How to Dominate Domestically

Hey, remember me? I’m that guy that used to occasionally write some stuff about FM.

This could be a record for the longest time ever between the start and release of a blog post, as I started the draft on the 8th of February earlier this year. FM took a complete backseat from that point onwards, as becoming a father for the first time got closer and closer (the wee man is now six-months-old already, where did that time go?) and the brutal side of working in football took hold, as relegation became a reality.

From negatives to positives. We’ve settled into parenting life, bed times are nailed and there’s a window of FM time that seems to have appeared just in time for FM24 rolling around (if I don’t fall asleep on the sofa). Oh, and also, the Championship is way better than the Premier League! It’s acceptable to get promoted and not go up, right?

If anyone remembers, the image above sort of gives it away, I was managing FC Nordsjælland on FM23. I’ve taken advantage of one of the best new features to come to FM in a long time and loaded up that save onto FM24. It’s been great fun jogging my memory of who’s in my squad, what challenges we’re facing in the save and just generally trying to remember how to play FM again after the longest period I’ve not played the game since I got obsessed with CM01/02.

The last time I spoke to you in FMCoffeehouse blog form we’d just won the Superliga for the third time in a row, this time going unbeaten across the entire season. Since then, I’ve actually played three seasons of the save. Two and a half of those on FM23, and now finishing off that third season on FM24.

How have we done? I think the title of this post might give it away slightly.

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Summary of 2025/26, 2026/27 and 2027/28

Our position as the best and most reputable side in the country has been well and truly cemented.

But how have I done this? How have I taken a side that hadn’t won the domestic league title since 2011/12 or even finished in the top three since 2017/18 and turned them into champions for a domestic record of six straight league titles and counting?

Settle on a tactical approach

It’s always been Gegenpress. I feel like I don’t know any other way of playing now, it’s the style I like to watch. I want my players in the faces of the opposition. Forcing them into mistakes to then quickly pounce on them. It’s all about speed, movement and energy.

However, while the style hasn’t changed, the formation has. In the first four seasons it was a simple 4-3-2-1 to showcase my talented wide players, Nuamah, Schjelderup, Walle Egeli and Tongya. I think that worked well with that quartet scoring 117 goals between them across those seasons. Those four were also sold for just under £50m. Setting up a tactic to show off that talent has certainly worked. The tactical tweak in my fifth season was also geared up to do that.

Aune Heggebø was one of my first signings at the club, arriving for £1.7m from Brann. He’d been fine up to the end of season four, he was the main striker in that 4-2-3-1 system, but as I already said, the focus was on the wide men. He scored 74 goals across those four seasons, an average of 18.5 goals a season. Since the switch to the below tactic, he’s scored 64 goals in two seasons, a 32-goal a season average. What was said tactic?

Apparently three at the back is in for FM24? Pfft. I’ve been using this for ages! It worked like a treat in my first season using it, as we went unbeaten domestically across the 2026/27 season. I haven’t changed a thing since loading up the save into the new game, and it’s still working like a treat. Some of the movement and assists from the wing-backs and midfield three is a sight to behold at times, it’s even better on FM24 than it was on FM23 which is a good advert for the new game I suppose.

Those assists usually get laid on a plate for my strikeforce. It certainly unlocked something in Heggebø, who wasn’t able to stop scoring. So much so that he left in January 2028. He’d scored so many goals in a short space of time that PSG snapped him up for £27m. The two forwards are set to swap positions constantly throughout the match, one of my favourite FM features. For me, this leaves the opposition defence in a state of confusion about who they’re up against. Would it be Heggebø’s power and aerial ability, or the speed and dribbling ability of the probable next big sale out of FCN, Abdoul Aziz Ouattara? The 20-year-old £250k signing from ASEC Mimosas scored 39 goals in his maiden season at the club, 25 of them in the league as he finished top scorer and we dominated domestically yet again.

Be smart in the market

It’s difficult not to be smart in the transfer market for human players on FM. This part shouldn’t come as a shock to you, but some aspects might be slightly different to how you play the game.

I’ve said smart in the context of my save, and the way I’ve been managing FCN. I haven’t been afraid to sell my star players, and I think that’s all about knowing your position in the world of football. FC Nordsjælland are a selling club in the real world, they’ve had a lot of plaudits over the past few seasons for players that have come through their ranks and moved on to bigger clubs. I’ve tried to manage the club on FM in a similar way. A snapshot of this is below:

• Players bought - 39

• Value of players bought - £48.5m

• Players sold - 54

• Value of players sold - £247m

I’ve gotten attached to some incredible players over the years on this game. The time you spend with them could have been 10+ seasons or half a season on loan. It took a lot for me to accept PSG’s big for Heggebø, but I knew it was right to based on our position as a club. There’s always a right time to let talent leave, and that’s been the case for the entirety of my time at the club so far (note, newgens starred so you don’t go hunting for them in your save…):

• End of season one - Andreas Schjelderup and Adama Nagalo to Man Utd and Chelsea for a combined £16.5m

• End of season four - Mohammed Diomandé and Ernest Nuamah to Arsenal and Aston Villa for a combined £29m

• January of season five - Sindre Walle Egeli and Dinis Carrasco Júnior* to Leipzig and Aston Villa for a combined £23.75m

• End of season five - Franco Tongya and Øyvind Haugen* to Monaco and Rennes for a combined £25.25m

• January of season six - Lamine Camara and Aune Heggebø to FC Köln and PSG for a combined £63m

• End of season six - Silviu Niculae*, Max Normann Williamsen and Jonas Jensen-Abbew to Everton, West Ham and Al Shabab for a combined £33.25m

I’m not even through the summer yet going into my seventh season, so those last departures may continue depending on offers. What I’m trying to stress is that I’ve lost a huge amount of key players over the six seasons, and yet, I’ve still been domestically dominant. A big part of that is down to how I’ve recruited.

It’s been a three pronged approach to transfers into the club. We’re FC Nordsjælland, one of the most reknowed football academies into the world, so it’s only been natural to bring through some of our homegrown talent. My current first team squad contains 13 homegrown players, but the challenge I’m setting myself is to increase this in the coming seasons. The biggest debate I have with myself is over bringing through the right number of players that have enough quality that it doesn’t detract from us being so superior to our Superliga opponents. They might not be the complete article, but if they’re good enough to even be a squad player then there’s a good chance they’ll make it to my first team squad. Ahmed Salah is a great example of this. He came through in my second season youth intake as a left-footed right winger. When I moved to the wing-back formation, he graduated to the first team squad and retrained as a left wing-back. He’s now made 46 appearances over the past two seasons and is here to stay in my first team. There’s some talent in my youth squads banging down the door to be more involved in the first team, so we’ll see if any of them make the breakthrough in the coming season.

I’m dominating domestically, but I also want to be the destination for players across the region to come and showcase their talent. Schjelderup inspired this one slightly, given he’s Norwegian but plyed his trade in Denmark. Heggebø being plucked from Brann started that trend in my time at the club and it’s only continued throughout the seasons. Edvard Tagseth joined from Rosenborg (making 141 appearances before subsequently leaving for Toulouse); Franco Tongya, although Italian, was playing for OB before he signed; Max Normann Williamsen joined from Kristiansund; the Icelandic international, Ísak Jóhannesson, left Djurgardens to come to FCN; in January of season six an old favourite joined me, Odin Thiago Holm had lost his way in Milan so returned to Scandinavia and joined the biggest club he could; and finally for now ahead of my seventh season at the club, Jonathan Asp-Jensen just became the first player I’ve nabbed from FC København. There’s been numerous other younger players we’ve identified and signed from the continuous scouting of the region to supplement the squad and my youth teams.

The final part of my recruitment is those signings from further afield. FC Nordsjælland is a place for everyone. Young talent knows when they sign for us, they’ve got the Right to Dream that they’ll go onto even bigger things eventually. It started in Africa, but has slowly grown to be a global network now. It all started with Nduka Junior, a £450k signing from Remo Stars in Nigeria. He then went on to leave for Fulham for £9m three seasons later and subsequently moved to Besiktas a season later for £20m. Amadou N’Diaye was a £200k signing from AS Pikine in Senegal, 153 appearances at left-back later he moved to Monaco for £14m. Lamine Camara’s departure was already moved above midway through season six, he was a £120k signing from Génération Foot in Senegal. Last season Alexander Montoya, a Costa Rican right wing-back, and Rodrigo Alfaro, a 19-year-old Uruguyan striker, joined the club for a combined £3.2m. Montoya had a stellar first season at the club and is now deemed a wonderkid. Alfaro had a slower introduction after joining in January but he should get more opportunities this coming season. They were both newgens, but the African players mentioned further up the paragraph were all real, so go hunting!

That mix of Danish, Scandinavian and worldwide talent will see us continue to consolidate our place at the top of the tree in the country.

Leaders are overrated, get lots of followers

I’m the captain here. My FC Nordsjælland players shouldn’t ever get themselves too comfy. Yes, some stay for multiple seasons, but almost as soon as you make it up to be classed as a “Team Leader” by the game, you’re now in danger of being moved on. Having a team of players that listen to me, and me only, rather than their colleagues is my aim of the game here. I do want them to run through brick walls for each other, but ultimately they’re doing that for me. It’s looking likely that I’ll be letting all three of my current leadership team leave the club this summer. Our collective squad Leadership average attribute of 8.88 before they leave is already the 10th worst in the league, just proving you don’t need leaders on the pitch to lead a team to glory.

Winning breeds happiness, of course. My players are also always happy because they’re playing for me and I run the club in a way that keeps them happy. I’ll talk them up when they deserve to be talked up, and I’ll rage at them when they aren’t performing to my expectations. The Club Atmosphere is currently excellent, with the players all pulling in the same direction. Perfect. That direction is towards more domestic domination under my management.

Invest in infrastructure

This one is a bit of a cheat considering I joined a club that had incredible facilities already. However, to be the best you need to stay on top of your game. Just look at Manchester United and a crumbling Old Trafford as an example of when it’s neglected.

The club are currently on the hunt for a site for a new stadium that’ll increase our capacity from around 15k to just under 23k, another step in the right direction. There’s still a long way to go to reach 38k Parken in Copenhagen, but we’re a few years behind their history and trajectory as a club.

Our training and youth facilities are both superb at the moment, so there’s potential to level them up to state of the art when the opportunity presents itself. Our junior coaching is maxed out at exceptional, while our youth recruitment could be improved still with it currently being excellent.

The work in the transfer market, our six straight Superliga wins and a good level of progression in Europe has seen the club coffers bolstered to over £250m in the bank. The money is there to make continual improvements to the infrastructure around the club.

Stay long enough

I feel like six seasons is maybe slightly more than your average FMer will do, but probably way, way less than some of the hardcore players. For me, you’re only able to create that domestic dynasty if you stay long enough. We’ve won six league titles in a row now, plus five domestic cups. Since the 1990s Brondby and Kobenhavn have only managed to win three titles in a row. I certainly count our success as domestic domination. We’re even up to 17th in the European Club Rankings as well, so there’s steady progress continentally too. All of these things help to cement our status.

I want more though. I don’t intend to leave and park this save any time soon. I’ve got plans to gradually overhaul the squad and introduce a majority homegrown first team squad. This feeds into my approach of the squad all conforming to how I want them to behave and perform. Think Sir Alex and the class of ‘92.

I’ve just rejected approaches from Bayern Munich and Liverpool as well. We’re dreaming bigger at the Right to Dream Park.

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It feels good to be back writing a bit of FM and I’ve really enjoyed picking the save back up where I left off earlier this year.

Will domestic domination get boring? I don’t think so. Plus I think everything I’ve just gone through will help me keep my interest going in the save for a while yet. I’d love to get even more homegrown players through into the first team, as I said.

Cheers for reading, see you whenever. I’m on Slack loads still so if you want to join there’s a link below. It’s crazy it’s still going after all these years.

African Players to Sign on FM23

This hitz-chasing blog title is because I wanted to show off some of my top player finds from Africa on FM23. I reckon they’ll make you want to load up all players from Africa on your next save.

Oh, and I’ll also be walking through my third season, the 2024/25 season, at FC Nordsjælland for those that stick around. Let’s go.

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African Player Recommendations on FM23

Nduka Junior

Nduka Junior was a £450k signing from Nigerian side, Remo Stars. He became a key player for the side over the past few seasons, after initially playing a bit-part role when he first signed in season one.

While he might slightly lack in some of the desired attributes for central defenders, in particular his strength and concentration, the 6’0” Nigerian international more than makes up for it in other areas. He’s aggressive, strong in the tackle and has a great combo of 15 in both decisions and positioning. While it’s maybe not high up on others lists for attributes for centre backs, I love mine to be quick too.

He made 96 appearances since his January transfer window signing in 2023, but come the end of the 2025 summer transfer window he was off. Fulham bought him for £9m and we’ll also get 20% of his next transfer. Some might say that’s Moneyball at its finest…

Lamine Camara

Lamine Camara arrived from Génération Foot in Senegal in January 2024 for just £110k. I think I initially underappreciated him, only giving him three starts and six appearances off the bench in the second half of the 23/24 season.

With his elite level first touch, passing, technique and vision, he’s been really fun to watch as he was unleashed this season. He’s a real beauty, slotting into either one of my central midfield roles, or he could even sit in front of the back four as our chief playmaker. This season he mainly played on the left hand side of the midfield two as our Mezzala on support. We scored a fair few goals this season, and Camara managed to bag 10 of them. Two of those came in the Champions League, and this one in particular is a great example of his season.

Yeah, I’m playing in 2D, what of it?

I love this goal. Aune Heggebo, our Pressing Forward on support has dropped deep vacating the space for our midfielders to run into. Ernest Nuamah (#17) and Sindre Walle Egeli (#11) are our Inside Forwards on attack and they’ve become a front two up top, terrorising Sparta Rotterdam’s defence. Heggebo lays it off to Edvard Tagseth and he turns on his playmaking charms from deep in midfield to find that cracking run in behind of Camara playing as a Mezzala. A beauty.

Amadou N’Diaye

N’Diaye joined at the same time as Nduka Junior, and is now a full Senegalese international alongside his clubmate, Lamine Camara. The left back joined from AS Pikine for just £200k, I think you might be starting to spot a pattern here. He’s an incredible bargain option for anyone looking for a roving full back option.

For the first season and a half of his time at the club, he had to play rotational option, with Daniel Svensson being first choice. However, this season he overtook Svensson which led to the Swede being sold for £2m at the end of the season. He went from 12 starts to 33 starts in all competitions and he’s now made 74 appearances overall. Similarly to Nduka Junior, he was the subject of interest at the end of this season but no club stumped up enough to secure his services.

Would you sign him?

More Recommendations…

There’s been a fair few other players that I’ve brought to the club that haven’t quite made the breakthrough yet in comparison to the three I’ve detailed. If you do end up loading all players from Africa, you might fancy checking their names out on your save too.

• Rauf Salifu (£180k from Accra Lions)

• Ebenezer Akinsanmiro (£200k from Remo Stars)

• Abdoulaye Djiré (£230k from RC Abijan)

• Libasse Ngom (£100k from Guédiawaye)

• Bangs Nentaka (£475k from Nasarawa United)

Each of the players I’ve mentioned in this post are ones that I’ve found manually (aside from Rauf Salifu, he was a recommendation on Twitter from FM Bhikkhu). So load them up and dive in to the clubs across the continent.

FC Nordsjælland also have some incredible African players already on the books of the club that I’d definitely recommend you check out. I’ve spoken about Mohammed Diomandé and Ernest Nuamah on Twitter already and I’d add Emmanuel Ogura to that list too. The Ghanian goalkeeper quickly established himself as my number one, and he’s been incredibly consistent between the sticks for me.

Domestic Duty

It was some season at the Right to Dream Park. Our best one yet domestically.

I’ve completed FM23. We completely dominated the Danish Superliga this season, going unbeaten, and I’m actually looking back feeling gutted we didn’t score three more goals for the century. Our goalscoring prowess was what set us apart, scoring 28 more goals versus last season and setting a new Superliga goalscoring record in the process. Five of our players scored 10 league goals or more this season, which I think is a cracking stat. Heggebo top scored for us with 16 in the league, while my four rotational Inside Forwards got 44 between them (include Sindre Walle Egeli who I highlighted at the end of my last post, an amazing first season for him at the highest level), with Diomandé getting 10 as the main CM(A).

Last season was all about the defence, whereas this season we conceded 13 more in the league compared to last season. I’m not too worried about it considering what we achieved, but it could be one thing to watch going forward.

The gap to 2nd place increased even further, as we turned last season’s two losses into draws. Am I enjoying completely dominating domestically? Yeah, yeah I am. Let it continue.

It continued into the Danish Cup this season. We got over last season’s fourth round exit by regaining the crown and doing the domestic double. Brondby were beaten in the semi final double header, while we rolled FC Midtjylland over in a repeat of the 22/23 final, 4-0.

On the Continent

The Champions League changed format, moving to the big 36 team league where you’re randomly draw to play eight matches against a selection of the other teams that qualify. We sailed through two rounds of qualifying to make the big one, starting really well as well, with four wins and a draw in the first six, including a brilliant 4-3 win away in Italy against Fiorentina. Bayern handed our arse to us on matchday seven while we bounced back with two corner goals against Spurs to finish a very respectable 13th out of 36.

What followed was a couple of brilliant performances at home against Atleti and Lazio to make the quarter finals. PSG, who’d topped the 36, would prove a step too far despite another massive fight in the home leg to grab a 3-3 draw. A first leg Mbappe goal knocked us out, but that run to the quarters earnt us £52m in prize money and £3m in TV money. Outrageous.

Looking Ahead

There’s already been some hints at some big changes at the club. I mentioned Nduka Junior left for Fulham in a £9m deal. Our two best players, in my opinion, Diomandé and Nuamah, also left for the bright lights of the English Premier League. Diomandé left for Arsenal for a club record £17m while Nuamah headed for Aston Villa for £12m. Oliver Villadsen, my first choice homegrown right back, also left for £2m to Bournemouth. These four first team player sales totalled £40m, coupled with the Champions League money, means we’ve got more money than I know what to do with.

There’s players at the club, previous rotational options and young prospects, who are pushing for more first team minutes. My aim is to continue to integrate them into the squad and make sure they’re developing. That includes a few of those African players on the bullet point list I highlighted.

