid I signed in my FM23 glory hunter save, and probably my favorite newgen of that game. I signed him for £8m when he was 18 and he was a superstar ever since. He had a bit of an attitude when he first arrived, which had me loaning him out to PSG for a season. I managed him at two different teams, Newcastle who I was at when my scouting team discovered him, and Manchester Utd where I needed to sign a new talisman.

This was Yuliyan at the end of my glory hunter save on FM23, which was the moment that the FM24 beta was released. He was already an elite striker at the age of 23, with 51 caps for his country. I never took him with me after I left Man Utd but I always kept an eye on his progress. So in this universe, we have advanced 12 years and Yuliyan has had a great career in world football, and the now 35 year old is ready to start his managerial journey with Sunderland.

Sunderland Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in the city of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. Formed in 1879, Sunderland play in the Championship, the second tier of English football. The club has won six top-flight titles (1892, 1893, 1895, 1902, 1913, and 1936) in the First Division, and has finished runners-up five times. The club has also won the FA Cup twice (1937 and 1973) and been runners-up twice (1913 and 1992), as well as winning the FA Charity Shield in 1936 and being finalists the following year. Sunderland have also been Football League Cup finalists in 1985 and 2014.

Nicknamed the Black Cats, Sunderland play their home games at the 49,000-capacity all-seater Stadium of Light having moved from Roker Park in 1997. The original ground capacity was 42,000 which was increased to 49,000 following expansion in 2000. The club has a long-standing rivalry with nearby club Newcastle United, with whom the Tyne–Wear derby has been contested since 1898. The club has played in red and white-striped shirts and black shorts for nearly the entirety of its history. Let’s take a look at the starting squad for this FM24 Sunderland team.

The squad has pretty good depth for this level, and quite a few good players, with a lot of talented youngsters. I think this should be an interesting save and I am looking forward to molding this Sunderland team into a top Premier League team. We might need to get a couple of players in for cover at LB and CB depending on the tactics i start with, but ultimately I am happy with the squad. Below are some of the players I am excited to work with.

The other Bellingham, Jobe, is a massive talent and will be a brilliant player for Sunderland in real life. He has all the potential in this game and I will be building a team around him, or build a team with the funds I get from selling him.

Chris Rigg is also a really talented youngster at the club and one I hope will come through the ranks and play a part in this team. The problem we have is the CM position is one we have very good depth in. I don’t like to loan out players under 18 so he will be in and around the first team.

Bradley Dack is a brilliant Championship player and someone who should have made the jump up to the Premier League before now. At 29 he is in the prime of his career and I see him playing a key role in this team.

Patrick Roberts is a player who I have always liked and never understood why he didn’t make it in the big time. He has had a good career but I always thought he was destined for more.

Jack Clarke is a very good young winger who will be a solid player for us. I am hoping he can hit the heights that got him the move to Tottenham when he was a teenager.

Finally with Tony Mowbray leaving his position, his number two followed him out the door. This meant we had to bring someone in who could help us get acquainted with this team, and also mold this squad into winners. I could only think of one man for the job.

That’s right, the legend that is Roy Keane. The former Sunderland manager will bring experience and also discipline to the coaching staff. I also tried to bring in Lee Cattermole for experience but apparently the former Sunderland captain didn’t want to coach a team that was a rival to his favored team, Middlesborough.

So now the journey begins on this beta save so sit back and enjoy the ride. Thank you for listening to a bearded mans ramblings on Football Manager 24.

“Sunderland till I die, I’m Sunderland till I die, I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m Sunderland till I die…“

Back Once Again With the Renegade Master

Hello everyone and welcome to the return of a bearded man rambles on Football Manager. The release of Football Manager 24 is nearly upon us, unless it is released before this post is, and I am excited to share my journeys throughout the game.

My first experience in playing Football Manager was Championship manager 99/00 and i was hooked ever since. I started blogging on FM in 2015 and have been on and off since. I stopped blogging completely about two years ago due to work and family reasons, but like a phoenix rising from the flames I am coming back and I can’t wait.

Now I don’t know what team I will be taking over for the beta release, although I do have a few ideas, it will probably be a Lets Play style save, with maybe a rebuild or do it better theme. However for my first save I want to do the classic journeyman save, starting unemployed and making my way to the very top, with a few added rules to make it more challenging. If we finish that with time to spare then we will start a Glory hunter challenge as made famous by DoctorBenjy. I love both of these types of save in the game, and the differences in them is what make them so enjoyable.

I will post the rules for the saves in the first part of each save, along with the history behind the team I will be managing at this time. There will probably be two posts a week, on a Monday and Thursday at 3pm, but it might change depending on how busy I get at work.

Due to my work life and having to work away a lot, I play the game on the SteamDeck. So far I have had no issues with it and it is actually a pretty descent way to play it. The only issue we might get is the screenshots I take while I work away. I am not sure the quality of the screenshots but hopefully it wont effect the blog, after all it is the story that matters.

