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Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 6, Part 2

Welcome back, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

I love transfer season. I never stop looking for players, but the hunt goes up to 11 in the summer and in January.

I’ve found us an excellent Colombian winger.

Do we need another player on the right wing? Not really, though his pace is a welcome change to the plodding we have from Bacolla and Cikic right now. I like them both, and they’re both good players, but they’re both slow.

Freddy cost us a staggering 50k. Thousand. Not million. Fifty Thousand Pounds. He was technically a free transfer, but apparently, we had some visa fees or something.

That’s our first confirmed arrival for the summer and the first of six possible under 21 international players.

Victor is a Villareal player with an expiring contract. He will join us on a free transfer and provide an option on the right in rotation with Neco Williams and Adam Steele. We kind of have a crunch there with three players for one spot, but Neco can play at a midfield and Steele can play on the left or at DM. We’ll manage.

Fede Cordero is the next hotshit Argentinian forward to come out of Boca. (We hope he is, anyway.)

He cost a cool 7m to activate his release clause. He profiles as an excellent prospect, but also a player of the present. My scouts think he’d be third on our depth chart if he were at the club today. Kid is only 17! He’s also evidence that I need to run the face updater again soon.

Wait a tick…

That’s better. Fede makes the third of my possible six international U21 signings for next season.

January results were mediocre, so I made yet another round of tactical tweaks, this time modifying our third tactic based on the 4231 that was so successful in the Championship.

Our personnel are good enough now that it’s not suicidal to try this. It actually makes me wish I had Freddy Baez to put on the right, so we’ll have to give that a shot next season.

The tactical change wasn’t enough to hold off 2nd place Arsenal when they came to visit, though a second-half change to the asymmetric formation was even less effective.

I know the cliche is “it’s your tactics, mate,” but it’s also our quality. Here are a few comparisons.

Arsenal’s starting striker is Patson Daka. Our best striker is Adam Idah.

Idah is better in the air, but worse in literally every other category.

Our best winger is debatable, but let’s use Cikic for this.

Cikic is a great jumper, but that’s not a stat you really need in your wingers. Tsygankov is better in the meaningful categories.

Neco is our best attacking fullback. He’s simply outclassed by Tierney.

The numbers are more interesting. Not the score. Ignore the score.

Statistically, we played Arsenal fairly even. Other than goals. Due to injury, we did have our backup keeper playing, so maybe that’s on me for not playing Meggie enough in the autumn that he asked for and received a transfer in January. It’s hard to keep two quality keepers happy at the same time.

We simply have to improve our quality if we’re going to improve our league position, and that’s challenging in this league with so much talent already in on the teams we’re facing. If we can scrape into Europe, that will help.

Moving on…

Don’t tease me, Barca.

We played a two-legged tie against Arsenal in the Carabao Cup semi-final. The first match was away at Arsenal, where we played well but lost 1-2. The second match was at home, where we played well and f***ing crushed them 4-0. (They had their revenge a couple weeks later, as you can see above.)

Our biggest match of the season came on Sunday, March 1, 2026. Sunderland vs Everton at Wembley for (another) chance at our first trophy in our new Premier League era.

I went back and looked at our prior results. We played on Merseyside on 31 January and lost 2-4. We gave up four goals in the first half, including a brace to Juan Manuel Gutierrez. That was with our 4132 that I built for away matches. We played Everton at home on 21 September in a match that ended with a scoreless draw. In that one I used 442 with a wide midfield diamond that I haven’t kept around because it was worthless. In both those matches Everton played three at the back with wingbacks, two central midfielders, a winger on each side, and a striker.

Given our prior results and Everton’s formation, I took a gamble on using our 4231.

My thinking was that this would let us get a player into the hole between Everton’s midfield and defense while matching them out wide. Farrell and McCrorie are set to stay deeper, and I’ve shuffled the BWM to the right to counter the pace and crossing threat from Ghislain Konan, Everton’s attacking leftback.

I told the lads to get their revenge, and we took to the pitch.

Naturally, after all my research, Everton lined-up in a different formation.

I think they feared the mighty Black Cats and felt they had to mirror us.

The first half played out without too many opportunities and no goals. We had four shots with two on target. Everton had two shots with one on target. xG was dead even at 0.29 each. We were dominating possession with 68%, which made me pretty happy. I’d rather have the ball than not, especially when we’re not giving up counter-attacks.

At the hour mark little had changed, other than a horrifically off-target Lee Farrell shot from the edge of the penalty area. I pulled Harrison for Danjuma, and moved Idah to the tip of the spear. Everton immediately counter-attacked down Danjuma’s side, and we were saved from a Gutierrez goal by a narrow (but correct) offside call. At 75 minutes I pulled Araujo for Ramirez, in part because Araujo was on a 6.5 rating, but also because Ramirez is a far superior penalty taker, if things were to go that direction.

The match reached the end of regulation scoreless, though we were marginally the better side in shots and xG, and we were still dominating possession at 63%. I pulled Vlad Dragic from his spot at leftback and put in Adam Steele. Vlad was knackered and I wanted Steele’s slightly better penalty taking.

Everton took a 1-0 lead on 104 minutes through our nemesis Gutierrez. He brought down a long clearance, beat a knackered Finley Burns, and finished low to Tirado’s right. I pulled the ineffective Idah for Abdallah Sima and threw everyone forward. Everton scored again at 120+1 with a Scott McTominay thunderbastard from 25 meters.

Other than Adam Idah’s 6.2 rating, we played generally okay. Not great, obviously, but we moved the ball well, generated some shots, and were not obviously outplayed.  That’s two seasons in a row we’ve lost the Carabao Cup final. I hope that’s just us getting it out of our system before we reach the European stage.
I complain about lack of quality, but we do have some good players in the team that only need more time to develop. John Ramirez is a great example. He has been with us less than a year, but he’s developing as well as any player I’ve ever seen.

He was thinking about asking for a new contract, so I’ve given him one as a squad player. He appears to be very happy with it, and I’m looking forward to seeing his continued improvement.

Our youth intake came in March. It was as rubbish as usual.

I’m not sure why it’s so bad. Our youth setup looks good.

The academy coaching, maybe?

Yeah, looks like that was part of it. I feel pretty dumb. That’s something I should have caught three seasons ago.

Had to go to the board and beg, but I got this done, too.

That should take us from excellent to state of the art.

We secured survival at some point. The board dropped me a note about it.

Let’ s not get ahead of our– actually, f***ing cheer, people! We’re fighting for European qualification, and relegation worries are in our rearview mirror.

With five matches to play we were sitting in 7th place.

With Everton defeating us in the Carabao Cup final, 7th won’t be good enough for European football. We need to gain a point on Manchester United and hold off West Ham. Unfortunately, our run-in is ugly. Worse than ugly. Nigh impossible.

Norwich should be beatable, but we’re not all that good when away. Liverpool is basically impossible. Spurs and Chelsea at home are possible, but we need a measure of luck. City away is basically impossible. We realistically could take 4 out of 15 points and fall to 9th, but we’re unlikely to finish any lower.

We started the run-in by losing Ivan Sunjic for 3-4 weeks to injury. He’s been our rotation DM, giving McCrorie breaks. Not the worst player to lose by any means, but I’d rather have him than not. By the way, we extended Sunjic’s deal for three more years. He’s 29, and I don’t expect to keep him that long, but he’s a useful player and I didn’t want to let him leave for free in June. If I get an offer for him, I’ll let him move to “new challenges.”

We went to Norwich, played like rubbish, and lost 2-1.

Shortly after the Norwich horror show, Felipe Augusto pulled an abdominal muscle in training and went down for two weeks. That ruled him out of the Liverpool and Spurs matches. On the eve of facing Liverpool, Vlad Dragic damaged his foot, taking him out of contention for 11 to 14 days. You might think it was training, but all we were doing was match tactics and match preview.

On the one hand, Liverpool started Max Aarons at rightback, which was slightly better for us than them starting Trent Alexander-Arnold. On the other hand, they started Erling Haaland at striker. Harvey Elliott, playing in Mo Salah’s old position, put the ball in the net on 20 minutes, but it was called back for offside. Somehow, we weathered the storm all the way to halftime. The xG was Liverpool 1.2 – 0.38 Sunderland. Not great! Because I’m a glutton for punishment, and because we were clearly not going to hold out for another 45 minutes, I changed things up at halftime. We switched to our asymmetric formation, and I dropped McCrorie to DM. Haaland scored 6 minutes later. It was ruled out for offside, but Haaland put the ball in the net again on a ridiculous piece of skill where the ball came in from a deep cross on his left and he hit it left-footed into the net. I don’t see how it’s physically possible. The match ended 0-2 with Haaland completing a brace with a late penalty.

I just have zero answers for how we can deal with serial Premier League winners and Champion’s League holders Liverpool at Anfield. We can play them reasonably closely at the Stadium of Light, but on their patch? It’s brutal.

Our second loss in a row left us right where we were before: 7th place with West Ham on our heels and still a point behind United, though they had a game in hand, which they won later in the week.

Spurs were all over us at the Stadium of Light, barely giving us a sniff of the ball. I noticed that Idah, playing as an inside forward on the left, wasn’t doing anything to help out on his side, so I switched him from attack to support at around 15 minutes. I dropped our line of engagement from very high to high, hoping to compact midfield a bit more so Harrison Jackson wasn’t on an island by himself. We also weren’t getting many shots, so I moved our mentality from balanced to positive. Things settled down, and we stole a goal via a Finley Burns header from a free-kick just before halftime. Jackson and Idah came off midway through the second half for Danjuma and Laws. Our best chance came from the forwards working the ball through the box to Lee Farrell with half the goal open and no one in his way. He blasted it into the North Sea. Spurs didn’t do much better, and we held on for a well-earned 1-0 victory.

Things remained tight with two matches to go.

I made a few personnel changes for the Chelsea match. Idah went up top and Danjuma came in on the left. I also lowered our line of engagement as I did for Spurs, and set our mentality to positive. The first half was pretty even, though we only mustered a single shot. We went into halftime scoreless, where I lied to the lads and told them I was happy with their performance, which they lapped up. Unfortunately, they didn’t play any better in the second half, and Chelsea managed a goal on 58 minutes from a Moukoko to Tammy Abraham throughball. Things finished Sunderland 0 – 1 Chelsea, though even on shots and nearly even on xG.

My strikers are terrible and I hate them.

Our European dream died with a whimper.

You can’t see them in 20th place here, but Liverpool have spent 141m net. It’s been spent well, too, given their titles in recent years. Spurs are, naturally, turning a profit on transfers, including the 69m Liverpool paid for Oliver Skipp last season.

Oh, and look at that. Harry Kane to Barcelona for 64m. How the heck did Skippy fetch more than Harry? Actually, how the heck did they get someone pay 64m for thirty-two-year-old Harry Kane?

So. Manchester City away. I didn’t expect to win, but I didn’t want to get pasted for 5 goals, either. I rolled out the 4132 and mixed in a few of the kids that needed minutes, including Brad Laws, John Ramirez, Obren Cikic, and Gaston Araujo. The bad news was that we once again generated nothing going forward. The other bad news was that City did. It took them 89 minutes, but they finally scraped a goal. After the match I made up some tripe about the lads giving it everything, which they once again lapped up.

But will he be wearing a Sunderland shirt when he ends it?

Five matches ago we were in 7th place on 54 points. In that time we managed a mere 3 points to get to 57.

And yet we stayed right there in 7th place. That is, if you’re counting, the same number of points as last season, but two places higher in the table.

We were kinda bad in the second half of the season, though many of those losses were close. We are punching a bit above our level of talent, in my opinion. 

Actually, let’s look at the analyst stats again.

Our keepers are below average, though I think this does us a disservice due to our backup keeper being so bad. So let’s just look at Tirano compared to the league.

Not so bad! The best agility, but the worst reflexes. Generally decent otherwise. He’ll get better, too.

Defensively we are legit. A bit slow, but good everywhere else.

Midfield is a worse story. Poor passing and vision on average, but good tackling and decisions. Decisions??? I have no idea.

Our forwards are really killing us.

I have some excellent attacking prospects on the way, but they’re still kids. We really need a 22-24-year-old striker with superlative stats. That’s going to cost us 50m+, and I have no idea if the board will let me spend that much on a single player. I also have no idea if I can find someone who is both good and willing to join us. That will be for the next installment.

We played too much defense this season. Burns and Augusto were immense. Tirado and Idah were very good. After that things were mediocre. Lee Farrell, for example, is probably our best player in terms of ability, but he turned in the lowest rating.

He’s still improving, though.

Jamie Allen has retired from football at only 30 years old.

I haven’t noticed this screen previously (or maybe I have and have forgotten it). We were below our xG, which isn’t a shock. We finished right on our expected position, though.

“There is currently a leadership void in the squad.” This is what happens when most of your first team is under 21.

This is your yearly reminder that City sold him to us for 300k.

Speaking of City, they edged Spurs in the Europa League final.

That’s brutal. A first-minute goal. I did go back and check, and yep, Spurs finished 5th and City finished 6th last season.

Arsenal edged Manchester United in the Champion’s League final.

United have Calvert-Lewin leading the line. He’s a good striker, but he’s no Erling Haaland. To make matters worse, United needed to win to get back to the Champion’s League since they finished in 6th.

Kyril, my man. You’re a legend.

And on that fine note, I’ll sign out. Until next time, footy nerds.

The next installment is here

Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 6, Part 1

Welcome back, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

It’s a month into the 2025-2026 season, and Sunderland are alive and well in the top flight after comfortably avoiding relegation last season. Our summer transfer window saw some new faces join the club, and our first month of results was good, other than one shambolic away loss.

After the excellent run in August, we cooled a bit in September, losing to Villa, drawing at home against Everton, and drawing away at Arsenal. We did scrape a 1-0 over Portsmouth in the Carabao Cup, but that was expected.