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So that’s that for now. Cheers for reading again. If you want to follow along I’m probably more likely to be Tweeting or updating things on FMSlack, so if you don’t already follow me on Twitter or you aren’t joining in with all 12 of us over on FMSlack then rectify both of those things right now.

Loan Stars

It’s really unlike me but I’m absolutely flying through this save in comparison to previous years. I have made a few tweaks to how I’m approaching the game which I think are much better suited to the time I’ve got to play these days. I’ll maybe write about them at some point, but it mostly involves not looking at the useless things in the game like the Medical Centre and Data Hub…

I’m now halfway through my third season at FC Nordsjælland and felt it was a good time to pause and reflect. Season two was particularly fun, mainly because of the focus of this post. Baby, I’m amazed by them.

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Loan Stars

I already mentioned in my previous post that I’d lost my two most talented players. It looks as though Andreas Schjelderup has made an impact on more than just my save. Wonderkids usually don’t fly under the radar for very long these days. He got his big move to Manchester United after a ridiculous season playing on the left wing as an Inside Forward on Attack. His follow up season back on loan didn’t quite hit those same heights, but he was still someone that I called upon for the big occasions. He hit double figures for goals again (10) and laid on eight assists for his teammates. That combined goals and assists tally of 18 is a significant drop from the 32 last season but I can’t be angry at the baby-faced star.

Adamo Nagalo, the Burkinese wonderkid central defender, had an even better season back on loan at the club following his move to Chelsea. He made the Superliga Best Eleven for the season, alongside being shortlisted for both the Autumn and Spring Player of the Year awards. Will either of them make the breakthrough now they’ve entered the big bad world of the English Premier League? It remains to be seen.

Those returning wonderkids weren’t the only loan stars we had at the club this season. I had to keep our parent club happy by helping to develop some of their players didn’t I.

There’s always a Scottish link isn’t there. FM23 might not reflect this for some reason, but Lewis Fiorini has caps for Scotland from u16s all the way up to u21s. He played just over 2,000 minutes across the season as one of the rotational options in the centre of midfield. In terms of output, he didn’t match what our other midfielders were able to produce (two goals and two assists), but he was a solid option when called upon. Will he make the grade at Manchester City? I don’t think so.

Aguilar has such a great first name, his Peruvian parents must have been big Barcelona fans back in the 2002/03 season. Kluiverth joined in January to strengthen the squad and made 14 starts across the second half of the season. Club youth product, Oliver Villadsen, will remain as first choice and is happy to stay at the club, but I just fancied giving him a challenge to see whether he’d rise to it. Villadsen isn’t a natural Right Back and is only 5’7” so I think that position is prime for someone to make the breakthrough from the youth ranks in future.

Fiorini and Aguilar were fine, Liam Delap was next level.

Delap’s 22 goals in all competitions, 15 in the league, drove us on to achieve what we set out to at the start of the season. He led the line superbly and was the focal point for our attacks. He missed out on top scorer in the league to FCK’s Uroš Đurđević, but for me, he was the most talented forward in the country. He should have scored more, with his conversion rate sitting at only 18%. In contrast to Fiorini, if I’m Pep then you’ve surely got to have Delap in and around the squad as a young English hot prospect.

I feel like loan players get a bit of a bad rep sometimes amongst the FMosphere. It all comes down to what kind of club you see yourself to be. Loan players are far more commonplace at the top level of football these days too, with finances more stretched than ever before. If you’re in the lower leagues then a loan player can make or break a season. At this middling level of European football I’ve obviously shown that they’ve more than got a place as well if you’re setting out to achieve lofty aims.

Plus, if you’ve got a parent club the calibre of Manchester City it’s difficult to resist the dipping into that pool of quality players.

However, there’s far too much talent at the club to be bringing in five loanees every season blocking their chances of first team football. I wanted to attack the Superliga a certain way this season though, did it work out the way I wanted it to?

The League

Course it did.

Those draws from last season turned into wins this season and we romped home to the league title. Finishing with 20 extra points compared to last season, and improving upon last season’s goal difference win on the last day by finishing 16 points ahead of FC Midtjylland this season. FCM and FC København had already handed us two defeats by matchday eight, matching last season’s overall total, but that was to be the last time we tasted domestic defeat.

Delap’s arrival helped us score six more goals but the improvement in defence was even better. It’s all well and good improving forward play but I love to see a season-on-season decrease in the goals against column. The 10-goal swing and only conceding 16 goals across the 32 league matches is a great achievement and the 18 clean sheets for Emmanuel Ogura won him runner up in the Spring Player of the League award, ahead of Liam Delap in third place.

On the Continent

Real Madrid, Chelsea and Bayer Leverkusen was a tough group to be handed for my first foray into Europe in this save, especially after we’d successfully navigated through three rounds of qualifying against Dinamo, Ferencvaros and Maccabi Haifa. Real and Chelsea dominated the group, beating each other but also dominating against Leverkusen and us. A home win and an away draw in Germany saw us head into the Europa League. An eventual defeat against Inter in the round of 16 was tough to take but the money from the European run was hugely beneficial to the club coffers.

Looking Ahead

I’ve mentioned it, but there’s a lot of incredible talent at the club to start integrating into the first team. Sindre Walle Egeli, remember the name. He’s made an incredible start to season three.

I won’t be shutting myself off from bringing in new players, as much as I’m not enjoying the changes to scouting on FM23 I’m still enjoying finding new signings to make. There’s a lot of talent in Africa, which obviously matches the Right to Dream DNA. I’ll probably make them the focus of the next post.

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So that’s that for now. Cheers for reading. You won’t find any promises of any scheduled regular releases of writing here from me this year. It’ll be as ad hoc as ad hoc gets and I’m probably more likely to be Tweeting or updating things on FMSlack, so if you don’t already follow me on Twitter or you aren’t joining in with all 12 of us over on FMSlack then rectify both of those things right now.

Everyone has the Right to Dream

How does this keyboard work again?

I had zero plans to write about FM23. For the first time since I started writing about FM way back in 2014, I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d barely touched FM22 since March, it’s the least played of all the FM games I’ve had activated on Steam, and with FM23 not actually looking like much of an upgrade to me I wasn’t sure I’d dive in.

Then something hits you. It’s always a Tweet, or a YouTube video, or a bit of analysis on the TV. Mine was an article.

I’d been well acquainted with FC Nordsjælland’s story since Tom Vernon took over the club in 2015 and integrated it as the star in his Right to Dream system, but sometimes you want that thing, that one piece, that just summarises everything for you and backs up everything you already know about it all. Daniel Storey’s brilliant piece for the i did that for me. Fast forward a few weeks to the FM23 Beta being released and here we are.

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The Club

Hopefully you’ve read Daniel’s piece I linked but if you haven’t one of the main things to takeaway is that FC Nordsjælland has one of the youngest documented average ages of their first team squad in world football. This is youth development to the next level, it’s not just one or two young players mixed in with an experienced squad. It’s an entire squad of talented youngsters, putting trust in them with minutes on the pitch and an expectation to perform.

I’ll of course be continuing this tradition on Football Manager, and the board and fans are expecting me to. 15 of my current 26-man first team squad are homegrown from the club and there’s a culture of signing players under the age of 23 for the first team, music to my ears. The average age of the first team squad right now is just 21.3.

The other thing to note is how multi-cultural the club is. Of that first team squad of 26, there’s 14 different nationalities. 9 of the 26 are from Africa, a key continent for FC Nordsjælland’s recruitment. That link with the Right to Dream Academy will continue to prosper and players will have opportunities to grow and develop.

The club does things in a way that it believes to be the right way. A key example being they were the first club to sign up to Juan Mata’s Common Goal, pledging 1% of their salaries towards the charitable movement.

The Story So Far…

The League

This isn’t actually an introductory blog post in the traditional sense. I’m already one season into the save which is unheard of at the speed I usually play the game. Season one was definitely helped by the club’s 9th place finish in the 2021/22 Danish Superliga, meaning I only had domestic football to deal with across my first season in charge.

I’ve already strongly alluded to it so far, but this squad is packed with talent. Some of it is raw, which is probably why they finished 9th the season prior, but harnessing that ability was key to what I was able to achieve across the 2022/23 season. It went better than expected.

For a moment it looked as though I’d be completing an unbeaten season before the full game had even been released. We went the entirety of the Preliminary Phase of the Superliga unbeaten (the league splits in two after 22 matches), but suffered defeats on matchday 26 against OB (0-1) and matchday 30 against Viborg (2-3). Two matches we definitely should be winning going forward, but to go the league season with a record of three wins and five draws in eight matches against FC Midtjylland and FC København is something I’m delighted with. The title race went down to the final day but an emphatic 6-0 trouncing of OB secured the title by quite a margin on goal difference.

The cup run was pretty comprehensive in the end, culminating in a tight affair against FC Midtjylland in the final that was settled by an Andreas Schjelderup penalty. Talking of Schjelderup…

The Players

He is, quite frankly, a ridiculous footballer on FM23.

Hardcore FMSamo fans will remember I signed him on FM21 in my Vålerenga save (he was nowhere near this good) and on last year’s game for Saints as well (he was getting there…) so what I’m saying is I discovered him.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that he plays for Manchester United. The trouble with having one of the foremost wonderkids on the game at your tiny club in Denmark is he won’t be around for long. He scored 19 times and laid on 13 assists last season and I had to squeeze United for every last penny of the bargain £8m they paid me for him. We managed to get him on loan again for the 23/24 season to get one more season of hopeful magic out of him.

If you aren’t playing as FC Nordsjælland then you should definitely raid them. Adamo Nagalo is a wonderkid CB who again I’ve already lost but managed to get back for one final season.

Chelsea paid £8.5m for him and we’ll get 20% of whatever his next fee will be. Yet another wonderkid moves on. I’m sure they won’t be the last that the club will sell for decent money, though in the future the club’s, and Denmark’s, reputation will have hopefully increased enough to get the fees I believe we deserve for players that talented. There’s a pipeline of promising players that I’m sure I’ll be talking about at some point in the future.

The Tactic

I’m hearing Gegenpressing is dead? I don’t think it is.

There are a couple of positive changes to the game I’m finding though around tactics and in-game play. The first one is that I’m having to adapt and change during a match much more than I ever have before. I’ll switch up the roles and instructions if I need something else from my side. I’ll move the playmaker forward to the central two, the deep midfielder will become more of a destroyer, one of the wide men will become an out and out winger, the forward will push up much more and sit on the last man. The main changes to instructions usually centre around the in possession ones. I’ll try and have us keep the ball much more and not rush things, rather than encouraging the players to rush on and get the ball forward quickly into space.

The other change is that my young team get absolutely knackered with our all out gung-ho style of play. That means that rotation, rest and five subs during a match are all absolutely key in keeping things ticking over. It’s a great challenge, and a realistic one at that. I’m not looking forward to having European football to contend with as well alongside the domestic season.

Looking Ahead

They’ll be Champions League nights at the Right to Dream Park next season and FC Nordsjælland have a target on their back. The title race might have been a close run affair in the end but I think we were by far the best team in the league over the course of the season. Can my young guns replicate that for another season?

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So that’s that for now. Cheers for reading. You won’t find any promises of any scheduled regular releases of writing here from me this year. It’ll be as ad hoc as ad hoc gets and I’m probably more likely to be Tweeting or updating things on FMSlack, so if you don’t already follow me on Twitter or you aren’t joining in with all 12 of us over on FMSlack then rectify both of those things right now.

Marching On: Feeling 22-ish

It’s rare that any FMer has an approach to the game that doesn’t include some form of youth development, whether it’s producing your own players or signing young talent to give them a platform. If you’ve been following my FMing over the years you’ll know that I’m no different to the norm here. There’s been fleeting moments where I might have changed my approach slightly, but by god I can’t keep away from the knock-down prices, low wages and that potential column filling up with gold stars.

As I wrap up my third season at St Mary’s with Southampton on FM22 we have the youngest squad in the Premier League on average by far. It shouldn’t be a shock. How did my young squad get on though, and who are our standout performers?

Season Three Summary

Premier League

We had an incredible start to season three that just kept rolling. At the halfway stage of the season we were sitting top of the Premier League. We were unbeaten across our 19 matches, with 15 of them being wins. We were just two points ahead of Liverpool though, who were also unbeaten.

Surely it wouldn’t be a fairy-tale so early on in this save? Little Southampton with the 14th highest salary per annum in the league wouldn’t be able to overcome the big six would they?

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No, no they wouldn’t. It was bloody close though! We were 14 points away from City at the top of the table last season in 3rd place, this season’s 3rd place finish saw us finish just six points behind Liverpool. We scored six less goals this season compared to last, but actually conceded six less this time round so our goal difference of +55 is exactly the same as last season. There was more incredible wins along the way, with a 5-1 against Villa, a 6-1 against Sheffield United and a 7-0 demolishing of Burnley in January.

Our four defeats came against Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Aston Villa, in a match that ended our incredible unbeaten league run which had been running since the 22nd of April 2023. It was our draws that killed the title challenge in the end, including a 0-0 on matchday 37 against Spurs which was the only league match all season where we failed to find the net.

At the fifth time of asking we finally got a win against Manchester United, beating them 3-1 at St Mary’s in October. Though a league double against them wasn’t to be, it wouldn’t be the only time we’d play against them this season. They scored 100+ goals for the third consecutive season but for the past two it hasn’t been enough to secure them the title.

It wasn’t to be, but you know me, I’m fine with it. I won Manager of the Year and there’s always next season for another assault on the Premier League title.

Domestic Cups

I was determined to do much better than last season in the domestic cup competitions so there wasn’t as much rotation as I usually have done in the past.

We made it to Wembley in my first season, losing out against Liverpool in the FA Cup semi final. They were our cup foes that season, with Manchester United replacing them in season three. We managed to draw first blood though, taking home our first domestic trophy of the save and the first domestic cup competition the club has won since the 1976 FA Cup.

Delighted to win an EFL Cup to add to last season’s Europa Conference League trophy in the cabinet. The old “play the ex-player” trick worked perfectly as an Anthony Martial double downed his old club in a confident cup final performance.

We had some really tough draws in the cups this season, overcoming Arsenal in the EFL Cup third round on penalties, taking Liverpool to a replay in the FA Cup third round before securing an unbelievable 4-1 win at Anfield to go through and now United stood in our way again, this time in the FA Cup quarter final. It looked as though it was going to penalties, with the full time score being 2-2 and extra time amounting to not much at all. In the 121st minute, Mo Salisu slid in and won the ball from Victor Osimhen but the loose ball fell to Jadon Sancho who’d got in front of Romain Perraud. He kept his head and finished coolly past Gavin Bazunu. A cruel way to end this season’s FA Cup run. Talking of cruel…

Champions League

Last season’s third place finish in the league saw us take on our first ever Champions League challenge. I wasn’t expecting much and I was expecting much less when we got drawn into a group with RB Salzburg, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.

Five remarkable wins and one disappointing defeat away in Munich later we’d unexpectedly finished second and qualified for the knockouts. Summer signing, Benjamin Šeško, came into his own, hitting a late winner at home against Barca before scoring a double against his old club, Salzburg, and hitting another goal in the Camp Nou. He then proceeded to destroy Atalanta in the knockouts, scoring four of our seven goals in a 7-1 first leg victory. A 2-2 draw away from home set up a quarter final clash with our old friends, Manchester United.

Football Manager gives and takes away in equal measure. In the 93rd minute of the first leg we were cruising. The score read 4-1 and 31,000 of the 32,000 St Mary’s crowd was bouncing. Then Victor Osimhen scored a 94th minute goal. I’d say consolation, but going from 4-1 to 4-2 in the home leg of a two-legged tie is far from that. I’m sure you can all predict what happened in the second leg.

Hate you FM (but I also love you too so I’ll be back next season for even more…).

Feeling 22-ish

I’ve made a fair few changes to this squad in my three seasons in charge. There’s only really a few players left over from when I initially took over. Where the core of the squad beforehand was closer to 30 than 20, or even over 30, e.g. the likes of Nathan Redmond, Oriol Romeu, Jack Stephens, Moi Elyounoussi, Stuart Armstrong, that’s been shifted much more in the direction that I prefer. I said at the beginning, we’ve now got the youngest squad on average in the league, at 24-years-old. That could still be younger, but 36-year-old Fraser Forster has just signed a new deal to continue as my back-up keeper.

The blog title is partly a nod to Taylor Swift, but mainly just because I’ve now got a core group of players who are around about the age of 22 and I want to show them off.

Tino Livramento

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I wouldn’t say he’s the main reason why I wanted to manage Saints on FM22 but he’s high up there on the list. 2023/24 was his best season yet and he’s showing real improvements in his game. He provided 17 assists in his 40 appearances this season, adding to his 21 from the previous two seasons combined. He’s flying up and down that right flank and I love the low crosses he puts in for our Advanced Forward, usually Adam Armstrong, to finish.

I was positive Chelsea had a buyback clause on him when I started the save but I can’t seem to see it now. If it’s expired then it’s only another positive for us as he’s now the second most valuable player at the club.

Andrew Omobamidele

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I picked up Omobamidele for his relegation release clause of £10m when Norwich went down at the end of season one. Is he the best defender in the Premier League? Not quite. But he’s young, quick, has a great personality and attitude and he’s only getting better and better. He made 23 starts across all competitions this season and will likely be our third choice CB going into next season too. It feels harsh to say that especially after he won the English Players’ Young Player of the Year this season.

His fellow countryman, Gavin Bazunu (22), cemented himself as our number one this season too, so that can only be a good thing for both club and country.

Taylor Harwood-Bellis and James Garner

I’d been tracking THB and Garner for the entire save so far. I just knew they’d be available to buy at some point and that both City and United wouldn’t give them the gametime they both deserve. Both players arrived in January this season, Garner for a club record fee of £27m potentially rising to £32m and Harwood-Bellis in a gamechanging swap deal for Lyanco. I see their arrivals as the start of the next phase for the club. They’re young, English and, importantly, quality players. They’ll both walk into our starting line up and could be the catalyst to push the club to that next level.

They both got around 1,400 minutes of action since their arrival and I think that’ll be hitting the 3,000 mark like our other key players from this season like Salisu, Tino and Billy Gilmour. Gilmour is also 22-years-old and had another superb for the club, averaging a 7.41 across his 28 league appearances, and a 7.35 overall for the season.

