FM22 : Southend United : Know your Roots : #1

 
 

Hello there! Welcome back to my little page on the famous (infamous?) CoffeehouseFM website. Today I’ll be starting my Football Manager 2022 save with Southend United, with the intentions of turning the Shrimpers fortunes around. I covered my basic goals and objectives here, which will act as a nice refresher before I review…as much as I’m going to review.

Root of the problem

Having loaded the game up for the first time, I am pleased to announce that Southend United’s finances remain as they were in the Beta - circa £750k in the bank, and £1k per week or so over the wage budget. The opening transfer window is closed, so this obviously means that the (Ted)deadwood we are lumbered with in the U23 and U18 squads will just be a drain for a few months at a minimum. As much as I don’t intend on making any signings in the first season, I am acutely aware that I’ll need to renew a few contracts (as cost effectively as possible), and that injuries may take a toll and we need some depth. Off the pitch I’ve decided to hire club icon Spencer Prior, should he be available, and that’s it. We are expected to get Playoffs this season (albeit our Media Prediction is 14th…), and I’m confident that if we find our feet early on a tactical front that we could push on early, and if not, then we should have a relatively clean slate to entirely rebuild the club going into Season Two…if I last a failed promotion campaign.

 
 

I wanted to go simple with the tactics to start, and I think this is just about simple enough for my non-league standard players to understand:

  • I have two good goalkeepers at the start of the save to choose from, and have plumped for Harry Seaden for now - he’s much younger, and is as good as my experienced option in almost all areas…aside from shot stopping. If he has issues early on then I’ll go for the old shot stopper rather than the young cross-claimer

  • The defence, and Abu Ogogo, have a combined age of 158 at the start of the save. The centre backs are slow, but experienced, and our full backs are technically quite sound and not yet physically incapable. We will be starting with a lower defensive line as we don’t want space behind us to open up, and Ogogo is there to cover for the fullbacks, and for the midfield duo in front of him

  • I was intending to go for a 4-4-2 at the start of the save, however we are lacking depth up front, and thus decided to go for a couple of interesting wingers to go with a technically able Nathan Ferguson in CM(A), and experienced BBM Will Atkinson. Ferguson is able to play as an AP(A), which I’ll consider if I need to adjust any formations and tactics early on

  • Up front, as I mentioned, we are a bit light. We have a backup striker who is quite large but does little else, so we go with another player the wrong side of 30 in Rhys Murphy. He’s not agile, but I think he’ll link up the team nicely, and be able to finish off chances. The wingers are fairly interchangeable and largely similar in terms of overall quality, so I’ll be putting 18-year old Oli Coker into the squad to try and get him developing ASAP

  • The instructions are simple enough - across the defence and central midfield areas we have some decent passers of the ball (I think?), and we are lacking pace in forward areas, thus my intention is for the team to keep passes short and wait for the opposition to position themselves poorly, at which point the likes of Nathans Ralph and Ferguson, Jack Bridge, and Rhys Murphy to find room to play around in. The defence is slow, so we’re playing deeper and regrouping when we lose the ball, however I won’t be telling the team not to counter if the opportunity arises.

 
 

I really can’t wait for all of this information to be obsolete in the next blog when it transpires I’ve changed to a 3-1-3-2-1 Gegenpress. I had discussed in my original post the idea that I’ll be doing my own General Training, and my intention is to do so, but I’m going to be a little more fluid on this. To start, I’m seeing through the Pre-Season schedule set by my assistant, and then I’ll review on a week-to-week basis if I need to change anything. I’ll still be relying on FM Athlete’s training planner to play around with training when I’m not in-game, though.

So with all that out of the way, what am I actually doing in Pre-Season? Not a lot. I’ll be managing the friendlies to ensure that my tactic isn’t absolutely woeful, but apart from that I’ll actually be doing very little. What an exciting start to the save!