October was better with a 2-1 win over Manchester United at home, 2-0 over Bournemouth at home, and 2-0 over Derby at home in the next round of the Carabao Cup. The only blemish was a horrific 0-2 loss way at Fulham.

November started poorly with a 0-3 loss away at Wolves. At this point I took a long, hard look at our tactic. We were doing great at home, but really struggling on the road, including some embarrassing losses.

Here’s how we looked at the time (ignore the injuries as this screenshot was from mid-December).

I looked at our players and thought about why we were getting beat and where our strengths were. We couldn’t maintain possession as I wanted, and we were getting beat by counter-attacks.

I switched things up.

Yes, I will admit that this basic formation is pretty meta within the downloadable tactics, BUT this is something I cooked up by shifting around from our old 4231. You can even see the tactic name at the top since I haven’t changed it. I know, from watching far too many YouTube videos, that two strikers is generally better than one in FM21, and wingers are not as necessary as they were in FM20.

The key principle here was to stop conceding so much. My hope was that the halfback dropping between the centerbacks would give us the extra stability in the back line and the packed midfield would disrupt possession around our box. The formation in the tactic is the shape the players will take in defense. Their roles and individual instructions govern what they do in attack. The wingbacks will charge up the field and give us width, and the mezzalas will slide wider and occupy the half spaces between the opposing midfield and defense. I have the AP-attack at CM to move up and support the DLF and Advanced Forward.

Instruction-wise, I kept it simple, as you can see. Shorter passing and playing out of defense to maintain possession, higher tempo because I do want us to have some attacking threat on the counter. I’m distributing to my fullbacks because they’re better with the ball than my centerbacks or DM. We’re counter-pressing because you pretty much have to in this match engine. Forcing the opposition outside was a conscious decision since we have so many great leapers in defense. The higher line of engagement is to get pressure from the strikers, but we’re maintaining a standard defensive line to prevent those counter-attacks.

I did add individual instructions to the AP. He should be getting further forward and make more direct passes. With Farrell’s 18 passing, 16 vision, and 18 decisions, he should be incredible in this role. Ramirez has 16 passing, 15 decisions, and 13 vision, so he’s not far behind and will be the second choice here.

All this combines to mean that we’re conceding some possession in the middle third, but we’re clogging the center of the park in the final third, and when our giant centerbacks head the ball away, we’re quick to pick it up and move it upfield.

Leeds came to visit, and I used the old formation since it was working at home. We smashed them 5-0. Norwich came to visit, and we won 2-1. On a trip to Leicester, I tried the new tactic. It wasn’t pretty, but we won 2-1. Then we had to go to Burnley, who haven’t been kind to us in our Premier League encounters. We won 4-2.

Our next series of matches was ugly.

  • Spurs away
  • Liverpool at home
  • Manchester United at home in the Carabao Cup
  • Manchester City at home
  • Chelsea away
  • West Ham at home

We throttled Spurs 3-1, to my surprise and delight.

Then Liverpool came to the Stadium of Light, and it was proper English football weather. Cold, driving rain. Oliver Skipp was starting in midfield after a 69m transfer from Spurs in the summer of 2025. We went up early but gave one back on 20 minutes before Idah scored his second of the day. Midway through the second half Alaba cleared off the line to prevent an Idah hat trick, and I thought we were going to take a famous 2-1 victory, only to be denied by a dodgy penalty call at 90+6. The draw flattered Liverpool more than us, to be honest. We were robbed by the penalty call.

After the Liverpool match, another head-hunting message turned up on my WhatsApp.

Did I want to leave 5th placed Sunderland, who I lovingly crafted into a decent top-half Premier League club for last-placed Aston Villa? No. I did not.

And that’s that. Bring on the Manchesters.

Man United at home in the Carabao Cup was a match where I considered going back to our asymmetric attacking formation, but injuries wouldn’t let me. Danjuma was out, Jackson had a knock, Enric was recovering from a long-term injury, and Dan N’Lundulu wasn’t match fit or good enough. I rolled with the tactic above, and we cruised to a 3-0 victory. Unfortunately, Idah picked up a 4-week injury, and Farrell picked up a 4-day knock.

We played Manchester City at home in the league without Lee Farrell or Adam Idah, our two most important players. This is a City team we have beaten before at home, but they were too good for us. Both their goals came from their centerbacks on set pieces, which was disappointing given that we’re usually dominant on set pieces. We actually looked okay going forward, getting some shots on goal, including a very late Harrison Jackson consolation, but ultimately our 6 match winning streak ended in a 1-2 loss that really could have gone either way.

Chelsea in 2025 are, if anything, more stacked than City. Their front line of Moukoko, Leao, and Rodrygo is preposterous. Amusingly, their back four still includes Chillwell, Tomori, and James. We got outplayed. The xG battle was Chelsea 1.85 – 0.73 Sunderland. Not great, and a match you’d expect to lose 99% of the time. Usually when we get 5 shots on target we can get a goal. We did not. No problem; it happens. Chelsea had 12 shots with 7 on target, including the penalty. They scored FIVE.

And they hurt Neco for a month. Pricks.

Every bad loss is an opportunity for free work rate or determination (if you know what I mean (and I mean yelling at the lazy bastards for such poor performances)), and Tirado, Sima, Jackson, and Farrell all picked up stats.

We followed up the Chelsea loss with a slightly less shitty loss to West Ham. At home. The injuries and accumulated fatigue were brutal.

The November and December results were so good, and then the wheels fell off after the narrow loss to City.

The West Ham loss left us in 7th place, on 33 points.

I did my usual deal-making in December, trying to lineup transfers for January.

It’s a dog-eat black cat world out there. This guy was on no one’s radar until we bid, but his agent managed to get Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and PSG to go in for him.

He went to PSG to play in their U19s. You coulda been a hero, kid. And played lots of minutes in the Premier League.

We picked up an extra 1.23 million by way of allowing Brentford to buyout a transfer clause on our former free transfer Isak Solberg. Solberg was our emergency backup keeper that played one match and left for 550k after sitting in our reserves for a season. I included a sell-on clause in that deal, and with Solberg sitting on the Brentford bench and having a 200k value, I decided to cash in. We didn’t need the money, but the hunt for value never stops.

Dzenis Burnic, who was attracting 20m offers last winter, departed the club for 7.5m. Chinese club DL Pro were willing to take him off our hands six months before his contract ended, and I was willing to let them do it.

Dan N’Lundulu finally agreed a contract with another club. Again, we were six months from him leaving on a free, so I had to take a 5m deal from West Brom. It was spread over three years, but at least we got paid.

Going into the window, I once again wanted a striker. I had two possible options I could recall from their loans.

Brad Laws was 3rd on the depth chart, according to Mike Phelan, my AssMan. That may or may not be accurate, but he’s physically capable, okay mentally, but a bit lacking technically.

Ignacio doesn’t have the same physical tools yet, but he’s far better technically. With him growing like he was, I was hesitant to bring him back.

There were a couple other irons in the fire, but they will be part of the next update.

See you next time, footy nerds.

Update: the next installment is available here.

Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 6, Summer Transfer Window

Welcome back, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

The last time we were here the club had just finished the 2024-2025 Premier League season, in which we were expected to fight bravely against relegation and actually secured comfortable mid-table survival, including famous wins over Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham, Arsenal, and Everton (four times lol).

The board have presented their expectations, and I have readily agreed to them.

We shouldn’t be relegated at this point. Our squad has enough quality to stay up. Don’t tell the squad that, though. The knobs think we’re going down and were furious when I suggested we could avoid a relegation fight.

Current expectations are:

  • Squad: Relegation
  • Board: Avoid Relegation
  • Coaches: Qualify for Europe

The “Qualify for Europe” plans revolves around our transfers over the next three months. That means fueling the incoming wonderkid pipeline and greasing the journeyman ejector. It also means retaining our best players.

I told him he could leave if someone met his release clause. It’s 77m for clubs in continental competition. If that happens, it happens. That’s like 3-4 South American wonderkids, if so.

Cikic’s clause is 43.5m, and he got the same speech as The Scottish Mistake. He took it fine.

We have multiple incoming players. First up is a free signing you haven’t seen before.

Harrison Jackson’s contract at Sheffield United was set to expire in June, so we grabbed him for free. I envision him as a good rotation option at AMC or as a Deep Lying Forward at ST. Physically, he’s not great. Good balance and fitness, but mediocre pace, strength and jumping. Mentally, he’s already looking very good. Technically he’s not really a striker, but he has good dribbling and passing, which I think will work well for us.

Adan Tirado was also free, from Real Madrid.

Decent-looking goalkeeper with good potential. About as good as Meggie, but will be far better in a season or two.

Schmitz will slot right into midfield as a creative passer. He set us back 3.5m.

John Ramirez will fit there, too. We have rotation options for Lee Farrell and Enric. He was 925k.

Ignacio is another great dribbler with mediocre pace. He doesn’t have the passing or vision of Harrison Jackson, but he’s only 17 and has great potential. He cost 950k. I’m not expecting him to contribute meaningfully his first season.

Because I can’t resist another wonderkid, I’ve signed another wonderkid.

My midfield is going to have the opposite problem of last season when we barely had enough good players. Gaston set us back 7.5m in transfer fees with an escalator for another 1m if he reaches 10 international appearances. His contract includes a minimum release fee of 82m, which I’m more and more seeing as a win. Yes, someone could activate it, but that’s a lotta clams for new players if they do.

It’s wonderkid Christmas up in here.

Nilson signed on a free and will arrive in January. His role will be determined in the future. Maybe leftback? Maybe left winger? Maybe just kick around on loans for a few years and be sold for a profit? He cost us practically nothing.

Nilson was the 5th of my 6 possible international transfers for the season.

I didn’t need a new rightback. I have Neco. I didn’t need a new leftback. I have Dragic. But was I supposed to pass up a < 20m deal for a Scottish wonderkid? I mean, that is not how I operate.

Adam Steele set us back 19.5m and came in as a star player on 59k per week. He can play either fullback position or at DM. Basically, I looked at him and asked myself, “could this kid play in the Champion’s League in a year or two?” and felt like the answer was “yes.” His attacking abilities aren’t great, but he’s very good defensively, he’s only 20, and he has plenty of potential left. Even if he’s just the “lockdown right back for top half matches,” that will be helpful. He’ll rotate with Neco and Dragic and get enough minutes to stay off my back. Hopefully.

And now for the nearly transfers.

After Enric worked out so well, I tried to go back to the well to poach another Barcelona midfielder, but…

He looked promising for his age.

I thought, “well, maybe I can leave him be for a year and activate a slightly higher release clause.” Uh, probably not. Barca set his clause to 69m.

We took a shot at signing a new left-winger to supplement (or replace) Danjuma.

He went to Watford instead. They’re in the Championship! (They also offered 16k more per week. I really need to pay attention to when players are wanted at other clubs. This isn’t the first time I’ve made a lower offer and had them choose another club.)

Similarly, I tried to pick up Ivan Ilic from Man City for a cut price 6.75m. I didn’t really need him, but he profiled as being my second-best midfielder, and I liked the idea of having another Resolute senior player in the squad.

He chose West Ham instead. They at least were in the Premier League.

I was SUPER excited at the prospect of getting Liam Delap in for 8.25m from Man City.

Naturally, he spurned us for Southampton. I even offered him better wages! Ugh. This one stings. He is a solid player right now and may still improve a bit with more playing time in the league.

When Delap fell through, I went after this lad from Germany with his 14.75m release clause.

He treated us like we were Tottenham. His agent signed him for a new deal on better wages at Schalke. Less wages than I was willing to pay, even.

This lad spurned us for Liverpool.

Bags of pace, gobs of potential, and now he’s going to go sit on their bench or be loaned to some League One side for a few years before I buy him for the same price when he has a year left on his Liverpool contract. Whatever, dude. You could have been a Black Cats legend.

I didn’t even make an offer for Billy, because his agent said we needed to be in the Champion’s League for him to consider a move. I cannot believe Chelsea let him go for 8.5m.

That is preposterous business for Lyon. He’s not physically amazing, but he can be amazing in the center of their midfield firing balls around the pitch to their stupendous collection of wingers and forwards they won’t sell me. (Lyon have so many amazing regens that are all out of our reach.)

On the outgoing front, we have to start with our long-time midfielder MAX POWER. It was time. Max was a good servant to the club, and he was immense all three of our seasons below the Premier League, but he was simply not good enough for our current level, and he wasn’t getting any younger.

His last act for the club was to present the players’ code of conduct.

He left the club on a free transfer. Farewell, friend, and safe travels.

Kean Bryan was key to our promotion from the Championship twice, but only had limited minutes in our last Premier League season. With Adam Steele here as a star player, it was time for him to leave.

Huddersfield paid 7.5m over 3 seasons to take him. He originally joined on a free.

Not all my transfer business is perfect. Josh Tymon is a good example.

I overpaid for him at 7m, and he departed for a mere 3.7m. He didn’t play much last season, and he wasn’t going to play much this season, either.

Pure Magic was another departure under a cloud. Look, I don’t want to call the guy a fraud, but our scouts f***ing lied to us. He wasn’t improving much at all, and his potential had dropped to a mere 3 stars.

Here’s how he looked when he joined us.

And here’s how he looked when he left us.

He gained an inch of height and put on a few pounds. Otherwise, not a ton of difference. He was supposed to go to Huddersfield for 5m spread over 3 seasons, but the jerk rejected their contract offer. He left on loan to League One Rotherham instead.

Longtime club servant Dan N’Lundulu was supposed to go to Brentford. They made multiple offers, and I finally accepted one that started at 15m and will likely reach 18m.

He rejected their contract! I’m clearly overpaying these guys if they won’t go to places like Brentford where they’ll actually get minutes. I nearly had him sold to Huddersfield late in the window, and he rejected them, too. Maybe he really wants to leave on a free? Maybe he’s hoping for a big money move to China or America in January? I guess I’m stuck with him until then.