I could be here posting screenshots of my entire squad to be honest. Thierry Small (19) got 2,100 minutes this season and is developing brilliantly. Andreas Schjelderup (20) forced himself into the latest NxGn wonderkid list. I’ve already mentioned Benjamin Šeško (21) in this post, he finished his first season at the club with 23 goals and is only going to get better. A name you’ll likely recognise, Filip Rønningen Jørgensen (22) finally got a work permit after actually being my first signing at the club in the January transfer window of season one. This was his breakout season and he’ll be competing with Garner and Gilmour for those two CM spots.

What’s Next?

I’m already in the club’s favoured personnel, it’s time to start pushing to become an icon and legend. The board want us to start becoming the best of the rest, which looks as though it translates into finish just outside of the top three. We’ve just had two consecutive top three finishes so I’m confident we can keep hitting those expectations.

There’s no current plans to sell any players, but alongside the young players at the club there’s also a group of players hitting their peaks. Season one arrivals, Anthony Martial and Ruben Loftus-Cheek are both now 28-years-old and the deals they had in place with Man Utd and Chelsea to top up their wages end this summer. Ché Adams and Adam Armstrong, who I’ve not even mentioned in this post despite him scoring another 33 goals this season to make it 104 goals in three seasons, are both 27. Is it time to cash in and kickstart the next cycle of the save?

Marching On: The Goal Machine

In season one, I recovered from selling James Ward-Prowse, the best player at the club, to qualify for the Europa Conference League by way of a 7th place finish in the Premier League.

Season two has surpassed season one, and then some. We’ve played some brilliant football and had a European adventure. The biggest reason for a lot of what happened was down to our goal machine, Adam Armstrong.

The Goal Machine

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In season one Adam Armstrong scored 30 goals in 43 appearances, 26 of those came in the Premier League as he finished runner up in the top goalscorer stakes. It was a great season for him, with it being his first season playing at that level.

In season two, he’s gone up a fair few notches. He finished the season with 41 goals in 49 appearances. 36 of those goals came in 36 Premier League starts, making him top goalscorer ahead of Manchester City’s Erling Haaland and Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappé.

Looking at his attributes I wouldn’t exactly say he’s an elite Premier League marksman. His role in the side is an Advanced Forward, playing alongside a Deep Lying Forward on Support, so let’s take a look at what stands out.

Elite Attributes

I love quick players and Armstrong is certainly rapid. His ability to get to top speed and then stay at that top speed are both elite level attributes, his two best ones. Defenders will struggle to catch him and then keep up with him, and that’s certainly been evident on a fair few of his goals this season.

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Gonçalo Inácio has no chance of catching Armstrong here once he’s seen that space and run onto that brilliant ball in behind. This was part two of a double in a 5-1 hammering of Chelsea.

Good Attributes

He’s a striker after all, so his Finishing attribute sticks out here. With 71 goals in 92 appearances you’d expect he’d be an elite finisher. 14 is elite in some leagues, but the Premier League? I’m not sure. 14.40 is the league average for strikers to be fair, but if you compare to a few of his closest rivals in the goalscoring stakes, Haaland and Ronaldo both have 19, while Lukaku and Salah have 18 and Mbappé has 17.

You’d think Composure would help in his goalscoring situations. A rating of 12 though makes it difficult for me to make the case that it’s that that’s helping him to be our goal machine.

In the end, what difference do the attribute ratings really make when he can finish like this for us?

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This is an elite level one-two and an elite level finish showing nothing but composure. The little spin to get round Oumar Solet once he’s laid the ball back to Diallo is beautiful and what comes next matches it. Hugo Lloris is left wanting with that cheeky dink. This goal rounded off an incredible 5-2 victory over Spurs.

Poor Attributes

You have no idea how many times this season I’ve gone to check Armstrong’s attributes after a match to just double check a few of them. The main one I’ve been dumbfounded with has been his 11 Off The Ball rating. You’d think that it was one of his elite attributes with some of his movement in the box at times to get on the end of crosses and passes.

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Armstrong is on the left periphery of the above GIF and this goal was a regular occurrence throughout the season. Many of Tino Livramento and Kyle Walker-Peters’ 19 assists between them were them rampaging on from right back and firing the ball across for Armstrong to make that similar run he does in the GIF above. Kurt Zouma is caught ball watching and Armstrong is able to sneak in front of him, making that front post run to smash it in.

Sometimes a player, a tactic and a period in time just click into place and everything is perfect. Will Armstrong continue his goalscoring form in mine and his third season at the club? Who knows.

Switching Up The Squad

I mentioned in the last post that I was aiming to start making some big changes to the wide options in the squad. I outlined that our options of Walcott, Stuart Armstrong, Redmond, Elyounoussi, Djenepo and Tella weren’t exactly ideal in terms of age, quality and wage outlay. Of the six, only Stuart Armstrong remain at the club come the end of season two. The departures of the other five earned us just over £28m. Not bad but I needed to invest to replace them. In came the below:

• Amine Gouiri - £13m from Lyon

• Woo-yeong Jeong - £14.5m from Freiburg

• Keane Lewis-Potter - £11m from Hull

• Andreas Schjelderup - £6m from FC Nordsjælland

• Kamaldeen Sulemana - £2.4m from Rennes

The first three arrived in the summer, while the latter two were January window moves that I couldn’t turn down when presented with them. Based on output and what I’m seeing during matches I’m happy with the changes and I’m certainly classing them as upgrades. Gouiri scored 11 times and assisted 13 as he played the most amount of minutes out of the five. Jeong started the season superbly, scoring five and assisting nine, before a hip injury all but ruled him out of the rest of the campaign early in the second half of the season. Keane Lewis-Potter was one of the standout stars of our Europa Conference League campaign, but in Jeong’s absence took that form into the league. He ended the season with 14 goals and eight assists, a great return for his first season at this level for the young Englishman plucked from the Championship.

Following on from last season too changes continued in central midfield. After seven and a half years at St Mary’s, Oriol Romeu moved on to Sassuolo in January, but he’d already been replaced in the Saints midfield.

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I’m not sure why or how Billy Gilmour was on the transfer list in the summer for a bargain £4.1m, but he was, and Chelsea’s loss has been our gain. My fellow Scotsman scored four times and laid on 15 assists on his way to being crowned signing of the season and undoubtedly high up on our player of the season list if it wasn’t for Armstrong’s exploits. He really does dictate the tempo in the centre of the pitch for us and has formed a decent partnership with his former and now current teammate, Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

Season Two Summary

You’ve seen a few of our goals and I alluded to us playing some brilliant football. How did that translate into the Premier League table?

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That’s unexpected! The running joke of me playing this game is that I’m happy to trundle along and hit the targets expected of me (the board wanted mid-table!). As the season went on, as Adam Armstrong kept on scoring and as we kept blowing teams away we looked unstoppable and come the end of the season the top four finish is fully deserved in my opinion. We haven’t overachieved here, we’ve massively deserved it.

We were ridiculous in a 6-0 battering of Arsenal in August, Spurs were handed a 5-2 defeat ahead of the 2022 World Cup kicking off and Brighton and Sheffield United were both smacked 5-1 in the second half of the season. 2.5 goals a game is a great achievement and we conceded seven fewer than last season too. Third most wins and third most goals scored, we deserved third in the table.

Eight of our six defeats came as Man City, Liverpool and Leeds did doubles over us. All three are our bogey teams of the save so far, with us being able to beat just Liverpool and Leeds once each, and not picking up any points against the might of Man City yet. Quite ridiculously the only points we dropped against teams in the bottom half of the table was a 0-0 draw on matchday 37 against Wolves.

A special mention goes out to one of my signings from last season, Anthony Martial, who did the elusive double figures for both goals and assists this season in the Premier League and obviously overall too for the season. He scored 11 times and assisted 10 goals in the league, and hit 19 overall and made 16 assists. A great full first season for the £10.5m man as he finished above his old club in the table.

We might have had some success in the Premier League, but the less said about our domestic cup exploits in comparison to last season, the better.

After our semi final appearance last season, to have Nottingham Forest knock us out on penalties at the first time of asking in this season’s Carabao Cup is pretty shocking. I didn’t exactly play a weakened side but we were in the midst of a run of games that included Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United.

A 3rd minute Abel Ruiz goal was something we couldn’t come back from in the FA Cup quarter final against Wolves. Manchester United went on to win both domestic cup competitions to make up for not retaining their league title from last season.

I mentioned a European adventure in my introduction, I led the club into its first ever Europa Conference League campaign. I said in last season’s post that I wanted to win it so that was my aim from the outset. Did we achieve it?

Was it our good league form that helped our Europa Conference League form, or vice versa? We scored 55 goals in 14 matches as we qualified for the group stage, swept our group aside and overcame Nice, Anderlecht, Sampdoria, and Standard Leige in the final to win the competition.

I said from the outset I wanted to win it, but I also made the decision that it was going to be the competition where we’d play some players who weren’t necessarily classed as first choice. I’ve already mentioned Keane Lewis-Potter took his Europa Conference League form into the Premier League come the second half of the season, but he wasn’t the only one to impress. We had another goal machine firing us to continental glory.

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Last season Dan Nlundulu was on loan at Lincoln in League One. His exploits there, finishing as top goalscorer in the league, and his standout elite attributes (actually more than Adam Armstrong), made me think back to my opening post. Should I disregard a player just because I’ve not spent £15m on him and signed him from the Dutch Eredivisie? So Nlundulu became our Europa Conference League main man.

He scored 15 goals in 13 appearances as he finished top goalscorer and was named Europa Conference League player of the season. There’s always value in the players you’ve already got at your club when you start your save.

What’s Next?

Where do you go from massively overachieving? I’d love to do it all over again and finish in the Champions League spots next season but I’ll also be delighted to just secure European football again for the club.

With the board virtually in love with me I might start to look into some requests. I’ve got my eye on a St Mary’s stadium expansion with us being at full capacity 99% of the time this season in the league. There’s £150m in the bank that should hopefully be enough to bankroll it.

I’ve already lined up a couple of new additions to the squad for next season. FM22 wonderkid, 19-year-old Benjamin Šeško, is arriving from RBSalzburg for a knockdown price of £14.25m and Marcos Leonardo, a 20-year-old Brazilian, is arriving from Santos for £11.75m. They should bolster our attacking options even more. Do we need them? I’m not sure just yet, but those prices couldn’t be ignored for a couple of young talents. One or two players might leave but if we can improve on 96 goals scored in the league I’ll be bloody delighted.

Bring on season three.

Marching On: How to Replace Your Best Player

“I’m starting to get into this…”

That’s what FM tells me as I finish off my first season in charge of Southampton on FM22, and I’d agree. It was a cracking first season at St Mary’s, one I really enjoyed more and more as it went on. I haven’t played in the English Premier League since FM16 and I’d forgotten how good the battle for every point is on a weekly basis.

Here’s a summary of that first season and a look at the biggest decision I’ve had to make so far…

James Ward-Prowse

I switched the first transfer window off when I fired up the save, meaning the squads that begin the game are the ones you’ve got to contend with until the January transfer window opens.

It’s quite clear on that first look of the Saints squad that James Ward-Prowse, the captain, is the star man. By the time January rolled around he was deemed a world-class midfielder. He’d scored twice, once in the league, and laid on 10 assists across his 27 appearances. He was a cut above the majority of my side, and obviously a set-piece wizard. Brendan Rodgers’ Newcastle were sniffing around with their reported £200m budget to burn, but when Manchester City came in with an initial bid of £33m I saw he was keen to leave the club to head to the Etihad. I don’t like standing in the way of players that want to leave so I negotiated up to a more fair price of £52m and off he went.

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The initial January transfer window budget of £6m was obviously bolstered by the sale of our key man, so how would we replace him? Even before his sale we were probably a little bit lighter than I’d usually like in the central midfield area. Oriol Romeu took over the captaincy following JWP’s departure, but the 30-year-old Spaniard probably isn’t my preferred option long-term in that midfield two. He has some incredible mental attributes and his Natural Fitness is 18, but his Acceleration and Pace have both dropped to 7, I need a mobile and dynamic midfield two in our 4-2-2-2. Ibrahima Diallo was the third choice in the first half of the season, with Stuart Armstrong also capable of filling in centrally.

To summarise, what I was looking for was:

• Numbers. At least a couple of players to fill out our options. The Aston Villa approach post-Grealish.

• Dynamism. They need to be able to move.

• Affordable. Despite the JWP money we still aren’t made of money. I won’t be splashing tens of millions on a replacement.

• Homegrown. Ideally they’d help fill out the Premier League homegrown squad rules.

So naturally the first signing I made on FM22 was spending £5m on Filip Rønningen Jørgensen, one of my star men from FM21. He could be an excellent Premier League midfielder, but the 19-year-old failed to get a work permit. He spent the remainder of the season out on loan at Austria Vienna, and continues to fail to qualify for a work permit so he’s spending the 2022/23 season at FC Midtjylland. I hope it works out eventually.

My key target was Ruben Loftus-Cheek. I was losing one double-barrelled surname player, I needed another in to replace him. RLC was deemed surplus to requirements at Chelsea and in he came for £7m. If you compare the two players, it’s no contest. Ward-Prowse has a number of standout attributes, Loftus-Cheek only has a couple, but I’m confident he can be one of those players that plays beyond his immediate ability given a chance. It’s always handy when you’ve got a club like Chelsea topping up his wages, they’ll be paying him an additional £52k a week for the next two seasons.

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24-year-old Englishman, Lewis Cook, also joined the club. He’d hardly featured for Bournemouth in the Championship and was available for £3.7m. He won’t be the first name on the teamsheet, but was affordable and adds another rotational option in there.

Squad Planning

I actually really love switching the first window off. It gives you that first half of the season to really analyse your squad, give them minutes and see who’ll perform for you. Wholesale changes might not have come immediate once the January window opened, or even by the time it ended, but it certainly gave me the time to work plenty out about the future of the squad.

There was one more addition in January though. Ché Adams and Adam Armstrong had cemented themselves as my first choice pairing up front with Armando Broja as their back up. Broja was only on loan from Chelsea and I didn’t see a permanent move coming in the summer, so I acted swiftly to bring in another option up front. Someone who could be a difference maker.

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There’s a theme developing on these signings. Anthony Martial was deemed surplus to requirements at Old Trafford and arrives on the South Coast for £10.5m. Again, Manchester United are happy to be paying him £48k a week for the next two seasons. It’s a really handy tool to attract players that might just be demanding more wages that you’re willing to offer.

He mostly lined up on the left wing in his 17 appearances across the second half of the season, cutting inside as an Inside Forward on Attack. He scored four and assisted two and I’m expecting bigger things from him as he settles into life nearer his native France.

There was one main reason he didn’t get more minutes on the pitch in his preferred forward position. Adam Armstrong. More on him later.

Both first team goalkeepers were out of contract come the end of the season. Fraser Forster cemented himself as my number one, and had a great season overall. He agreed a new deal with a £15k reduction in his weekly salary, while Alex McCarthy left for Lazio on a free. The JWP sale money was also used to agree a deal for a future number one arriving in the summer. 20-year-old Irish international, Gavin Bazunu, will arrive from Man City for a potential £8m. He’s got great potential and will be the perfect initial back-up for Forster.

After starting the central midfield overhaul my next step will be working on the wide positions. There was enough there to see me through until the end of the season but long-term, the current options aren’t ideal:

• Theo Walcott (33-years-old, on £75k p/w)

• Stuart Armstrong (30-years-old, £60k p/w)

• Nathan Redmond (28-years-old, £75k p/w)

• Moi Elyounoussi (27-years-old, £60k p/w)

• Moussa Djenepo (23-years-old, £35k p/w)

• Nathan Tella (22-years-old, £10k p/w)

There’s some big wage savings to make there on players who aren’t quite living up to what they’re making. Walcott barely featured, Redmond had a good first half of the season but lost his place in the second half, and Elyounoussi was disappointing when he did feature. They’ll be some changes in the summer for sure.

Season One Summary

Back to Adam Armstrong. Our £15m arrival from Blackburn last summer repaid the outlay and then some in his first season at the club. Armstrong scored 30 goals in 43 appearances, 26 of those goals coming in the Premier League as he led us to 7th in the league and finished behind Cristiano Ronaldo in the Golden Boot (Ronaldo scored 46, ridiculous).

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It’s our highest finish in the league since 2015/16 and qualifies us for the Europa Conference League. I’m delighted about that and will 100% be going for the win in that competition.

It was a real battle for the top 6 as the season went on. Leeds, Aston Villa and ourselves were swapping positions between 5th and 7th on an almost weekly basis. After we beat Villa 3-0 on matchday 35 it looked as though we’d sewn up a top 6 place, but then faltered with draws against West Ham and Watford, while Villa went on an incredible run to finish the season, beating Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal and Dean Smith got the May Manager of the Month award. It’ll be very interesting to see if Spurs and Chelsea recover next season and finish as high up as expected.

We took 12 points this season against the traditional big 6, six of those points came on the first two matchdays as we defeated Chelsea and Liverpool. The importance going forward will be turning some of those eight defeats into at least draws and competing more in some of the disappointing defeats. Every little helps.

We fared well in the other 14 battle, losing four times and only one of those was in the second half of the season. Villa and Leeds did inflict two of those defeats, with Leeds handing us our only outclassing, a 4-1 defeat at Elland Road on matchday six. All of our seven draws came against our direct competitors and could easily be turned into more points on the board.

Armstrong’s form, as our Advanced Forward, really did help propel us into Europe. By the end of the first half of the season he had seven league goals, which I thought was fine. I was quite happy with his outlay. In the second half of the season though, something clicked. He scored in seven consecutive appearances from the end of January to the beginning of April, actually scoring 11 in that time, including two hattricks against Norwich and Everton. Doing some quick maths, it was 19 league goals in 17 matches across the second half of the season.

Going forward in the save it’d also be really nice to beat Liverpool again after they knocked us out of both domestic cup competitions. It was great to get to the semi finals of both though, going above and beyond the board expectations.

What’s Next?

More of the same?

The board are expecting us to finish mid-table next season, which suits me perfectly. I’ll be personally aiming for another European spot finish, but it’ll be tricky if the big 6 underperformers do improve.

I’m buzzing to finally play in the Europa Conference League too. The board are expecting us to reach at least the quarter finals, I want to win it. I’d love to win it. Will we be able to contend with the multiple matches every week?

I didn’t go through our tactical approach much, but did allude to a few positions. We’re mainly lining up in a 4-2-2-2 similar to Saints’ approach IRL right now. I won’t be making many tweaks to that going into my second season.

