It's the same save, a new club but it feels like a new game. The motivation to create something new is high. The mood and desire to build something is so big. At least I got this perfect feeling when I moved to Dijon after three years with Perugia. There was a lot of room for improvement in all areas from the squad building to staff, training regime and mainly - the new tactic. The club change meant I got 100% new motivation to play the game again because of THAT feeling ‘there’s something new’.
It also inspired me to put together some basic things/steps I did in the opening weeks after moving from Italy to France virtually. So, it gave me not only the fresh blood to play the game but also to write about it.
Step #1 - Staff and responsibilities
I mentioned in the previous blog post that I could select staff members I would like to take with me from Perugia to Dijon or select staff members of Dijon I don’t want to work together when I take over the club. I wanted to take two staff members - the DoF and HoYD. Neither of them was interested in moving from Italy to France.
In the end, the Dijon board gave me one condition during the contract talks: I will continue working with their current DoF. He is not that bad but I can imagine having someone better. And I was able to find someone better quite easily but, to be clear, I was afraid the board would fire me earlier than the new season would begin :-)
Knowing the fact I won’t replace the DoF, I decided to concentrate on everything else. There were just 2 coaches out of 9 possible within the first-team squad. There were only two scouts and I fired one of them as he was not good enough. The medical team was also very bad. Also, the current Head of Youth Development was far from the ideal adept for securing the youth teams for the future. It took me about three or four in-game weeks before I was satisfied 90% with the new staff team.
As you can see in the picture below, the staff team was bad. Really bad. Maybe I’m offending the word “bad”. I started searching, comparing and mainly signing new staff members. The new Head of Youth Development Ugo Lafon is 100% a great signing. I signed also the Technical Director as I decided to divide some responsibilities among the staff members to have more time to play the actual game.
In the end, I created a very good staff team. The simple comparison with the rest of the French top tier speaks for itself within the second picture.
Responsibilities - that’s a topic I like to discuss with myself very often. I know many people delegate a lot of stuff but I usually do most of the things by myself. I liked to delegate “Find and sign young players for the future (U19)” to the HoYD but it didn’t work in the previous two versions for some reason. Maybe I had too many players in the youth squad so he had no reason to buy someone new. But the U19 Dijon squad was tiny and the new HoYD already signed three players during the summer so it’s nice to see some activity. The 2nd team is not currently as important because it’s in an inactive league.
I also set the technical director to hire new staff members for both the second and U19 teams, the same as extending contracts. If nothing more, it’s just mainly to try something new for me and do everything by myself.
Step #2 - Tactics
After three seasons of using my beloved 3-5-2 formation, it was time to move to something else. The plan was to use the 4-4-1-1 tactic, the same as I played with Dijon in past. When I tried to select clubs I will play with during FM24, I was undecided between Dijon and AB Copenhagen. I select the French club in the end but I decided to combine some parts in terms of tactics.
I used 4-1-4-1 with the wide playmaker role whilst managing AB so I decided I will stick to the 4-4-1-1 but I will try to make it work with the WP(S) role one the right side of the pitch. I put together the tactic I will tweak during next three seasons and I will mention something about it in next posts, the same as I did in blogs about my time Perugia.
I’m currently at the beginning of September 2026 when I write this post. We played five league matches (2-1-2) and we are 7th in the table. The club board is “Very Disappointed” by not playing direct football. Maybe it’s something I will have to change soon and I will probably create two styles - Dijon “short” and Dijon “direct”…
There’s an example of a very nice goal we scored and it’s great to see how the players are moving around the pitch while we are attacking.
It’s nice but they don’t like it…
Step #2.1 - Tactics - Set Pieces
Tactics also consists of the set pieces and I decided to modify what worked quite well during the Perugia time. We have four corner kick goals in 8 matches so far in the Ligue 1. There are also three indirect free kicks and one direct free kick. So, it probably works quite well…
I’m using the near post, far post and centre types of delivery. These routines are very similar in terms of player roles, there are only changes when the routine delivery is near post or centre in terms of what player is set to attack near post within the ranking.
Step #3 - Squad analysis based on the tactics
Setting the tactic before I started planning to improve the squad was important. Or maybe better worded, not improving but mainly refilling the squad. The squad planner is so weak in the first picture for a couple of reasons. I made this picture just after the game switched from Perugia to Dijon and I set the tactic.