Our homegrown left-back, Calin Tututa, left for Huddersfield.

He fetched 500k. His potential appears to be okay, but in reality he wasn’t improving much. Those stats are rubbish, too. He can’t defend, he can’t attack. All he can really do is sprint 10 meters a few times before getting knackered. My only regret is that the 500k felt a little too easy, and I might have been able to get another million out of him.

We loaned a bunch of guys out, too.

Calum Knight isn’t looking great at our affiliate Gateshead, but Brad Laws and Ignacio Escalante are doing well. Speaking of Ignacio, I was hunting for striker options late in the window after all the failed transfers, and I found a kid in South America on the Peruvian national team who looked promising. I went to check his transfer value, and I discovered he played for us already. Ignacio was like, hey boss, want to go out for some chicken and broccoli after the match? (The Cristiano Ronaldo diet, fyi.) Kid looks promising, and he already has two senior caps for his national team, so we should have him back in January and ready to help us through the second half of the season.

The bookies gave us decent odds for… Well, that’s better than nothing, I guess.

I’m still annoyed that Chelsea got Moukoko. Yes, it’s been like 4 seasons since it happened.

I’m planning to start with the hybrid 4321/4411 that worked so well to end the season.

Results are generally good, though we’ve flattered to deceive.

Southampton came to town in our first match of the season. Idah put the ball in the net three times, two of them counted, and all Southampton could muster was a late consolation. Liam Delap was nowhere to be seen.

Away to West Ham was a struggle. We couldn’t get anything going forward, and when I opened us up to be more attacking we got murdered on the counter. Myron Boadu scored all four goals for West Ham.

We turned it around a bit from there. We had to come from behind against Sheffield after a dire spell just after halftime, but we managed to take the win and look decent in the last 15 minutes.

Accrington looks good on the schedule, but what a shitshow. We didn’t deserve this:

Maybe I rotated in too many young players, but we had massively more quality and played like my 7-a-side team on a full-size pitch. It was shambolic. The opposite of the Southampton result. And yet, our quality managed to shine through at the last, and we avoided penalties.

Somehow Blackburn came into the match against us as favorites. We obliterated them on every metric. That one felt good.

At the end of the window we’re sitting in the top half with a few good wins and one rubbish loss.

I figure we have about a 5% chance of relegation, 30% chance of lower mid-table, 50% chance of upper mid-table / non-European places, 13% chance of 6th or 7th, and about 2% of 5th or better.  I would love to sneak into a qualification place for Europe, but it would require us to get lucky with the bigger, better sides stumbling.

We have plenty of money, but I’ve struggled to spend it. Neco, Bacolla, Araujo, and Steele all cost decent money, but going up a level from there is harder. The best I can generally do is non-Central European wonderkids or the odd transfer-listed veteran. We still don’t have the top class striker I want. I’m not super confident in my tactical choices. Our midfield is decent, but needs to gel.

Will I come to regret selling my backup leftback and my backup centerback/leftback combo? Will our strike force shit the bed for two months again and tank our chances at Europe?

Read the next section to find out!

Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 5, Part 2

Welcome back to the second half of the 2024-2025 season, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

We’re in the middle of our second Premier League season after a promotion, relegation, and immediate promotion back to the top flight.

I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos about FM while I’ve been playing FM. I caught a quote today that really struck a chord. “I deal in a currency called Brazilian wonderkids.” -Zealand

Me, too, Zealand. Me, too.

The vultures have started gathering around our very much still alive squad, looking to pick off whoever they can. Between China and the bloody Americans, I have half a dozen guys who are wanted.

Shanghai Port tried to pry away Arnaut Danjuma for 37m, which feels like a solid price for a guy that’s 27, mid-table Premier League quality, and valued at 25m, but I declined it. I’m rich. I don’t need the money. I might have sold for 50m, but they didn’t make an offer. I’m also happy to keep him until summer and sell him then.
Wuhan and Henan both came in for Dzenis Burnic with offers around 20m. I was willing to take it, but not without a replacement lined up, and they wouldn’t let me negotiate so, so they never really had the chance to tempt me on a counter-offer. Ivan Sunjic attracted a 20m offer from Wuhan, but the same principle applied. I’d let him go even though he’s a team leader, but only for more money. Even Josh Onomah attracted offers! Of the four, Onomah was the one I was most willing to do without. 

For incoming transfers, I secured a face we all know and love.

I got him for 15m! Technically he was out of contract in the summer, but A) I couldn’t offer him a deal yet because his parent club (Liverpool) was also English (you can only offer pre-contract deals to players from domestic clubs 30 days before their contract ends), and B) Liverpool had a 1-year extension, and they would just activate it to keep him from leaving on a free. I’m happy with the 15m. He’s not ever going to be the best right-back in the world, but he’s going to be a very reliable player for us for years to come, plus he can play in midfield or at AMR as a winger.

The even better news was that I got this deal done early in the month, before we played Liverpool, so I was able to use Neco against them for a change. (Spoiler: it didn’t help.)

I found a young German fullback with a 575k release clause, which felt like a steal for someone his age and ability. I activated it, of course.

He’s not as good as Josh Tymon, but he could grow into a better player.

I made the offer, we agreed a contract, and… he went to Bayern’s U19 side. Those jerks.

Looking ahead at the possible departures, I wanted to secure some strong replacements.

I found this gem in Argentina, but I couldn’t exactly get him on the cheap, so I put together a deal with a bunch of escalators based on performance.

The board tried to block it.

Operative word: tried. I spoke to them, and they backed down. Which is good, because we needed him immediately.

I was a little sad to lose Onomah, but I predicted it would happen, and lo it has come to pass. The fact that his fee almost entirely paid for Bacolla’s transfer was a nice little bonus.

We didn’t lose a ton, to be honest. He could play across the attacking midfield band or at MC, which was helpful, but he wasn’t amazing. Certainly not the “competing for European places” level we want to be at.

I tried another pass at Dinamo’s wonderkid striker, Silvio Kramaric, who I still think is one of the best striker prospects in the world.

The board balked at my potential 30m offer, and I couldn’t talk them out of it.

Damn it, Kyril. We’re rich! Let me spend the money how I want!

He went to Milan for 21.5m. He’ll cost 60m if we ever want to buy him in the future. I might, conceivably, pay that if we’re in the Champion’s League. They signed him as a squad player, so I don’t think I’ll be able to get him on the cheap if he’s unhappy with his minutes.

Our old target Victor Hugo landed at Chelsea. I hate how the rich get richer.

I took a shot at this English kid for 34m.

He spurned us for Everton. I feel like I can find similar talent in South America for 15-20m, but he looked as if he could help us immediately and still have a ton of potential. The really annoying thing here was that the board didn’t even blink. They wanted to interfere with my Argentine and Croatian transfers, but you pay over the odds for a young English lad, and it’s all good?

We picked up a new goalkeeper to arrive in the summer when his contract ends.

Adan is on the books at Real Madrid. Our scouts already think he has better ability than Meggie, plus he has higher potential.

Adan’s aerial reach and reflexes are a bit lower currently, but he’s generally better physically. It’s probably a toss-up between them, but Adan is 5 years younger. This probably means Meggie moves in the summer for a big fee. If he does, it will be after 2.5 years at the club, so it’ll be fantastic value for a guy that came on a free transfer.

This deal was done after the window closed, but the guy is only 17, so he wouldn’t arrive until summer, anyway.

Ignacio is a Peruvian winger that’s excellent with the ball at his feet, reasonably tall, but not terribly fast. Unfortunately, he failed his work permit, but that was expected. We’ll do the ol’ “send ’em to MLS for six months” trick and he’ll very likely get his callups to the Peruvian U19s.

We scored a couple great goals in February. Enric’s, in particular, was very Son-esque. He ran past most of the West ham defense to finish a brilliant solo counter-attack.

Our biggest match of the season was on March 2nd vs Arsenal at Wembley. The Carabao Cup final. We went in with our 4411, which helped end a poor run of form in the week prior to the match.

Arsenal went up 1-0 in the first minute with a long-range strike. It was so early, I didn’t want to change anything.

We went into halftime looking okay. Down a goal, but comparable xG and shots, even if our shot numbers were lower than I’d like to see. On 55 minutes we switched to the 4231 and an Attacking mentality, which got us some more chances, but opened us up to a neat series of open-play passes that left Emile Smith Rowe 1 on 1 with Meggie. Arsenal 2 – 0 Sunderland. We went to Very Attacking, and adjusted our roles to be more attacking and our set pieces to be more risky, but nothing helped. We have lost our first cup final.

Arsenal were 20 points ahead of us in the table before the match. They have by far the better side. We played competitively and didn’t embarrass ourselves. The result wasn’t unfair, but it’s hard to be too disappointed, either. This won’t be our last cup final (well, it may be this season), and I expect we’ll come back stronger.

Our very next match was in the FA Cup 4th round at home against Bournemouth. Naturally, we went down to a low-percent shot early in the first half. The 4411 was getting us chances, but we couldn’t finish anything. Again, in the second half, I switched to the 4321. On 80 minutes I went to Very Attacking and moved the DM up to the midfield line and adjusted the midfield roles from support to attack. Enric scored a beauty on 87 minutes so I immediately dropped to Positive mentality and steeled myself for a penalty shootout.

Idah bagged a 90th minute winner, and we escaped getting FMed. (When you totally outplay an opponent and they beat you, anyway.)

The match story was so nearly a tragedy. The 4411 wasn’t really working. It helped break a poor streak of form, but I’ve had better luck with the 4231 with a higher defensive line and the DM in the midfield band. We dodged the heavyweights for the Quarter Final and drew our old pals Sheffield United at the Stadium of Light.

Imagine losing 1-4 to Spurs, only to turn around and win 3-1 vs Manchester City. I would say we have a consistency issue, but we’ve been consistently poor for half the season. Incredible result vs City, though. Dang.

The youth intake arrived in mid-March.

One of the things I’ve learned while watching videos during my FM sessions is that even coaches with a 20 rating for player potential are inconsistent at rating players 16 and under. It starts to take shape by 19, but doesn’t solidify until 22. So these three 4 star kids might actually be 4-star potential. They might also be 2.5 stars or 5 stars.

None of the three make me think “obvious wonderkid,” but they have potential. Edwards worries me, though. Unambitious is a terrible personality. We’ll have to see if the general level of the squad improves him any. Determination is one of the easiest stats to change, and I’ll definitely be after him for poor performance. Hopefully, he improves over the next few years.

Our FA Cup run came crashing to an end in the Quarter Final.

We were just NOT at the races. It was the third match in 7 days, I was doing a bunch of juggling with fatigue and fitness, and I think it just caught up to us. I didn’t expect to win the competition, but I hoped we’d be able to get past Sheffield United, of all teams.

The FA Cup loss left us with 8 matches remaining in the season, all in the Premier League. We were sitting in 9th place on 45 points, 5 points from the Europa League places.

  • vs 6th place Everton (probably a loss)
  • vs 15th place Leicester (winnable)
  • at 11th place Fulham (winnable)
  • at 17th place Southampton (winnable)
  • at 19th place Crystal Palace (winnable)
  • at 20th place Huddersfield (winnable)
  • vs 8th place Villa (winnable)
  • vs 3rd place Arsenal (probably a loss)

Of the six “winnable” matches, I figured we’d take about 9 points, which would put us on 54 for the end of the season and firmly midtable. If things went poorly, we should still be well safe from relegation, and if they went well we could sneak into the Europa League.

During the international break before that run of matches started, my scouts turned up this Brazilian lad unattached to a club.

Uh, yes, please!

See those 6 U20 caps? They make him eligible for a work permit. I snapped him up. The best part (okay, like third-best part) is that I had an open foreign under-21 slot for this season, and I was able to get him on the deadline day for free signings, so he won’t even count against next season’s six slots.

Really breaking the bank for him, too. Did I really need another defensive midfielder? Not really. Will he still get some minutes and next season? Probably.

Oh, what’s this?

If he can’t hold down a spot, I’ll sell him for a decent chunk of that total. If he gets a thousand minutes in the autumn, he may go off to China for twice that much. As the quote at the top said: “I deal in a currency called Brazilian wonderkids.”

The first match of the run-in was vs Everton. We played them evenly, with a slight edge to us in the stats, but my heart stuck in my throat more often on their attacks than ours. A hard-fought 1-1 draw felt about right. We held our spot in the table at 9th, but so did they at 6th, still 5 points ahead of us and the guaranteed Europa League place. (I’m not sure we land in the Europa Conference League if we finish 7th, so I’m not counting on it.)

We came into the Leicester City match with the usual 4231, but the fullbacks were set to WB-A, and the first ten minutes of the match were basically a basketball game of end-to-end attacking. Joao Pedro was doing a Lebron James impersonation for Leicester. Those ten minutes ended with us up 2-1 and me telling the wingbacks to switch to support. That settled things down a bit until we conceded on a free-kick into the top corner, only to pull ahead a moment later with a Finley Burns header from our own free-kick. (Dude is an absolute giant (19 jumping and 17 tackling), and I’m still amazed and delighted Manchester City sold him to us for only 300k.) It was still a bit loose when we went in at halftime up 3-2, so I dropped our defensive line and line of engagement both to standard and had Ross McCrorie man-mark Joao Pedro. We held on for the win.

Fulham went up 1-0 on an 8th-minute free-kick into the corner. That’s a recurring theme, and it’s getting frustrating. Obren Cikic, playing in midfield due to fatigue in the squad, slotted home in the 26th bring us back level. He’s now only 4-star potential, and I’m good with that. A very tidy player who seems certain to reach his potential. Around 55 minutes I decided to drop our lines again to solidify things, and while we were waiting for a break in play for the instructions to take effect, Fulham scored by getting a ball in behind Ross McCrorie at rightback. So. Frustrating. We scraped a draw in a match we pretty much dominated.