The summer will be busy, with a fair few squad changes planned. Everyone wants a summer of wheeling and dealing on FM, don’t they? I’ve got to get it right, seeing as my contract expires at the end of season two. Will I be given a new deal and get kept on at St Mary’s?

Marching On: My FM22 Save with Southampton

Football Manager 2022 is here. The buzz of save reveal season is upon us and I couldn’t miss out on gaining some of those juicy hits for the new home of my FM writing, CoffeehouseFM.

I’ve found myself struggling to follow my usual process when it comes to picking a save for this edition of the game. I knew I wanted to head to Norway for FM21 for a good while. Eibar and Vitória were both planned way in advance too. Samo’s Stirling saw me putting in the yards on the editor to revamp Scotland’s league setup.

Time has been the big factor. I haven’t had the time to do my usual of looking into stories that catch my eye or a club that is doing things a little bit differently to the norm in. It’s been a busy few months as I settle into a new job for the first time in eight and a half years. It’s the dream job too, I’ve finally made the move into working in football full time. How will I cope when my working and FM lives combine?

Well, my proposed coping mechanism is to start off my FM22ing at my place of work, St Mary’s. My office will become my virtual office. I’m heading to the English Premier League for the first time on the game since FM16.

Why Southampton?

Didn’t you just read me say why? I work there now.

In all seriousness though, I didn’t have the time to look for a club that’s doing things differently but luckily I didn’t need to look very far for one.

In a footballing world where Newcastle are now the richest club on the planet and money is everywhere, Southampton live within their means and try to turn potential into excellence.

Gareth Bale, Luke Shaw, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott, Adam Lallana. They’ve been highly regarded as one of the best talent producing clubs in the country for a long time. Couple that alongside the talent identification approach that brought in and sold on the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mané, Morgan Scheiderlin and Victor Wanyama, there’s a lot for me to base a Football Manager save around.

The club seemed to lose its way for a few seasons though. The heady heights of a 6th place finish in the 2015/16 season were followed by narrowly avoiding relegation in the 2017/18 season. Big money signings haven’t worked out. Roughly £50m was spent on Guido Carrillo, Mario Lemina and Wesley Hoedt with little to no return on the pitch. That can’t happen again. Ralph Hasenhüttl arrived to steer the club to safety in the 2018/19 season, has steadied the ship and been well backed since, despite some heavy, heavy defeats. That’s where I now come in, sorry Ralph.

This season has seen another slight shift in the approach to the transfer market. When you look at it, it’s three-fold. One marquee signing (Adam Armstrong from Blackburn), affordable talent from abroad (Romain Perraud and Lyanco from Brest and Torino, respectively) and identifying younger players who could come in and either develop or make a difference immediately. Dynel Simeu and Thierry Small have promise, but Armando Broja and, perhaps my favourite player right now to watch, Tino Livramento, have made a big impression already. Livramento, at just £5m, will be one of the signings of the season and I’m sure if he develops at the same rate on the game Chelsea will have their eye on that £40m buyback clause they’ve got.

I did it on FM21 and I’ve done it again for FM22, the first window has been switched off. I think with FM coming out so long after the transfer window shuts now it just makes sense to do that and have the settled squads.

The Aims

Is it even an FM intro blog post without some aims?

Develop Talent

Is it possible to bring through your own youth players and play them in the Premier League anymore? Who knows but I’ll give it a good go. Developing talent is what Saints are built on. That could be our own youth players but it could also be younger players who come into the club and are given the platform to play.

Salisu is a prime example of that. He arrived for £10m, when he leaves he’ll be making us a fair bit more than that.

The board are expecting me to:

• Develop players using the club’s youth system

• Sign players under the age of 22 for the future

• Sign players under the age of 23 for the first team

• Not to sign players over the age of 28

The aims perfectly align there.

Identify Talent

I’m starting at a Premier League club, I’ve got a little bit of a headstart here when it comes to building out a strong scouting network with the finances available to me. I don’t just want to be going out and scouring the wonderkid lists to rinse and repeat that well trodden path on the game.

Would I have gone to the Championship and signed Adam Armstrong for £15m on previous versions of the game? Probably not. It’s those types of signings I want to be making. Signings that go against the usual grain. Not just signing anyone because they’ve got light greens all over the place and I get attracted by the shiny things. Players that fit, players that suit us and the type of club we are.

Play with Style

It looks as though FM wants people to move away from setting up a Gegenpressing tactic and winning all the time does it? Fat chance of that happening here. I love that high pressing, chaotic style of play and I’ll be looking to harness it in our approach.

The board are expecting me to play attacking and entertaining football so I’m not exactly going to be finally giving Park the Bus a go am I. I’ve set up some very standard looking 4-2-4, 4-1-2-3 and 4-2-3-1 formations to start me off and we’ll see where things go from there.

Win Some Stuff

It’s a fact that I’d happily pick a team, play through a save and never win anything on the game. The rewards for me are usually bringing through players or finding a gem and making loads of money on them. Let’s change that for FM22. The first objective is usually always “don’t get sacked”, and then I’ll look to actually win something with a club that hasn’t won a major trophy since the 1976 FA Cup.

I’ll take another FA Cup, maybe even the Europa Conference League. A Premier League win? Come back to me in a couple of seasons and I’ll tell you how I’m feeling on that.

---

Will Saints be my only save on FM22? Who knows. I’m not setting any goals, guidelines or targets for myself.

How often will I blog? Who knows. I’ve not quite settled into a new rhythm of free time yet so I wouldn’t like to say.

Wait, so this isn’t a beta save, you’re actually starting a save straight away in the English Premier League? No journey to get there or anything? Yeah, I am. Hopefully you’ll join me by following along.

The Golden Generation | Fin

FM21? Completed it mate.

The end of my seventh feels like a natural place to stop with Vålerenga continuing to dominate, and there's some bonus Norwegian national team chat from the 2026 World Cup too.

Read on!

Transfers

The work put in to scouting externally and developing players internally means we've been able to massively punch above our weight as a club. A record £76m was made from selling players across the 2026 season, with a new club record sale of £34m on the horizon too.

Dawid Bugaj and Frederik Glinvad left the club for £18m and £17m, respectively, a profit of £31.2m for both players, after Bugaj had arrived from SPAL for £3.8m and Glinvad was signed on a free from FC Midtjylland. Those were our two biggest sales in January, while Tarjei Loen became the biggest fee we've received for one of our homegrown youth players so far.

He left for Inter for £14.5m in the mid-season window. The wonderkid is probably best deployed as a winger but he mostly played either on the left of a four-man defence or as a wing-back in the 3-3-2-1-1.

I say so far, because in-game the transfer of homegrown wonderkid American international keeper, Carlos Archer, hasn't happened yet. He's also joining Inter for a potential fee of £34m, making him the highest sale of the save to date. I'm sure you'll agree he's not bad at all.

His sale will bring the total for players sold under my management to £254.55m. I've splashed out on transfers where I've deemed it to be necessary, spending £62m across my tenure. The club is ending with £240m in the bank with not a lot to do with it still. Our facilities are maxed out, attendances aren't quite at the level required for a stadium expansion and there's only so much I've been willing to pay players. I'm sure if I let the AI take over they'd ruin it fairly quickly.

2026 Eliteserien

League Table

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Headlines

Maximum points to finish the save! It was sheer domination from us this season, laying waste to everything in our way. We won the league after 23 matches, which is the earliest title win so far. Our 106 goals scored is a huge record for the Eliteserien. We scored four or more in 13 of our 30 league matches, scoring seven on two occasions as well against Ranheim and Mjøndalen.

Grinding out results is the mark of champions. Sometimes the way to grind out results and make a breakthrough is from a set piece, and we absolutely dominated them this season. We scored 16 goals from corners and 10 from indirect free kicks. There was four from direct free kicks too. A hallmark of our 4-2-4 formation is a lot of goals come from out wide, I’ve always been a believer in just get the ball into the box and anything can happen, and my side ran with that this season. They led the way in crosses completed with 356, 55 more than the 2nd placed side, odds. We had an average of 19.6 shots per game and by far the most shots and most shots on target in the league this season.

The 15 goals conceded doesn’t quite break our record of 12 from the 2024 season, but I’ll take it. We only conceded 193 shots all season, with just 81 of those going on target. Carlos Archer barely had anything to do on reflection.

Domestic Competitons

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It wouldn’t have felt right to finish off the save any other way than with a domestic treble, so I’m glad we managed it.

Everything was largely comprehensive and there isn’t too much to say about it. After a few shakey moments early on across the domestic cup competitions, I’m glad we were able to start completely dominating them.

Continental Competition

It wasn’t a complete sea of green across the calendar year for the club. A home draw against Chelsea in the first leg of the Champions League first knockout round was promising but the uphill struggle was too much. They comfortably went through 4-2 on aggregate in last season’s competition. We hit the jackpot a little bit with this season’s Champions League group.

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We swept up all before us to finish on maximum points and a goal difference of +19. The Intility Arena demolitions of Standard and Kyiv were an absolute joy to watch.

Bayern Munich were the team out of the hat this time for the first knockout round. We’ll never know what could’ve been on the continental competition front with this team. It always gets panned as a concept, but I would’ve liked to have had much more of a go at the Europa or Europa Conference League. I think we would’ve been in with a good shout of winning either of them.

A Look At - Albert Braut Tjåland

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There was only going to be one man to look at in my final season at the club.

He broke his own Eliteserien goalscoring record this season, hitting 34 across the 30 matches on his way to being crowned Eliteserien Player of the Year. It was 43 across his 35 appearances in total for the season, not quite hitting the heights of his 2024 record of 47 in 48 appearances but that was helped by us not automatically qualifying for the Champions League group stage that season.

After joining at the end of my first season in charge he’s gone on to score 216 goals in 242 appearances for me. A quite incredible signing, an incredible player, he’s still only 22! What will he be like on FM22 I wonder?

The singling out could’ve been a whole host of players this season to be honest. Edvard Tagseth broke the seasonal assist record, laying on 22 goals for his teammates. Jørgen Strand Larsen started to properly repay some of that £9m outlay by hitting 29 goals in 40 appearances. 19-year-old Sakda Wongpradit had a breakout season too as the understudy striker, scoring 15 times in just over 2,000 minutes on the pitch. Carlos Archer and Julian Grøndal were rocks at the back and played well beyond their ages of just 19 and 21, respectively.

The Golden Generation

I titled my FM21 the Golden Generation because there was a group of very special Norwegians that stood out to me. It was them that made me decide I wanted to manage the national team alongside a club side.

As the save has gone on, it's been evident I was right. Kristoffer Ajer has been a rock at the back across his 94 caps, Sander Berge has been spectacularly solid in midfield in his 90 caps, Martin Ødegaard has been an assist machine in his 101 caps and Erling Haaland has an incredible 76 goals in his 88 caps. Others have emerged as standouts too. I gave Kristoffer Klaesson and Fredrik André Bjørkan their debuts and they now have 68 and 71 caps, respectively. Jens Petter Hauge has been a constant danger in his 68 caps no matter where he's played. Max Normann Williamsen was one of the main reasons I wanted to head to Norway for FM21 and he's reached a half-century of caps now too.

We failed to do ourselves justice at Euro 2020, going out in the second round against England. The 2022 World Cup was a better story, eventually finishing 3rd after being beaten by eventual winners, Brazil, in the semi final. 2023 brought a 3rd place finish in the Nations League too, beating France after losing out against Spain. The 2024 Euros eluded us as we headed out at the quarter final stage against France, who were eventually beaten in the final by Ukraine. The 2025 Nations League final saw us bring home the first ever bit of silverware for the nation. France and then the Netherlands were downed by Haaland which served as a warm up for this.

Norway are the champions of the world. Save complete, job done.

We weren't tested until we reached the quarter final stage. A quite frankly ridiculous match at the MetLife Stadium against Portugal ended 5-5 after extra time, with Bruno Fernandes equalising and completing his hattrick in the 119th minute. We squeezed through on penalties after that initial heartache. We got our revenge against England in the semi final, going through as 3-2 winners to meet Serbia in the final. Yeah, that's right I said Serbia. They'd beaten the Netherlands and France, both on penalties, so I was a little bit nervy heading into the big one.

I didn't need to be. Although Serbia pegged us back in the first half, a strong second half showing saw us secure the famous trophy. The final score was 4-1, with Ajer, Haaland, Patrick Berg and Oskar Siira Sivertsen on the scoresheet.

Six of the 14 players who played a part in the final were previous or current Vålerenga players under my management. What a moment.

Summary

In my introductory post I posed a few questions. Why hadn't "The Pride of Oslo" been competing for honours every season when the city is such a powerhouse compared to others in the country? Why haven't they been consistently bringing through talented generations of young players? Why haven't they been able to use some financial muscle to hoover up talented players from the rest of the sides in the country?

I'd like to think I've ticked all of those boxes. We're seven-time consecutive Eliteserien winners, five-time consecutive Norwegian Cup winners and six-time consecutive Norwegian Super Cup winners. Unfortunately I won't be here long enough to overhaul Rosenborg's 26 Eliteserien wins with Vålerenga sitting on 11, but I reckon we'd get there no bother.

We’ve brought through some incredible homegrown players and managed to snap up some talented youngsters from elsewhere in the country to bring them into the Vålerenga way of working early on in their careers. There’s been a constant conveyor belt of talent and if I was continuing the save then I’ve no doubt that would only get even better. I think selling a homegrown goalkeeper for £34m is almost the perfect time to call it quits on the save, and the game as a whole. Alongside that World Cup win for the national team, of course. Both achievements feel like vindications of the reason why I picked the nation, league and club for my FM21 save. I’m sure they’ll be plenty of quality Norwegians that pop up during everyone’s FM22 saves, I can’t wait to see them all.

For the first edition in a long time I’m not quite ready to leave this save behind. Who knows what’ll happen, especially with how average FM22 currently looks at first glance…

United to Prevent Suicide

Hopefully you haven’t just skipped over this final section. United to Prevent Suicide is a campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

The Golden Generation | We Go Again

The extreme high of last season's unbeaten domestic season was always going to be difficult to top, especially with such a young squad.

I didn't think a sixth consecutive Eliteserien title was in doubt at any stage of the season, but there was a late wobble in performances and results that concerned me.

Here's the summary of my sixth season in charge of Vålerenga.

Transfers

It was a far quieter season in Oslo compared to last season. The £60m we made from selling players dropped to £23m this time round, with the vast majority coming from selling Hoang Thanh Tuan.

He arrived from Stabæk for £2.5m in 2024, made 62 appearances in a season and a half, developed into a Wonderkid and made the move to Man City for £17m plus 35% of his next sale. He joins fellow Norwegians Martin Ødegaard and Erling Haaland at the Etihad.

As I approached the traditional European transfer window opening, I decided to splash a little bit of that cash I've been moaning about for the past few posts. I kept to my strategy though, and brought a Norwegian back to ply his trade in the country.

The move to two up top brought a need to strengthen our attacking options, so Jørgen Strand Larsen joined for a fee of £9m from Groningen. He's got some great attributes and some that could certainly be improved upon, although at 25-years-old it's unlikely that'll happen now. In the grand scheme of things, he's an excellent Eliteserien forward and should do well. He hit seven goals and created six in his 19 appearances since his move at the beginning of August.

2025 Eliteserien

League Table

Headlines

As alluded to in the opening paragraphs, we're 13 points worse off this season in comparison to last season's unbeaten league season. Brann inflicted our first loss in the league since the 23rd of July 2023, interestingly also against Brann. Daouda Bamba scored in both of those surprise victories as well.

We still scored relatively well this season, hitting 86, but conceded 24 across the 30 matches, our highest figure yet across any season. We've gone from being impenetrable to being a little bit ropey when tested.

The loss and the six draws weren't quite enough for there to be a title race but it definitely leaves some food for thought next season. What approach do I take? What's happened to the back line? Has the definitive shift to more of a 4-2-4 away from the 3-3-2-1-1 seen us become more lax? Will I probably win the league next season anyway?

The biggest headline other than our sixth consecutive title win is Kristiansund's relegation! In my first three seasons at the club they were 2nd place behind us, in 2023 they finished 3rd. Two seasons later and they've dropped out of the top flight. It's a fall so stark that I don't even want to poach any of their players.

Domestic Competitions

More winning!

Bodø/Glimt must really hate playing us in the Mesterfinalen, we've beaten them on all three occasions we've played against them in the competition.

We finally conceded a goal in the Norwegian Cup this season. Minnows, Rana, got a consolation against us in the first round, the first goal we've conceded in the cup since the 2022 final. The 6-1 demolition of 2nd place in the league, Odds, was a particular highlight, as was the late show in the final. Emil Ceide came on as a second half substitute to score a double and assist the other.

Continental Competition

A run to the Quarter Final of last season's Champions League was the furthest we've gone in the competition so far. Manchester City showed their class though, that 6-1 reverse at home was particularly harsh.

The next aim for the save is to ensure automatic qualification into the group stage for the Eliteserien winners. We're so close to achieving it, being just 0.125 coefficient points away from 10th place Ukraine. We need to ensure we keep earning points and hope that our league rivals do too, which they certainly haven't been so far.

We've got a chance to earn more points this season as we qualified from our group in 2nd place behind Barcelona. I was delighted to grab a home draw with them on matchday 1 and to take 14 goals off Club Brugge across our two matches. Ultimately that 3-1 defeat on matchday 5 saw us finish 2nd and we'll face Chelsea in the first knockout round.

A Look At - Edvard Tagseth

Tagseth is now a two-time Norwegian Eliteserien Player of the Year and Players' Player of the Year. He scooped his second consecutive award double this season after another superb season where he increased his goalscoring record, hitting five compared to last season's two, but decreased his assists, laying on seven instead of 14.

It's not bad for his first two seasons in Oslo since his £4.2m move from underachievers, Rosenborg. Last season he was our Regista, controlling proceedings. This season he's still our playmaker but his role has shifted slightly into a Deep-Lying Playmaker in a midfield two that's tasked with a lot of work going forward and back.

I've got to admit though, the majority of his assists do come from set pieces. He's actually the best corner taker at the club despite having only 12 for it. Maybe I should be like Ondrej and put a bit more effort into that...

He's been the subject of a whole host of bids for the past 12 months. Chinese clubs are desperate to land him, as are a few European giants. I've set a £20m asking price, but I get a lot of bids closer to his current value. Will anyone pay up to land him? Or will I persuade him to sign an extension to his deal that's currently only got a year left to run?

