Welcome back to Wolves. Last season we hit our peak, finishing 5th and qualifying for the Europa League. Let's see how we fared in a season full of hopes, dreams and European football.

If you've missed any of the previous updates, you can read a quick summary on how it's gone so far here. For more regular updates and other FM chat, why not join the FM Slack group and follow my #fm_athlete channel? It's free to join and you'll be warmly welcomed by other FMers too!

Preseason

Straight back from our well earned break after our most successful season, and a very satisfying email is waiting for me in the inbox:

It's nice to be recognised for your efforts, but the England job doesn't appeal at the moment so I politely declined, and cracked on with assessing and improving the squad.

The core focus this year is to bring through some of the younger lads and afford them more time in the starting XI. The key positions that need strengthening are a new BBM to challenge Querol for a starting place, plus a new DM to give Gaggiotti competition.

Beyond that I'm loathe to making signings for the sake of it, especially after this team did so well last season. For our BBM, we've brought in Alex Okonkowo from Wolfsburg for £20M, while at DM we signed Antonio Rocic from Fiorentina for £21.5M.

Performances

Our start to the Premier League season started the same as it finished last term: very well indeed. Three wins from our opening four fixtures saw us safely within the European places by the end of August. Meanwhile, the Europa League draw grouped us with Iraklis, Zorya and Sevilla which would be challenging but far from impossible to progress from.

September would see us begin our Europa League campaign, as well as another three more league games and a 3rd Round Carabao Cup tie as well. Sadly though, our good form would all but collapse, with not a single victory in sight across all six fixtures. Losses to Burnley and Fulham and a draw to Southampton in the League, an early exit in the cup to Championship side Bolton, and two draws in the Europa League to Zorya and (rather pleasingly) Sevilla.

We started October with another loss to League title challengers Liverpool, but managed to secure our fourth win of the season against Manchester City who, in 2032, were still a big 6 team but far from the side we know today in 2019. We took that good form into our next game as well, another Europa League game, this time to Iraklis where we were convincing 4-0 winners. Unfortunately, we failed to keep it going and ended the month with a draw to West Ham and another loss at the hands of Arsenal, seeing us stuck in the bottom half of the table.

Wolves 2032/33 - Results (Aug to Oct)

As we headed into November, we managed a 2-0 win over Iraklis in the reverse fixture in the Europa League, with our only other point secured this month away to Sevilla. Our other three fixtures in the league all ended in defeat and resulted in an ultimatum from the Board for the second time in my career at Wolves - "earn 10 points from the next 5 games, or you're fired". I found this slightly unfair since i still had two games in hand at this point, and felt the Europa League campaign was going to plan as well.

That said, it seems to me that the ultimatum was the kick up the arse that we desperately needed as we went the entire month undefeated across all competitions, winning 16 points in the league, including a brilliant win over Tottenham (who are 2032's team to beat), plus a win in our final Europa League group game as well saw us qualify as group winners for the knockout stages.

Our points haul in the league was enough to move us back into the top half and into 9th place with a game in hand. And there was more good news as our performances also earnt me a Manager of the Month Award, my third while at the club.

Wolves 3032/33 - December Manager of the Month Award

Wolves 2032/33 - League Table (at end of December)

Our first game of the New Year would see us enter the FA Cup in the 3rd Round with a tricky home tie to Chelsea, whom we entertainingly dispatched 3-2 to setup a 4th Round fixture against our bogey team, Brighton.

We would play our FA Cup game the week after we played Brighton in the league, but not before we won our match against Leicester City first. In the league, Brighton maintained their reputation as our bogey team, beating us 1-0 and setting the tone for the upcoming FA Cup fixture. For once though, we were at our best and beat them easily 2-0, with Southampton drawn as our 5th Round opponents next month.We round January off with another two wins, and another two clean sheets against Villa and Burnley.

Wolves 2032/33 - Results (Nov to Jan)

Our Europa League 1st Knockout Round tie saw us drawn against my previous club, Hibernian (it's funny how football does that sometimes). Unfortunately, we preceded the first leg with two consecutive league losses against Watford and then Fulham. Thankfully, we didn't take that forward with us and beat Hibs 2-0 at Easter Road, before thumping them 3-0 in the reverse fixture at Molineux. Sandwiched in the middle of those games was our 5th round FA Cup game, where we ran out 1-0 winners and set up a Quarter Final away against Aston Villa.

Liverpool were our next opponent in the league and we were unlucky not to do better, losing 4-3 but genuinely deserving something from the game. We were much better in the next one though, smashing City 5-1 to give us our first league win since January. 

As we entered March it became clear that our Wonderkid striker, Jorge Alomia, was well in with a shout of being named the Premier League's top goal scorer for the season - an incredible achievement, particular when you consider how our league form has been. In addition, I was attracting the attention of some of the bigger clubs in the league, not least Manchester United who offered me an interview. I attended the interview without hesitation (after all, the goal of this save is still to manage one of the big 6 teams) and i was full of hope with this news item landing in my inbox:

Despite the press building up the hype on my behalf, within a few days the Manchester United board had squashed it again, naming Scott Bridgewater as their man in charge instead.

