FM17 | 24 years with Reading FC

It was a pleasure, isn't it? If you read the previous part of my Football Manager 2017 save with Reading you know I decided to end this journey at the end of the 2039/2040 season. As we started in 2016, this save lasted for 24 virtual years.

We started as an average Championship team and ended as the best club in the world.

The proper fairytale.

I'm sure I don't need to go back and repeat the same words I wrote in the past in a couple of parts. When I finished the FM16 save with Akademisk Boldklub I thought about to not write about FM17 save.

It was mainly because I wanted to play with Reading just for a fun and share some things about the game on Twitter for example and write a post just only time from time. But as this save continued I enjoyed it more and more. Mainly thanks to the development of players like Danny Loader, Liam Kelly, Josh Barrett and more.

All of you who followed this save know there were a lot of great players and it same as was a joy to watch their development it was also very sad to see when they retired or when they decided to leave the club.

The last man from the original squad was Danny Loader. I don't want to write other paragraphs about him as I wrote a single post about him but when he retired in 2038 I very quickly found out it's time to end this save because it will not be the same.

If you ask me what was my TOP 5 moments of this save I will say these...

1. Promotion to the Premier League

We were very close to the promotion just in the first season. We finished 6th in the Championship but we lost to Cardiff in the Play-off Final after extra time.

Reading won the promotion in the third season when we won the Championship with 112 points.

33 matches won in a season, Jake Cooper sets new league average rating record (7.77), Dominic Samuel became the new best goalscorer in the club history with 72 league goals and of course, 112 points were the new Championship and club record.

2. Danny Loader

As I said above I don't want to repeat everything that was written already. Danny became a first-team regular in the first season in the Premier League. If I remember it right it was the fourth season of the save.

He was lucky Dominic Samuel (our striker number one) was injured and I decided to play Loader instead to send him to the lower league for a loan spell.

And he delivered and became our first choice. The rest is history. He played the most matches and scored the most goals in club history. I only don't know why he was not more involved in the England national team as he played only about twenty matches.

3. Champions League

It was the fifth season I called "Dream season". We overachieved straight in the first season in the Premier League and finished seventh in the league. The next season we won the Premier League. Just only two years after the promotion.

And we also secured our first Champions League Group Stage place for the 2021/2022 season. We started this season as a Europa League finalist from the previous season as we lost to Real Madrid in the Final.

In the 2022/2023 season, we won our first Champions League. We played with Benfica in the Final and we won 1-0 after the extra time thanks to a goal by Dean Castle. It was the first Champions League trophy and we won this competition 16 times this year.

I think some people around the community hate me just because of this. Mainly in Football Manager Slack...

4. Tactical changes

This is one of the things which kept me interested in the save for a long time. Same as I set side challenges in the game like transfer policy or development I also want to try some new formations and I'm interested if the same players are able to play in a different system.

In this save we started with a 4-3-3 formation. This one we used for the first two and half years. It was slightly modified during this time but the main things remained in the same way.

A couple of months before promotion to the Premier League I decided to change formation to 4-3-1-2. This one was so good that I wrote two separate posts about it because I changed some things during five seasons and I decided to publish a post about both versions.

I also decided to drop back a player from the Attacking Midfielder position to Defensive Midfielder with various roles so it resulted in a 4-1-3-2 formation.

We also played with 4-3-3 wide with a defensive midfielder and with a flat central midfield trio as well.

And the last formation I used was my favourite one - 4-1-4-1. I didn't write about this formation, I just only published some screens about it on Twitter and in FMSlack. As I used the Wide Playmaker role in the FM16, this year I created 4-1-4-1 with wingers at both sides and after one season I changed the left winger to the wide midfielder.

I also experimented with Deep Lying Playmaker and Roaming Playmaker in the DM slot but that was mainly because of formations we faced in different competitions. But the most important thing is this formation was and will be my favourite.

5. Consistency & development

We talk a lot about the way in this save. The philosophy was very easy from the start - just play with 10+ players from the original squad as long as it will be possible.

Finances were tight at the start of the save so I had to sell most paid players to balance the books. I'm sure I sold some players I would normally keep in the squad and I like their style in the real life but it had to be like this.

For more than 15 years I had almost the same squad, respectively the starting XI and our key players were mostly the same as players like Liam Kelly, Josh Barrett, Jake Cooper, Dominic Samuel, Luke Southwood developed in world-class players. At least in my eyes of course...

If nothing more I'm sure this squad policy and philosophy helped all these players to develop into perfect players despite nine from ten FM players would don't trust to all of these players they are able to play Premier League regularly or they are able to win Champions League for more than ten consecutive years.