I chose to single out Tagseth this season, but it is worth mentioning that Albert Braut Tjåland continues to score ridiculously well for us. He hit 41 goals in 44 appearances this season, just shy of last season's 47-goal season.

Who's Next?

One of the big aims of the save is to continuously bring through generations of talent. At the time of writing, 42% of the first team squad are homegrown at the club with a further 33% homegrown in Norway. It feels strange to be talking about the players who're looking likely to be next to make the step up to the first team when my first team only contains four players over the age of 23, but here we are.

Sakda Wongpradit came through the 2023 youth intake and was instantly one of the standouts. He's absolutely demolished the u19 scoring charts and completely deserves a call up to the first team. Some might have gotten him involved sooner, but I tried to be patient.

The move to 4-2-4, and two strikers, means he should get more opportunities going forward too. I've got high hopes for the Thai-born Norwegian u21 forward.

The aim for season seven is improvement. We need to be more like season five Vålerenga rather than season six Vålerenga. If we get some bids for players they'll be considered but the aim right now ahead of the season is to keep the bulk of the squad together for at least one more season before another selling spree.

Will we win our seventh consecutive league title?

United to Prevent Suicide

Hopefully you haven’t just skipped over this final section. United to Prevent Suicide is a new campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

The Golden Generation | Invincibles

Change is constant at the Intility Arena. Talented players join Vålerenga, they train in the best facilities in the country, are coached by the best coaches, get meaningful minutes on the pitch, show off their talent, and leave for bigger clubs.

Over the past season, nine first team squad players have left the club for a grand total of just over £70m. Of the nine, six were regular starters in the first team. Of the nine, six had been at the club since I joined or were club youth products. Change is good though. Change can bring different results, better ones.

The title of the post maybe gives the game away, but here's how the 2024 season went.

Who's Gone?

Like I said in the intro, it was another eventful season of player sales.

Filip Rønningen Jørgensen has been the most expensive player signed by the club in my time so far, just hitting £8m in total at the beginning of the 2022 season. His success-laden couple of seasons always attracted interest and it was Premier League Everton that eventually secured his signature for an eventual fee of £20m. That made him the most expensive export from the country to date.

Oskar Siira Sivertsen came, conquered and left. He joined for £4.2m from Kristiansund at the beginning of last season, scored 31 goals over the course of the season, finishing as our top scorer in all competitions, and left for Beijing for £15m. It's difficult to knock back those Chinese bids for Norwegian players because they've got the ability to massively increase the amount they make in wages.

I was disappointed to let Tobias Sagstuen Andersen leave, especially after he'd swept up in last season's awards and had come on leaps and bounds in his time at the club. Just a reminder that I signed him for £325. There's no numbers missing from that figure. He was attracting all sorts of interest after his stellar season and it was Al Hilal who eventually secured the £10m deal. Not a bad profit at all.

When you join a new club would you look at a player out on loan in your reserve squad worth under £50k and think that he could be useful and you'd be eventually selling him for £5m? Fredrik Holmé managed to improve his game, break into my first team and earn a move to Leeds Utd. Here he is at 18 and here he is after his first 12 months at Leeds.

Aron Dønnum, Osame Sahraoui, Henrik Bjørdal, Oskar Opsahl and Aaron Anderson all also left the club for a combined total of £19m. Anderson was in my first batch of youth players and had incredible mental ability but just didn't quite have the technical or physical skills to break into the first team consistently. The other four players were all at the club when I first joined, and have all performed superbly for me during my time so far. Especially Dønnum and Sahraoui, who often at times rotated between them as the man behind the striker in my 3-3-2-1-1.

Similarly to last season, we've still got more money than I know what to do with. I've splashed some out on transfers, including signing up some promising young players to come in and develop, but as it stands at the end of this season, we're sitting with £120m in the bank and not a lot to do with it.

2024 Eliteserien

League Table

Headlines

An undefeated league campaign is the big headline from the season as we win our fifth consecutive title! I'm delighted to finally achieve it after going close over the past couple of seasons. Am I annoyed about that draw which ruins the perfect 30 wins? Yeah probably a little bit but it does still give me something to aim for. At one point it looked as though we'd only concede single figures across the season too but we conceded three goals in two matches in the final month of the season against 13th placed Sandefjord and relegated Kongsvinger.

The other big headline is the 93 goals we scored, an average of 3.1 a game. Not bad at all! It's a new Eliteserien record along with our points total. Last season, we were aggressive and wasteful in the analysis of our attacking efficiency. Our conversion rate was around 12%. This season we managed to whack it up to over 15%, as we were aggressive and clinical. Other than a tweak of the tactic midway through the season, not much changed across the seasons other than some of the bodies on the park. Despite him finishing as our top scorer last season, maybe picking Sivertsen ahead of Tjåland was the wrong move from me.

Bodø/Glimt had their best season yet as well, even making the Champions League group stage which is huge for the nation as a whole. They pushed us pretty closely up until the final few months of the season where they had three of their four defeats and they were who our solitary draw was against at the end of July.

Domestic Competitions

Albert Braut Tjåland loves the Norwegian Mesterfinalen. That's two hattricks he's scored in each of the last two season showpiece openers.

We secured the domestic treble for the third consecutive season by winning the Norwegian Cup again. We've gone two seasons now without conceding a goal in the competition, last conceding in the 34th minute of the 2022 final against Rosenborg. Although, we couldn't quite break down a stubborn Odds in the final this season, sneaking the trophy on penalties.

Continental Competition

Our only defeats across the whole of 2024 came in the Champions League. Barcelona beat us in both legs of the 2023/24 1st knockout round, a well deserved 4-0 thumping on aggregate. It took an 87th minute ABT goal to take us through in the 2024/25 Champions Playoff. We did lose 3-2 on the night against Kobenhavn, but went through 4-3 on aggregate thanks to that late goal.

What followed was rather unexpected.

We absolutely dominated our Champions League group. Last season, we did well to spring a surprise and top the group. This season, only a draw in the San Siro prevented us from maximum points. New signing, Emil Ceide, benefitted from the tactical change and scored six goals across the group matches. He actually scored 16 in total across his 22 appearances since joining on a free transfer at the beginning of August after being released by PSG. Five assists too, not a bad signing so far.

Borussia Dortmund await us in the 1st knockout round.

A Look At - Albert Braut Tjåland

For the first half of the season he was the main man up top again in the 3-3-2-1-1 formation, but following a few incomings and outgoings, a change of tactic meant he was joined up top by a strike partner. I think it helped him even more. He broke the league goalscoring record which had stood since 1968, firing in 32 goals in his 29 league matches. He's also now the record league goalscorer in Vålerenga history with 83 goals in 101 league matches. He's got 132 in total for us now in 163 appearances, and this 47-goal season beats his previous highest total of 46 two seasons ago.

He just loves to play on the shoulders of opposition defenders and get in behind them. Here he is slamming one home against Porto in the Champions League.

He won the Eliteserien Young Player of the Year and the Norwegian Players' Player and Young Player of the Year awards alongside his league top scorer award and a place in the Players' Team of the Year.

He's still only 20-years-old. Will he get better in a technical sense? I'm not quite sure but I'm still trying to develop a few of those attributes. I'd love to see his Finishing increase up 14, going bright green in my attribute colours.

The first team squad we ended the season with has an average age of 20.6. The future is more than bright in Oslo. Who knows which first team players will leave this coming off-season and be replaced by the next raft of talent coming through our system.

That's what keeps me going in this save, it's what I set out to do. Have a conveyer belt of talent coming through the club and keep on doing my best to develop players. Will we get the same level of success next season? Who knows...

United to Prevent Suicide

Hopefully you haven’t just skipped over this final section. United to Prevent Suicide is a new campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

The Golden Generation | Chop and Change

Don't worry, the title of today's post doesn't mean I'm abandoning Vålerenga. It refers to my fourth season in charge at the club being one where things were chopped up and changed. It was time to move some players on to make way for the next raft of talent to take their place.

Would this unsettle us on our way to try and clinch a fourth consecutive Eliteserien title? Let's see what happened.

Who's Gone?

It was our first season without Kristoffer Klaesson, as his one and a half year loan spell with the club came to an end after his £4.8m to PSG. He's actually already moved from PSG as well, with Napoli securing his signature and making him their number one. I decided not to recruit a goalkeeper externally and promote his previous number two, Kjetil Haug, who's fine but is certainly a downgrade on the attribute eye-test.

Mid-season is always a tricky time in Norway. The major European transfer windows open ahead of their new seasons beginning and it usually means we tend to get bombarded with transfer offers.

I'd already touched on the sale of Max Normann Williamsen in my post covering off my approach to recruitment. It was a huge fail on my part, with me selling him earlier than I perhaps needed to due to some contractual confusion, but his £7m sale to Standard became a club record transfer fee received. He's now a Norway regular and he'll no doubt go onto bigger and better things to make me rage even more than I didn't get to insert a sell on fee percentage.

Tobias Christensen arrived from Molde for £950k ahead of my second season and had a superb time on the left wing, scoring 16 and assisting nine. He transitioned into a LWB as part of the move to the 3-3-2-1-1 formation in my third season. He arguably had an even better time, 55 appearances later in that position he'd scored 10 and laid on 22 goals for his teammates. The £4m fee Bournemouth paid for him might seem like not much, but I was happy to take it and make way for a younger, homegrown LWB to come through. We'll receive 30% of his next sale as well.

Sivert Mannsverk signed for £1.6m last season but remained with Sogndal for the first half of the season. He then made 28 appearances in his two half seasons in Oslo with us before Udinese signed him for £6m. He was fine on the pitch but I always felt he had the ability to do more. We'll receive 30% of any profit made on his next sale.

The final big sale of the season came on deadline day across Europe as Brighton made Odin Thiago Holm theirs for a Norwegian and Vålerenga record sale of £12m. He was having a good season for us from the centre of midfield, with 10 assists and nine goals in 24 appearances, that was the most goals he'd scored in a season so far for us. He's been superb for me, one of the bright spots of the save so far and at just 20-years-old he should go on to bigger and better things. I'm hoping he does because we'll get 35% of his next sale.

The club finances are overflowing at the moment. There's more money than I know what to do with, especially with my approach to recruitment being geared towards youth development and domestic talent. The facilities are all pretty much maxed out as well. Any other suggestions of what to do with the cash?

2023 Eliteserien

League Table

Winning! We secure our fourth consecutive Eliteserien title.

Our two league defeats both came in July, as Molde and Brann inflicted defeats at the Intility Arena. In the prior three seasons we'd only suffered one home defeat in total in the league. We followed that up by not conceding a goal across our four league matches in August.

There was no slacking off once the title had been confirmed this season. We finished the season with six straight wins, scoring 18 goals and conceding three.

Headlines

Our number of wins in the league goes:

• 2020 - 21 wins

• 2021 - 22 wins

• 2022 - 23 wins

• 2023 - 24 wins

So that's fun. 25 next season?

Our points tally of 76 is a new record, and the 15 point gap to 2nd place is the most we've won the league by so far.

Our two defeats this season was one more than last, but we finally beat our goals conceded record. 16 conceded across the season is one less than the 17 we've conceded in each of the past three seasons. Maybe we didn't need Kristoffer Klaesson after all. We scored six less goals this season compared to last, though.

Related to that, the biggest headline of the season for me has been our wastefulness in front of goal. Our xG per game was 2.47 and we scored 2.37 goals per game, that seems good on the surface. Digging a bit deeper, we take a huge number of shots per game in comparison to our league opponents, our total of 618 is 178 more than Stromgodset. Our shots on target ratio is around the same as the league average but our conversion rate is bottom half of the table worthy at just 11%.

I mentioned it in the recent tactical post too, I think the game might be slightly punishing us for being so dominant. I tried to remedy it by dropping our tempo, the thinking behind that being that we're rushing things when we get the opportunity. A proportion of our shots are usually blocked, and it might be poor decision making from the players themselves, but I need to see whether I can do something on my side.

45% of the first team squad is now homegrown at the club and our current average age is just 21. That's likely to be even younger next season as the two oldest players in the squad are due to depart. I'm really excited about a few of the young prospects developing in our 2nd and u19 squads at the moment.

Domestic Competitions

It was another clean sweep of the Norwegian domestic competitions this season, our second consecutive treble. Albert Braut Tjåland ended last season with a hattrick in the Norwegian Cup final and he began this season with a hattrick in the Norwegian Supercup final.

We brought home our second consecutive Norwegian Cup without conceding a goal this season, impressive. It did take a dodgy penalty to squeeze past Kristiansund in the semi final though, we'll take it.

Continental Competitions

Last season we had some Europa League knockout football to contend with along with the start of the new season. A run to the quarter final was an incredible achievement. We then proceeded to get drawn into a group of death in the Champions League and finish 4th, which meant there'd be no knockout continental football to start this season. I think it helped with our early league form.

As usual, we had alllllll of the Champions League qualifying rounds to contend with. Sparta Prague gave us a scare in the 1st round and we just snuck through after extra time. It was relatively smooth sailing after that against Stjarnan and Partizan.

Safe to say I wasn't happy when Chelsea, Milan and Atlético were drawn out the pots. After two matches and two 2-0 defeats, I was pretty much resigned to finishing 4th. What came next was pretty ridiculous.

Where would six points against Milan, a draw against Chelsea and a thrilling final matchday showdown against Atléti put us in the table?

Wow, remarkable. Has anyone ever topped their Champions League group with a negative goal difference before? Other than the financials and helping towards increasing our reputation it hasn't done much difference, Barcelona await us in the 1st knockout round.

A Look At - Tobias Sagstuen Andersen

What a season the big man at the back had. Well, had at both ends of the pitch really.

Our defence was largely rock solid across the season and he finished as third highest scorer, with 12 goals from his 37 appearances. Seven of those came in the league as he finished on a 7.51 average rating and swept up at the end of season awards bash.

He won Eliteserien Players' Player of the Year, Eliteserien Player of the Year, Eliteserien Young Player of the Year and made the Eliteserien Team of the Year as well. Our supporters, of course, nominated him as their Player of the Year too. I think I've got my money's worth out of the £325 signing. He is now attracting the attention of LaLiga, Seria A, Bundesliga and Chinese clubs, so it'll be interesting to see how long I can fend off interest for. We'll certainly be making a big profit on him if and when he does eventually leave Oslo.

After my Tweet about him I've had a few people get in touch saying they've managed to pick up a bargain for themselves. It's always good to serve as your Norwegian scout!

As always, I think it'll be all change again during the Norwegian off-season. I'll be battling to keep my players during the January transfer window, but if they do go we'll be well placed to recruit internally. The money is there if I want to splash out a little bit on that special Norwegian talent.

Talking of special Norwegian talent, I barely mentioned the signing of Oskar Siira Sivertsen. He was really unlucky to miss out on being singled out, as he finished top scorer ahead of Albert Braut Tjåland despite featuring in less minutes over the course of the season. The £4.2m man repaid a big chunk of that with some important goals in Europe. I'm still determined to put something together that seamlessly fits them both into the side. Suggestions on a postcard please.

That season took a little longer to finish than I would've liked, but in comparison to what seems like plenty of others, FM isn't my only priority. Things are starting to open up again now and the weather is hopefully going to improve so who knows when I'll be back with the 2024 season. Whenever it is, I hope you'll join me. In the meantime, feel free to join FMSlack if you want to keep up to speed a little more in real time whenever I get the chance to jump on and play a few matches.

United to Prevent Suicide

Hopefully you haven’t just skipped over this final section. United to Prevent Suicide is a new campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

My FM21 Tactic: 3-3-2-1-1

I recently read Wings of Change, a book from Karan Tejwani in which he goes in-depth on how Red Bull has infiltrated the footballing world. Julian Nagelsmann previously transformed Hoffenheim from 17th place in the Bundesliga when he took over to them becoming “one of Germany’s most exciting teams”, according to the book. His work there attracted the attention of Red Bull and he eventually joined Leipzig.

As soon as I read the the sentence “the German mostly worked around a 3-1-4-2” and the next page on how their overloads and pressing operated, I immediately had a tactic in mind that I knew I wanted to try out on Football Manager. This isn't a tactical recreation, I'm not into that. It's my interpretation, based on literally a few sentences from the book.

So here's the tactic I've called my 3-3-2-1-1.

The 3-3-2-1-1

Style

Sometimes it feels like there aren’t many FM tactics out there that aren’t Gegenpressing in style, so here's another one based on it to throw into the mix.

I find it difficult to create a tactic without it being high tempo, without the players relentlessly pressing and without clicking counter-pressing and countering on. I think that's the way I like my football teams to play. I want the ball hunted down and I want us to break forward at speed. I've only recently taken higher tempo off as a team instruction because I was watching us be too quick going forward and snatching at our opportunities. Of course, with our Positive mentality, our tempo is still slightly higher.

Could it be even more dominating? Potentially if I moved to an Attacking or Very Attacking mentality. For now though I'm happy with Positive.

The biggest thing for me is the coverage across all areas of the pitch. The three central defenders give us that defensive stability. The two central midfielders, with the Regista behind them, enable us to control the middle of the pitch. Our Wing Backs provide width and can push high up the pitch when we've got the ball and the two players in forward positions provide varying options in attack and the chance to build play through the middle, or hit a target from out wide. I'll provide some examples of these situations later on.

While the "Pendeleffekt" isn't easily possible to recreate on FM, I've definitely seen aspects of it. It's essentially a defensive overload to one side of the pitch to limit the opposing players options. For example, if the opposition left back has the ball, my RWB, RCM and Shadow Striker might all have attempts at closing him down and winning possession from him. If any of them are then found out of position, the structure behind them is still very secure.

I think this is definitely one of the most fun-to-watch tactics I've ever created on any version of the game. I've enjoyed all my previous attempts, but I don't think the variety of this one and the output I've been getting has been rivalled.

Key Roles

There's a few roles in the team that are vital and I've outlined them below.

Advanced Forward

We need goals, this role scores them.

Albert Braut Tjåland scored 46 goals in 46 appearances last season as our main Advanced Forward. We have, on average, around 50% more shots than our closest competitor in the league and I think the game actually sometimes punishes us with poor finishing because we create so many chances. Our conversion rate is one of the poorest in the league at just 10%, although obviously with the sheer number of shots we have we're still high goalscorers over the seasons.