With five matches to go, we sat in 9th place, even on 50 points with 10th placed West Ham, but 13 ahead of 11th placed Fulham. We also sat 4 points from the Europa League places.

For the match away to Southampton, I started us with standard lines and only urgent pressing intensity rather than the prior extremely urgent. After about half an hour, I lowered our tempo and told the lads to play for set-pieces so we could aim at the jolly Scottish giant’s forehead. We weren’t giving up quality shots, but we were giving up too many shots, and we weren’t getting forward well at all. Southampton eventually scored on a near-post corner routine where their player beat Adam Idah to the ball and managed to avoid our towering centerbacks. Five minutes later, they did it again, this time getting two guys on Idah and overpowering him. We lost.

Our best players were knackered. Our second-best players weren’t good enough.

The summer crop of wonderkids cannot arrive soon enough.

The loss dropped us to 10th place with a 10 point gap between us and 11th placed Burnley.

We went into a match at 19th placed Crystal Palace as underdogs. We looked like a puddle of day-old dog vomit and lost 1-3. Is this season over yet?

Our forwards were shit. Our midfielders were shit. Our defenders were not shit. We drew 0-0 to a team that was already relegated. The European places are too far to reach. We could, possibly, be caught by Burnley and fall to 11th.

Players on my shitlist:

Danjuma – 6.54 average rating over his last 5 matches

N’Lundulu – 6.56

Sima – 6.64

Enric – 6.68 (he’s better than this)

Aston Villa, in 8th place, came to visit the Stadium of Light. We lined up with an asymmetric formation somewhere between a 4321 and a 4411.

I needed something different, and this put us in a shape where we could hopefully be solid enough at the back and get something forward in attack with a little bit of spacing.

It looked okay at halftime. If not for a bad Lee Farrell miss on a counter-attack, we would have been ahead on 50 minutes. Villa cleared a ball off the line on 63 minutes to save a certain goal. Just when I was starting to think we might win a match, Ollie Watkins broke my heart, only for Adam Idah to draw us level moments later. Pure Magic, back in the side for the first time in months, scored a counter-attack on 78 minutes to give us the lead. A brilliant, deep cross from Cikic to a streaking Idah added to our advantage in the 83rd minute. We held on for a comfortable 3-1 win.

That actually worked. I can’t quite believe it. That wraps up the 9 points I thought we’d get.

Going into the final day we needed one point from Arsenal, at home, to stay ahead of Everton and secure 9th place. Bacolla replaced Cikic on the right, and he put a perfect cross onto Idah’s head on 33 minutes. Five minutes later Bacolla found space on the left (after a failed set piece) and threaded a ball through to Idah for his second.  One minute later, he did it again, with the help of a deflection off Pure Magic’s back (for real, his back), for Idah to complete a first-half hat trick. Ho. Lee. Shit. One minute after that, Idah drew and converted a penalty.  Patson Daka pulled one back for Arsenal, only for Idah to score his fifth of the day a minute later.

I haven’t seen many 10.0 performances in this game, but Adam Idah delivered a brilliant one. We cruised to a 5-1 win.

We finished in 9th place, agonizingly close to the European places.

Our form was never great, though in retrospect it was never too terrible at any one time. Our fundamental problem is a lack of quality in the squad.

The star ratings are imperfect, but this gives an okay view of our quality. Farrell, Burns, Bacolla, and Enric are legit wonderkids. Neco, Augusto, Dragic, McCrorie, and Idah are all legitimately good players. After that the quality dips. Cikic was good at times. Wendel is too new for me to judge him. Burnic and Sunjic are meh. Carlin and Lacroix are young enough that I have hope they’ll improve. (That Carlin purchase isn’t looking as brilliant as I thought at the time.) Sima, Danjuma, Tymon, N’Lundulu, Bryan, and Meggie are all possible departures. Pure Magic is basically a flop. The scouts lied to me on him. So did that sexy, sexy dribbling plus finishing combo he had at 17.

Looking ahead, I want to upgrade Sima, Danjuma, N’Lundulu, Tymon, and Bryan. I already have an upgrade coming for Meggie.

Kyril’s giving me a good starting budget, and a few departures will see it go even further.

The wheels absolutely fell off this formation, but it did get us to midtable.

I tried to tell the team that we’d avoid a relegation battle next season, and they lost their pixelated minds saying we weren’t good enough for that. C’mon, dudes. I’ve only failed you once before.

Here’s a pretty good summary of where we ended up.

We’ll break here, and I’ll be back soon with the summer transfer window. See you next time, footy nerds.

Update: the next installment is available here

Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 5, Part 1

Welcome back, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

I’ve been reviewing some areas of the game I’ve neglected.

Our scouting has been spotty over the last few seasons. My manual searches have turned up some great youth players from the global intakes, but my scouts haven’t been very effective. I’ve been letting my Chief Scout handle responsibilities throughout the save. That ended in September. We’re now scouting the following regions and looking for players with 4 star (superb) potential.

  • England and Ireland
  • Central Europe
  • Eastern Europe
  • Southern Europe
  • North Africa, West Africa, South Africa
  • South America (East)
  • North America & Central America
  • Scandinavia
  • France, Italy, and Spain specifically
  • Various cup competitions across the world

I’ve also convinced the board to increase our number of scouts to 11. The expectation is that we should start turning up more mid-career players for consideration, plus we should turn up more prospects that have played well but missed our filters for youth intake.

The autumn started really well. So well that Wolves came knocking to gauge my interest in their managerial vacancy.

The save is called “Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked,” not “Sunderland ’til I’m Given a Mediocre Raise.” I declined the interview. (Feels good to be wanted, though.)

The game gives you the ability to review analyst data for your squad’s stats vs the rest of the league. I wish I had done this in our prior seasons, but I’ve only learned of it in the last few days, so at least we’ll have it going forward.

Physically, we’re below par. Not the worst in the league, but far from where we want to be if we’re going to compete with the upper echelons of the league or in Europe. We are, however, very good in the air. We should be playing for set pieces more than we already do, and I’ll adjust the tactics based on this.

The caveat to this, and to the areas below, is that we are a very young squad. Not just the starters and subs, but the fact that I have a number of U23 players in the first-team squad but set to play U23 matches. This allows me to control their training and to put them into mentor groups with the senior players.

It’s a similar story mentally, though in this case it’s our relative youth. We have a number of nearly-wonderkids with high determination who will very likely improve over the coming seasons and drag this average upward. (Or not, because I may continue filling our U23s with nearly-wonderkids.)

We’re in better shape technically than mentally, for sure. Our long throws are the best in the league! (Why? How?) We’re above average in a number of defensive statistics and below in attacking.

Our squad may be above average defensively, but our actual defenders are below average. How can this be? I have a bunch of cloggers in my midfield, is how.
That actual defensive unit is excellent at jumping and heading, and we score plenty of set-piece goals because of it. We’re also the slowest team in the league. Which really reinforces that we should be playing a lower defensive line and that I need to be careful about counterattacks on corners.

One thing this doesn’t show, but I’ve seen time and again in our matches, is that our defenders are outstanding at flinging themselves in front of shots.

Foreshadowing alert: we have not been giving up many shots on target during the autumn portion of the 2024-2025 campaign.

Our midfielders are, if anything, worse than our defenders. The worst average passing, vision, and technique in the league. That’s honestly surprising; I didn’t think we were that bad. We are good in the tackle, but with poor stamina and decisions. This is a reflection of having so many kids and so many holding midfielders, and it tells me that I could really use a creative ballplayer and some upgraded wingers.

Keeping with the trend, our attackers are great jumpers. I value jumping in my centerbacks and goalkeepers, but this is getting ridiculous. We’re above average in heading, which makes sense. Our finishing isn’t terrible, but it’s not great. Our off-the-ball movement, pace and acceleration are poor. This is straight-up bad. Pace and acceleration are the most effective stats in the game.

I have had a mentoring group for a while, but it was a pretty large group with two senior players and a half-dozen younger guys. Per advice, I’ve broken that into smaller groups.

I’m hoping that the senior guys can help the current crop of wonderkids improve their personalities and stats. This is a great way to improve determination, but also some of the hidden stats like consistency and professionalism.

Our autumn form can be summed up in this image:

We were brilliant. The loss against City was not exactly unlucky, given their overall shots and xG, but the actual goal was a corner we half-cleared, and that Laporte converted when it was crossed back into the box in transition. It happens.

The only worrying trend for me was that we were generally outscoring our xG. I’m not complaining about the points, but I worry about maintaining that form through the season. On the plus side, our defense was generally very good. Those centerbacks with ridiculous tackling and leaping have been brilliant at cutting out crosses, blocking shots, and heading away the resulting corners.

Our match away at 3rd place Everton is a great example of our overperformance. We scored 4 goals, including 3 from open play and 1 from a corner. We did that on the back of 1.11 xG. Conversely, Everton scored 1 goal–a penalty–from 2.36 xG. Something like .75 of that xG was the penalty, but the rest was largely the accumulation of low-quality chances.

I don’t mind the low chances, but when you dig further, it gets more worrying.

We’re blocking a third of their shots and contesting the rest, but to be honest, the fact that two shots hit the woodwork is worrying. We could have easily conceded three here, which would have been in line with the xG.

Nice cross, bro. Wanna try again? And again? And Again?

Now, in the name of science, the game crashed as I was capturing more analysis screenshots, and I had the opportunity to replay this match. The game, however, does not believe in science and injured Obren Cikic for three weeks in the week before kickoff, so I lost my starting right-winger. In the second go ’round, we lined up with our modified 4231 rather than starting with the 4411 like we did the first time.

Abdallah Sima picked up a knock in the first half, so I subbed him to be cautious. Josh Onomah picked a 10-day ankle ligament injury late in the second half after I had used my subs, but it honestly didn’t matter.

The result was the same!

We gave up a poor early goal, but came back well. The Ben Godfrey own goal was one of those where he either risked a touch or our striker had a tap-in. We then scored from two corners.

The xG this time was much better. It honestly makes me wonder if the 4411 is even helpful. We used it for part of the match against City earlier, but we were much better with the 4231. With the 4231 I think we have a combination of better players (definitely true) and a tactic tweaked to better suit them (probably true). Going forward, I’ll be working from it as my starting point.

In our next match, against Fulham, I was watching for the shots and the xG.

Here we are, 10 minutes into the match, and Fulham have two shots, neither on target, but a total of 0.47 xG. What. The. Hell. Turns out the two shots were in the penalty area, in a central position, just outside the six-yard box. But they were taken with about five of our players between the ball and the goal. We blocked the first shot, it bounced out for a second shot, which we also blocked (we’re really good at blocking shots; I wasn’t kidding), and we raced down the field on the counter-attack. I think that if Statsbomb were calculating this xG, it would be far lower, given the bodies between the ball and the goal.

Moments later, the story repeated. We headed a corner out to the edge of the penalty area, Fulham took another shot, and we easily blocked it. But it counts as 0.47 xG for some reason. This is something Sports Interactive should review and adjust, in my opinion.

We went on to lose the match 1-2, naturally.

The next image is from a later match against Southampton.

Oh, look. We won the xG battle this time! And lost 1-3. In our defense, 2/3 of our team was either injured or completely knackered.

This is from earlier in the autumn.

It feels like we hit a spell of poor form every November/December, and I think it’s the initial autumn rush of matches coupled with international breaks. Guys get tired and get hurt, and we suffer because we don’t have enough depth. We coped well initially because people were fit, but the November international break wore out my best surviving players, and the ones coming back weren’t match fit.
Even with the injuries afflicting the rest of the club, our healthy kids are getting noticed.

I see things like this, though, and I worry less about a poor run of form. (Our solid position in the table helps my morale as well. Yes, I’m teasing you about where we are. We’ll get there.) We have two of the three most exciting young players in the league, and the other is the best young player from the beginning of the save. Our long-term success is not guaranteed, but I am bullish about it.

Hey, one of my individual training plans has paid off. Farrell is going to be even better as our midfield orchestrator.

The youth intake preview has come in. This looks promising. We could use a good midfield prospect, and I’m always interested in forwards. We’ll see how it looks come March.

As autumn turned to winter, and I was struggling to keep us from falling down the table, Kyril came by my office.

An extra 20m in transfer funds is welcome indeed!

Remember my whining about losing out on Victor Hugo? And remember my prediction about how much he was going to cost if we wanted to buy him in the future?

Look who my scouts turned up. (Thanks, guys. You’re the best.) The 16.25m isn’t too bad, but those wage demands are wayyy higher than we were going to pay last season. He’s on the shortlist, though left back is far less a worry than right back. We’re using Neco Williams as our starter, and I still can’t get Liverpool to sell him for under 60m.

He’s good, but he’s not 60m quid levels of good.

I’d still really like a top-class (or as near as we can get) midfielder to play alongside Lee Farrell. Or to rotate with him, as needed. I have my eye on a 19-year-old Egyptian goalkeeper, but he wasn’t interested in a pre-contract deal yet. I may get him in the summer. I’ll have more transfer updates in the next installment that covers January.

We had a brilliant match away in the Carabao Cup.

Which sets us up with a very enticing fixture in January.

We couldn’t win it, could we? We’ve already beaten Everton 4-1 (twice due to the crash) and Spurs 2-1. It’s possible, for sure. I can hardly wait to find out. Imagine: we could be playing in Europe next season, regardless of our league finish.

We’re to January 1st, and I’m including it here due to the excellent result away at Manchester United.

Our form hasn’t been brilliant lately, but we also just came off a run against Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United where we were undefeated. Two of those matches were away. We could have won any of those matches.

We did have a couple bad losses against Southampton and Aston Villa. It’s going to happen. I’m not worried about it.

We’re just over the halfway point, and that last draw caused us to drop out of the European places. We could easily climb right back in with a run of easier matches on the horizon. We’re 1 point behind our points total from 2023.

