In Episode 3 we achieved promotion to the second tier of Northern Irish football via a playoff against Knockbreda, our striker scored over 50 goals in a season, and I now had a coaching badge.

Would we survive in the Championship, can someone else score us a few goals, we will get sacked, move on, or stay put?

Let’s get into this, as the visuals would say.

New Board Expectations

I’m not expecting a huge jump in the standard between Championship 2 and the Championship so the board requirement to finish mid table is more than I was expecting, but at the same time, wasn’t daunting. The board also require that I work within the wage budget which is a pretty meagre £4k per month. Mostly they want us to be competitive or just reach the first round in the cups so I won’t bother to even report on those in this update.

One thing I was not expecting was a change to the board culture and I did my best to negotiate these out, but I was, rather unsurprisingly, unsuccessful. So the board now favour defensively solid football, direct football, and counter attacking football. I felt that my switch to a 4-4-2 2DM could potentially satisfy these requirements in its current form, especially given that I will be a newly promoted team and I’d expect the AI to leave space in behind for me to exploit in most games. With this in mind I decided to just turn on Counter attacking and asked players to pass into space. I won’t get too hung up on a culture that is just favoured, my main focus will be on finishing mid table, and keeping within the £4k per month wage budget.

Transfer Window

Currently with so many players still on Amateur contracts, the transfer windows feel like a bit like running the gauntlet. I have very little wiggle room in the wage budget so I can’t just offer improved contracts to players when someone comes in for them. So we start with the players leaving Bangor before me move on to discuss my targets and who my Director of Football was able to get with his 4 negotiating attribute.

Outs

Largs Thistle from the West of Scotland Premier Division offered, left winger, Scott McArthur £700 per month and took him back to Scotland. McArthur had been one of my better attacking players in the Championship 2 so I was sorry to see him leave, but he didn’t even want to discuss a contract with us so there was little we could do.

Rather surprisingly that was all we lost apart from two reserve players that I haven’t even mentioned in this save. Happy days you may think, however, we did lose two players to retirement. Goalkeeper James Taylor (38) and Deep Lying Forward Michael Halliday (44) both called it a day and left at the end of the season. We also were unable to re-sign right back Seanna Foster on loan from Cliftonville. These were not insignificant losses and will need replaced during the transfer window.

Targets - in order.

1. Goalkeeper - replacement for Taylor

2. Striker - replacement for Halliday and possibly a second as there was significant interest in Hughes.

3. Left Winger - replacement for McArthur

4. Left Back - still hadn’t replaced Neale from the January window

5. Centre Midfielder - previously identified as a weakness

6. Centre Back - need more depth for the season in the higher division

7. Right Back - replacement for Foster, although newgen Saxton could maybe do a job.

Ins

So who did we manage to get in? Remember I have handed over negotiations to my Director of Football so we do miss out on some targets and over pay for others (in my opinion). With this being level 2/3 football in Northern Ireland there are no transfer fees being exchanged, the biggest factor are the wages we can afford to offer people and with a budget of £4k per month that isn’t much!

I did want to start dipping my toes into the world of statistics but to be honest as I was only selecting players that my scouts had watched the options open to me in terms of possible transfers were so limited I was in no position to be that selective. We also don’t really have any proper analysts, I envisage this becoming a more important feature of the save as we move up the football ladder and take over at bigger, more attractive, clubs.

With all this in mind I had to make use of the loan system, and while I think this can be abused in FM I feel a side such as Bangor, if promoted, would be forced to bring in loans to remain competitive, so I make no apology for it folks although I will try and keep it REALISTIC.

Goalkeeper

Patrick McGarvey joins us on a season long loan from fellow Championship side, Dergview. I always find recruiting goalkeepers very difficult on FM for some reason and I definitely plan to try and use some analytics to do it going forward. For now I made sure whoever we brought in had good Aerial Reach, Reflexes, and Handling so McGarvey ticks these limited boxes.

Striker

As mentioned earlier we definitely needed a new Deep Lying Forward to replace Michael Halliday, and I was convinced 50 goal sensation Jordan Hughes would be leaving so I set up a recruitment focus and started to trawl through my options with a view to bringing in two more strikers. Unfortunately, for various reasons we only managed to secure one, James Holland joins from East Belfast and boasts an impressive 13, 11, 11, 13 for the Advanced Forward Quad of Dribbling, Finishing, First Touch, and Acceleration. I had earmarked him as a replacement for Hughes, but with no firm offers ever arriving for Hughes I am now left with two decent forwards who really have very similar profiles, so I am unsure what I can do to get them both in the same team.

Left Winger

Having lost McArthur the search was on to find a suitable replacement. I want an old fashioned winger on the left, so Dribbling, Crossing, Acceleration were my main focuses here. This is the signing I am most pleased with, James Teelan joins us on £525 per month having been released by Newry City AFC. 15 Acceleration shouldn’t be allowed down here, I expect him to “tear it up” this season.

Left Back

Having failed to replace Reece Neal after losing him during the winter transfer window, I was determined to bring in a decent left back as Glover had been ok at best so far. Full Backs, like Goalkeepers, are a problem area for me, I never seem to find any that I am happy with and this season was no different. My scouts kept coming back with targets that weren’t interested, or wanted far too much in wages. In the end I was forced to go into the loan market. I decided to bring Oisin O’Reilly in on loan from League of Ireland side, Galway United. The loan would only last until Christmas but I was hopeful by getting him in we could maybe get off to a good start in the Championship and look to recruit someone else on a permanent deal during the winter transfer window.