Tjåland has had to share the load up top a little bit more this season but he still has 23 goals in 25 starts. His back up, Oskar Siira Sivertsen, has 21 goals in just 12 starts.

You don't need me to tell you what's key for the Advanced Forward role. For me, it's all about the movement, pace and ability to score goals. They're there to do one thing, and one thing only, and that's scoring past goalkeepers.

Regista

Yes, FM21 has some issues with data and what counts as what. That makes it tricky to determine sometimes whether the game is propping up how good a certain player is if you're only looking at things like key passes or average ratings. However, watching the matches, what I see from my Regista is just lovely.

Regular followers of my FMing will know that I'm not usually one for the more unique player roles. When putting tactics together before I've never thought up something that I thought a Regista could fit into from what I wanted overall. This tactic is different. It suits it perfectly and I've been completely won over by the role.

Some will remember my Deep Lying Destroyer from FM18, it's not exactly that type of player I'm looking for in this Regista role, but it's a similar thought process. Its defensive position being in the DM slot, it'd be desirable to have some of the vital defensive attributes, such as Positioning or Anticipation, so the player could have that Kanté-like ability to be everywhere.

Offensive playmaker attributes are obviously so important though because of how much more forward the role operates when we have the ball. It might just be me being bias, but I think the Regista attracts the ball in forward positions much more than a DLP or an AP.

Left Wing Back

I recently sold Tobias Christensen to Bournemouth, a dangerous wide forward that I'd converted into a Left Wing Back when I switched to this tactical approach. He had a great time down that left hand side and while he was, attributes-wise, a terrible defender, it didn't matter too much because it was his forward play that was the reason he was in the side.

With Christensen gone and me turning to his back up, homegrown player Oskar Opsahl, and the difference in the output of the role has been stark. Christensen got 15 assists in his final full season for us. Opsahl is fine, he's got 8 so far this season but he doesn't have that bit of special quality to drive the side forward on the left. I'm really excited to see how Tarjei Loen develops, as he's in a similar mould to Christensen. At 16, he's got a few years developing to do to get to his peak capabilities.

Attacking Movement

The central attacking four are the dangers for us going forward. One tweak I've consistently debated is what to do with those two central midfield roles. Sometimes it's difficult for people to stray away from the shinier roles for the perceived more boring CM roles. They're basically Jack of all trades. They provide stability, they can drift wide if they want to, they can go forward if they want to, they can get into the box if they want to and they can score goals if they want to. Would any of the other central midfield roles do this? Perhaps, but I haven't tried it out yet.

Here's just a few example snippets of us going forward.

As soon as Holm, playing CM(A), sprays the ball out left to Opsahl, Sahraoui, playing Shadow Striker, is on his bike looking for that ball in behind the defence. He pretty much joins Tjåland as a front two occupying the Partizan defenders. You can see Holm sprinting forward too, reaching the edge of the box as the ball hits the back of the net.

Movement is absolutely key, but anticipating mistakes are often as important.

FRJ, more often than not playing in the Regista role, will always keep the ball moving. The metronome of the side operates in that little pocket just behind the midfield two. That more aggressive playmaker side of the role will appear if you've got the player to try it. Siira Sivertson's Off the Ball movement and speed pulls him clear of the defenders here as neither can deal with FRJ's ball that splits them. A composed finish as well.

The counter attacking quality of the side appeared in extra time of Champions League qualifying against Sparta Prague, as we cleared a wide free kick. Holm picked up the ball on the edge of our area and it was instantly five on two.

Holm eventually found Siira Sivertson who rounded the keeper superbly to score.

Defensive Positioning

The base of the team is solid, but it can also be quite prone to conceding goals from the chances we do concede. I think this is something that naturally happens when you get to a certain point with the team you're managing, especially so in a league where you're almost completely dominant. Individual mistakes can cost you.

Look at Daouda Bamba completely outpacing Tobias Sagstuen Andersen, playing in that CD(C) role in the centre of the defensive trio. He gets to the ball first, shrugs him off, and finishes superbly to score his second in a shock 3-1 home defeat.

The ideal scenario would be to upgrade the Wing Backs, especially on that left hand side like I already mentioned. They're required to do an extreme amount of work both going forward and defending. If the opposition overload the wide areas then we can be susceptible to that. There's definitely evidence of that when we come unstuck against the more reputable sides once we reach the Champions League group stages.

United to Prevent Suicide

It’s time to shine a light on United to Prevent Suicide. It’s a campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

My Approach to Recruitment on FM21

I'm putting a huge focus behind developing young players on FM21.

I've spoken before about improving the abilities of young players, playing them in my first team and selling them on. While that could be taken as me doing a solely homegrown save, where I'm only allowed to play my own youth products without signing any new players, I've never once said that. It probably is the overall aim for the save, one day it might well be the case.

One thing I did say in my introductory blog post was that I was looking to make Oslo, and Vålerenga, the destination for promising young players to come and hone their skills. This means I've been recruiting and developing some of Norway's most promising talent. We've been acting like the big team that we should have been, and now are. Here's the approach I've taken to doing that.

Domestic recruitment

We're three-in-a-row Eliteserien champions now and Champions League group stage regulars. Players across Norway want to join us ahead of taking that next step to even bigger things.

One player that as soon as I saw I knew had to be mine was Filip Rønningen Jørgensen. FRJ plays for Odds and is a highly talented teenager. Probably one of the most naturally talented players in the Eliteserien.

At the end of my first season, after we'd been crowned Champions and had a little bit more money in the bank, I set out on my quest to make him a Vålerenga player. Odds were quoting me £10m+, obviously trying to put me off from being interested. It's at this point I went on a season-long charm offensive.

The first step was sending my Chief Scout on a four-match mission to watch him. This wasn't the only time this happened across the season. I also decided to go and watch Odds a few times myself, as painful as it is to sit there through matches you aren't playing in. I don't really take how players play in other systems for other clubs into consideration in my recruitment decision making, so other than a few flashes of brilliance, FRJ didn't really stand out much when I watched him. It shows him you're keen though.

Coupled with that, I told the press he was our top target. He was, it wasn't a lie. I don't take this approach for every player I'm trying to sign, only for a select few potential stars. A few back and forwards of derisory bids and making rejected enquiries added to the case in FRJ's mind that we were keen. The player was keen too, but Odds stood relatively firm. Armed with another influx of prize money from domestic and continental competition at the end of season two, it was time to swoop. Is a £6m fee too much for him? I don't think so.

Now 20, he had a brilliant first season which was curtailed slightly early due to a nasty injury. He's bounced back ahead of the new season and has that Regista role in my tactic sewn up. He's made the breakthrough into the Norwegian national team setup now too and attracted a fair few bids in the latest transfer window. It could almost be time to cash in before it goes the same way as the next player.

The chase to sign Max Normann Williamsen was far simpler and he's about to become one of the first to move on from the club as part of our strategy. I'm selling him for more than I bought him for (£2m), but it's a lesson for the future. His contract expires at the end of next season and he had zero interest in signing a new one, I'd waited too long to tie him into a new deal. Maybe with time he might have changed his mind but I decided to sell him now to cash in.

He becomes our record sale at £7m, joining Standard Liege in the summer transfer window, but it could have been much, much more, especially now he's a regular in Norwegian national team squads. One to learn from going forward and I'm now adding in at least one-year extensions clauses as standard to most new deals I'm negotiating.

There's been a fair few other domestic incomings so far, including some young players I've poached to get them into the Vålerenga system as soon as possible. I could just flood this post full of even more screenshots of the likes of Sivert Mannsverk, Syver Aas, Tobias Christensen and more, but they'll maybe appear in other posts. Our strikeforce going into my fourth season is something I wanted to shout about though, it's the perfect example of me snapping up the best Norwegian domestic talent.

I don't think it would be right for me to write a blog at the moment and not talk about Albert Braut Tjåland. He arrived from Molde for just £800k ahead of my second season. Across that season he had to contend with being a back-up behind Kjartansson, who'd played well in my first season. Despite that, he still scored 13 goals in 20 (12) appearances. The decision was made for him to be the main man last season and he showed it was the correct decision by hitting 46 goals in 45 (1) appearances. An unreal season from him. Now worth £2.2m and continually wanted by bigger European clubs, it might soon be time for him to leave.

I've already signed Tjåland's replacement. The big new arrival ahead of season four is Oskar Siira Sivertsen. I've been tracking him for three seasons while he's scored 41 goals alongside perennial Eliteserien top goalscorer, Amahl Pellegrino, for our closest league rivals, Kristiansund.

With a £30m transfer budget burning a hole in my pocket, and last season's veteran back-up striker leaving for the Middle East, I thought I'd go for it. A potential £4.8m deal was agreed for the 19-year-old, after a little bit of haggling and watching him in a few pre-season friendlies.

Spoiler alert, he's already got 10 goals in 2 (8) appearances so far in season four, including this delicious dink. I'm excited.

Domestic bargain of the century has to go to this man though, Tobias Sagstuen Andersen. What a find from my scouts, Raufoss should've acted like Odds and put up much more of a fight to keep this man. We snatched him away for just £325. That's not a typo. He was a Perfectionist, although that's dropped to Fairly Determined now. He's come on leaps and bounds and was a permanent fixture in the middle of our three central defenders last season, hitting double figures for goals too as we continue to make set pieces count. It pays to scout the lower leagues in the country you're playing in with him now being worth £1m and tipped for a national team call up by the media.

Regional recruitment

Our reputation is increasing across the continent too. I definitely see us on the same perch as Danish clubs FC Midtjylland and FC Nordsjælland when it comes to the different approaches they take compared to the form. I also see us along similar lines to FC København and previous perennial Eliteserien champions, Rosenborg, in terms of the size of club we are now. Players in the Nordic region want to join us to better themselves.

Naatan Skyttä is one of those players. He was a player I'd spotted playing for the Finnish u21 side and snapped him up for £230k. So far he's struggled for a place in the first team and could probably benefit from a loan out or for some other players to be moved on. I really like him though. He's a young, diminutive, flair player that could be very fun to watch. Plus, he's currently highly rated IRL and has one of those YouTube insane flicks and tricks videos, so I'm keeping him.

Andreas Schjelderup is Norwegian but starts the game at FC Nordsjælland, one of those aforementioned clubs. He's very highly rated IRL and I just missed out on signing him from them previously, as he chose to join Hobro in Denmark once his contract had expired.

Undeterred, I kept tabs on him and had my scouts keep watching him. The holy grail is when players become unhappy and want to leave clubs and I jumped at the chance to sign him for £650k. Not a bad profit for Hobro but a relatively low fee for us these days considering our transfer budget.

He's got some improving to do but at just 18-years-old, he's got time to do it and he's now at the right club to kick him onto the next level.

I'm always keeping an eye out for players across the region, and Filip Bundgaard is one I've been tracking for a couple of seasons now. He's got a minimum fee release clause of £3.8m for foreign clubs, which of course we are. It's a constant battle whether I should just pull the trigger or not. Should I?

Continental recruitment

My recruitment across the continent has so far been geared towards bringing back talented Norwegians to the country. They're players who left when they were younger and haven't quite been able to make the breakthrough yet at their clubs. Vålerenga can be their platform to get minutes on the pitch, continue their development and put them on the path to make that similar move abroad again.

Dawid Bugaj is Molde-born, half-Polish and had been a player I'd had my eye on since I joined the club, with the expectation that Christian Borchgrevink would eventually move on in the Right Back position. Yes he's still young but he had yet to make a break into SPAL's first team in Serie B. Once Borchgrevink's move to Spurs was finalised, I made the move. Perhaps a potential £4.7m deal was a little bit of an outlay but I think over time it'll be worth it. He'll either make us that back and then some, or he'll be my RWB for the remainder of my time at the club.

Ex-Stabaek and current Sporting central defender, August Frobenius, returned to Norway to join us last season when his contract in Portugal expired. At just 19 he's got some developing to do too, but he should be a solid option for us at the back.

There's a whole host of additional players I want to bring to Oslo. Håkon Evjen is interested but I think we'd be priced out of a move on wage demands. I'm constantly keeping tabs on Chelsea's Bryan Fiabema, who keeps going out on loan. Now 20, he's still got a couple of years left on his current deal. Isak Hansen-Aarøen is another Premier League loanee regular, currently at NYRB from Manchester United, who looks an incredible prospect. Both Fiabema and Hansen-Aarøen are ex-Tromsø. I think our platform could propel them to the next level, or at least help the club out financially when they're sold on.

International recruitment

There's only been one incoming transfer from beyond Europe so far and that was when I was randomly presented with the scout report of Lamar Walker from Portmore United in Jamaica. He joined for the measly sum of £1.5k and made less than 20 appearances for the first team. He spent the second year of his deal on loan, and impressing, at Haugesund, before he refused a new deal and left on a free transfer.

I'm kicking myself now. He joined Heerenveen and is now worth £5.5m. More proof that I should insert those contract extension clauses into negotiations.

Internal recruitment

After all of that, I shouldn't really be recruiting anyone outwith our club. Our youth system is churning out some very talented young players. Sometimes the lure of signing certain players is too much, as you've seen from some of the players above. They'll eventually move on as planned, and I'll look internally for their replacements.

Tarjei Loen is currently the pick of the bunch, already playing for our 2nd team in the Norwegian third tier at just 16. He should slot perfectly into my current system at LWB.

You probably didn't learn too much from this post. I mainly just wanted to show off some of the players at my disposal currently. The squad we've got is really exciting. My fourth season has begun and I'm looking for us to retain the Eliteserien title in style.

United to Prevent Suicide

It's time to shine a light on United to Prevent Suicide. It’s a campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

The Golden Generation | Domination Begins

Vålerenga's hold on the Eliteserien continues. We're champions yet again.

There's a difference this season though. We're treble winners, dominating domestically. We retained the Mesterfinalen and won our first Norwegian Cup since 2008.

Here's the story of that dominance and a look at a player who had a huge role in making it happen.

2022 Eliteserien

League Table

Kristiansund inflicted our one and only defeat on matchday four and took us close. Our 3-1 win against them on matchday 20 was huge, as they were sitting just three points behind us at the time.

The highlight of the season was our 9-0 demolishing of Strømsgodset, probably one of the most ridiculous matches I've managed on any version of the games in recent years. Everything we hit went in and there was a late flurry of three goals in the final five minutes too. The most unheard of #FMThings.

One worrying aspect of all three seasons so far is that we seem to stumble towards the finishing line. The title was sealed with a 0-0 draw in season one, we lost on the next matchday immediately after winning the title in season two and we ended this season with three draws in our last five.

Headlines

Kristoffer Klaesson was impenetrable yet again. He kept 15 league clean sheets this season, one better than his tally for last season but a few away from his 18 in the 2020 season. 17 goals conceded across the 30 matches is exactly the same number we conceded last season and the season before. We're consistently impenetrable at the back.

However, this season's title win can't solely be attributed to the defence. We scored a whopping 20 more goals this season compared to last season, with 77 goals a new record. We broke the record for the most wins across the season, the least defeats across the season and the points total too.

This doesn't tell the whole story. The five point margin between 1st and 2nd was the smallest one yet. Kristiansund played incredibly across the season too and would've been worthy champions themselves if it wasn't for us. Amahl Pellegrino finished as the league's top scorer with 29 goals from 28 matches. Oskar Siira Sivertsen was out for a month and still bagged 16 in 25. They're a formidable strike duo. Maybe it was our strong defensive showing that won us the league after all.

There's a separate post to come on this, but around halfway through the season we made the shift away from the so far trusted 4-1-2-3 to what I'm currently calling a 3-3-2-1-1. It played some really excellent football, including that aforementioned 9-0 drubbing of Strømsgodset. It did mean a little shuffle of some roles and positions. Tobias Christensen isn't best pleased that he's currently playing LWB for example, but he's been superb there.

There might also be a separate post to come on this but the player pathway opened right up this season. There was a first for my time at the club, with a homegrown youth product making the step up to the first team for some appearances plus a couple of additional players I'd inherited when I joined making the step up too. We cemented our spot as the top club in the country, not just on the pitch but off it too, as we secured the signings of some of our domestic rivals top talent. It's all part of the strategy. Oslo should be the place Norway's talent wants to live, and Vålerenga should be where they want to play their football.

Domestic Competitions

We weren't necessarily known as a high scoring team before this season so I'm not quite sure where the 5-1 thumping of Bodø/Glimt to secure our second consecutive Mesterfinalen trophy came from. We'll take it.

Last season's attempt at winning the Norwegian Cup was a failure. A third round exit at the hands of Rosenborg was avenged by beating them in this season's final. We made it through to the semi final without conceding before squeezing past Haugesund and overcoming a first half deficit in the final. Rosenborg scored with their only shot on target.

The final belonged to one man and there's more to come on him later.

Continental Competitions

You'll know by now that the domestic seasons stretch over a calendar year. This meant we had the 2021/22 Europa League knockouts to contend with in the early stages of the 2022 league season. Bordeaux and Lille were dispatched but the quarter final against Napoli was just a step too far, although we did manage to win in Italy to end the campaign. The damage had been done in the home leg though.

Norway's European coefficient is due to improve in the coming seasons but it currently means we still enter into the first qualifying round of the Champions League champions route. We overcame the Armenian, Croatian, Cypriot and Danish champions and went 2-0 up after 32 minutes against Barcelona on matchday one of the group stage.

That joy was short-lived. Messi and Coutinho grabbed Barca a draw and we went on to lose our next four to be unceremoniously dumped from European competition. Ajax managed to beat Bayern on matchday five so our win against them on matchday six meant nothing, when I really wanted it to be a 3rd place showdown.

A Look At - Albert Braut Tjåland

Haaland's cousin is one of those players that you think you've stumbled across, discovering a rare FM gem, only to realise that everyone else has found him too and he's just another wonderkid.

After 13 goals in his first season mainly playing back up, 2022 was his breakout season for us. I made the decision to make him our main starting option up front, with Kjartansson deputising well as a veteran 32-year-old. The 18-year-old rewarded me with 46 goals in 46 appearances. I could be wrong here but I think that's the highest goal return I've had from a player on any version of the game. I know others have had much higher totals from their strikers, and a couple have had higher returns with Tjåland himself, but I'm really happy with it.

His double in the 5-1 win over Bodø/Glimt in the Mesterfinalen to start the season set the tone. He scored five hattricks across the season, including one in that 9-0 win against Strømsgodset. His goals coming in a 12 minute spell in the first 22 minutes before being taken off with a knock.