Folks, I think we’re staying up this season.

And on that note, I’ll sign off. See you next time, footy nerds.

Update: Season 5, Part 2 is live now

New Story Week! x2

We take a break from the regularly scheduled Football Manager posts to announce not one but two new short stories available this week.

The first is “A Dying World, Overheated and Nearly Ruined” at Nature. It’s a flash piece that’s about computer repair, global warming, and corporate bureaucracy. They say to write what you know, right?

The second is “An Open Letter to Bezoath, Lord of Darkness and Shareholder Value” at Translunar Travelers’ Lounge. This is another flash piece about bad bosses and corporate bureaucracy. Again: write what you know, right? (My current and past managers are wondering which of them this is about. I’ll tell anyone that wants to buy the first round.)

Dying World is my second published story at Nature, and it’s the first time I’ve had a market publish me twice. I’m delighted to have another story there. I’m also delighted to have published a story that I think is about something serious and affects us all. July 2021 was the hottest month on record since humans have kept records, and I still have to listen to assholes tell me that it’s totally natural, despite all evidence. Yeah… things are going great.

Lord Bezoath is my first sale to Translunar Travelers Lounge. It could be the last. The editors at the lounge want stories that are “fun.” I struggle with fun. My work tends to be on the serious side. Or the “vaguely creepy whoah this veered toward horrific” side. I want to broaden my repertoire, though, and that includes more things that are fun. You. Will. Enjoy. My. Stories, he says, turning purple in the face.

Both stories are quick. I hope you enjoy each of them for entirely different reasons. Please laugh in the right places.

Now, back to the Football Manager posts.

Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 5, Summer Transfer Window

Welcome back, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

In most circumstances, it would be blasphemy to say you don’t care about winning the league. One of the few exceptions is the EFL Championship. The trophy was nice, but being promoted is so valuable that the league was only icing on the cake. After the ignominy of relegation, I am stoked to return to the Premier League and prove that Sunderland belong there. I don’t just want to go up and come back down. I don’t even want to go up and cling to survival. I want to go up and thrive. I want European nights for the Black Cat supporters. I want a 40-year-old Leo Messi playing in the Stadium of Light with the wind howling off the North Sea, the supporters shaking the rafters, and his last chance of Champion’s League glory slipping from his frozen grasp.

We’ve been building a decent foundation over the last year. The summer of 2024 is where we solidify it.

I mentioned before that about half of all real transfers are unsuccessful. I don’t want to go through every single transfer, but let’s look at just the young players, the nearly-wonderkids, we’ve brought in so far.

I don’t think any have been flops, though Bednar and Jensen are very much TBD and may never be good enough for the first team. (Missing out on Hysky and Filip Beck (the Danish kid that fell through last summer) is helping my case here…) Burns and Augusto are 100% successes. Cikic is off to a fantastic start with the half-season we’ve had him. I have Farrell marked only as “Good” due to his lower average rating, but he’s played tons of minutes and been important for us. Enric hasn’t quite gotten up to full speed, but he’s been plenty good enough to deserve his minutes. Pure Magic had a rough spell mid-season, but kicked on decently in the second half. Solberg played one match and was sold for a profit, so I don’t think it’s fair to count him as a success or a flop. 

Farrell and Pure Magic dropped by my office hunting for new deals. They both deserve them, to be honest, so I’ve gone ahead. Pure Magic’s was easy, and had no special clauses. Farrell’s agent pushed me harder than I really wanted to be pushed, and I’ve had to agree to some release clauses.

On the plus side, if anyone offers me less than 77m for Farrell, I can tell them to pound sand, and he can’t complain about it. On the downside, I can easily see him being worth that money in 18 months, so I’ll probably be giving him a raise by then.
We have a handful of new players joining. Ross McCrorie is the most-senior of the group, though I’m not at all sure he’ll end up being the most important.

He’s the kind of utility player I rave about every season. Having someone that can effectively cover a number of positions is the difference between relegation and mid-table. MAX POWER did a fine job as our emergency rightback in the second half of last season, but no one wants to see him reprising that role. 

I’m excited to see how Jordan Carlin does for us. I expect that he’ll fit right in with Finley Burns and Phelipe Augusto in our centerback rotation.

I’ve heard centerbacks described as being of two arch-types: dogs and cats. Dogs are players that are physical, aggressive players who shut down opposition attacks by charging in. Cuti Romero is a great example. Cats are more patient, using their superior positioning to always turn up in the right spot and snuff out an attack before it gets started. Think Toby Alderweireld at his peak. I think Carlin is going to be more of a dog with his ridiculous tackling, good work rate, and decent positioning. 

Kevin Lacroix is a promising rightback. Not quite a wonderkid, but lots of potential.

We’ll see how he does with first team minutes. Hopefully he develops well playing part-time.

Vlad Dragic is my leftback of the future, leftback of the present, and possibly midfielder of the future. He’s already looking amazing. That level of passing out of a fullback screams for me to play him far up the pitch with an inside forward cutting in ahead of him. I’m actually really looking forward to seeing Vlad ping balls across the opposing penalty box and onto Cikic’s forehead.

The midfield option here is interesting, though I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with it. I don’t expect to play him there much, and I know our fullbacks (wingbacks, really) need heavy rotation given how demanding their roles are. If all he does is play a bunch of minutes in rotation with Josh Tymon, that should be plenty.

Eddy Laenen is one of those players who looked too good to pass up. He’s hopefully going to get enough minutes to further his development, though I think we do need him to develop more before he’s ready to be our midfield destroyer. 

Our existing crop of nearly-wonderkids are coming along well. 
Lee “the Scottish Mistake” Farrell is a capable midfield starter for us now. 

Lee, my dude, what did you do to your hair? You might want to go back to the old barber.

(There was a technical issue with updating the regen faces, and I seem to have replaced all regen faces in the game rather than just the new players. I’ll try to figure it out for next time.)

Finley Burns is one of our starting centerbacks.

Felipe Augusto is our other starting centerback.

He dropped by the office asking for a raise, and I’ve given it to him. He’s gone from 1.1k a week to 20k a week. 

Cikic has done a solid job at AMR now that Sima has moved to ST. 

Apparently, he’s thinking about a new contract. Given his 5k a week wages, I don’t blame him.

Enric played a bunch of minutes at AMC, taking Josh Onomah’s old spot. He can also play on either wing or in midfield. Once he develops a little further, I’ll likely send Onomah off to his next challenge with a pat on the back and a case of good whiskey. 

Pure Magic is the most disappointing of the group, though he’s young enough that he may yet turn out to be a good player. 

I won’t be sentimental about him, though. If I can find an upgrade, I’ll cut bait.

Jensen still needs a work permit, and he’s not getting the Denmark youth callups I expected. That really should be a lesson learned for me and for anyone scouring for youths. If they aren’t in their country’s U21 or U19 side, tread very carefully. 

He’s off to MLS for another 6 months in the hope that he’ll get some youth callups. If he comes along, he could be a useful player for us.

I’m not sure what to do with Bednar. Probably loan him another season and see. If he’s good enough to replace Tymon in the future, then great. I’ll keep him. Otherwise, his transfer fee can fund the next generation of nearly-wonderkids.

Our homegrown players have less potential, but I still have hopes for a few.
Calum Knight looks like he might make it in our first team.

He has a promising start mentally, his first touch, passing, and technique are okay, and his physical abilities are okay. He won’t be a worldbeater, but he could be a good squad player for us.

Brad Laws is our best striker prospect.

Good pace and acceleration, okay mentals, kind of weak technically. I really need to see his dribbling, finishing, and first touch improve before I give him any real minutes.

I’ve lost hope in Patrick Almond.

He’s just not come on much, and he’s technically poor at 20 years old. He’ll likely go on to a successful League One career.

Lest everyone riot, here’s the man, the legend, Abdallah Sima.

He’s pretty good all around, but not stellar anywhere. I don’t expect another 30 goal season, but if he scored 15 in the league, that would be amazing. The best part of having him is that if I find an upgrade at striker, I can slide him to the right wing and rotate minutes with Cikic and N’Lundulu. I love flexible players.

Here are the tactics I’m planning to use. Unlike last time in the Premier League, we have different ways of playing. 

The 4141 is often suggested on Reddit and FM forums as a good option for newly-promoted sides. It’s similar to the Mourinho-esque 433 that we attempted to use two years ago, though it starts with the wingers further back when out of possession. My plan is to use this for away matches at the biggest clubs. 

I have a 4411 as well. It’s tuned to be a bit more adventurous than the 4141, both in having the AMC rather than the DM, but also in the individual roles being more attack-oriented. My plan is to use this away to smaller sides and at home to the bigger sides.

I took our old 4231 and made a bunch of tweaks based on guidance I found on Reddit and Youtube (ZeaIand’s FM videos on Youtube were particularly helpful).

We moved to a Balanced mentality. Going between Positive and Cautious has pretty drastic changes on what players will do, so I’m starting at Balanced and adjusting on a per-match basis.

I’ve dropped the DLP from the midfield line to the DM line and set him as DM-S. This is because I want the body back, but I wanted to limit how the team treats the player as a playmaker. I don’t have a Camavinga. I have some good passers with okay defensive stats, and some good destroyers with mediocre passing stats. I’d rather use this player as a destroyer.

Our instructions have been adjusted slightly. I want shorter passing to maintain possession, but I want higher tempo to get the ball up to the attackers. I also changed our line of engagement to be Standard. We’re still going with higher pressure, but our centerbacks are great leapers and only mediocre sprinters. I’d rather have the opposition lob balls into the box and let our giant head them away.

The hunt for wonderkids never slows. I’ve signed another one for next summer.

Antonio Schmitz is joining from Club Brugge for 3.5m.

He’s actually coming along with John Ramirez, who I signed last year. We’re just waiting on him to turn 18.

I took a shot at signing Silvio Kramaric from Dinamo. They wouldn’t take my 20m.

I’m not sure he’d even sign for us, but I’ll keep after him.

The squad is now complaining about having three players in a position. I was a little surprised when Josh Tymon turned up at the doorstep whining about being replaced by Vlad Dragic (he’s not wrong), and then I realized that I made a teensy error. Apparently I have somehow renewed the loans for Cirkic and Neco Williams until the summer of 2025, i.e. for all of this season. I’m now three deep at leftback and 2.5 deep (McCrorie is the 0.5) at rightback. Huh. I have no idea how I managed that, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m inclined to keep them both and prioritize minutes for my own players.

We’re just about to the point that I have to stop buying kids unless I start selling them. After playing a bunch of friendlies, there are two areas I can still see a need: striker and goalkeeper. We’re actually fine in both, but we can certainly upgrade Dan N’Lundulu, and I’d like a better backup to Megiolaro in goal.

That only reinforces the need for another striker. N’Lundulu and Sima can rotate on the right, but I’d rather have them rotating up top.

Well, well, look at our pal Ross getting a move. I’m legit happy for him.

We played our first match of the season and did shockingly well, but even so, it reinforced my thinking about us needing another striker who can contribute immediately. So I’ve gone back to the well for a familiar name.

Did I overpay? Probably! He’s good, though.

Good pace, good finishing, still some room to develop. I looked at a bunch of other options, but he was overall the best option for someone who would sign for us.

I took another tilt at the wonderkid windmill, and I don’t know if Dinamo would have taken my offer, but the bloody board intervened.

Gentlemen, please. Have I not gotten you to the Premier League twice? I have not won four trophies in my short tenure? (We’re counting the Pizza Cup.) Let me work my magic!

I mentioned doing well in our first match. Manchester United came to the Stadium of Light and left with their tails between their legs. Black Cats 2 – 0 Red Devils.

Our first away match of the season was a narrow 1-2 loss at Stamford Bridge. We laid down a marker for the rest of the league.

We may not win the match, but we will leave our mark. On your shins, your ribs, your foreheads…

We had a brutal schedule to start the season and did really well out of it.

A famous win at home against Manchester United, two narrow losses against Chelsea and Liverpool, and a couple wins over Norwich (cup) and Derby (league).

We finished off August in a spot for European football. Stop the count! And the blog, until the next update, that is.

Until next time, footy nerds.

the next post is here

Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 4, Part 2

Welcome back, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

My biggest regret in the save is how poorly I prepared us for our first campaign back in the Premier League in 2022-2023. Particularly in terms of tactics, but also how I spent our transfer budget to improve the squad. One smaller regret is an offshoot of that transfer spending. I wish I hadn’t bought so many mediocre 17-year-old prospects. I can’t even call them wonderkids. Not because of the money, but because they arrived after the Premier League season, which meant they counted toward this season’s limit of 6 under-21 international players. We’re up to three deals I’ve had fall through, and one that happened this January stings.

I tried to offer another contract, but this news broke a few days later:

I’m gutted. He’s one of the best left back prospects in the world, and we’ve missed him. He’s signed a new 4-year deal at Sao Paulo, and he’ll probably cost 30m if we want to pry him away next season.

We also missed out on Karel Hysky this January, which turned out to be fine.

A few years back I read that half of all transfers in the real world don’t work out. (Everton supporters are nodding.) Not just that every transfer isn’t a star, but half of all transfers don’t even become squad players. Liverpool supporters are casting furtive glances at Naby Keita, but he’s a success by this metric. 

I’ve done better than 50% in this save, assuming you include “sold for profit” as part of “worked out.” Still, I wish we had landed Hugo. He’s already good, and he’s only going to get better.

After writing all that, I’ve reverted to my nature. I’ve lined up another solid youth prospect for the summer. I’m like the scorpion on the frog’s back; I just can’t help myself.