Back at Molineux and out of the three league matches in March, we'd only manage 1 point against West Ham, losing the other games to Stoke and then Arsenal. Our opponents for the Europa League's 2nd Knockout Round were Athletico Bilbao who would offer a big challenge for us to progress, but our form at home in the first leg meant we would take a 4-1 victory into the reverse fixture. Despite our best efforts to throw it all away, we scraped through to the Quarter Finals, while losing the game 2-0 (but winning 4-3 on aggregate).

Our only other game of the month was the FA Cup Quarter Final where fate had set us up a nice West Midlands derby as we went toe to toe with Aston Villa. It turned out to be a close encounter, but one which we saw out in the end thanks to a 2-1 win, setting up a Semi Final tie against West Ham at the start of April. 

For the second year in a row we were heading to Wembley for an FA Cup Semi Final. Last season we didn't make the grade and so were hoping to go one better this time around. After a nervy start, it was clear that things weren't going to go to plan though. A first half injury to Antonio Marin (our left winger) meant we had to make an early change, but it went from bad to worse when, in the 46th minute, Javairo Grootfaam (our right winger) goes down and has to come off as well. As if that wasn't enough, Rocic (DMC) then makes a rash challenge and gets a straight red card to give West Ham the advantage. They grabbed it with both hands, scoring the only goal of the game and booking their place back at Wembley in May where they'd play against eventual winners Man City in the Final.

Another Semi Final without reward, but fresh from licking our wounds we were able to win in the next game against Southampton, before our first leg Quarter Final tie where we were drawn away against Bordeaux. They proved to be a really tough opponent, but after taking an early lead and then conceding a second half equaliser, it looked like we were on course to secure the draw, that is until their 93rd minute winner to undo all our good work!

Next up was a win against Watford in the league before the second leg. I was hoping our away goal would prove useful but in fact they out muscled us in every department and the 3-2 scoreline flattered us far too much. Bordeaux win 5-3 on aggregate and we're left with nothing but our worrying league position to compete for.

In the final 5 games of the season, we managed just one win, two draws and two losses which was enough to see us finish in a fairly average position of 10th. After the Board's crisis in confidence earlier in the season, coupled with our big miss in meeting the league objective of a Europe spot, I was worried for the future, and it turned out I was right to be as we'll find out a little later on.

Wolves 2032/33 - Results (Feb to May)

Wolves 2032/33 - Final table

Season Review

As i mentioned earlier in the post, Jorge Alomia had been among the contenders for the league's Top Goalscorer and I'm thrilled that after 14 years in management, one of my players managed to win the award with 21 goals from his 32 appearances. On average he managed a goal almost every two hours across the season which was quite impressive.

Beyond that, I had to be relatively pleased with how the season had gone. Our league form had suffered as a result of our involvement in the Europa League, but as far as I'm concerned it was worth it after we made the Quarter Finals of the competition, not to mention that second Semi-Final in two years in the FA Cup as well.

Unfortunately for me, the Board weren't convinced and immediately called a meeting to ask me why we had failed to qualify for Europe next year as promised. None of my assertive responses were adequate though, and in the end it was clear that they had made their minds up before I'd even walked into the meeting:

In Search of my 6th Club...

To be honest, I was devastated. After 5 years in the job, I'd built a really great side that I thought could regularly challenge for a top 6 spot going forward. The prospect of having to do that again was a daunting one, but I began applying for vacant roles anyway as I looked to keep my career progressing.

I was not short of interview offers, but the bulk of them were coming from England and I thought I needed to go abroad again for what would probably be my last club in FM19.

It took me until January of the following year (2034) to find the right club, but I was pleased that we could make it happen in the end:

The club had been expected to finish in the top half of the league, but found themselves in a relegation scrap instead. I joined the club with 48 hours remaining of the January Transfer Window and immediately signed two central defenders as cover for the first team since there were only two senior CD's at the entire club!

We bossed our first game away against Malaga before turning our attention to the next three games against Barcelona, Real Madrid and then Athletico Madrid. An impossible fixture list but one we'd have to get on with all the same.

Incredibly, we earnt a point against Barcelona before thumping real Madrid 3-1 in the next one. Unfortunately Athletico were too good for us though, and beat us 4-1 despite us taking the lead early on. We also picked up a number of injuries and that would set the tone for the remainder for the season where we'd struggle to price together a starting XI, never mind a match day squad.

Our next win didn't come for three more games as we headed into March, but our form was still stop-start as we failed to notch up consecutive victories until the end of the month. We snatched a deserved 3-2 win at home to Sevilla, and followed it with wins at home to Atletico Pamplona and Levante before getting drubbed 5-0 away to Las Palmas to bring us squarely back down to earth with a bump.

From the remaining 5 fixtures, we notched up 2 more impressive wins against Valencia and Espanyol, 2 more draws and only one loss on the final day of the season against Athletico Bilbao to see us finish the season in a respectable 13th, and 14 points clear of the relegation places.

Villarreal 2033/34 - league performances since taking over

Villarreal 2033/34 -

Despite a reasonably successful season in spite of substantial injuries, I already know that my time at Villarreal is at an end. I don't have the energy or desire to start building a new side for the future and so have taken the decision to resign my post before considering F.M. Athlete's next move. One thing is for sure, I can guarantee he will return in FM20 though.

Keep an eye out for one final FM19 update from me as I round up the save and key career stats that have kept me glued to my laptop all this time.

Thanks for reading the blog, I hope you enjoyed this update andthe ones that came before it. You can follow me on Twitter @fm_athlete and in my FM Slack channel #fm_athlete for more updates in the future.