Centre Midfielder

Ever since the start of the save I have been concerned with our midfield, I don’t have anyone of the required standard in there apart from maybe Dylan O’Kane, but even that is a push. My scouts really liked a couple of Banbridge Town midfielders and Séan óg Gallagher, once of Bangor, became available so I decided to get him in. Doubts still lingered that we were still lacking strength and bravery in the heart of our team, something I feel we really need, so when the chance to sign Eoin McPhillips on loan from Bray Wanderers presented itself I made the call to go for it. Similar to O’Reilly this loan only lasts until December but I feel it is worth doing to help us get up and running in the new division.

Centre Back

If you remember last season I managed to get through with only three recognised CBs at the club, Ryan Arthur , John Boyle, and on loan Australian Ryley D’Sena. I would almost certainly require upgrades in this position to survive life in the Championship. Right away I managed to extend D’Sena’s loan from Larne, but I see him as a back up option really. I still needed a first choice CB, one who can dominate at the back and give us the foundation upon which to build. I was very happy to secure, Aaron Walsh on a free, on £300p/m after he was released by Loughgall. I think he, alongside Ryan Arthur, could form a formidable partnership in this division.

Right Back

Unable to secure Foster on loan again from Clitonville I set up yet another recruitment focus for a right back. I wasn’t too concerned because I felt newgen Antoni Saxton could do a job for us if really required. In the end our scouts came back with a number of recommendations but we were continually unsuccessful in our pursuit. That was until we moved for Odhran Smyth who had been released by Premiership club Dungannon Swifts. As before I requested that my Director of Football negotiate the deal and I was pleasantly surprised when the news item appeared in my inbox that we had been successful. Not least because Smyth could also add depth to Centre Midfield if required. My pleasure was as short lived as a drunken Orgasm as I noticed his wages, £800p/m! That made him easily the highest paid player at the club and used up all my available wage budget. I think this will be a ONE year thing, I’m not Dan Gear, I don’t pay RBs £800p/m.

This deal concluded our business for the transfer window and we got started on our first season in the Championship, how did it go? Read on to find out…

Results

We have played up to the start of January and are 23 games into the 38 game season. We play each club three times before the league splits in half and we play the other 5 clubs in our split once more. After that, the top club will be automatically promoted, and the second and third placed sides play off against each other with the winners playing a final relegation/promotion playoff against the Premiership’s 11th placed team.

I was pleased with the start we made but was conscious that we had a couple of players on loan until Christmas time so we needed to make the most of it. After the initial positive start I felt results have been very up and down, I rarely know before a game how we are going to perform. In some games we dominate and play well and in others we don’t seem able to get a foothold in the match no matter what I do.

I am enjoying the challenge of FM23 I feel that in almost every game I am required to make some adjustments, something which wasn’t the case in older iterations of the game. I especially enjoy the amount of changes the AI manager seems to make during the game, it certainly keeps me on my toes at least.

Given we are a newly promoted team with only minimal improvements on last year I am content to find us second in the league. I think this speaks to the fact that the league itself is very well matched with any team capable of beating another on any given day; apart from Institute. It is rare in football that a team will have lost 7 of 23 games and still be sitting second.

Sitting second in the league at this stage is fantastic but I don’t expect it to last. Our form is very variable and I fully expect some of the sides around us to go on longer winning runs in the second half of the season. If we could hold on for a playoff spot that would be more than acceptable, and would exceed board and fan expectations.

Tactically, as mentioned, we have stuck with the 4-4-2 2DM system from the end of last season, although I do adjust the in possession instructions a fair bit in game depending on our oppositions affect. If they are coming onto me I like to use play into space and in transition I tell the players to counter. Being a newly promoted team this happens a fair bit, and to be honest I don’t mind too much as it helps me to hit the board culture. It also means we play to our strengths with Jordan Hughes’ runs in behind still causing havoc amongst opposition defenders. Whilst not scoring at the rate he did in the Championship 2 his 18 league goals in 23 games is a major factor behind our success.

Imagine my disappointment at this news item then. Hughes is only 33 so I’m a little surprised by this and immediately ask him to reconsider but it is no use. The one thing I am clinging to is the fact we are a semi-professional club and Hughes is on an Amateur contract so does the wording of this mean he will actually stay…Answer in the comments.

Personally we signed a new contract until the end of next season on £2,000p/m making us the fourth highest paid manager in the division. I did add a clause for a reduced amount of compensation to be paid should I get another job. I will revisit my options at the end of the season, but with the current wage budget I don’t feel there is much more I can do for Bangor so it may be time to look elsewhere. Perhaps, if we were to get promoted things could change, but even then I think we will be very much out of our depth.

I shall leave you with some footage of Hughes’ latest hat-trick for the mighty Seasiders against Harland and Wolf Welders, I will miss him.

As ever many thanks for reading this far, I’m really enjoying FM23 this year and can’t wait to see where this save ends up.

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Over and Out

FMEadster!