KickStarter Where's The Passion Lads? Let's Get a Job in Football Manager 2024

[Lucumo]

I'm wondering if FM puts its thumb on the scale a little bit to get more dramatic high-profile matches, title / relegation races etc.

Konami certainly does. So it wouldn't surprise me if it's the same with Sega.

 

[wwsd]

Spoiler alert, another MOMENTOUS DECISION lies ahead of us! But we'll get to that. Last time, Joe Hardman's Livingston FC pulled off something of a Houdini act, staying up in the Scottish Premiership after having spent most of the season gravitating between the direct relegation and playoff spots.

For the 2027-28 season, we are still considered one of the weaker teams in the league, with Livingston expected to finish 11th, the playoff spot that we escaped from at the end of last season. Our captain Penrice has left the club, but Zac Ashworth is already a good replacement for him in the left-back position. Nouble is no longer the biggest, heaviest hulk of a man in the league, but it's a close call.

Our striker Bruce Anderson is the new contract rebel: his deal will expire at the end of the season, and he has already announced that he wants to let it run out and look for a new challenge. Unfortunately, he rather overestimates his own value. He's been wasteful in front of goal last season, missing several sitters that, if they had gone in, would have made our relegation struggle a lot easier. His biggest strength is rather his pressing ability, and this is how we've used him in our tactic so far. More than a few times, he's robbed a hesitant central defender and laid the ball off to a team-mate, or scored himself. This is the best offer we get for him:

Although it's not terrible, Joe Hardman and his staff balk at the idea of having Bruce playing for a direct competitor in our league. What if he finds his goalscoring form, and this makes the difference between us and them? The optional future fee would be good, but there is nothing requiring St Johnstone to use it. And why should they, if they can just try to sign him on a free?

"Fuck it, he can stay for now. But he'd better start scoring. And we need to scout a replacement for him next season."

Some of our bench players also start getting twitchy, like our second right-back, who has the misfortune of being behind Carl Johnston, who never seems to get injured. Joe Hardman lets the squad deal with this upstart. Actual footage of the team persuading him to drop his concerns:



We later ship him off to Tranmere on loan.

We easily see off the League Cup group stage, the glorified pre-season. Bonnyrigg Rose are in the Lowland League (5th tier), Partick Thistle in the Championship (2nd), and the other two opponents are in the League Two (4th). Although this weaker opposition does not allow us to draw too many conclusions, at least we find our goalscoring form.

Nouble sustains a hip injury just at the end of last season, so his absence was mostly during the summer break. He makes his return in style. Unfortunately, we suffer more injuries in the pre-season and early stages of the actual season. We've been emphasising the physical aspect to get the players as fit as possible. Our fitness coach has been whipping these lads into shape, but we may have gone too far in a few places. At least those who survive will come out of the gates like this:

Expectations are low, and so is our budget. Our new signing Campbell, who has been specifically promised to be allowed to play as a ball-winning midfielder ("Just as long as he doesn't become a ball-losing midfielder" - Joe Hardman), is out injured, but winger Middleton and defending midfielder Carse play. Nouble pays off our faith in him at Queen's Park, who saved our bacon on the final day of last season:

We start with 3 points! Let's hope this doesn't become an isolated incident like last season!

The squad is now fully behind the manager, and lack of seniority or reputation is no longer a concern. Although there were some hairy moments around Christmas last season, Joe Hardman has now brought discipline to the squad, and they are showing an incredible motivation and togetherness.

We are not really developing any youngsters. Carse shouldn't really be in the column on the left here, as he is already firmly establishing himself. The other early-20s players are all of a high enough calibre that they can compete in the Scottish Premiership from day one. We simply don't have time to bring young players in carefully. Everyone has to stand and be counted in the relegation battle right away. And in any case, the youth setup is not good enough to produce youngsters for anything other than the bench or to be loaned out.

Our goalie George asserts himself as a leader in the dressing room.

We offload Musah to Dynamo Kyiv. Alternatively, he can supplement his income by killing Orcs in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.

McCausland becomes our second right-winger, to compete with Krauhaus. It's a bit of a gamble to make him our best-paid player. He may not immediately become a first-team player, and he doesn't have the best technique. But other than that, he's pretty good on the ball. The main thing is that his best role is "Inside Forward", and the theory of our tactic is that both the target man on the left and the pressing forward in the centre tend to hold up the ball a bit more, making space for runners to come in and run at the defence and/or finish. So it helps to have one guy who can play in this way, as opposed to either an orthodox winger or an inverted one. Or a playmaker on the flank, which is what Krauhaus really is, although we haven't used him in that role so far.

When we signed Campbell, we promised to play him in a central midfield position with a ball-winning midfielder role. That's right guys, I still fuck this up sometimes after many seasons: I click too quickly and forget to disable such promises when negotiating with a player or his agent. We also promised to reinforce the coaching team, which the board are thankfully willing to grant, and to strengthen the defence. Here I fucked up: I assumed just bringing in a decent loan signing in defence was enough, so we signed Brandon Hamilton and Will Armitage on loan, both decent players at left-back and centre-back, respectively, but probably little more than back-ups. But it doesn't list the promise as being fulfilled, and now we're over wage budget again, so we decide "fuck it", let's have Campbell have two of his three promises. To rebalance the midfield, we bring in Carse, former Celtic B player. The tactic gains a few more acronyms as it becomes the DLP-BWM-WTF. In its best formation (and with good link-ups after several games) it looks like this:

It tweaks the basic tactic that we started using last season: the playmaking duties go to the DM, while the right CM position becomes a ball-winning midfielder on support, meaning that he will be trying to win the ball higher up the pitch as part of our pressing. This should make us very difficult to break down in midfield, as there will always be one guy in front of the defence, but he is also a good passer. If he doesn't do things like this in the League Cup game against lowly League 1 side Ayr:

With 10 men, we lose the lead and the game goes all the way to penalties:

Thankfully, we don't get upset by the 3rd-tier side as George stops two penalties.