Vanarama National : Season One

Quite frankly, the above tactic played out exactly as I intended it to 90% of the time, although that means that the other 10% was often catastrophic, and sometimes within that 90% were times when it played perfectly but was still inadequate. Our low defensive line was a masterstroke, and five wins with consecutive clean sheets at the start of the season saw us topping the table, before five games without a win then saw us drop to eighth. At this point I changed the CM(A) role to AP(A), and the lone striker became a Poacher to ensure they were closer to the opponent’s goal. The remainder of our first half of the season saw us have a couple of short winning runs, punctuated by a draw and a defeat by the end of them. By the time we’d played our 22nd game of the league season (the proper halfway point), we found ourselves in fifth place - too far from the single automatic spot, and even the top two playoff spots that get a bye, but also too far ahead of the rest of the league table to worry about missing out. Only 13 goals had been conceded, however Rhys Murphy was pretty much the only player finding the net consistently at this point.

The second half of the Vanarama National campaign was fairly similar, although a disastrous period in April where we lost Harry Seaden, Nathan Ralph, Oli Coker, and Tom Clifford (again, having missed half of the season already) to injury contributed to a measly 4 points from six games, and mostly against our rivals at the top of the table. It didn’t give me much confidence in all honesty. We ended the regulation season in May with a domineering win and a game in which we somehow only drew, so I was happy that form was recovering as our players were returning from injury. A seventh place finish was lower than I feel like we deserved, but the important thing was to be in the mix, regardless of the fact that we have an extra Playoff round to play that the teams in 2nd and 3rd don’t have to partake in.

By way of retaining the narrative of this blog, I have to reveal that we played Aldershot in the Playoff First Round, and that Rhys Murphy scored the only goal in first half added time to ensure our progress to the Semi Final…

 
 

Cup runs

Having won the old Fourth Division in 1981, and League One in 2006, I decided fairly early on to take the FA Cup and FA Trophy seriously (perhaps this contributed to eventual exhaustion/injuries in the league campaign…) in order to bring some silverware to Roots Hall. The FA Cup obviously wasn’t achievable in terms of victory, but our victories over Non-League side Leamington, and League One side Gillingham, netted us a cool £30k to add to the bank, before Harry Seaden’s only real mistake of the season cost us in a 2-1 home defeat to Fleetwood Town in the Second Round (still making gate receipt money though innit). I’ll be taking the FA Cup with the same amount of seriousness next season as the prospect of a Third Round tie against someone good and making money, or someone rubbish and progressing, is tantalising.

The other silverware on offer at this level is the FA Trophy, which seemed below the like of Non-League ‘super clubs’ Stockport, and Notts County. We played a total of eight games in the competition - Weymouth, Hampton & Richmond, AFC Telford, Boston United (after a replay), and Wrexham (over two legs) were all seen off, and we conceded only two goals en-route to Wembley, where we would face off against Playoff rivals Bromley. The game would be played a couple of days after our Playoff against Aldershot, and at this point I was utilising the manual rest function quite heavily - I wanted our best team out at all times.

After taking a 3rd minute lead courtesy of a low cross by Patrick Ssala (our best Youth Intake prospect) being converted by Rhys Murphy, we then held Bromley at arms length for the majority of the game. I made some changes around the hour mark simply to ensure some of our older heads got a rest ahead of our Playoff Semi Final, and that’s when the pressure started. Bromley equalised in the same manner that we scored - their AMR released by the full back, and a cross converted on the six yard line. Disaster…for all of twenty seconds:

Rhys Murphy has proved to be incredibly clinical at this level, and he once again proved our saviour by scoring the equaliser from the kick off - a long ball by Nathan Ferguson out to the wing was then sent into the box by Jack Bridge, where the former Irish U21 player tucked away a header. This was Southend United’s first cup win in their entire history, and I was naturally delighted, but we had to ensure that we finished off what we started in the league…

 
 

The Playoffs

The Semi Final was another away affair, and yet again we played a London-based side, Barnet. I always had a soft spot for The Bees from my Ultimate Soccer Manager 98 days, although I can’t quite remember why. After a gruelling 90 minutes of action, and a few missed chances on our end, we went into Extra Time with the team absolutely shagged. Jack Bridge put us ahead in the 97th minute, and we then held the North Londoners off until the last minute of the game…however Harry Seaden produced a masterful save from a long shot, and we booked our place in the Playoff Final against Notts County. Our record against The Magpies had been pretty horrid having lost both of our league meetings, however the latest was a 3-1 defeat in April when we were lacking a good portion of our starting squad, so I sensed we had a chance.