Kevin isn’t as quick as I’d really like to see, but he has plenty of time to develop further, he’s already mentally solid, and he has a good starting point for technical skills. I have no idea if he’ll be better than Neco Williams by the time he gets to 22 (where Neco is now), but he might be. If I can pry Neco away from Liverpool at a decent price, I will, but I expect that Kevin will be getting most of Neco’s minutes with Ross McCrorie flexing into the rightback position as needed. (I’m super excited about having McCrorie’s versatility to cover MC, DC, and DR.)

Kevin was the fourth of my six transfer slots for next season, and I don’t plan to use any more until the summer window. (He says, before he sees the European youth intake.) The good news is that our squad is decent enough that I don’t feel compelled to find players that are only decent and have good potential. I can find genuinely good players that have outstanding potential. (See the last post for some examples of the true wonderkids that won’t join us yet.)

With Alakouch on his way out, I brought in a new left back on deadline day. Key things to note: he’s English and he’s 24. This does NOT count against my wonderkid transfers. 🙂 

I’ve had my eye on Josh Tymon for a while, but I never felt he was quite good enough for us. Now that we’re in a pinch with Alakouch, I’ve spent the money on him.

He’s not brilliant, not in the way Vlad Dragic will be or Victor Hugo would have been (I’m still salty), but he’s English and he’s useful, and I really need someone to take minutes from Dennis Cirkin, whose legs are about to fall off. Worst case is that I sell him in a year and break even.

I took a deadline day shot at bringing in a 24-year-old Portuguese winger (doesn’t count against my limit if they’re over 21!), and while Porto were willing to work with me on finances, the player refused to even discuss a contract. To be fair, he went to the Premier League, where he’ll probably play plenty of minutes for Aston Villa.

In an attempt to help Brad Laws further his development, I offered him out on loan. He’s played about 400 minutes for our senior team, but he needs more football if he’s going to make it.

MK Dons kindly offered to take him as a regular starter and even threw in 700 quid a month for the privilege. I would have let them have him for free, but thanks, I guess.

I’m already looking at our squad and thinking about the Premier League. It may be a bit presumptuous, but we’ll be far more ready for the top flight on our second attempt. The first priority is to bring in a centerback better than Kean Bryan . We only have three Championship-calibre centerbacks at the club, and I don’t think Dan Almond is going to be useful for next season. McCrorie will be a big help, but I think we need someone really solid that can be part of a three-man rotation with the excellent and still improving Augusto and Burns. Plus, if one of them gets poached, I’m not up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

I wouldn’t mind a midfield upgrade on Burnic or Sunjic, but we’re probably okay there with Ferrell and Enric developing as they are, plus the midfield wonderkids already joining in June.

We’re okay at striker. Sima has been great, and Pure Magic broke a NINETEEN match drought in January and has scored a couple since. If ever you wanted proof I’m not using the editor to find players, it’s that I had such hopes for Pure Magic and he’s turned to be a little bit meh. He’s not come on as well as I had hoped, and our coaches now think he’s 3.5 star potential, which is baseline Premier League quality. Our top 5-star prospects are Enric, Augusto, Burns, and Farrell.

Speaking of Fearrell, here’s how the Scottish Mistake is looking these days.

As handsome as ever, and look at that passing and those decisions! I am fully intending to build a team around him at the base of midfield threading killer passes between the lines. 

It took until after the transfer window ended, but Alakouch finally signed a contract with Al-Arabi. He left for 5.25m, which was a bit less than I wanted and a bit more than I paid. 

Maybe I handled him poorly, but he always seemed to have a mistake in him, and that last red card tipped me over the edge. 

Our big FA Cup match against Manchester City was in early January. The Cityzens came to the Stadium of Light and we actually held serve, to my shock and delight.

I tried using the 442. It didn’t work terribly well. We were down 1-2 at halftime, and City looked far better. I switched to the 4231 in a positive mentality, and we looked much better.

Look at that beautiful xG graph. I don’t know that I’d want to try starting in the 4231, and I certainly won’t in the replay in Manchester, but I’m very happy to see how it turned things around for us here.

The poor performance of the 442 makes me think I need to revisit it in the preseason when I have some meaningless matches to tune it.

The replay in Manchester was not a highlight reel for our Black Cats, but we did have a nice Enric to Pure Magic goal on a counter-attack to score a late consolation goal. We fell 1-4, and 3-6 on aggregate.

We cruised along in the league in January and February. We weren’t perfect, but we racked up points and stayed near the top of the table, all while giving the wonderkids plenty of minutes.

Our youth recruitment players arrived in late March. I mention them only because I feel like I should, to be complete.

I’m not sure if they’re bad (they’re bad) or if it’s only by comparison to how much better our first team is compared to a couple seasons ago. We’ll sign a few of them to have bodies for the under-18s, but I don’t have any hope of any of them ever reaching the first team. I did convince the club to upgrade our recruitment after I saw the warning about this group being mediocre. I’ll try again in the summer to see if we can get some actually useful players coming through.

You remember how I told you Abdallah Sima was on fire? Here, have a few pictures worth a thousand words to show you how great he’s been.

Fun fact: Abdallah Sima had an active relegation release clause in his contract for 22m. He had a Champion’s League release clause of 43.5m. Operative word: HAD.

That work permit calculation is a little wonky. I have intimate, excruciating knowledge of the British visa process, and it depends on how many dependents you have and how long you’re applying. (Maybe it’s different for athletes, but this applies to normal people.) If Sima has a spouse and a kid, that 20k is about accurate. It’s expensive to move to England.

And the deal is done!

He’s only 22, he’s scored 25 league goals this season, and he hasn’t been the starting striker for most of the season. Well, he is now. (He’ll probably fall off a cliff next season since that seems to be my luck with strikers…)

Me, working late on transfer options for the summer: Hey, Dan, what’s up?

Dan N’Lundulu: I was thinking about a new contract…

I open the spreadsheet with this season’s stats

Me, looking calmly at the sheet: And?

The door closes quietly behind him.

Me, already heads-down in scouting reports: Peace and love, Dan

Is it horrible to say I’d like to find an upgrade on N’Lundulu? He carried us to the Premier League two seasons ago, but he’s been mediocre this season, and I don’t think he’s quite good enough to be a consistent starter in the future. If I can find an upgrade, I will. If I get a good bid for him, I’ll let him leave. I’d say that I’d like to have him sub at ST/AML/AMR, but if we’re playing a 4141 or 4411 most of the time, there’s limited need for him since he doesn’t have the defensive chops to play further back on the wings. If he goes, it’ll be with a case of whiskey, much like Ross Stewart.

The biggest issue as we go grind through the matches is squad rotation. My players are tired and the coaching staff keep telling me they need rest. The defense is the biggest area of concern. I’m trying to rotate as much as I can, but I only have 3 senior centerbacks and 1 senior rightback.

Darcy Ryan, our press officer, popped by one morning.

Darcy: Boss, one of the broadsheet lads said he found something in your search history

Me, my heart stopping in my chest: Oh?

Darcy holds up a page of search results:

Darcy: He asked if you wanted to comment on searching for “How to unsettle a player”?

Me: No comment

Also me: how the hell are they hacking my search history?

Darcy, whistling as she walks away: No idea, boss

Celtic declined my 10m bid for Jordan Carlin, which was annoying, so I thought I’d just check to see when his contract expires.

Wait, what’s this?

Hahahaha! Victory! Being rich is f***ing great!

Now, before I pull the trigger on this, let’s make sure there aren’t better options.

First up is Jonatan Arrua at Boca Juniors. He’s Argentine, which would take one of my precious under-21 foreign player slots. Carlin is Scottish, which most wonderfully does NOT take one of those slots, so that’s already a point in his favor if we need a tie-breaker.

Carlin is looking good!

Actual stats are more of a mixed bag, but I still like Carlin. Physically, he’s not the leaper Arrua is, but he’s a touch quicker. Mentally I like Arrua’s anticipation and bravery, but I like Carlin’s composure and decisions. Technically it’s really no contest. Carlin is ridiculous in the tackle, he has a great first touch, and his passing and marking are both superior. And did I mention that he doesn’t take one of my foreign player slots? It’ll cost about 8m more than Arrua for that privilege, but we’re rich, and we’re coasting straight back to the Premier League.

Let’s be thorough, shall we? The best senior player that will sign for us right now is probably Joe Rodon.

Physically, it’s the same story all over again. Rodon is better in the air, but it’s about a wash otherwise. Mentally, Rodon wins. That’s not a surprise, given he’s 8 years older. Technically, Carlin is ahead again. That 17 tackling is good at any age, the marking is comparable, and Carlin has better passing.

One last comparison, this time to a legit superstar that wouldn’t return my calls unless we were in the Champion’s League.

Upamecano is better physically, for sure. Much quicker, and a marginally better leaper. He’s superior mentally, though the flair hardly matters. He’s better technically, but again, 17 tackling is superlative, and if Carlin’s marking improves, he’s going to be very comparable.

Do you see that release clause? No? Me, either.🙂

The only area I can think of that I know I need to reinforce for next season is rightback. We can probably loan Neco again, but I’d rather be developing my own players at this point. I tried to make the transfer permanent, but they wanted 63m. Uh, I may be rich, but I’m not that rich. If Liverpool won’t sell him for a reasonable price, I’ll let him go back and sit on their bench a while. His contract expires in another year, though they do have an optional one-year extension that I’m sure they’ll use.

I know it’s only MK Dons (sorry, Dave G), and I know the Premier League will be more of a challenge, but TWENTY-THREE shots on target. My tweaks to the 4321 (and our improving young players) are working.

I’m not worried, but that’s not great, either. Two starting midfielders injured for what’s likely to be 7 of our 8 remaining matches, if not all 8.

A Neco Williams red card and subsequent two-match suspension added to my troubles. Finley Burns picking up his 10th yellow of the season and getting a two-match suspension didn’t help, either. We ended up playing some matches with some very middling youth players getting minutes. We won, anyway, so it was more of an “opportunity” than a crisis.

Young Calum Knight (they’re only “young” if they’re not good enough for the first team) did well in his starts. He’s my best prospect from our homegrown players.

Ainsley has fab pace, but little to go with it, though he bagged some goals on sub appearances, so I think he’ll have a good career somewhere, even if it’s not with us.

Calin is rated highly by my coaches, but I’m under no illusions about him making it to the senior team for more than the emergency cameo, and even that will hopefully cease after this summer’s arrivals. Check out his determination and work rate. That’s a lad that has felt my wrath for poor match performances. I fear the artificial stat growth in those categories has impeded him in other categories, though. I don’t know that for a fact, but it seems like that’s how the game would work, weighting bigger numbers more and suppressing the others.

April brought two massive matches in a row. Watford away and Newcastle at home. We were still in the midst of the injury and suspension crisis, compounded by Calum Knight getting a knock on international duty. If I had a nickel for every time we played well and dropped points this spring I’d, uh, be broke. Because we played well and won. Future club legend MAX POWER has been our emergency rightback while Neco Williams has been in the clink. He’s been–I don’t want to say immense–but very adequate. His set-pieces have been massively helpful, and he hasn’t shamed himself in defense. He’s nowhere near the level we need for a backup in the Premier League, but he’s also been earning his enhanced paychecks against the opponents put in front of him. Anyway, we crushed Watford 5-1.

Another personal milestone rolled around, and it happened to be against arch-rivals Newcastle United in a match that could guarantee our return to the Premier League.

Aww, thanks lads. You couldn’t have given me a better gift.

Um, Kyril, what the hell? We’re rich already. We’re going to be even more rich soon. Why is my transfer budget LOWER for next season?

Oh, you mean to put those extra millions into my personal pocket? I’m listening…

Well, he didn’t exactly give me that difference, but 35k a week is nothing to sneeze at, either. (Manager salaries are meaningless in this game, other than maybe making you harder to sack or forcing a club that wants to poach you to pay a little more to get you.)

We needed to beat 20th place Hull in our next match to win the title in front of our home supporters.

We are the champions (of the second tier), my friends! We are the champions (again)!

If I’m truly going to keep at this until I’m sacked, we could be here a while.

Aw, thanks.

Apparently, I didn’t share the final table after our last Championship championship. Consider that mistake rectified:

Here’s how we finished this season.

I can’t complain.

After a rough December and the Manchester City drubbing, we turned on the style.

I count 21 matches unbeaten until the final day when it didn’t matter.

Some final stats (in pictures because I can only write so much about such dominance):

Kyril stopped by with his vision for next season. I’m a little concerned about playing entertaining, possession football in the Premier League, but it’s more likely than this past season’s goal of signing high-reputation players.

Our facilities were downgraded, and Kyril has kindly agreed to upgrade them.

Turns out that the last time I asked and he declined it was because we already had excellent facilities. Who knew a League One side would? Oops.

A few final bits of news before we wrap this.

Liverpool won the league for the 5th season in a row. Leicester survived, barely.

West Ham beat relegated Sheffield United in the FA Cup final.

Huddersfield will be joining us and Derby in the Premier League. Newcastle were great for most of the season and were terribly unlucky not to be in the automatic promotion places. Tied on points and goal differential with Derby, but lost out on goals scored.

We won a pile of individual awards. Sima set a new league record for Player of the Match, Danjuma won Player of the Year, Sima was the top goalscorer with 33, Burns was Young Player of the Year, I was Manager of the Year, and we were well-represented in the league’s team of the season.

We finished with 98m in the bank, which mostly means I have cash on hand for the 30m in pre-arranged transfers that are going to hit us in early June. (McCrorie, Lacroix, Carlin, some nearly-wonderkids from last summer.)

I’ll pause here. The transfer window looms, and we will have some new players joining and probably a few departing.

Until next time, footy nerds.

Update: the season 5 summer transfer window is live

Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 4, Part 1

Welcome back, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

Never let it be said that I’m not sentimental. Against my better judgment, I’ve given Max a two-year extension with a club option for one more. He’s been hinting at wanting a new contract for the last year, and I felt like we either did it now or we let him leave on a free next year and piss off the entire squad and fan base.

