I’ve eluded to the fact that I took a good 8-9 month break from Football Manager for the first time in my life. It was weird, but good. Now that I’m so heavily invested in it again I’ve picked up a lot of old, bad habits - like writing this blog during work hours. It’s a luxury I can afford providing I’m willing to pay the price on another day. But hey, life is for living right?

Since my last post a lot has happened. Two seasons as it goes. I used to write blogs at certain milestones within a save but more often of late I’ve felt I need more narrative or reason to write. Typically I’ll churn out a number of these after the release of a new FM then slowly seep back into anonymity…(insert Homer Simpson hedge GIF).

I’m hoping things will be a little different this time around. I’m providing regular updates in my #edlassoFM slack channel (sign up here) but appreciate that things can move quite quickly in my FM world - I’m hoping I can keep everyone up to date one way or another.

So let’s begin.

Season 2 - Did we evolve?

I last wrote about evolving this AZ side via both recruitment and tactics. Early signs were promising as we got to the halfway stage of season 2 top of the league but only by a point over Feyenoord. We hit top of the league in matchday 16…

…and never budged from top spot. It went right down to the last game of the season with Feyenoord beating us in matchday 32, our form stuttered as we sensed the finish line but a final day 6-1 thrashing of PEC Zwolle brought the trophy home and our domestic goal tally to 100.

Our system of attacking as a front 5 was really enjoyable to watch on a number of occasions and the statistics at the end of the season backed up our progress on the pitch.

Key Player - Luka Vrbančić

We had a lot of good performers this season, obviously. Iván Azón ended the season top scorer bagging 22 goals from 24 games in the league and 31 in 38 all comps. Solbakken was the heart of our midfield alongside Redondo. But the man whole stood out the most was Luka Vrbančić and you can see why below:

Deployed as a Shadow Striker, in 9 Eredivisie starts (11 substitute appearances) he notched up 7 goals and 7 assists, he was truly a class above this season and do you know the worst thing about it? I only picked him in my starting line ups in the final third of the season due to good form of Ondrej Lingr. Oh what could have been.

We also had our first foray into the Champions League and the new format, I’m still not sure what to make of it but it’s not terrible. We overperformed slightly, making it to the Last 16 where we ultimately came unstuck against a much stronger Inter Milan side 5-3 on aggregate.

Season 3

So we’d overcome the might of Ajax, PSV & Feyenoord to win the Eredivisie, about 4 years ahead of schedule according to my board expectations and I’d argue at least one season ahead of where I thought we’d be. Too much success too soon in Football Manager can be a negative thing for me (and seems to happen more often of late). Had I taken this team as far as they could go already? I figured I had at least another season in me.

Summer of 2025

This was a frustrating summer. A LOT of missed targets, but, when you’re AZ and not Arsenal then it’s to be expected I guess. It’s just bloody annoying.

The summer saw two major outgoings: Ruben Van Bommel to Sp*rs for £60m and Markus Solbakken to Man City for £15m. Van Bommel was really beginning to become an incredibly consistent performer and, at 20 years old with ‘wonderkid’ status, it was only a matter of time before a large bid came in. The sort of money I don’t refuse when playing the game. Solbakken would have commanded a similar fee but for the damn release clause I’d forgotten was in his contract. Every top club bid for him this summer and he chose City where he’ll no doubt follow in Kalvin Phillips’ footsteps.

The major coup for me was the signing of Alberto Moleiro from Las Palmas for £17.25m. He rejected at handful of Premier League clubs & some noteable European heavyweights to join us.

Able to play across the front line and with the reshuffling internally I was having to with the loss of Solbakken, I envisaged Moleiro becoming my king Shadow Striker with Vrbančić dropping into the DLP-S role - in hindsight it probably didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.

Last season we won the league with 84 points, Ajax were brilliant this season of course and it was always going to be a challenge to win back-to-back titles but this really did feel like a kick in the teeth and a defining moment. Our GD was +4 better than last season but our tactic wasn’t as smooth and more and more I found myself making constant tweaks to our system. We started the season relatively poorly and I got quite down on myself about it but, taking a step back to look into the whys is always helpful. Some analysis and more deliberate tweaks allowed us to have a strong second half of the season but we ultimately came up short.

A shining light of this season was a true AZ lad through and through - Myron van Brederode.

Player of the season. 44 apps across all competitions, 19 goals and 17 assists averaging 7.46. He replaced van Bommel and then some. Really made the AMR role his own - I mean just look at that lovely graph above.

From Hero to Villan

Like an itch I had to scratch something within told me my time at AZ was up. The board and fans were harsh in their C+ assessment of my season, Mat Ryan got his mates round to blame me for not winning the title and I was thinking maybe these are signs I need to move on. I didn’t resign but kept moving forwards in the game and I could see my task would be made even more difficult next season. Large bids came in for Iván Azón who was sold to Napoli for £60m and Taylor Harwood-Bellis went to Bayern for £37m and a host of others wanted to leave for ‘bigger’ clubs. With a few bids rejected morale was at an all time low.

So I cast my eyes away from AZ to what opportunities may present me elsewhere. I always want to join a team where I’ve got a clear vision of what I may be able to do with them over 3/4 seasons. I don’t want to take over a team that can instantly challenge for all honours (well, not intentionally anyway).

So in the summer of 2026 I was approached to interview for the Man Utd job, I was sceptical for a number of reasons of course but in the end they hired Didier Deschamps. And where did they hire him from? Aston Villa. Which, ladies and gentlemen, is where Ed Lasso now resides as manager (so no, it wasn’t a typo in the blog title!).

£100m in the red & 300k over our wage budget I wondered what I’d got myself in for. Yet our squad is fairly sound, expectations are low for season 1 and we’ve the Europa League to contest in so I’m excited to see how we fare against the might of the Premier League. Another reason to leave is I wanted to try a different tactical system out and felt I’d struggle to shoehorn my AZ squad into it given the players at my disposal.

But for how things are progressing at Aston Villa, you’ll just have to wait and see. The Return to AZ may feel short but sweet but enjoyable nonetheless. From Hero to Villan is our next chapter.

Until next time!