The historic Wembley Stadium was treated to an absolute spectacle in this match. I don’t know about the computer generated crowd, but I was on the edge of my seat (which I should have pre-emptively chosen as the toilet) for the entire match. After a mix-up in the Notts defence, Rhys Murphy fired us ahead in the 13th minute, before Rodel Richards fired an equaliser from the penalty spot in the 20th minute. Straight from kick off we constructed the below move, and Murphy showed his quality yet again…

Unfortunately we gifted Notts yet another penalty, this time via a handball rather than a poor challenge, and Rodel Richards equalised yet again. We created very little for the rest of the half, although Notts were only really trying long shots themselves. Around the hour mark Murphy headed us into the lead to complete his hattrick, and I started to dream of a season full of silverware and acclaim for Ted Redwood…I got too excited, too soon. With twelve minutes left to play Cal Roberts fired in a strike from 25 yards, which left a very sour taste. We had led three times, and been clawed back three times, two of which were absolute gifts, and one was a long range screamer. Our fate was sealed in the 85th minute when Francis Vincent finished off Notts only well-constructed move of the game, and no amount of throwing our players forward seemed to do anything. Our game plan, in this instance, was perfect. We stifled the second best attacking side in the league in open play, and they only really had one good chance to speak of (which they converted). It was just a shame about the other goals we conceded. It’s another season in the Vanarama National for us, and no doubt the board will be expecting automatic promotion...

Every moment I live is agony

We had a few great performers this season, as well as a whole host of decent ones:

  • Four first-teamers averaged over 7.2 - Nathan Ralph (shortlisted for PotY in the Vanarama National), Shaun Hobson, Rhys Murphy, and Harry Seaden. A further 5 first-teamers averaged around a 7.0

  • Rhys Murphy was our top scorer with 37 goals in 52(1) games, and was followed by Oli Coker with 11 in 43(1), and Jack Bridge bagged 10 in 29(21)

  • Nathans Ralph and Ferguson were our top assisters with 11 and 10 respectively

  • Over the regulation season we had the best defence, conceding 40 goals in 44 games, including 21 clean sheets over that time. Whilst our defensive work was good, this does show that we either tend to keep a clean sheet or concede twice on average. On the forward front we hit 66, which puts us around the midtable mark for goals scored

  • Our 56% average possession was second only to our Playoff Final conquerors, Notts County. I’m happy with our passing and possession statistics this season, however we may need to adjust our tactics a little in the next campaign to ensure we are getting possession in the right places to boost our scoring statistics

Foundations

Whether or not I’ll be around long enough to benefit from laying foundations at Southend, I don’t know. The toughest thing about choosing a team to start a blog with is that it could all blow up in your face and leave you looking a mug - I’d say that hasn’t happened this season, but realistically it was probably only saved, on paper, by the FA Trophy win. With this in mind, how am I approaching the coming season, and beyond, to ensure success for myself and the club within this save?

Choosing the correct contracts to extend is key, and I think I’ve made a couple of mistakes this season. Will Atkinson, my BBM, is ageing, and probably won’t be a starter next season, and during a few injury-hit moments I panicked and signed up a couple of the U19s to longer deals who are definitely not good enough, but I wanted to ensure continuity and cover. Aside from this, we’ve secured Harry Seaden and Oli Coker to longer deals (for more money, but their development and performances have totally justified this), as well as ensuring we have the talents of Rhys Murphy, and the Nathans Ralph and Ferguson next season. Our core players remain in place, and although it’s increased our wage expenditure for now, we will be shipping a fair few high-earning freebies in the summer, as well as trying to replace all of our squad/backup players with younger, cheaper models. The increase to wages was easily offset by our cup successes, and especially by our share of Wembley gate receipts, netting us over £800k over two matches in a week there..