He’s a marginal Championship player at best, but he’s still our captain and the most influential player in the squad. My thinking is that he’ll be useful this season, and if we go up and he drops to being a sub next season, that’s okay. I’m hoping I can convince him to become a coach for us before he starts complaining about his lack of playing time.

While I was feeling generous, I gave Arnaut Danjuma a new contract, too. He actually deserved his, and it allowed me to remove his release clause.

I might be overpaying him, but he’s been outstanding. “A leading player for most Sky Bet Championship sides” with Premier League potential. He’s also running an 8.08 average rating over his last 5 matches and 7.7 for the season on the back of 3 goals and 3 assists in 9 matches.

At the end of September, we were in good shape. Two losses in the league, but generally good form.

The Huddersfield loss was at the end of a run of far too many fixtures in far too little time, and we were carrying a number of knocks on top of an exhausted squad. The Brentford draw was annoying due to us dominating the match and allowing them a late equalizer. Overall, I can’t complain, and we rebounded nicely by smothering Charlton with 5 goals.

Watford have been on fire, with Daniel Podence scoring 7 and creating 5. Oussama Idrissi has been right on his heels with 5 goals and 4 assists. It’s a long campaign, and someone else may overtake them, but they look like our biggest competition so far. I look forward to taking them down a peg when we see them in November.

The October financial report came in.

We continue to be rich. I’m not concerned about the 3.7m loss. Nearly half of that (1.4m) was taxes, which shouldn’t be a concern next season given how much money we’re likely to be losing this season. 

Our second major injury of the season (after Enric) has hit.

This is why we signed two veteran midfielders in the summer. We’re in a weird spot where I feel like we need about two more players to have the right level of cover, but if we had them and everyone was healthy, I wouldn’t have enough minutes to go around.

One match later and Danjuma joined Sunjic in the physio’s room. Five to seven weeks out. That. Sucks. Left-wing is my thinnest position with Danjuma and N’Lundulu being my main guys. Cikic was supposed to cover it before his work permit failed, and Enric has been injured. The good news, and I use the word “good” here lightly, is that Cikic has been getting minutes with the Serbia U21s, so he might actually have his work permit in January if he’s able to play in their October and November matches.

Okay, damn it, this is getting old. That’s both my new midfielders hurt for multiple weeks, simultaneously.

Some people eat when they are stressed. Some people buy new shoes. I go shopping for youth prospects.

I made an offer on this kid. He’s a decent midfielder with great passing and a great work rate. He even passed his work permit. But when it came to finally sign him, I hesitated. With only 6 international slots available for next summer, I’m not sure I want him to fill one. We have Dragic and Hugo on the way, and I was perusing the Serbia and Croatia U21 teams and it feels as if we can do better.

Look at this kid, as an example. He’s amazing. He doesn’t want to play in the Championship, but if we go up next spring? I’d drop 15m on him in a second.

Kontek isn’t quite as good as Kramaric, but he’s at least comparable to Grznar, so I know it’s not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sign Grznar.

I canceled it. Grznar is good, and we’d make money on the deal, but we don’t need money. We need quality, and I just think we can do better with those precious under-21 slots. The Brexit rules are nice for getting kids in from South America who only have youth caps, but they suck for building a wonderkid army.

One of the the things I’ve realized as I’ve been scouring the planet is that there’s a tier of wonderkid I can get, and a tier that I can’t. Not yet. Kramaric is a “not yet,” and so is this absolute beauty.

Soon, lad, you will be a Black Cat. Here’s another, though it’s not exactly a challenge to find promising youth players in the Real Madrid academy.

I found two others that were interested in joining.

Geovane is a weird player. An allrounder, which I like, but at centerback and midfield? He has a 1.8m buyout, but I can’t activate it yet due to having six prospects already signed this season. As soon as the January transfer window closes I’ll activate it and have him arrive after the season ends. (Update: he signed a new deal that removed the clause before I could get to him.)

I have an offer outstanding on this lad:

He looks a bit better than Grznar and more likely to reach his potential. The fee is 1.7m (who says money can’t buy happiness; it can buy wonderkids!), and he’s set to join us in the summer. He’ll be a fantastic midfield destroyer in a couple seasons.

Okay, I have to be honest. The guys I’m signing aren’t technically “wonderkids.” That’s an actual media description, which you can see on the profiles above. Anyone that’s an actual wonderkid won’t join Sunderland (yet). I’m finding players that look almost as promising and will improve our squad immediately while growing into top-tier players in a few years. Maybe they aren’t the next Haaland or Mbappe, but maybe they are the next Son Heung-min or Jordan Henderson, and those guys are important, too.

Okay, enough wonderkid hunting. Back to the matches.

We went to Derby with a pile of injuries and played our worst match of the season.

It turns out that having three of your starters in the physio room has an impact. This is the Debry that knocked us out of the FA Cup 2-4 in our last Championship campaign, and they’re pissing in my cheerios again. We will have our revenge in the reverse fixture.

FFS!

At least we have MAX POWER to see us past the likes of Nottingham.

The man is an assassin. I like winning. Let’s keep doing that, shall we?

Felipe, my son, you’re gonna bankrupt the club.

His wages are criminally low, and he’s probably going to be on 25k a week before the start of next season. He’ll be worth every pence of it.

Look at those stats. That rating in the league. Felipe is the kind of player that makes me love this game.

In other news, we’ve found another good run of form, and Abdallah Sima has been on FIRE at striker. Turns out putting your guy with great finishing and great decisions at the tip of the spear works well. Who knew? That’ll be another upgraded contract to hand out soon.

Yes! Operation “go to MLS to earn some youth caps” has succeeded to perfection. Which means he can play at right-wing and keep Sima up front. Our forward line is looking good again.

Our rash of injuries has cleared up, and somehow we’ve come out of it with 5 wins in a row after that loss away to Derby.

And then Watford came to town. We played well, with more shots, more shots on target, and better xG. We had two headers from corners saved off the line at the back post, but the quality of Podence and Idrissi was too much and we found ourselves down 2-0. A second-half free-kick saw Finley Burns finally head a ball into the net, and we scored again at 90+1 to claim the draw we fully deserved. Honestly, scoring at 90+1 to earn a hard-fought draw is like 95% as good as winning.

At the end of November, we were in great shape.

Our November form earned me another piece of personal silverware.

Kyril popped by my office and wanted a chat. Before he could get a word in, I started showing him the stats on the new free transfer I’ve lined up.

Me: I love a utility man, and this guy fits the bill like whoah. Isn’t he amazing?!

Kyril backs slowly out of the room: I just wanted to say congrats…

Me: Contracts in Scotland apparently end on 31 May! I had no idea! Look at the VERSATILITY!

Unfortunately, the good times came crashing to an end. A trip to bitter rivals Newcastle ended our run of 6 wins on the bounce.

We were second-best, and we nearly took a point, anyway, but with Neco Williams out injured and Sofiane Alakouch picking up a knock in the match, we had to put MAX POWER at right back, and the poor guy got absolutely worked on the move that led to the winning goal in the 89th minute. I can’t even be upset about it. It just means I need to get back to work to get us another rightback.

Back at my office, I was looking at the scouts’ reports, and someone knocked on my door. Darcey Ryan, our press officer, stood in the doorway. Down the hall, where he thought I couldn’t see him, Kyril lurked.

Darcey: Uh, boss, I have some bad news…

Me: Did McCrorie not sign the contract?

Darcey: No that. Um.

Me: Oh no, don’t tell me Sima’s gone down injured.

Darcey shoved a copy of the Evening Standard onto my desk and ran out the door.

Well shit. Time to tweak our training:

Hope you like defensive training, lads. We’re gonna be busy. It was also time to break out the 442 I’ve been prepping for the Premier League.

I’ll probably regret this, but at least we have time to practice it.

Tactic trip report: I tried it away at Hull. We conceded once in the first half and offered nothing going forward. Switched to the 4231 at halftime and generated 18 shots, including 8 on target and 1.5 xG, but it wasn’t enough to score more than one goal and take a draw. That was two points thrown away. Oops.

Our youth intake seems promising until you get to the final line. “Don’t expect much from this youth intake.” Bummer.

Me, slamming open Kyril’s door: I just talked to Scully about our new prospect–

Kyril, furiously buttoning his trousers: Close the f***ing door, Baldwin!

What a wanker.

Later, in a meeting of the full board, I put forth the idea that we should always be looking to improve the club. With everyone else around the table nodding in agreement, Kyril caved.

He’s all smiles now, isn’t he?

This is a microcosm of December:

All that good work through the autumn, and then this:

If you’re Cardiff here, do you feel hard done by that you couldn’t take a point off a club that was apparently on a bender for an entire month?

The Coventry loss involved a Sofiane Alakouch red card for a horror tackle. I chewed him out for it, and he threw a hissy fit. Guess who’s on the transfer list? I want him to be a good player for us, but this is his second red card of the season.

His stats are okay, and the 6.98 rating is actually good, but I will not abide someone that isn’t a team player. If I can get 7m+ out of him, he’s gone.

Our rubbish form means we’ve fallen down the table a bit.

That said, we’re 2 points from automatic promotion and 6 from winning the league. I’m annoyed, not worried.

That takes us to the end of December. January looks interesting with the signings that are about to fall through, Alakouch pissing me off, and Manchester City on the horizon.

See you next time, footy nerds.

Update: the rest of the season is available here

Sunderland ’til I’m Sacked – Season 4, Summer Transfer Window

Welcome back, footy nerds. If you’re just joining, the previous installment is available here, and the first installment in the series is available here.

Thank you to Iain Macintosh for the shoutout on The Football Manager Show. I’ve outpaced the challenge, but I hope the spirit of it remains even as the updates come more quickly for now.

At the very end of the Premier League season, the board set out expectations for how the club will be run. This year it included playing defensively solid football, playing high-tempo pressing football, playing possession football, and signing high reputation players.

Wait one damn minute. I can probably handle the tactical stuff, but you want me–the manager of recently-relegated Sunderland–to sign high reputation players? Do you not know my Football Manager philosophy? It was in the first post.

I will continue signing the players I think will make the club succeed, and Kyril can sack me if he doesn’t like it.

While I complained about Kyril to the backroom staff, he turned up with this little gem of news:

You can buy a lotta pints and packets of crisps with that kind of money. I reckon someone with 76m in transfer funds could build a Premier League calibre team. Maybe even survive for more than one season.

WHERE WAS MY MONEY LAST SUMMER, KYRIL?

At the moment, we have just short of £100m in the bank. Over the course of our Premier League season we spent about 96m pounds. That was roughly 5.5m a month in operating costs plus 29m net transfer spend. Of the 66m in operating costs, only 16m was player salaries. We haven’t paid for June yet, so that will go up a little more. The game says we currently have 400k a week of committed salaries, or about 20m over the season. It’s hard for me to estimate our expenses next season since I didn’t screenshot our last Championship campaign. Add in the flux from player sales and new signings, and MBAs everywhere are sweating over their business plans. Bottom line is: we should be fine this season if we don’t blow 70m quid on Scottish wonderkids, but we might end up in the red if we do.

I can work with that.

I was sitting at the desk, trying to crunch the numbers and work out our budget, and Kyril popped by again.

Yes, that’s a real thing. You get relegated and they just hand you 41m the next season. There’s a reason the Championship playoff final is called “the most lucrative game in sport.” We were probably fine with our 100m and some half-decent stewardship of it. Throw another 40m on top, and we can buy even MORE Scottish wonderkids.

In case anyone else wants to plan their promotion season, here’s what we spent in the Premier League:

Even though I have way more money to spend, I don’t want to repeat last summer’s trolley dash. We were really disjointed at the beginning of the season, and a big part of that was all the new faces. I’d like to bring a few players to fill gaps and give us the best chance of immediate promotion. Smart, sensible additions that will improve us both on and off the pitch.

Unfortunately, have a number of relegation release clauses that have just come active, so we may lose a few of our better, more expensive players, which makes my planning harder.

All of these represent significant profit on purchases, but these are all good players and I’d like to keep them. I quickly signed Finley Burns and Lee Farrell to new contracts to get rid of their release clauses. The wages were a small increase on their prior contracts.

He’ll get plenty of minutes in the Championship.

Lee “the Scottish Regret” Ferrell is on a similar deal with a promotion escalator and a relegation reduction, and now–notably–NO release clause. He’s gonna be a star for us, and when he’s captaining us in the Champion’s League in four seasons, I’ll be a genius again.

I’m gambling on the others. Maybe they’ll stay, maybe they’ll go. When I look at only this season, I want to keep everyone, but if I look a little longer term, I can take the departures as an opportunity to upgrade.

Before I purchase anyone, I need to review who we have at the club, on loan, or already coming in who can help us. Here’s a pretty decent view of what a match day squad would look like. I won’t go through these guys one by one since you already know them.

I’ve already extended Cirkin and Neco Williams’ loans, so they’re staying for their third seasons with the club. I looked into signing them permanently, but Spurs want 110m for Cirkin, and Jurgen Klopp won’t even return my WhatsApp messages for Neco.

This is, to my eye, a stronger 11 with better subs than we had in our last tilt at the Championship. DL and AMC could use stronger players, and ST and both wingers could use depth, but we’re talking incremental improvements, not wholesale overhaul.

The first place to look is internally to see if we have anyone ready for first-team football. Our loan and youth players have potential, but I’m not sure any of them are going to be able to contribute.

Patrick Almond is probably the most-developed of our youth players. He has done reasonably well in League One with 6.74 rating across 39 appearances, but he’s far from Premier League quality. I’ll keep him as a fourth centerback unless one of my incoming international players is better suited.

Dan Neil has done well enough in League Two, but he’s also 21 and doesn’t look like he’s anywhere near the level of my first team. I appreciate his versatility, but you have to actually be decent in any one position for the versatility to matter. I think I’ll sell him, to be honest.