At just 18, there was a fine line between him scoring as many goals as I could get him to versus not burning him out. Kjartansson made 13 starts across the season, coming into the starting eleven when I did finally decide to give ABT a rest, or when he needed one. The 15 goals he scored across those starts, and his additional 19 sub appearances, shows what could have been with the main man too. Still, ending the season with a goal every 82 minutes isn't half bad at all.

If I can fend off the vultures I'd love to get another season out of him. We received some derisory summer transfer window bids from English Premier League that I rejected without much fuss. He's still got areas to improve, I've got him working on his Ball Control currently, and I'd love him to improve here in Oslo.

The off-season ahead of the 2023 season feels a bit like a changing of the guard moment. Kristoffer Klaesson's loan deal back to the club from PSG expires, while a similar deal for Right Back, Christian Borchgrevink, ended in the second half of the season with him picking up an injury. I still haven't decided who'll replace Klaesson but I've already replaced Borchgrevink. Plenty more of our players are wanted, there's players ready and waiting to make the step up to replace them. Let's see what happens.

Before all of that though, there's the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to contend with. How will Norway do? See you next time to find out.

United to Prevent Suicide

Hopefully you haven't just skipped over this final section. United to Prevent Suicide is a new campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

My Approach to Youth Development on FM21

A news article appeared online over the festive period that outlined FC Midtjylland's aim of developing a Ballon d'Or winning talent by 2030. FCM aren't strangers of setting out lofty aims for themselves but this one certainly caught the attention of many.

Firstly, I don't think it's something that's ever been set out as a public aim for a club before. Secondly, it was just a sensationalist headline (it was the Daily Mail after all). The real aim here was to create something that could rival La Masia or De Toekomst in the future.

The name of FCM's new school also stood out for me, Goldmine. Midtjylland chairman, and Brentford Director of Football, Rasmus Ankersen, is the author of the book, The Gold Mine Effect.

Ankersen travelled the world visiting various "gold mines", areas which produce a disproportionate amount of talent. Think Jamaica and sprinters. Ethiopia and distance runners. Kenya and marathon runners. I love the book and would recommend you read it if you haven't already. This is exactly what FCM are trying to emulate. Ankersen is using his experience and trying to put it all into creating an environment that will enable the development of footballing stars of tomorrow, one that encourages footballers to be the best they can be.

It's exactly what I want to do at Vålerenga on FM21. While I can't ensure that my young players are all participating in a multi-sport programme up until a certain age to broaden their skillset, for example, there are some things I can try and control. This is how I approach it on the game.

Facilities

The facilities on offer at Vålerenga before I joined the club were a big factor in me picking them for my save. I bypassed a few stages ever-so-slightly there. The club has Excellent Youth Facilities, and in a couple of months time this will move up to the next level after a board request was accepted.

The quality of your Youth Facilities will impact how good your newgens are when they appear in your intake. Get your Youth Facilities to State of the Art and there's a good chance that your newgens will have better Current and Potential Ability than they would have if you had Basic Youth Facilities. It's still a chance at the end of the day.

I said in my introductory post to the save that I wanted to consistently bring through generation after generation of Oslo youngsters who're good enough for the first team and beyond. Alongside Youth Facilities, the other starting points of that is in our Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment. I've been able to raise both at Vålerenga, they are now classed as Exceptional.

Although I've said I want a focus on young players from Oslo, we've won the Eliteserien twice in a row now and are one of the most reputable sides in the country. The net can be cast further afield too. With our Exceptional Youth Recruitment I like to think we're scouring the entire nation for young talent to bring them into our academy. Maybe even beyond Norway, with Yohana Redie being born in Eritrea but being half-Norwegian.

Our Exceptional Junior Coaching means we'll have a good number of Junior Coaches who are working with our academy players (before they appear as newgens) to make them even better (in terms of their Current and Potential Ability).

Like I said before, it's still chance at the end of the day. Even your pre-save decisions come into it. If you've picked a country which has a higher Youth Rating than another, you're increasing your potential of good intakes. I feel like Norway's Youth Rating must be quite high these days, there's a lot of talented young players being produced. One of the big reasons why I picked the country for my save this year! Jackpot.

Coaching Staff

One of the areas where I've tended to fall down in this development process in the past is in the coaching staff that work with my youth players. I really should focus on it more because it can massively help. Obviously the Junior Coaches have improved the pre-newgen players as much as they can, but once they graduate into your u19 team, they're your responsibility now.

Here's a look at my current set up and areas I could improve.

Head of Youth Development

First off it's a look at my current Head of Youth Development, Thomas Hafstad. He was already in place when I joined and so far I haven't felt the need to let him go and look for a replacement. His Loyal personality isn't necessarily one of the most positive but it's not a negative one by any stretch. It'd be great to bring through some loyal youngsters who didn't want to leave for one of the bigger clubs across the world at the earliest opportunity.

He favours a 4-4-2 formation, meaning he's likely to bring through positions that relate to how I currently set up tactically, which is great. The two intakes we've had so far there's been a host of different types of players that have come through, which again points towards it being such a random lottery of what he can influence. His Tactical Style of Control Possession and Playing Style of Direct supposedly might affect aspects of the young players that come through your intake, but I really don't put too much value behind those.

I've been relatively happy with my intakes so far so Hafstad will likely stay in place at least until the end of his current deal in December 2023. That means he's got at least one more intake to bring through so we'll see how that looks when it happens.

Finally, your Head of Youth Development also acts as a youth coach as well. While Hafstad's Determination and Discipline are great, he lacks in Motivating and also in any of the coaching attributes really. If you're in a position to hire an incredible Head of Youth Development I would definitely keep that in mind too.

u19 Coaching Staff

Everyone wants their coaching categories to be maxed out with five stars across the board. Two seasons into a save in Norway is a bit too soon to be getting to that stage though.

My approach is usually about trying to find areas where I can level things up while also keeping the workload balanced across the board. There's absolutely no question though that the quality of our u19 coaches could be levelled up. You can see that my manager in-game is spread thinly across five of those categories in the top screenshot. That's not an ideal situation despite me being excellent on the training pitch.

So far I've prioritised just getting coaches into the club and ensuring we're filling out the numbers sanctioned by the board. Going forward in the save it'll be about improving the quality of those coaches and then asking the board whether we can have more of them.

Training

I love training on FM, it's no secret. I've written about my approaches to training on FM19 and FM20 so far and am planning to do something similar soon for FM21 as well.

Those pieces look at my approach to first team training though. On those versions of the game I didn't look into youth team training much at all, it wasn't my priority.

It is for FM21 though. I want to develop my young players into potential first team options.

Team

Is it overkill to take charge of training for the youth team as well as the first team (and reserve team)? Maybe, but it'll be much more rewarding when you see those green arrows of positive development. Now that I'm two youth intakes into my FM21 save, I've decided that it's time for me to take the reins and put together a schedule for my youth team to follow.

There's two ways I could approach it. I could go more general and be slightly hands-off or I could take inspiration from my FM19 Tactical Periodisation approach and have two different sets of schedules for attacking and defensive "phases".

I've decided to go for the former, initially anyway.

I think this schedule gives a good breadth of attribute training, tactical cohesion and balance in terms of intensity. Their matchdays are on a Wednesday afternoon and it would just be harsh not to give them a recovery day along with a session with the analyst reviewing the match.

Then it's back to work with a Physical session. The general Physical module should be enough as opposed to selecting one of the more focused Physical sessions like Endurance or Resistance, especially so with a lot of my u19 players working on Quickness as an individual focus (mentioned further down).

That's my thought process for the vast majority of the schedule. The general sessions should be enough for the young players rather than going so specific into the other available categories.

That's until we get to Saturday and Sunday where I've added the two Shadow Play sessions that follow on from Tactical sessions on both days. The doubling up of Tactical sessions alongside these additional ones is to work on vital Mental attributes like Composure, Decisions, Off the Ball and Teamwork. From my experience young players do lack in the mental side of their game and this will hopefully stand them in good stead going forward in their careers.

Mentoring

Since the shift away from the old mentoring model, I don't think I've quite got my approach to it nailed yet.

If a young player has made their way into my thinking for the first team and if they don't have what I deem to be a positive personality, I'll look to get them into a mentoring group with some of my more senior players with positive personalities. For example, a Balanced 19-year-old could be in a mentoring group with a Resolute 26-year-old and a Professional 30-year-old. That tends to be my approach to them so far.

We had a discussion on FMSlack recently about youth mentoring, and the fact that groups can be set up containing youth players. However, I've decided to continue my approach of not putting any young players in mentoring groups. I'm not sure it'll make a massive amount of difference to their development. I could be wrong and am missing out on huge gains and I'm willing to be proven wrong here by anyone. For now though, that's how I'll proceed.

Individual

My approach to individual training is three-fold. Firstly, the player gets assigned a role to train. This could be a role relative to their position, it could be a role that's broader in attribute coverage (Roaming Playmaker or Complete Forward) or it could be one that's more focused on a few attributes (Ball Winning Midfielder or Poacher). It could also be a completely different role to their position if their skillset looks to not suit that position or role and I'll try and shift them away to a more suitable one.

Secondly, the player gets an additional focus thrust upon them. Physical attributes do tend to improve as they get older, but I do like to try and speed that up with an additional Quickness focus. Final Third is also a favourite of mine, why wouldn't you want your players to have better Composure and Decision making? That will now just layer on to the extra focus on Mental attributes as part of the team training.

Thirdly, always set the intensity to double. Always. The players can handle it and if they moan just ignore them.

Here's a few case studies of what I've seen so far in my couple of seasons in Norway on FM21.

A Look At - Oskar Opsahl

When I joined the club, Opsahl was in the reserve team. The first team only had one Left Back and I'd switched the first window off so wasn't able to bring in any new recruits. I'm not saying Opsahl is a world beater by any stretch but he's been a dependable member of the first team squad who has filled in for Sam Adekugbe, my Canadian first choice, when he had far too many international commitments in the 2021 season for my liking.

His additional role training has been Full Back on Attack duty with an additional focus of Defensive Positioning. Add that to my list of focuses I love to get defenders working on. It sees them working to improve their Marking, Decisions and Positioning and you can see that Opsahl has been working hard to improve his over the two seasons so far.

He's still just 20-years-old, he's tiny (5'6"), his personality could improve (he's in the first team so he is actually in a mentoring group with two senior players), I could look for an upgrade, but I'm not going to. He's Oslo through and through.

A Look At - Aaron Andersen

Andersen was part of the first youth intake and was highlighted as the most promising player from the group. He had some standout attributes that went against what I previously said about young players and their Mental attributes.

One thing I'm noticing much more on FM21 is that my young players want to be sent out on loan earlier than I usually like to send them out on loan. That saw Andersen heading to affiliate club, Baerum, for the last few months of the 2021 season, the same season in which he appeared in our intake. That's far too early in my development plan for him but he did do quite well, scoring five times in eight appearances in the 4th tier. He'll spend this season playing for Vålerenga 2 (my reserves) who play in the 3rd tier. That shows off the current pathway in place to our first team.

I'm not quite sure what he is yet. I know he needs to be something though. For now he's on a Shadow Striker role focus as I'm looking to improve some of those key Technical attributes like Finishing, Passing and Dribbling. He could be a tasty number 10. His additional focus has been Quickness and he's shown great progress in his Acceleration so far.

A Look At - Christian Jensen

The 2022 intake was a successful one that brought five three and a half star potential players or above through to the u19 squad. Not a bad haul at all. Jensen is similar to Andersen in that he's come through with some very high Mental attributes, although I'm not sure how much I value Aggression of 15 on an Attacking Midfielder.

Look at his personality though, just look at it! A 15-year-old Model Citizen. He's going to approach training which such a good attitude that I'm confident he'll develop. Let's face reality, he does need to at the current time. His Technical ability is quite poor along with a few key Mentals. To start off I've got him on an Attacking Midfield (A) role training with an additional Final Third focus. Let's get that Composure and Decision making up.

The issue with both Andersen and Jensen is that I don't currently play with a player in the AM slot. If they did progress to such a level that they're knocking down my door for a start, I'd certainly consider a change of formation to slot promising players in.

Winning isn't the priority when it comes to development, but it's certainly nice. In season one my u19 squad won the Oslo u19 Championship and in season two they won the National u19 Championship at the first time of asking. Not bad at all.

Developing players on Football Manager can sometimes feel like a lottery, I believe it is one. You can only do so much, you're at the mercy of the game. That's why I try and do everything I possibly can do to try and develop players as much as I can. If they develop and turn into a first team player, excellent! If they don't and they move on without a trace, that's fine. That's football. Enjoy the ride.

United to Prevent Suicide

Across FM21 I’ll be shining a light on United to Prevent Suicide. It’s a campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

The Golden Generation | Keeping The Title

Vålerenga are Eliteserien champions again.

It's only the second time in their history that they've retained the Norwegian league title. A brilliant achievement for Kristoffer Samstrøm (me).

Last season's title win might have come as a surprise to me, but I knew if we played as well this time round as we did last time we'd have a big chance again.

2021 Eliteserien

League Table

Three 5-1 wins were the highlights of the season. Tjåland (a little more on him later) hit a early hattrick in his Vålerenga career against Sandefjord, while Lillestrom and 2nd place Kristiansund were demolished in August.

Our defeat against Aalesund on the last day of the season ended a run of 18 matches unbeaten. The final few months of the season were much more of a "do what needs to be done" rather than free-flowing football and us generally impressing. Our other two defeats came early on against Kristiansund and Bodø/Glimt.

It was much closer this time round, and that's good, right?

Headlines

We, yet again, had the best defensive record in the league and that's what secured the title this time round. There's more on this if you read on, I'm dedicating our title win to Kristoffer Klaesson. As FM puts it, he was impenetrable.

We would've beaten the Eliteserien points and most wins records if we hadn't faltered in our last two league matches once the title had been secured. That Aalesund last defeat came after a 1-1 draw against Brann.

Set pieces were, again, a big factor in our success as we look to capitalise on them. We scored nine from corners, four from indirect free kicks and three direct free kicks this season. They were all scored by new signing, Tobias Christensen, as he finished with 11 goals in the league, our top league goalscorer. That was some way behind the Kristiansund strikeforce of Amahl Pellegrino and Oskar Siira Sivertsen, who scored 44 between them. Ivan Näsberg impressed with his aerial prowess, scoring six goals on his way to winning Fans Player of the Year. That's three more goals than last season.

I wouldn't have been surprised if we hadn't won the league in the end as injuries hit the club at various stages across the season. Osame Sahraoui was one of last season's top performers but he only played 964mins of action this season as he was out for five months. My right hand side was depleted at the same time as Aron Dønnum (RW) and Christian Borchgrevink (RB) missed two months of the season. I had a crisis up front in the last month of the season. Viðar Örn Kjartansson added 18 goals to his 19 from last season but missed two months out injured. Tjåland missed the last month of league action too.

Domestic Competitions

We triumphed over Viking in the early season Mesterfinalen, the domestic Super Cup between the league and cup winners. Technically this makes us double winners this season, what an achievement!

The less said about the Norwegian Cup, the better. The board expectation was to reach the final and we were knocked out in the Third Round by Rosenborg. Admittedly that was a tough tie but I wasn't happy to go out like that, especially at home. Must do better next season. If only someone had written about how to do better in domestic cup competitions before...

Congratulations to Ed's Bodø/Glimt on their cup win.

Continental Competitions

We did superbly to qualify for the Champions League group stage, coming through the qualifiers with a 100% win record. It's a thing of beauty.

I knew the group stage would be tough, but after seeing the draw I was quietly confident. When Krasnodar beat Lyon on matchday one though, I was fearing the worst. When Krasnodar equalised late on against us in the home tie, I again was fearing that bottom place finish. However in the vital away match, Sigurd Grønli (fans of the FM19 Vitória save will recognise that name), popped up with an 88th minute winner which ultimately sealed our spot in the Europa League knockouts come 2022.

A Look At - Kristoffer Klaesson

It's rare to see goalkeepers talked up in the same way as other positions on the pitch in an FM sense. They're not often discussed in blog posts or shown off in Tweets proclaiming them to be the best wonderkid they've seen. I'll hopefully buck the trend a little bit by saying that Kristoffer Klaesson is the best goalkeeper I've managed on any FM save. What's making me say that though? Let's dive in.

First off, the money shots. His development.

One thing you maybe noticed from the latest screenshot, he's on loan with us from PSG. They came in for him during the mid-season transfer window and I couldn't stand in his way. The potential £6m deal is a club record sale and the key part is he remains with us on loan until the end of the 2022 season. This gives me more than enough time to hopefully find a replacement, but he'll be a tough act to follow.

His 14 league clean sheets were less than the 18 from last season but he had a total of 21 across all competitions this season. I'm actually surprised when we concede, he's been that good between the sticks. I was going to litter this section with GIFs but it's so painful to capture past match action on FM21.

I've managed to grab this one though. This massive save came in the 93rd minute to win us a vital away point against Bodø/Glimt in what was a poor overall performance.

While his saves in our 2-0 home defeat against Chelsea in the Champions League didn't earn us any points, he certainly kept the score down with a 7.8 rating after making nine saves in total.

What’s making him produce so many top saves and look so good? My coaches deem him to be very consistent and reliable, I'd agree 100%. His One-on-One ability, Reflexes and Agility are all superb, I think the GIF showcases two of those attributes really well. For his Concentration to have increased by three as well in just two seasons is excellent.

He's now the Norwegian international number one, making his debut in a 6-1 win over Northern Ireland and playing every minute since. He’s looked every bit an international quality goalkeeper.

Vidunderbarns

The internet informs me this translates as "child prodigies", so here's a look at some of the promising young players currently at the club. I the big goal of my save is to develop players after all.

Odin Thiago Holm

After one goal and one assist last season I said I needed more from Holm. He delivered this season. That output increased to six goals and 12 assists. He's come on leaps and bounds this season too, probably playing too much actually. It's difficult to remember he's still just 18-years-old.

Max Normann Williamsen

I chased MNW for the entirety of FM20 and he constantly rejected my Eibar side. I knew I wanted to manage him on FM21 and had to sign him when I received the budget for the 2021 season.

After the season that Kristiansund had I think they're probably wishing they'd fleeced me for a bit more than the £1.6m I eventually paid. They'll receive 10% of the profit when we sell him though, and we will sell him. Arsenal and Spurs are already interested after a very good first season for us. He finished runner up in the Eliteserien Young Player of the Season.