We have a number of positions that need strengthening, however we had a bit of a result with the Youth Intake being so strong. It may take a further season or so to start seeing these players regularly, but the below four players will very much be part of the squad going forwards, and may even provide us with a payday should we require it. Patrick Ssali is the highlight, but I am confident about our homegrown quota going forwards:

 
 

It was my intention to offer a moderately detailed view of our financials this season, what went right, what went wrong, however with no other seasons to compare it becomes moderately irrelevant. At the end of the season we were hit with a circa £800k tax bill as we’d made £3.2m or so profit over the season, with sponsorship, gate receipts, and season tickets bringing in around £6.5m between them bringing in the vast majority of our total £8.4m income. Player and staff wages, including bonuses, cost us circa £2.9m, so my initial target will be to reduce this amount whilst also gaining promotion from Non-League. As we’ve made a load of money, and clearly are in last chance saloon for retaining our job, I’ve decided to try and look after the club’s future by requesting an upgrade to our Training and Youth Facilities, which technically began in Season Two, and will cost around £2.7m and will be completed during the course of the coming campaign. It’s been tough not to go all-in with improving staff and extending the contracts of a few players during this first season, but it will definitely give us a lot of leeway going into an all-important season where promotion is essential.

Join me next time to see whether or not we’ll be taking Southend United into League Two, or if I’ll be doing an Infamous based on my own Football Manager 2022 save.

Laters x

 
 

Infamous : FM22 : Nuno Espírito Santo - Tottenham Hotspur

InFMous

Having signed an initial two year deal with Spurs on 30/06/2021, Nuno Espírito Santo had an uphill battle on his hands to convince the fans, and even many players at the club, that he was the right Head Coach to try and return the Lilywhites to the top table of domestic and continental football. In a well-publicised drawn out saga, Nuno was seen as a last resort option after the likes of Antonio Conte and Mauricio Pochettino rejected the opportunity, and Paulo Fonesca and Gennaro Gattuso were overlooked for one reason or another.

The job, on paper, looked difficult from the get-go. From the outside, it seemed as if fans wanted the club to be back in the Top 4, and challenging for silverware. With the standard of the playing squad you could perhaps forgive this as an achievable target, but having been without a Head Coach for two-and-a-half months, and with the player unrest building up within the squad (and culminating in a very public interview in which Harry Kane declared his intention to leave his ‘boyhood’ club), it seemed more of a poisoned chalice than a golden ticket. Nuno was immediately greeted with scepticism due to his ‘Mourinho-lite’ image, perhaps due to the counter attacking style adopted by Wolverhampton Wanderers during the tenure of their new Head Coach. Would teams give Spurs as much space to roam? Are they capable of being as organised defensively? Even if the answers to the prior questions had been positive, you still need to sell it to the fans, and in my opinion that was never even attempted. On 01/11/2021, Nuno Espírito Santo was dismissed after only 10 league games. The wrong man at the worst time. I’m here to fix that (and not Antonio Conte).

 
 

Nuno was sacked from Spurs following three straight defeats - one in the Europa Conference League to Vitesse, an away loss to London rivals West Ham, and a 3-0 spanking at home courtesy of a hideously disjointed Manchester United (Manchester UFC to some). Spurs are only 5 points away from Top 4, are into the League Cup Quarter Final against the Irons, and are still in control of qualification in their ECL group. Drab performances seem to have killed off Nuno rather than results, although the latter wasn’t that fantastic, either. When they won it was narrow, and when the lost they were generally tanked or just totally inept.