As you know I had a couple of seasons during them I bought many foreign players despite I knew they will not receive a work permit. It was a part of my way how to stay interested in a save and I made a solid profit from these players despite after some successful season I didn't need money or sell players because of financial struggle.

It was only part of the game and I wanted to have fun.

From a historical point of view, I'm used to playing mainly with domestic players. And it doesn't matter if I manage the team from England, Serbia, Denmark, Bolivia... I like to play with players from that nation. And I decided to develop a squad mostly from my own newgens.

It was my last aim of this save. At the end of the 2039/2040 season, I had 29 players in the first-team squad and 21 of them were from our own academy.

That’s all for this part of the Reading FC save in Football Manager 2017.

Thank you everyone for the continuing support and thanks for reading.

FM16: Seventeen years with AB

This is the last part of my FM16 AB save. You were able to read the last season summary and story about regen Nichlas Meyer in recent time and this part is about club changes during the long seventeen years with the club. 

We started as a semi-professional club and ended as the best Danish club and part of the Champions League knockout stages.

It all started in 2015 when I took charge of this club. We were a semi-professional club in the third Danish tier. We have won promotion straight in the first season from the 2. division to the NordicBet Liga.

We stayed in NordicBet Liga for another three seasons before promotion to the Superliga. We finished 7th in the two first seasons in the top flight, second in the third season and we won our first league title in the fourth season in Superliga. There were another nine league titles in the next nine years...

Finances

When 2015/2016 started club had a balance of about -£200K. During the last seventeen years, we made a big step forward as we had more than £100M. We had no money for transfers at the start and we had more than £150M before the last season.

Staff

At the start of this save we had three coaches including a goalkeeping coach and fitness coach and one assistant manager. The coaching team was bigger and bigger during the save including the reserve and U19 team.

Before the last season, we had 24 coaches for Senior Squad, 5 coaches for the Reserve squad and 14 for the U19 team.

The most famous coaches during the years were Cesc Fabregas, Dennis Bergkamp, Michu, Thomas Sorensen, Lasse Schöne, Miroslav Klose, Jon Dal Thomasson, Kasper Schmeichel, Urby Emanuelson or Magnus Wolf Eikrem...

There were also two coaches - Nicolai Hogh and Rasmus Hansen. These two players were in the squad at the start of the save and I signed them as a coach after their retirement.

Save stats, league history and records

I think it's not needed to write many words about it. The most important thing is that we won ten league titles in a row and 11 domestic cup trophies overall. We were also twice in the Champions League Semifinal and once in the Europa League Final where we lost on penalties.

During the last three seasons of this save we were unbeaten and we finished this save with 131 matches without losing. It was from 13th October 2028 until 9th May 2032. We also have a record of 84 wins in a row.

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During the 2024/2025 season, we were able to keep 11 clean sheets in a row and we had 108 points from 36 matches in two seasons in a row.

My stats

Same as players or coaches there was progress by myself during the save. I started with the low attributes and finished with some "20".

Memorable players & icons

There were many players during this save about I could write many words. As I wrote Nichlas Meyer was my most favourite player.

I also want to mention Alexander Tved Hansen. This midfielder came to our club in 2019, became captain for more than ten years and played more than around more than 300 matches.

Sergei Eremenko were a great player as I wrote earlier and one of the legends is also defender Lars Sorensen who was in our club for ten years and he provided many important assists.

I can't forget about Thomas Randrup who was in our club from 2016 same as Nichlas Meyer or Martin Hansen who has voted European Golden Boy twice. Goalkeeper William Thorhauge was also a great servant for many years despite he was no our no.1 he was patient and reliable.

Players who were in the club for many years had to play the last match of this save in the starting XI. (rounded) It was the emotional end of save especially when Nichlas Meyer scored the winner and Lars Sorensen was PoM...

FM16 is over for me and I want to thank you for your support here and on Twitter. It was a very good choice as I really enjoyed this save.

FM16: In love with Wide Playmaker

There are many variations of 4-2-3-1 formation around the FM Community during FM16 time. I played with it too during the first seasons with Akademisk Boldklub but I changed it to 4-1-4-1 after ten years in charge of the club. 

It took some time when the team played as I want. Especially some roles did not work and I tested it for more than one year when I was happy with that. One of the most important roles is Wide Playmaker.

I never used a tactic where wide playmakers were included but I really like this role because they are very versatile and they could play more in the centre of the pitch but also as wingers.

What the game says:

“The Wide Playmaker will act as the team’s primary source of creativity, drifting inside to find space from which to play the killer ball and create chances. Coming in from the wing allows the Wide Playmaker to escape the hustle and bustle of central midfield and can result in him being unmarked by opposition players.