Tobias Sagstuen Andersen

A £325 signing from Raufoss in the second tier. Yes, that does say £325. He was having an incredible season in the third tier for Vålerenga 2 that it was becoming difficult to ignore him and leave him there. He made nine appearances in the second half of the season for the first team and continues to impress in training. He's a potential Perfectionist colossus at the back.

Albert Braut Tjåland

He's the talk of Twitter and Slack. Erling Haaland's cousin signed for £800k from Molde in January and had a good first season at the club. He scored 10 league goals in 12 starts and 13 goals overall as he had to contend with rotating with Kjartansson. If his Finishing and Composure continues to improve we'll have a potential monster on our hands.

The future continues to look bright. This season's average age was 22 compared to 24 last season. Our influx of Champions League money this season has allowed me to improve club facilities in the hope of bringing through a couple more Aaron Andersen's, meaning I don't have to splash out as much on promising players elsewhere across the nation.

That being said, there's a couple of cracking youngsters I've already secured the signatures of ahead of the 2022 season. Coming soon...

United to Prevent Suicide

Across FM21 I’ll be shining a light on United to Prevent Suicide. It’s a new campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

The Golden Generation | Accidental Title Win

Kristoffer Samstrøm took over Vålerenga on the 18th of May 2020.

Around 200 days later, they were crowned champions of Norway for the first time since 2005.

#LunchtimeFM

Accidentally won the league.#FM21 pic.twitter.com/ZchhVKRGWs

— FMSamo (@FM_Samo) December 1, 2020

Here's a snippet from my intro post.

“I wanted to pick a side that weren’t quite at risk of relegation but weren’t quite up at the top of the table challenging. Vålerenga finished 10th out of 16 teams in the 2019 Eliteserien, 6th in 2018 and 8th in 2017. Perfect.”

— FMSamo, 9th November 2020

That worked out well then didn't it.

I had to wait until my last season on FM20 for a trophy and then one comes along this early on FM21. I get ripped into on Slack because I often say that I could happily play a save without winning anything. This time though, I'm happy to have brought home the Eliteserien this early. Sometimes things just go really well and don't go as well for your rivals. This was definitely one of those seasons.

And yes. A season already, in what feels like ultra-quick time for me. That's what:

• A week off work

• A 30 match league season

• No domestic cup in season one

• No European football in season one

• and FM21's ridiculously speedy processing

Will do for you. Let's get into it.

2020 Eliteserien

League Table

It took until matchday 15 to taste defeat, when Rosenborg ended our unbeaten run with a 92nd minute winner. Before that it was probably one of the best starts to a league season I've ever had on the game. July being a particular highlight as we trounced Odds 4-0, Viking 4-0 and Start 5-1.

Our lead was a slender three points at the halfway stage of the season. So the second half of the season was about continuing what we'd done so far. While we managed to do that, our two nearest rivals fell away. Bodø/Glimt only picked up 18 points across the second half of the season, losing seven times. Rosenborg fared a little better, but only just, picking up 22 points.

We wrapped up the title with four games to spare. An awesome achievement. Everything about the team just clicked and we played some glorious football at times. We did immediately lose the following week after winning the league as you'd expect to happen. I'll blame the hangover.

Headlines

We had the best defensive record in the league by some distance. Kristoffer Klaesson kept 18 clean sheets and played in every single minute of the league season. Our xG against was only 17.35 across the season, and we conceded bang on 17.

We outperformed our xG of 51.65 by scoring 63 goals in total. 30-year-old Icelandic international, Viðar Örn Kjartansson, was the hero up front. He scored 19 goals in 23 appearances, finishing just outside the top three goalscorers.

We put a huge focus on set pieces, taking inspiration from FC Midtjylland's Superliga win in Denmark a few years back. 10 of our goals came from corners, and I'm sure a few more from second phases of play from them. Just two of our goals came from indirect free kicks, which definitely felt like it should've been more. Our three main central defenders scored seven goals between them.

Making the most of our wide options was also a huge facet of our play across the season. Right Back, Christian Borchgrevink, got eight assists while Left Back, Sam Adekugbe, got seven. Aron Dønnum's assist total (11) was inflated by the fact he was our corner taker, but he managed to score eight times too from the Right Wing. Osame Sahraoui also scored eight times and provided five assists from the Inside Forward position on the left.

Our squad average age of 24 was just a year older than Strømsgodset's. The future is bright.

A Look At - Odin Thiago Holm

I identified Holm as one of the possible stand outs for my side before I joined. The 17-year-old was raw but had promise (on the left on desktop, first image on mobile). He's yet to celebrate his 18th in the second image but you can see he's developed really well across season one.

Training

He's been focusing on developing his Advanced Playmaker attributes with an additional focus on the Final Third attributes of Composure and Decisions. That additional focus has worked superbly, with Composure increasing from 11 to 13 and Decisions from 11 to 14.

His technical ability has improved, with Dribbling, First Touch, Passing and Technique all going up by one. There's increases in his physicality too, Acceleration, Pace and Balance have all gone up, plus a move into that beautiful bright green in Agility as it hits 15.

If you don't already, I'd recommend setting your default training intensity level for players to double. They can handle it, and it helps. They might moan, but ignore them.

Minutes

For me, match action is one of the most important factors in player development. There are lots of things that go into it under the hood, but I value minutes over most.

I had aimed to make him our playmaker playing just behind the striker and for the first half of the season that's where he was playing. I couldn't settle on a role for him to get more involved in the play than what I was seeing, but the important thing was that he was getting gametime. That issue ultimately led to a change in formation, and he dropped back into the central midfield strata. This deeper role allowed him to use his trait of running with the ball through the centre a little more, but his output only marginally improved.

He got his first, and only, goal of the season in a 2-1 defeat against Kristiansund, but it was exactly what I wanted to see from him.

My striker has come deep, my Inside Forward has come inside and Holm, as our CM(A), makes the well-timed run in behind and finishes well.

His training routine and minutes on the pitch certainly contributed to some developmental growth this season.

What's Next?

There's much more to come from him. His output next season has to be better. One goal and one assist isn't good enough from a creative midfielder.

I'll be shifting his positional training to a Central Midfield role, possibly a Mez(A) to round him a little more. His additional focus will be on his Attacking Movement to get working on that Off the Ball and Anticipation so I see a few more examples of that goal above.

Oslo has been starved of footballing success for so long, this title win could be the catalyst that inspires future generations of Norwegian talent. Let's hope so.

It's time to go shopping as well, as the transfer window finally opens (I didn't get a transfer budget for the entire first season after I'd disabled it for the first window). I've got my eye on a few very promising young Norwegians. Couple that with a £5m budget and I think I'll be able to snap a few up.

I'll introduce them, and a few more of my current players, in a few future posts. Nothing turns me off more than a blog full of player screenshots.

United to Prevent Suicide

Across FM21 I’ll be shining a light on United to Prevent Suicide. It’s a new campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

The Golden Generation | An FM21 Club and Country Youth Development Save

FM21 is here and I'm heading to Norway.

I'll be managing both Vålerenga and the Norwegian national team in a Club and Country save.

The Golden Generation

There's been a lot of negativity surrounding international management on Football Manager. I'm going to completely overlook all of it. I decided months ago that I wanted to manage Norway on FM21. Looking through their squad, how could you not want to manage them? You've got Erling Braut Håland, Martin Ødegaard and Sander Berge as the three young standouts. Those three players are enough on their own. But then you have a supporting act of Alexander Sørloth and Kristoffer Ajer with new Milan signing, Jens Petter Hauge and his former teammate at Bodø/Glimt, Patrick Berg, both highly regarded too. There's a raft of other promising young players that have the potential to be next on the conveyor belt of talent.

Numerous national sides across the years have had "Golden Generations", groups of players who should achieve something together. This talented crop of Norwegian players should be firing the country to their first tournament since Euro 2000. For whatever reason, it hasn't happened yet.

Lars Lagerbäck, thanks for stabilizing the national team & setting them on the right course for success, but it's time to move on.

This team needs an ambitious, tactically fluent manager to lead them forward. Norway can't allow this generation of players to go to waste.

— Ben Wells (@FotballBen) October 8, 2020

Ben is spot on, this talented group of players can't go to waste. That's where I come in.

They'll be plenty more aims and objectives to come with the national side but the early remit is simple, I've said it already. This country must break their hoodoo and qualify for an international tournament. I had a choice to make.

In the non-FM world, Serbia defeated Norway in the Euro 2020 playoff semi-final. FM21 gives me the option of playing through the condensed 2020 Eliteserien season or starting in 2021. There's no guarantees that Norway would still lose to Serbia in that playoff in the background if I did choose to start in 2021, so I'll be playing the 2020 season with Vålerenga which will give me the chance to rewrite some history to lead Norway to Euro 2020 (in 2021).

Developing the Next Golden Generation

Håland's best domestic form came at Molde, Ødegaard didn't last long in Strømsgodset's first team before he was snapped up by Real Madrid but my choice of club is Sander Berge's first Norwegian top flight club, Vålerenga.

At Vålerenga, I'll be aiming to bring through future generations of talent. This means that I'll be putting a huge focus behind youth development on FM21.

It's a side of the game that I've neglected in recent versions. I don't think I had one homegrown player come through at Eibar at all. I had a couple at Vitória but again, that was more about bringing them in from elsewhere rather than developing my own. I'm really looking forward to digging into this area of the game in much more detail on this version.

Why Vålerenga?

Bodø/Glimt are the fashionable side in the country. Molde and Rosenborg have dominated Eliteserien title wins in recent years. I wanted to pick a side that weren't quite at risk of relegation but weren't quite up at the top of the table challenging. Vålerenga finished 10th out of 16 teams in the 2019 Eliteserien, 6th in 2018 and 8th in 2017. Perfect.

The populations of Trondheim, Molde and Bodø, you can even throw Norway's second biggest city, Bergen, into the mix too, collectively don't match the latest population figures for the city of Oslo. Why isn't this club, who are often nicknamed "The Pride of Oslo", one of the biggest in the country and consistently competing for the league title? Why aren't they consistently bringing through generation after generation of Oslo youngsters who'll be next in line to export to further their careers abroad and ultimately play for the national team?

Maybe the club, and football in general, has struggled in the city due to it being one of the most expensive in the world. The cost of living is high, potentially pricing people out of living there. Despite this, my big aim is to bring in a culture of producing and developing elite young talent. Talent that can go on to play for the first team and be sold on to continue funding the cycle. Because of that, club facilities were a big factor in my decision to pick Vålerenga. I'll hopefully be hoovering up Oslo's, and then subsequently Norway's, most promising prospects to come through our youth system, in turn making it one of the best in the country, and challenging Europe's elite youth development clubs.

The Starting Point

There's a couple of young players already on Vålerenga's books that look like they could be very good players for me. I'll tell you a bit about them below but we'll take a much more in-depth look at the squad in the coming weeks. I've also mentioned that club facilities were a big part of my decision, so I'll take a little closer look at those too.

Odin Thiago Holm

The 17-year-old attacking midfielder is the most promising young player at the club, and one of the most promising in Norway. I'm aiming to play him as our playmaker. He's got areas to improve his overall game, but he's already at a very good Eliteserien level for a lot of his key playmaking attributes; Flair, Passing, Technique, First Touch and Vision. I'm excited, you should be too.

Kristoffer Klaesson

It feels fun to have a future Norwegian number one at the club already. I mean, obviously I'll have control over that, but he is currently the best young option between the posts.

Similarly to Holm, he's got some improving to do yet, but at just 19, he's got plenty of time before he hits his peak as a goalkeeper. Great Reflexes, Aerial Reach and Agility are offset by a few of his mental attributes being on the low side, including Anticipation and Decisions. Will he be my number one for the entirety of my time at the club, or will he get snapped up by another European club?

The Club

I needed a club that was set up for success already behind the scenes. Vålerenga is certainly that club.

There's still a little bit of improving to do which I'll look to do when we're able to do it sustainably. The club's 16.5k capacity Intility Arena only opened in 2017 and provides another foundation for success.

(All player and club details were taken from FM20, hopefully they’re even better on FM21)

What You Can Expect

As I've said already, my aim for FM21 is to dive deeper than I have done before on developing players. I'm putting the focus of my attentions on my players for club and country. I'll be following the players eligible to play for the Norwegian national team alongside taking you through the in-depth development plans I'm looking to develop at Vålerenga.

I'm not one for sticking to a schedule or forcing myself to get pieces out so you'll see me when you see me. I hope you enjoy following along as much as I'm looking forward to diving in.

Eskozia La Brava | El Fin

I've finished my sixth and final season at Eibar on FM20.

How did the season go and how would I summarise my time at the club? Read on to find out.

January to May 2024/25

LaLiga

A slow start to the second half of the season with two draws but that quickly turned into two months unbeaten, with three consecutive 1-0 victories which just look lovely.

The only disappointments in the league coming with those two 1-0 defeats against Barcelona and Real, a drab 0-0 against soon-to-be relegated Leganés and the fact I couldn't finish off my time at the club with a win on the final day against Getafe.

Those results look good though, how does the league table look?

My time at the club ends with our highest ever league finish, 3rd place. Barcelona win the title for the third season in a row and do it with the highest points total of a title winning team across the last six seasons.

With our highest league finish comes our highest points total as well as our most goals scored and least conceded for a league season. I'm actually delighted to have only conceded 23 goals across the season, one less than Real Madrid in 2nd. Don't underestimate the power of upgrading your goalkeeper, Alban Lafont kept 23 clean sheets in 34 league appearances. We only conceded nine goals across the second half of the season, a brilliant record.

Misfiring didn't matter at the halfway point of the season, did it continue in the league? Eddie's move out to the right hand side as an IF saw him finish the season on four league goals, a rise from zero while playing up front in the first half of the season, I'll take that. Amang only scored three while in the striker role across the second half of the season, but his general play was superb and he's been a joy to watch. He did score one goal in particular though which is yet to come...

Europa League

Fate would throw up a tie with an old friend when the 2nd knockout round was drawn.

Harry Sowden scored a vital away goal in a 1-1 first leg draw and a Jan Sobocinski header in the second leg saw us go through 2-1 on aggregate.

We unfortunately couldn't sneak past Manchester United in the quarter final. It was them that did the sneaking as they waited until the 91st minute of the second leg to score the goal that knocked us out.

A European trophy wasn't to be for Eibar, but the glory came from continually competing across the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League. A club this size should've been nowhere near those competitions.

Copa del Rey

Why can't I win progress further than the 4th round has been the question I've been asking myself for the past five seasons. Armed with my reasons as to why I thought I hadn't done well in the Copa del Rey so far, it was time to do better.

We cruised through against lower league opposition in the first couple of rounds, beating CD Toledo and Racing Club de Ferrol by a combined scored of 6-0. Rounds three and four were tougher on paper as we were drawn against LaLiga opposition in Levante and Osasuna. Osasuna had knocked us out in the 3rd round in the 2020/21 season so caution was needed. Luckily by this point at the end of January we were just starting to find our groove, and cruised through winning both rounds 3-1, with Thomas Amang scoring three of the six goals. We were into the 5th round for the first time.

For the past two seasons Real Valladolid in the second tier have knocked us out. Rayo Vallecano had the chance to repeat the feat in the 5th round, but again, a professional performance from us saw us win 2-0.

Harry Sowden didn't just pop up again in a game that mattered, he bloody owned it. A hattrick from him in the semi final first leg 5-2 win against Sevilla saw us all but qualify for the final. A snoozefest of a 0-0 in the second leg saw us go through to our first ever Copa del Rey final, or any final of anything.

Luckily, Barcelona and Real hadn't made it to be our opponents. Sevilla had actually beaten Barca in the 5th round to face us in the semis, while Atleti triumphed over Real to face up to the Furia in the final. We had a good record against Atleti so far in the save, going unbeaten against them across two seasons in 21/22 and 22/23. They always had potential to smash us though, with a 5-0 and 4-0 under their belts in 20/21 and 23/24.

As is now tradition, literal ones of people turned out to follow the match action of the final on Slack.

The first half was a tetchy affair until Hiroki Abe popped up unmarked at the back post atfer Jose Giménez had missed a headed clearance to fire us into the lead just before half time.

Then, with 25 minutes to go, Thomas Amang did this.

What. A. Goal.

It encompasses Furia and everything that Thomas Amang has been for this club since his £475k arrival back in the 2020/21 season. He's been our enigmatic talisman. What a player. Jose Giménez was somehow rated a 7 for the match despite his second error leading to a goal here. Amang steals the ball from him and just runs. He evades Saúl's tackle and fires past Jan Oblak to secure the club's first major trophy. We finally progressed past the 5th round, and only bloody won the thing.

The Copa del Rey final isn't an end of season showpiece, but it felt incredible to win a trophy to all but round off the save and my time at the club.

Summary

Can you spot when I took over?

We haven't done too badly for being the smallest club in the league. I've taken Eibar from being a mid-table side to one that consistently qualifies for continental competition and competes against the biggest sides in Europe.

The club has made huge strides off the pitch in my time at the club. I might not be sticking around to finally move in to el Nuevo Ipurua but it's on the way. In my introduction I mentioned the Modelo Eibar. It was all about being financially prudent, and the strides we made on the pitch enabled us to take further ones off it. The club is set up for continued levels of success with major improvements to the training and youth facilities along with the youth recruitment, competing in the fierce Basque region for young talent.

The Furia has been there for all to see along the way, culminating in Amang's incredible clincher in the Copa del Rey final. I've really enjoyed trying to implement a specific style of play and recruitment in my time at the club. We've changed formations over the years but the style always remained. We play aggressively in the opposition's faces, pressing them high and attacking them with fast-paced, direct football. It's been a joy to watch at times.

My players needed to be aggressive, determined and hard-working. There's been a lot of them over the years. Sergio Álvarez was with me for the entire time but eventually was overtaken in the pecking order by Agustin Baldi and Fede San Emetario. Jan Sobocinski and Taylor Harwood-Bellis were the best defensive partnership the club had ever seen, but Ryan Porteous and Paulo Oliveira were just as important in the earlier seasons. Thomas Amang was the embodiment of Furia and his partnership with Eddie Nketiah excited me and then frustrated me.

I've loved my time at little Eibar and I hope you've enjoyed following along too. Thanks for reading. See you for FM21.