Marching In

I turned transfers off for the opening window as I want to work with the same squad that Nuno had been using. I am glad that in-game there appears to be no personal issues with Harry Kane (which is surely something that Sports Interactive know as fact and could have been hard-coded, but oh well), however upon looking at the squad I’m reminded that the defensive and midfield positions are actually a bit rubbish, at least compared to other teams challenging for Champions League qualification spots. This is the best I could come up with:

 
 

Am I confident this will work in the Football Manager 2022 Beta? No. I think it’s a bit of a risk to throw myself into this challenge at all, quite frankly, as for many years I haven’t managed a side expected to do well whilst having actual decent competition within the league. I mentioned that I wasn’t overly keen on the quality of the defence or midfield, so theoretically one option would be to just try and decimate a team with the attacking talent Spurs have and hope to score one more than our opposition. I’ve decided to go all Thanos, though, and attempt to be balanced. I’m expected to deliver attacking, possession-based entertaining football, and I think this tactic matches intent with the reality of the current squad. I intend to keep hold of the ball in the middle to allow Sergio Reguilón and Emerson Royal to move up the pitch, and without having a forced Regroup/Counter-Press or Hold Shape/Counter, the players should be intelligent enough to decide if there is an opportunity to move faster and take advantage, or simply retain the ball and await an opening. We are pragmatic in the middle of the pitch, as I need to ensure a presence within defence and transition, as well as have at least one player from deep supporting attacks. With Dele Alli and Tanguy Ndombele in the middle, I’m confident we’ll see some good contributions from at least one of them. The attack speaks for itself, although having Son Heung-min as a DLF(A) possibly wastes some of his workrate, but he should link up with Emerson Royal and Dele Alli quite well, and hopefully move into the channel enough to make the most of his dribbling ability. Harry Kane is there simply to create and finish chances - I was tempted to use him as a Poacher, simply to guarantee he’d be around the 18-yard box as much as possible, and I may yet move him there, but for now I’d like to see how mobile a CF(A) is in this new game.

 
 

As fixtures go, unfortunately the game has decided not to use real fixtures (I honestly can’t remember if I clicked the button…or if there even is a button?), so I’m not playing all the same teams that Nuno did, however we are due to play both Manchester Ultimate Fighting Championship and East London Irons during the month of October, so that’ll be a good litmus test as to how we compare to the poor Portuguese chap. We have managed to avoid Pacos de Ferreira in the final stage of Europa Conference League qualifying (and yes I am sorting the real name fix shortly!), however we’ve drawn our Scottish friends St. Johnstone instead. The fixture list is relatively kind overall though, so I’m hoping for more than 5 league wins, and perhaps taking control of our ECL group once we get there…

August

On paper Norwich City away is quite a kind opening fixture, however we were fortunate to get away with a 1-0 win in an awful match. Slow Lloris saved a penalty early in the second half to keep the scores at 0-0, and I decided I’d had enough of the formation already in the 70th minute, bringing on Bergwijn and playing a 5-2-3 (clearly my go-to for Infamous…), Clearly an inspired change, as Bergwijn scored the winner in the 91st minute. I decided to take the 5-2-3 tactic forward (IF(A) on the left, IW(A) on the right, CF(S) in the middle) but with the same instructions. A partially rotated side then smashed St. Johnstone 5-0 in the first leg of our ECL qualifier, although it’s hard to judge if we looked exciting or were just vastly superior. The return leg yielded a mind-numbing 0-0 draw, so we progress to the group stage. Our first home game in the league was a vaguely entertaining 1-0 victory over Burnley thanks to Harry Kane’s early strike, with plenty of chances created, but our lack of cutting edge could have cost us on another day.