Brad Laws has done well in League Two, scoring 16 goals in 42 appearances. He has plenty of room to develop further, too. I wouldn’t want him to play 2000 minutes, but he could play with the U23s and get a few matches with the senior squad.

Niall Maguire has not been great in League Two, and my coaches think he’ll top out as a League One player. His contract expires next summer, so he’ll be off to anyone that wants to pay for him.

Calin Tututa has been in our youth setup all season. He has great acceleration, high determination, and a fantastic work rate (due to me yelling at him so much), but he’s dire in most other areas. His potential is good, and he’s under contract for two more seasons, so I’ll loan him somewhere in League Two.

Isak Solberg was my “break glass in case of emergency” keeper from last December. He’s not ready for the first team unless there’s a dire emergency. I’ll keep Burge as the backup and Richardson in the U23s.

Ian Henderson isn’t ready for the first team, but he’s reasonably close. If he grows on another loan, he might be useful next season. 

We have a few more youth players who have good potential, but aren’t remotely close to the first team.

Ruben Ortega is the oldest of that group. I’ll probably loan him somewhere in League Two. He seems promising and might actually be a useful play for us someday.

The incoming international players are a more interesting lot.

Felipe Augosto is going to relegate Dan Almond to the youth setup or another loan. He’s good enough to play meaningful minutes in the first team right now. Sorry, Dan.

Michal Bednar is not quite as ready. He’s too slow for the wingback role I need, but he has potential, and I’ll see how he develops with playing time in a lower league.

Karel Hysky joins in January, and I have regrets. He has not improved much, and while his tackling is decent for his age, I don’t think he’s going to hit his ceiling. I’ll try to loan him somewhere and hope for the best. He cost 46k, so it’s not a huge loss.

The first of my former FC Copenhagen players. Good physical ability, okay mental. Not good enough to contribute to the first team this season, unfortunately. I wish I hadn’t signed him.

Lars’ is not quite what I want in my first-team squad, but he’s also not far from it. I can see keeping him at the club in the U23s and playing cup minutes to see how he develops.

Actually, Lars, never mind. Cikic is getting all those right winger cup minutes. He’s slower, but better in every other area.

I was thinking of an AMC to take some of Onomah’s minutes. Enric will do fine. I’d say he saved me some money, but he cost 5.25m from Barcelona. He can play on either wing, so that’s good cover for Danjuma and Sima, too.

You all haven’t forgotten Pure Magic, have you?

Wait a tick…

That’s better!

He was the bloke I thought I was signing in January, but Brexit screwed us and we had to wait until he turned 18. He can play on the right wing or at striker.

So the original needs were DL, AMC, ST, and the wings. We have a gap at DL, but we have Enric at AMC, Pure Magic at ST, Cikic at AMR, and a combo of all three to cover AML.

I now need a decent left back, and I think I’m set. The scouts are out scouring the world.

My coaching course finished. Yes, I minmaxed my character.

Check out my media handling. It’s called “this is a stupid chore and there’s little penalty to sending my assistant.”

Also notice the “loyalty to players.” It’s middling, which is fair. On the one hand, I want to be loyal. I do. Look at Lee Farrell and Finley Burns. On the other hand, I have guys on the roster that probably need to move.

This is not a Premier League player. I’m planning to let him run down his contract because he’s my captain and has been important for us. If he were anyone else, he’d be out the door.

Burge is similar. Not terrible, but declining rapidly as he hasn’t had as many minutes. I’m happy to keep him on the books one more season as the backup.

Dobson is worse. He needs to go, if I’m being brutally honest.

The first of the release clause dominoes fell. Emi Martinez, signed on a free in January, has left for Bournemouth.

Maybe I should have tried to get a higher relegation release clause, but I thought we’d stay up and it would be moot. I also thought, “well, if we go down, 12.5m for a player signed for free is pretty good…” And here we are. Good luck, dude. You were kinda rubbish for us. Now I gotta replace him.

Thinking about my midfield situation, I’ve decided to let Moder leave. He was great for us in the Championship and okay in the Premier League, but he’s a loan player, and I’d rather develop my own players than someone else’s. I considered keeping him, and Brighton only wanted 12m to make the move permanent, but when I looked around, I found other, better options to play as my deep-lying playmaker and box-to-box midfielder.

Dzenis Burnic fits the bill reasonably well. His personality is “resolute,” which is helpful for a team that seems a bit Spursy. I need more professional, perfectionist, and resolute players to help my wonderkids grow. Dzenis looks to be a downgrade on Emi Martinez physically, but when you look at the actual stats, it’s not so bad.

His higher aggression will help in the midfield, and he’s a better passer. His concentration and decisions could be better, but he has high determination, which will help him mentor my wonderkids. He’ll do fine as my deep lying playmaker. Oh, and he’s free. I could spend money on a midfielder, and I probably will, but he looked good. I love a bargain.

Long-serving utility man Luke O’Nien left for League One QPR for 550k. I could have gotten more had we stayed in the Premier League. Alas. 

I’m not going to directly replace him, though I do still need a second incoming midfielder.

The second relegation release clause domino fell. This sucked. I had just signed Jimmy to a new contract, and I was AN IDIOT and included a 10.75m relegation release clause. He even got 10% of the transfer fee, so he picked up a cool 1.1m bonus for the move.

Rather than let all my starters leave, I decided to be a bit more proactive.

Is Joshy a brilliant player? No, not really. Is he a versatile player who has played a ton of minutes for us over the last two seasons? Yes, 100%. This keeps him on the books until he’s 30, which hopefully means I sell him before then after our first season back in the Premier League. It also means we got rid of his 5m release clause, which was much too low for how important he has been to us.

Hey, you remember how I keep kicking myself about spending a bunch of money on a Scottish wonderkid? I’ve done it again, but this time for a Serbian wonderkid!

Dragic is set to join us next summer (because I have too many incoming youth players this summer… eek). He will be my Dennis Cirkin replacement. His mental abilities are amazing at only 17 years old, and his personality is Resolute, so he’ll likely reach or get near his potential. His physical stats are good and will improve. His passing is incredible. His defensive stats are good. His crossing and dribbling suck, but they’ll get better, and I’m willing to make him more of a fullback than a wingback. The negatives are the 16.25m transfer fee and the 68m release clause, but I am actually cash-rich this summer, and this represents 18% of my budget rather than the 50% Lee Farrell did. That release clause will be moot if we’re promoted, too, so it’s much less of a worry than a lower relegation release clause would have been.

Also, we just had three players leave for a combined 24m, so I have money to spare without putting a dent in the overall bank balance. (Yes, I’m trying to justify this to myself, but I truly think this is a good deal for the club.)

I picked up another South American wonderkid. (I need to run the NewGAN tool again to update all the regen faces.)

John Ramirez is only 15, and he cost a bit under 1m. He’s set to join in two years, so he won’t impact my immediate limit of six under-21 foreign transfers per season. For the price, I thought he looked like a good gamble given his age. He could be incredible by the time he reaches us. He could also be a decent squad player that gets sold after 6-12 months. I don’t think I’ll regret the money, at least.

Haha, check this out. In looking for another midfielder to replace Moder, one of my scouts even suggested this:

I rate the lad, but not quite that much. He won’t even be here for two years!

With Moder leaving, I decided we needed a little more veteran depth in midfield to provide cover for the defenders. I love wonderkids, but they’re part of a balanced diet, not an end unto themselves. Also I can’t sign any more this window.

He’s a pretty solid midfield destroyer. Good marking, good tackling, high bravery, high work rate. He’ll run his socks off and give us a solid spine. For 6.5m with a 1.9m addon if he plays 50 games, I figure it’s good value.

Burnic can play DLP, Sunjic can play CM in support or cover the more defensive duties, and Farrell is already looking like a great progressive passer. MAX POWER can pick up minutes to cover for fatigue and injury. I’m liking this midfield more and more.

Not a surprise, but still sad. Fans of the Premier League, we shall return!

Kyril popped by my office with his expectations for the season.

We can and should do better in the league, and I couldn’t care less about the cups. If we’re near the top of the table, Kyril won’t care, either. 

Preseason training kicked off in late June, and a bid came in for Denver Hume. I was inclined to keep him as cover, but he’s frankly not good.

Safe travels, friend. You have been helpful.

That leaves us with minimal cover at left back, so I went scouring the world again and turned up another solid-looking player with an expiring contract. Victor Hugo is set to arrive in January. I’m a little worried about yet another foreign youngster, but maybe the rules are per calendar year? Right? I hope!

I’m signing every famous writer I can find as a matter of principle. Hugo is joining us on a free, which feels fitting for a writer. He types, grimacing.

In outgoing news, a few fringe players departed.

George Dobson went to Nottingham Forest for 1.5m. He fetched more than I would have expected 24 months ago and far less than I had hoped six weeks ago.

Jordan Willis was supposed to go Wycombe for 350k, but he rejected their contract. Remember that Bailey Wright deal for 2m to LAFC that fell through? What is it about these League One centerbacks getting my hopes up and then dashing them. I finally got rid of him just as the window closed. 

Isak Solberg, mentioned above as the “break glass in case of emergency” keeper, went to Brentford for 525k plus 200k addons and 50% of the profit from the next sale. He may develop into a good keeper, but he wasn’t in my plans. I’m happy to make the money on a free signing, though.

It feels a bit ignominious, but Ross Stewart has left the club on a free. The man scored 30 goals for us and powered us from League One to the Championship. I’ve sent a case of whiskey and a handwritten note thanking him for his service. He did land safely at Sheffield Wednesday, back in League One. I hope he fires them straight to the Championship like he did for us.

Bailey Wright has finally departed the club. He signed on a Bosman (free) transfer with New England Revolution back in the early early spring. Farewell, Bailey. You were a good player for us in League One.

Another higher-profile departure made my feed.

Whoah. Pep is gone. Txiki did not call me about the open position. Must have misplaced my number.

As our first match approached, I was bullish. We got pummeled last season, but we’ve learned from that and came back better prepared. I will be disappointed if we aren’t in the playoffs. The revamped squad is better than the old one, and the players that were here before have improved. I think automatic promotion is within reach. I’d call it something like 25% win the league, 25% automatic promotion, 45% playoffs, 5% miss the playoffs.

After destroying all competition in the preseason, we started the Championship in early August with high morale and excellent cohesion. My first-choice tactic is the old 4231 that we used previously.

This will let us dominate possession, generate lots of chances, and hopefully score lots of goals. 

We’re fluid in most categories, and the rest will follow as the newer players get more time in their roles.

Our corner routine is as boring as vanilla ice cream, but it works. Fire the ball at the tall bloke’s forehead and see what happens.

We dominated the first three matches of the season, though the scoreline didn’t always show it. 2-0, 1-0, 1-0 meant we took 9 out of 9 points and looked good in the process.

The fourth match was in the Carabao Cup against fellow Championship side Huddersfield Town. We crushed them 4-0 and averaged out the xG from the earlier matches. Pace yourselves, dudes!

My Serbian wonderkid, Cikic, was supposed to give us depth at the wing so Sima could move forward, but he hasn’t gotten his work permit yet, and I had to send him on loan to MLS. I’m hoping he can get some Serbian youth callups while he’s at San Jose. Part of the problem is injuries. Enric has been hurt, and Gooch picks up a knock every other week. Hopefully Enric’s return to the lineup gives me flexibility on the right so I can rotate Sima up top more often. In the meantime, I’ve taken Brad Laws off the loan list. He’ll be the cover and go out on loan in January.

Our first setback of the season came at home against West Bromwich Albion. A first-half goal from West Brom ruined our perfect streak of clean sheets, but we scored two of our own and took all three points after dominating the second half.

We followed that by going to Swansea and losing 0-1 in a match where–you guessed it–we were the better side. More shots, more shots on target, better xG, but we couldn’t finish and a defensive error gifted Swansea their goal. If you stick to the “process over results” mantra, we did fine. 

As I feared earlier, our under-21 foreign signings limit has struck.

On the plus side, he was the player I was least happy about, so it’s not a big loss. My real worry is what happens in January when Karel Hysky and Victor Hugo are supposed to join. I have a feeling I’ll be trying to sign Victor on a contract starting in the summer. Oopsie. I just hope he’ll accept it.

We visited bitter rivals Newcastle United to close out our eighth (!!!) match of the month in the 2nd round of the Carabao Cup. It went poorly, but that was largely due to an early red card. We held a 2-1 lead for much of the match, but the wheels fell off at the end, even with my usual shithousery. Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the hydrant.

I’m not going to lose sleep over it.

Kyril popped around after the match with some notes on our financial performance. 

We aren’t the biggest spenders in the division, but we’re not quite the scrappy underdogs we used to be, either. Eh, I can try to spin it, but Sunderland should be the biggest club in the Championship. There are good teams in the division, but we’re now one of them with the players to back up my confidence.

We’re rich, biatch. We lost money on the month, but we have gobs in the bank. I’m curious to see how much we lose in September, but we should have plenty to see us through the season. If we don’t go back up, the next season could be a little more worrisome, but now that I have capital to work with I feel confident I can bring in free and cheap players, improve them a bit, and sell them for a profit. The pre-promotion Brentford model, basically. I’m already well on my way.

Our transfers spanned June and July, so technically two seasons, but all during this transfer window. We spent 17.8m inbound and gained 30m from outbound. I wasn’t trying to be thrifty, but I wanted value, and I feel like I found it. Our starting 11 is strong. Our backups are good. We’re not as deep as maybe we need to be, but we are rich and can spend more in January, if necessary. 

It sucks that we’re looking at the Championship table and not the Premier League table, but things are about as good as they can be. We’re in a three-way tie at the top of the table. I’m confident we can beat every team in the division. We’ll drop more points, but we have the quality to finish with a higher total than last time.

After 8 matches in the month, I’m knackered. That’s it for now. See you next time, footy nerds.

Update: the next installment is available here.

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