So lets sit back and enjoy the countdown to Football manager 24 releasing and thanks for coming and listening to a beaded mans rambles on Football Manager

Leader of the Pack

Hello everyone and welcome back to our FM 24 Beta save, Sunderland Till We Die. When we last left you we had just taken charge of Sunderland, and had given you a back story of the club. Obviously this club had a LOT of potential and I was excited to get started with the squad we had, but there were a couple positions I thought we needed some strength in depth. I definitely thought we needed a defender or two for back up, and possibly a better striker, but I didn’t want to change the squad too much.

The bottom three transfers in are the ones I went for, A left sided CB in Liam Scales and a LB in James Morris, both on loan. I also had to sign an emergency GK, in Wayne Hennessey, as both my main and back up GK got injured and the youth keepers weren’t good enough. I think it is a Beta thing with the amount of players getting injured, but luckily we have a deep enough squad to cope with it. Both Scales and Morris were brought in to be back up, but ended up being first team players due to injuries and if I’m honest, they have been pretty solid with it. Hennessey done a job for us while Patterson was out injured, but he was completely signed as a back up option and that’s how we will use him. Let’s look at how well the team have played so far this season.

Overall I have been really impressed with the players so far and think this squad has a really bright future ahead. There are a few players i am really impressed with but the biggest disappointment is our highest rated striker, Nazarly Rusyn. At the start of the season, my coaches rated him head and shoulders above the rest of our strikers, but he really struggled to perform, even though we gave him a lot of chances. Luckily other players stepped up massively which has really helped us.

Bradley Dack has been a rock in our midfield so far this season, playing in various different roles, and performing in every single one. I did try and use him in his preferred AMC position but I couldn’t get a tactic that worked well with it. I used him as a STC for the first few games and recently he has been a CM for us. 6 goals and 2 assists in his 15 games so far is brilliant.

The other Bellingham, Jobe has done amazing so far and I really want to build the team around him. He has a small injury just now but should be back soon and honestly the sky is the limit with this guy.

Patrick Roberts is by far my best player and he is showing that time and time again. Unfortunately he has informed me that he wants to “explore his options” so the vultures have started circling for a cheap, Premier League level winger. I am hoping I can convince him to reconsider this and sign a new contract but I am not hopeful. I will see what happens in January, but I am not looking to sell him, on the off chance I can get him to resign with us.

Jack Clarke has also been performing amazingly and I am glad he has a 3 year contract with us as he will be going no where. This man will take me to the Premier League and secure us safety I guarantee it. As you can see though we have played very well so here are the fixtures so far.

We have had a couple of wobbles but ultimately we have been brilliant. I am happy that we have played some of the bigger clubs so far, but in this league anyone can beat anyone on their day. I wasn’t too happy to go out of the Carabao Cup to stoke but they held us to penalties and its always a lottery when it comes to that. My favourite result is the 6-1 thrashing of Middlesbrough, beating a rival is always sweet but doing it after the real result was 4-0 to Boro. So after that here is how the league standings are so far.

We are sitting on top of the table, four points clear, with a massive goal difference and I couldn’t be happier. Now I am under no illusions that we will probably have tougher times with fixtures, and some of the other teams will push to topple us, but I relish the challenge. The bottom team I have missed out is QPR as I wasn’t able to get them in on one screen shot.

These are our upcoming fixtures and honestly I think we will do pretty well. There is no overly hard games next to each other, and I would probably say the Leeds game at home is the hardest of this run. Hopefully when we come back we will still be flying high in the league, and I will also have a good transfer window to show you. Finally before I go, I want to show you one thing. We have been hiring some staff as we go to improve the squad, some by searching and some by putting up adverts, and this person is who we hired as a Director of Football.

Was he the best option? No. Was he the one that wanted the job in the media? No. Did I hire hime because he is Scottish with a glorious afro? You bet your ass I did! So on that note I will leave you and thank you for listening to a bearded mans ramblings on Football Manager.

“Some people have a special kind of knack, getting what they wanted just to stab you in the back, nine times out of ten it’s the leader of the pack, leader of the pack”

This Blog

Hello there, if you have stumbled across this  blog by accident, then you are in the right place, you just don’t know it yet.

Firstly to introduce myself, I am a massive fan of football and all things football related, even if I was born with two left feet and no coordination. I enjoy every level of the beautiful, and sometimes ugly game, from the heights of the English Premier League and Champions League, to the rough and ready depths of amateur and semi-professional game. Doesn’t matter what game or country it is, if I can watch it I will.

Now this blog is about me achieving my dream, through playing Football Manager, of managing a football team. We will see the highs and lows of this dream, hopefully no sackings, and follow my journey on to becoming the greatest football manager, according to FM24 hall of fame.

So sit back, relax and read a bearded fanatics journey through football management.