 
 

September

After an international break in which we lost Lucas Moura for a few months (to injury, not on his travels), we hosted a Saudi-backed Newcastle United managed by Hansi Flick, and earned a convincing 3-0 win despite playing the last 30 minutes with 10 men after Lo Celso went off injured a few minutes after he came on. What followed was a drab 0-0 in the Europa Conference League against SK Sturm Graz (also in our group are Shamrock Rovers and AMO Apollon Limassol), in which our rotated side lacked any synergy and were actually dominated possession-wise by our Austrian visitors. We looked better in the 80th minute once the big guns came on (I was daydreaming so forgot to make changes earlier), but our hot-and-cold performances leave me wondering if I’m essentially Nuno mark II at this point. The Wolves of Wolverhampton were our foes in the Carabao Cup Third Round, but despite playing our strongest XI we put in yet another faltering performance, however at least we came away with a 1-0 win (courtesy of another Harry Kane penalty) and our seventh clean sheet in a row. We kept faith with the previous squad as we travelled to Goodison to face Everton but we conceded our first and second goals of the season before halftime (a Richarlison penalty and a Michael Keane header from a corner), so I shifted to a 4-2-3-1 just to try something different in the second half, before conceding once more after the break. My favourite moment of the game was when Emerson Royal ran the ball straight off the pitch whilst under zero pressure - at least they seem to have got him right in the Match Engine.

With performances generally being quite poor, albeit usually clinical in attack, I decided to mix things up a bit and at least pretend to look threatening going forwards.:

 
 

On paper we’ve simply moved our fullbacks into wingback positions and adjusted a few roles. I’ve given our central defence less license to ‘ball play’ (the Libero may flit between that and a standard CD(D) depending on opposition), as it were, and want to get the ball wide quite quickly and rely on some overlaps to create options in the middle, which is occupied by Ndombele and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg who will be offering most of the legs in the middle. I now expect the team to press when we lose the ball, and counter when we win it. It’s not particularly original, but giving the Spurs squad license to think for themselves is clearly a risk. We actually conceded in our following game against Shamrock Rovers, but put four past the Irish in a comfortable victory. The key month for the save is now upon us…

 
 

October

A key month, but the only key I’ve seen so far is the one that opens up the door to our 18 yard box. Our first match sees us get spanked by Manchester United, with Cristiano Ronaldo proving unplayable in this edition of Football Manager. We were awful. Over the international break I pondered my existence, and wondered if this is going to be my first Infamous failure. I panicked and moved Son up top to play DF(A), and moved my other winger role into Shadow Striker. My tinkering was rewarded with a lovely 4-1 win over struggling Southampton, with Son scoring twice and securing Player of the Match from his new role. My final Europa Conference League match, against AMO Apollon Limassol, was a sensible 2-0 away win with a fully rotated side, so we end our stint in this competition top of Group C with 7 points from 9, and looking good to progress. Wolves then came to try and spoil the Spurs party again, this time in the league, but were vanquished to the shadow realm after a confident 2-0 win. We’ve looked a lot more mobile when going forwards, which is possibly due to the increased space down the wings. Who’d have thought? A Paul Dummett inspired Newcastle side fell to a 1-0 loss to our lads in the Carabao Cup, setting up a lovely tie away at Norwich in the Quarter Final (which we will never play). Our final game of the save comes on 30/10/2021, where we travelled to the generically named ‘London Stadium’ in order to be unfairly beaten 1-0 by the generic East London club, West Ham United. A Saïd Benrahma free kick dashed my hopes of leaving on a high, and we were unable to convert from our many good opportunities. These games happen sometimes, I just really could have done without it happening in my final game in charge.

 
 

Team Espírito?

Having lived through a sample size of Nuno’s toils with Spurs, I can understand why things went wrong. The squad, at least in Football Manager 2022, doesn’t seem amazingly balanced, and at some point in the near future is due a refresh, especially at the back. Although we won 5 of our 8 league games, the games we did win were against fodder, and we even managed to mess up against our London rivals in the final game. The final tactic I stumbled upon seemed to play better than anything else I had attempted before then, and think with some minor tweaks that it’d have done Spurs some good going forwards. One thing I did not have to contend with was a wantaway Harry Kane, for which I am most grateful. Despite the team’s inconsistent performances (less so results, as these were probably about as expected overall), Kane managed 4 goals in 8 league games, and a further 5 across Carabao/ECL action. Aside from Hugo Lloris (who is definitely far superior in Football Manager compared to reality), it was only really Kane himself who performed well, although the late tactical change did start to bring the best out of Son Heung-min.