Defensively the Wide Playmaker will take up his position on the wing to provide cover for his full-back; however, his is not expected to make as many tackles but instead, he should take up good defensive positions and provide another body in the defensive line.”

This is our 4-1-4-1 formation with False Nine, Deep Lying Playmaker in DM position or Roaming Playmaker in central midfield.

There were some changes during the last seasons and it ended with Mentality and Team Shape change as we now play with Counter Mentality and High Structured Shape. Thanks to it we conceded a really low amount of goals as you can read there.

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But let's concentrate on the Wide Playmaker role.

What player instructions we use?

Get Further Forward, More Direct Passes, Close Down Much More, Roar From Position, Dribble More, Cut Inside With Ball, Shoot Less Often, Cross Less Often.

This role was probably the most problematic for us because we have many typical wingers or inside forwards but it was not a problem in the end.

One of the players who had to change his playing style was our regen Nichlas Meyer who is played mainly as a winger. But he played newly as Wide Playmaker and he had the best statistics from all our players.

I chose another midfielder - Martin Hansen - as an example for this post. He has decent attributes for this role but he does his job very good.

A typical movement

There is one of our most typical movement leading to scoring chance or goal.

Hansen has the ball in the middle and our Wide Playmaker is upfront and Full Back is on the right side.

Hansen passes the ball to Dupuy (BBM) and Full Back move forward. The Wide Playmaker has two options - he could go to the centre or to the side. If he goes to the right side he will wrongly fill the space and Full Back would have to go back with the ball.

Dupuy passed the ball to Full Back and Wide Playmaker stayed just around the penalty area. Full Back is attacked by two players and WP is free. There is one-two between them...

...and Full Back continued his move to the penalty area and he received a pass from WP who continued to the penalty area as well between defenders.

As you can see Full Back very quickly passed the ball to the WP who moved before the goal and then scored easily...

It's important to say that Full Back is very important as well in this scenario. Both players have set Attack duty.

My Full Backs have very often the most assists per season because they very often go forward and have key passes to the goals or chances because WP sits narrower and cuts inside with or without the ball.

Average positions

This is the Average positions and a Heat map of Martin Hansen in a Champions League match against Leverkusen...

...and comparison between domestic league match and Champions League match against Dortmund.

Our regen Nichlas Meyer plays at the left side as Wide Playmaker and this is a screen of his stats in the 2030/2031 season and comparison (heat map & passes) of a league match against FC Kobenhavn and Champions League match against Real Madrid.

Typical counterattack and goal by Meyer after assisting from Full Back...

I'm also very happy with how Wide Playmaker defends in the case of High Pressing mentality. He really good cooperates with central midfielders when we lose the ball and he is able to get the ball back very quickly thanks to his more central position.

As I wrote earlier I never used this role before this save with AB but I have to say it's great if it works rightly in cooperation with Full Back. If you have some question, just let me know there or on Twitter as any feedback is appreciated...

FM15: Twenty years with Spartans FC

This is the final part of my Football Manager 2015 career with Spartans FC. It was the best choice I could have done. I spent there 7270 days and received 106 awards. On the lines below, I look back on twenty years with Spartans FC.

I started this save as a 28 years-old manager with a regional reputation and very bad attributes as you can see on the screenshot. After 20 years in charge of Spartans, I have World Class reputation and “much better” attributes.

I was 7270 days in charge of Spartans FC. We played 1097 matches, we won 718 of them. We drew 204 matches and lost 175 games. We scored 2584 goals and conceded 1290 goals. We won 33 cup competitions and 13 league competitions. We were promoted four times.

We bought 101 players for a fee around 105M£ and we sold 61 players for a fee around 221M £. Highest fee spent was 11,75M £ for midfielder Juan Fernando Diosa in summer 2031. The highest fee received was 55M £ for Serbian midfielder Darko Popovic from Real Madrid.

There were a lot of famous players in the club during the past twenty years. Many interesting a quality footballers. Alisdair Sutherland, who could play on every position at the left side, has the most league appearances for club – 418 matches.

He is the oldest player who played in a competitive match. He played against Motherwell when he was 35 years and 265 days. He is the clubs oldest goalscorer as well.

Fastest goal? John Wilson scored against St. Mirren after 8 seconds. Another two records hold Graham Paterson. My favourite player of this save. He holds the record of most assists in single-season – 26 in 2023/2024. And this player scored 140 league goals for the club, no one scored more.

We finished this save with 335 matches without defeat in a row in Scottish Premier League!

The history of Graham Paterson

More screens from the save