I’m not playing too fast so I can say the word ‘finally’ when I want to talk about the fact I finished the 2023/2024 season with VVV-Venlo within my Football Manager 2023 save. I expected a very hard season after an unexpected promotion in the opening season but it went very well despite playing a little bit differently and with just one central defender who has to face all the fast strikers and inside forwards in the Dutch top division. Instead of some relegation battle, we fought about the European cup place until the end.

BET ON EXPERIENCE

While talking about the transfers between the seasons, I didn’t have enough money to do big transfers and improve the squad with money signings. I monitored a couple of players who I knew will not extend their contracts with their clubs and I decided to strengthen our squad mainly with free (more or less) experienced players.

I have a couple of easy targets because I knew I need a new goalkeeper and a new right defender, and I wanted at least one player who is able to play both as DM and MC. I went with the goalkeeper Thijmen Nijhuis for free from Utrecht, right defender Aliou Coly from Kristiansund, and midfielders James Jeggo from Eupen and Liam Kelly after his contract with Rochdale expired.

Yes, the last name is 100% a typical nostalgic signing as Liam Kelly was one of my favourite players of my FM17 save with Reading FC and I decided to sign him as an alternative for both DM/MC positions as a backup. The fact he played English lower league didn’t matter.

Both Nijhuis and Coly missed a couple of weeks and months respectively due to injuries but considering our final position, all these signings proved useful. Nijhuis can be our number 1 for the next two or three seasons (or maybe until the end of the FM23 cycle, it depends on how many seasons I will play). Coly and Jego will probably leave when their contracts will expire but they still can be a useful part of the squad in the upcoming season. But if there would be some bid for them, I will sell them considering their age and wage.

(All players have highlighted the position & role they played the most matches in)

We didn’t earn some big money thanks to the outgoing transfers but we made one surprising transfer. PSV Eindhoven decided to sign one of our youngsters - Resley Kessels - and they had to pay us €550k as compensation. “Can you steal more of our youngsters, please?”

It’s not a big sum of money but it covered two months of our wages and it was crucial for us as our bank balance was more or less in red numbers for the whole season.

THE BIG GUNS ARE TOO STRONG

VVV-Venlo was in the top tier in the 2020/2021 season for the last time and they finished 17th with just 23 points. I didn’t want to be relegated again and I hoped we can avoid the relegation battle thanks to experienced signings. We started the season perfectly with two 3:0 wins over FC Twente and FC Emmen before the enthusiasm of the newcomers hit a rock.

We were better sides in most matches against clubs outside the big guns. The big clubs like Ajax, PSV, and Feyenoord + FC Twente, AZ, and Vitesse were out of our abilities and possibilities. We lost to Vitesse and AZ in the opening months. And we had Feyenoord and PSV at the end of the calendar year, and Ajax at the beginning of the second part of the season. It resulted in 0:3, 0:4, and 1:5 defeats.

I was really happy we were able to gain points with other teams because when I found out we have all AZ, Feyenoord, Vitesse, PSV, and Ajax in the last 7 league rounds, I thought about the worse. But we already had enough points and were far from the relegation zone. My dream was to beat one of these big teams and I was very close to it. We were 1:0 and 2:1 up against PSV at home but they equalised in the stoppage time and the match ended with a 2:2 draw. On the other hand, it was the first gained point against one of the big sides.

Results against big teams in the first season:

• Ajax: 1:5 ⭕️ & 2:5 ⭕️ | PSV: 0:4 ⭕️ & 2:2 🟡 | Feyenoord: 0:3 ⭕️ & 1:3 ⭕️

• Vitesse: 1:2 ⭕️ & 2:4 ⭕️ | AZ: 1:2 ⭕️ & 0:1 ⭕️ & 0:1 ⭕️ & 3:0 🟢

THE EUROPEAN PLAY-OFF

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, we had a chance to earn the European cup place through the play-off. The play-off is played by teams finished between 5th to 8th places in the table. You can also see four results against AZ in the list above as we faced them in the play-off semi-final. We lost 0:1 away from home in the first leg but we beat them 3:0 at home.