 
 

In reality, Tottenham occupy ninth position in the Premier League table after 10 games. We are in the same position, however the scheduling seems to have just done its own thing in-game. We have two games in hand at the end of October versus the IRL Spurs. The next two league games on the schedule in my save are showing as Chelsea and Leicester, so there are no guarantees that 10 league games would bring about a greater return than what Nuno managed. We matched the club’s efforts in the Carabao Cup, as we’re both in the final eight, but in the Europa Conference League we are 3 points better off, and actually in a qualifying position as things stand.

This was my favourite moment of the save - Emerson Royal switching on the afterburners to ghost past two of his own players

I suppose the final way we can judge the success of this Infamous save is whether or not we were playing more exciting football than Nuno’s side. I’d argue that by winning games by more than one goal, and that our goal difference in the league is +7 on our counterparts, that it may seem that way. It definitely took a little while for my side to find their feet tactically, however it wasn’t a snooze fest every time we entered the pitch. I feel quite similar to how I felt during my John Barnes Infamous, wherein we had a better average of points per game but the actual end product was very similar to the results we were trying to improve upon. I’ve definitely not done worse than Nuno Espírito Santo, and I’d also suggest that we’ve done a little bit better, and that’s enough for me. Well done me.

FM22 : Southend United : Save overview

 
 

Alright. Welcome to my ‘save reveal’ for my ‘main’ save in Football Manager 2022 with Southend United. This blog will serve as a prologue to both the save, and perhaps my overall shift in the style of my blogging going into the new edition. The reason I write ‘main’ as ‘main’ is because I don’t anticipate that it will be a save that lasts the entirety of the edition/it won’t be my only save/the save may only last seasons. With that out of the way, I can focus on the more interesting stuff.

I don’t have many detailed memories of being at Roots Hall, but I went to around a dozen games during my formative years, travelled to Cardiff to watch their 2-0 loss to Blackpool in the LDV Vans Final (their first ever cup final appearance), and was even a ball boy once whilst playing for a local club:

I was a hugely unpopular member of the squad

Why have I chosen Southend United in FM22? On the face of it, it seems incredibly obvious, and unfortunately I have a feeble imagination and thus cannot fathom any reasons outside of them:

  • Recently relegated to Vanarama National - Southend United dropped out of the Football League for the first time in 101 years in the 2020/21 season

  • They are my local club - on foot I can reach Roots Hall in just under 15 minutes, and I can even hear the (sparse) crowd from my house when the Shrimpers score

  • New home - I doubt it will be hard coded in FM22 that a move to the long-mooted new stadium at Fossetts Farm is now afoot, but the location has existed as an option for Southend United to move into for a number of editions. Planning permission was finally granted on 26/10/2021, after over two decades of plans and failures to find a new home away from Roots Hall

  • Financial issues - for many years the club has staved off many winding up petitions due to unpaid HMRC bills, with 4 seen off in 2019 alone. Chairman Ron Martin clearly ends up paying these bills himself, as the club are not sustainable (and haven’t been throughout my adult life), but the club needs to be run differently to survive recent ill-fortunes on the pitch

So, as a TL;DR, they’re my local club, the finances are shambolic, they are struggling on-the-pitch, and they have potential in the long term to move into a large stadium.

Scrimping Shrimping

For too many years it seems as if the club have been chasing the glories of the past - Freddy Eastwood’s free kick winner against Manchester United in the League Cup, successive promotions to the Championship from League Two…those days are over, for now. The cold, hard reality is that Southend United are in a very bad place and need to act accordingly.

 
 

Short term: Get back into the Football League.