Three or four players were unhappy and all wanted to leave the club. All of them would be 100% key players for the next season but they wanted to go out for some time mainly to “play in a better team with better players”. I didn’t know them but I decided I would build the squad on my own and I will let them go. So, I remove them from the planner or move them to the last place within the planner of the specific position/role.
When I did that, I found out I had just two natural central midfielders, one attacking midfielder and zero players who would be able to play as a wide playmaker. It was obvious we also had a problem with both wide defensive positions, we needed at least one new striker because the one who wanted to leave was the best player and the main striker…
Step #4 - friendlies
Maybe it can feel like something natural and something normal thing but I like to arrange friendlies by myself. Mainly because I want to decide what level of opponents we will face. I feel it’s very important, especially in combination with the new formation and the new style we will play.
There’s no science fiction in planning these fixtures, it’s probably the same as most of you do it. I like to arrange the training camp since it’s possible in the game because I can take a lot of players here and I can play at least two matches per week, rotate the squad and test the tactics a lot. This was no different.
Step #5 - transfers
I should probably put this step above friendlies straight after the squad analysis but the fact I set the friendlies after I decided about my priorities within the squad, I also knew the time I had to bring the right players to the club before the first friendly will be played. Why? Firstly because I like to have the squad completed before the pre-season starts, and secondly, because of what I mentioned above - players need some time to adapt to the new tactical style.
I created a top-priority recruitment focus for the right WB(A) and the left FB(S) and the ongoing recruitment focuses for MC, WP(S) and striker. All unhappy players who wanted to leave moved out of the club during the summer for a lot of money. Ugo Lacombe, the main striker, went to Manchester United for €14.5M, two players went to Manchester City for around €10M together and Gilbert Cardon (the main left defender) went to Fulham for €25M (up to €30.5M).
In combination with the rest of the smaller outgoing transfers, we received almost €50M. It’s not my style and I’m not really into spending too much money but I knew I needed to improve the squad a lot. I spent €34.5M in the end during the first summer including €2.5M for a central midfielder Gianluca Ciucci from Perugia. He is the one young midfielder I shared in the first post about my time with Perugia when I mentioned I can imagine he will be the one who I will take together to other clubs. It was just before he damaged cruciate ligaments and he was out for 7 months. But he is alright.
The only thing I was not able to improve was the position of the left defender. But as it’s my favourite thing to do in FM - I started retraining other players to play here. I can reveal that the main one has one goal and 4 assists in the opening 8 league matches of the season as FB(S).
Just for an example of my transfers - Mario Etxarri was bought for €1.1M from Ponferradina (3rd Spanish tier if I’m right). I signed him mainly for the WP(S) role after I found him. I’m sure he would be able to play as a Shadow Striker and I will surely test him in this role too.
Step #6 - training
I like to set both team and individual training of the first team players on my own. I’m not sure if I’m doing it wrong or good but this is how I like to do it. The screen below shows my custom view dedicated to the training. It consists of some basic things and some training and fitness-related things I like to see.
Columns with the training role/duty + intensity + individual focus can show me not only what players are focused on but it can also serve as some kind of reminder to change the focus or a reminder something was changed behind your back. For example, the position when some player played the match in a different position. I’m not sure why the game restarts the training when it happens but who am I to understand all these things the game does for our good?
The squad view customised based on the training.
I created two main training schedules when the matchday was Saturday and Sunday while I was in Perugia. In France, it’s almost only on Sunday so far as we haven’t played in another competition so far.
It’s some kind of variation of what I would like to do myself if I were a player. There are a lot of set piece routines sessions, some general training, some physical when we don’t travel to an away game. It’s mainly to just play with it.
As I already mentioned, I have no game-breaking info on how things work and what you have to do to develop the best possible players. I’m doing it mainly as I like it and as I want.
Eight league matches in…
…we started life in the French top tier with four wins, two draws and two defeats as we scored 16 goals and conceded 8. There were three weeks of international break after the game with Lens so I arranged two friendlies as it’s a really long pause to just train.
The fourth place in the table is a very good start, especially as we are predicted to finish 16th. Both big wins against Sochaux and Rennes were highlights so far.
Now, as the most important things are set, let’s play more…
FM Slack alert!
There were a lot of changes within many social media including Twitter (now “X”) and it’s not the same as in the past. We can’t see many things due to the algorithm, weird preferences and many other reasons I don’t even want to know.
There are many Discord servers and I’m sure they are good and useful. But I will probably always be a bigger fan of Slack. Or better worded the Football Manager Slack. Feel free to join us with this link.
You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.