AZ have Vangelis Pavlidis upfront in their 4-2-3-1 and this Greek striker can play in almost all roles you can imagine. My usual approach in terms of the defensive phase this season was to use these instructions: Low Block, Drop Off More, Trap Outside, and Trigger Press More Often. I decided to switch the defensive line to higher and changed the Trigger Press down to Standard. Not sure how much effective it was but Pavlidis didn’t have a single opportunity during the match and we were able to stop his runs behind the defensive line every time.

It would be probably too easy to earn a place in some European cup so soon. We faced FC Groningen in the playoff final and they beat us 4:1 on aggregate. It was also a battle between Nick Venema and Romano Postema, two great strikers who were the 1st and the 2nd best goal scorers of the previous season in the 2nd tier. Postema scored in the first match and Venema in the second match. But we lost in the end.

FORGET THE CLEAN SHEETS and UNSTOPPABLE NICK VENEMA

My saves in a combination with my tactical approach were usually very similar in terms of one thing - I love the play defensively very compact and it turned usually into a lot of clean sheets. This save is absolutely different.

Playing with just one central defender and trying to balance everything together is not easy and clean sheets are very rare. Or at least they were very rare so far, maybe it will improve in the future.

We conceded 57 goals in 34 league matches + 5 goals in 4 playoff matches = 62. That’s the third worse defensive record from the whole league. Only Fortuna Sittard and Sparta Rotterdam (both relegated) conceded more goals - 63 and 75 respectively.

I think I selected a good nation and a good league to see these goals galore matches as competitions in the Netherlands are offensive-minded in my head. Maybe you can say that I have a very bad central defender. But I would say it’s not only about him, it’s about the cooperation of all players and how the system/instructions will work.

Rick Ketting played the most matches as our central defender again and he was absolutely fantastic even in terms of the data in comparison with the rest of the league. Headers, Tackles, Interceptions, Blocks…

I will have a new central defender for the 2024/2025 season and I plan to move Ketting higher up to the DM(D) role to take advantage of his great defensive skills.

The other stand-out player is 100% our main striker Nick Venema. It’s incredible but Nick scored 35 league goals in 37 matches during the first season of the save in the 2nd tier when we won the promotion.

He played all 38 league matches in the Eredivisie after a promotion and he scored 35 goals again. He also added 7 assists this season, two more than in the second tier. I extended his contract until 2027, he became the best European goalscorer of the 2023/2024 season. If some bigger club will come, he has €8,75M release clause.

Not sure if it will happen, he would be a big miss surely. The same as he is absolutely phenomenal so far in this save and the biggest surprise.

STRUGGLING? NOT ENOUGH

I know I mentioned it in my FMSlack channel before I played the European Cups playoff matches but I really didn’t expect to finish 5th in the league table in the first season after promotion. Yes, we conceded a lot of goals but that’s connected to the formation with just one central defender as it’s risky. But. On one side, it's a perfect achievement considering the tactic I'm using, on the other side it's a little bit disappointing to me that we didn't struggle more after a promotion. And that's no matter how the playoff ended.

I expected we will be able to beat teams like PEC Zwolle, Sparta Rotterdam, Excelsior, and other clubs battling in or around the relegation zone. But from 11 defeats throughout the whole season, we lost only to N.E.C. from teams playing in the middle or bottom part of the table. The rest of the defeats were against big clubs.

Another thing I didn’t expect is connected to Nick Venema and his 35 goals in 38 appearances including the playoff.

I decided to play this “lone central defender” formation with the view it will be hard to develop and tweak and I will struggle a lot. Especially after promotion to the top tier. Maybe the second season syndrome will appear, who knows, but it’s really surprising how easy it was so far.

I’m currently heading into summer break 2024 in the save with a view of releasing a lot of young players without enough potential. I have three new players - all of them for free again - planned and confirmed. The rest of the squad will be the same or our own youngsters will be added to the first team squad. I think at least two or three players who were on loan will stay.

I also made a decision to keep only 15 and 16 years old newgens from both Youth Intake in our U18s squad. I took back over their training and will monitor their development more closely. But maybe more about it in the future.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to submit for our newly launched newsletter feature below.