In the Beta the board demand Playoffs at a minimum, so chances are that if I fail to get promoted I’ll be under severe pressure. With this in mind I’ll need to be battling my instincts to go out and sign youngsters (regardless of how cheap they are), as I need players who can do a job here and now. I’ll be looking to handle General Training for the first time in the current iteration of the training schedule (I’ll be utilising FM Athlete’s excellent FM22 Training Planner to play around with my options before the save starts). My focus for the first year will be geared towards producing the best match performance possible, and once we’re stabilised in the Football League, and we’re looking to produce our own players (for on and off the pitch reasons), we can focus on improving our players instead.

 
 

Long term: Ensure a considered financial approach matches steady growth and results in order to make it to Fossetts Farm Stadium.

I’m not saying it will be a ‘youth only’ challenge, but in the long term great emphasis will be placed on producing our own players, as well as signing players from the lowest levels available in-game in order to maximise the value of player sales, as well as bang-for-buck in our own side. I don’t know if it’s realistic, but I’d like to avoid paying signing on/agent fees (or at least minimise them). There’ll be a big focus on how I look into finances at the club, and trying to upgrade facilities at the right time. I won’t be looking to improve our facilities for a few seasons as the cost to maintain them is exponential, and we need to be patient. There’s a possibility I will stop blogging the save should we make it to Fossetts Farm Stadium, and every season becomes remarkably similar to the last.

Impressions

Having loaded up the save during the Beta for research, I’ve noted that the main strength of the current squad is the defensive spine, with the likes of John White solidifying central defence, and Arsenal alumni Abu Ogogo offering a solid presence in defensive midfield. We will begin the save lacking any depth at left back as Tom Clifford will be out of action until at least 2022, which is worrying, but we do have Nathan Ralph as a versatile option across defence. It is said that good defences win you trophies, and that’s how I’ll be trying to build the club up for the first year or two, especially as we are a little short of quality in the forward positions to begin with. I’ll be starting with the opening transfer window being turned off, so in January I’m expecting a bit of a fire-sale of almost all U23 and U19 assets, simply to save on some wages. We can focus on balancing the squad a little bit better once we know where we stand going into Season Two (if we get that far).

I’ve noticed that a few ex-Southend players I’ve seen in the flesh are doing quite well for themselves as backroom staff, with Mark Gower a scout at Liverpool, Adam Bartlett assistant manager at Milwall, and Shaun Goater an u-18 coach at Manchester City. The only ‘Icon’ available is ex-centre back, and local lad, Spencer Prior. He is available and willing to join as a coach on the Beta, so here’s hoping that continues in the full game as well.

We start out with ‘average’ Training and Youth Facilities, and a Youth Level of 3. The training ground is dated in real life, and I’d know as I have to walk past it if I’m going to the gym. I’d love to improve the facilities, but, as mentioned earlier, this has to be lower on the priority list unless we make a lot of money through player sales quite suddenly.

Our bank balance starts out at around £743k, which will no doubt be decimated by our £29.6k p/w wage expenditure (which is a grand per week over budget). We will make a loss this season, which makes it doubly important that we get back into League Two at the first time of asking. The longer we wait, the harder it will become.

Conclusions

I’ve been looking forward to this task for almost a year, having decided very early in FM21’s cycle that this was going to happen, however now I’ve seen what I have to contend with, I am a little worried. As with all Football Manager saves, I feel like if I can get past the first year unscathed then I’ll no doubt succeed with all of my objectives, but it’s not often I take a job in Football Manager that requires immediate success.

I do hope you’ll follow along for the ride, and if you have any advice about managing at this level, then please do get in touch. I’m scared.

 
 

Thanks again to FM Athlete for making his FM22 Training Plan spreadsheet - it’ll be my entry point to getting my head around this training UI at last!

A special thanks to Ondrej Rensie for his absolutely ridiculous work on his Football Manager skin, which I will no doubt be using once the game comes out. I’ve also followed his article in regards to other graphics in order to maximise my joy from the game, which can be found here.