Against Hibernian, we take the lead, but our new boy Armitage first completely misses his interception, allowing their Danish striker Mikkel Kaufmann to score, and then, in the 81st minute, he gets the ball in defence. Despite being under no pressure whatsoever and having several easy passing options, he dallies on the ball, allows Kaufmann to steal his lunch, and the Dane scores again. After the game, we tell him he has to do better, but he asserts that he's actually playing some of the best football of his life. I wish I had screenshots of all this, because it's just too funny.

"Well, if he feels that way, he can play the best football of his life from the bench. What a cunt!"

Honestly, it's bad scouting on our part. Although he's not a bad defender, his "Decisions" and "Vision" ratings are atrocious. That's the only reason I can imagine why he would just give away possession completely unnecessarily.

Campbell gets pissed off as predicted, but he'll have to get over it.

Anderson wants to leave now and wants to be transfer listed at an asking price that he feels is fair for his market value, somewhere between £1M-2M. We say "Sure!" because we know the reality:

Nouble is again out of contention for a long period because of another hip injury:

Seems like he's looking at a hip replacement at a pretty young age.

We win against Hearts, which I think is our first upset win against a much bigger team since Joe Hardman took over at Livingston, but then go on 5 league games without a win. One silver lining is that we beat Kilmarnock in the League Cup quarter-final. Can we go all the way?

In October, our league form improves with emphatic wins against St Johnstone and Queen's Park. In the League Cup semi-final, we play a much bigger side, Aberdeen. A very progressive club, Aberdeen are willing to play this guy even though he once sodomised a pig's head:

McCausland is proving himself increasingly useful as the season goes on, and this semi-final is no exception! Aberdeen come back to 1-1, but find us very tough to break down, and another cup game goes to penalties!

Shamal George humiliates Aberdeen by not only stopping two of their penalties, but holding them in his hands!

We're into the final against Rangers! Will Joe Hardman add another League Cup of a Celtic country to his cabinet?

If our league form is anything to go by, the answer is yes! This time around, we're not just beating fellow relegation candidates, but we're killing giants!

Joe Hardman's reputation in the game is growing steadily.

Campbell thinks the defence is good enough after all.

We don't beat Celtic, but we give them another very frustrating day in the office at the Tony Macaroni Arena. One does not just walk into these pizza walls. Obviously the players had pasta all'arrabbiata for lunch, because we tackle superbly and hold them back, with more than a bit of luck involved too.

Our results so far:

Heart of Midlothian are 1-0 ahead when Thomas-Asante gets his second yellow card, and Livingston go on attack. But the game is not decided until Armitage comes in and first heads in a free kick, and then a corner.

"I always said he was a good'un!"

Ross County's striker Jonjoe Drench scores from this pass. I spent ages replaying this moment wondering why VAR didn't do an offside check. Then when I was making this post, I thought I'd check the offside rule to see if I was missing anything. Turns out it's not offside if it's still on their half.



Yeah, there's that high defensive line for you, lol.

No harm done as we win the game 3-1, with much sharper finishing than we've seen last season! We briefly enter 5th place, although some of the teams behind us have games in hand.

Then the day finally comes: the League Cup final against Glasgow Raisins. On the last training day, we devote one morning to what could be our secret weapon: penalties. We also use part of the match focus session for penalties until Shamal knows all of Rangers' penalty takers' moves by heart. With 34,000 fans, Hampden Park is not exactly packed for this lesser cup final, and of course the Rangers fans outnumber ours 2-to-1. But we've shown in the league we can beat them on a good day!

The game is incredibly well-balanced in the chilly December rain. We go behind due to Danilo, a Brazilian forward who has the distinction of having played for both Ajax and Feyenoord before joining Rangers. He taps in a low cross. But four minutes later, McCausland scores a near-identical goal on a low cross from Middleton! The game goes into extra time. Both sides get opportunities, although Rangers are beginning to get the better of the match. VAR disallows a goal by them due to an obvious offside that the linesman missed. So once again, there's only one way to settle this. Will all the hard work on penalties on the training ground pay off?

Yes it does! Shamal George is the hero again, stopping three shots, including the last one by Dutchman Mitchel Bakker. The players are off the bench, joined by the entire staff! It's the second League Cup in Livingston's history, as they won it before in 2004, and were runners-up in 2021.

Although it's not the most prestigious cup, and doesn't give us any European qualification, it's still a fine piece of silverware, and £236k transferred to the club's account.

In the league, we have already won 7 games, the same amount of wins that we got in the entire previous season, of which three were in the final relegation group stage. Our goal difference is also positive, although only just. As hard as we sometimes find it to score, our defence has become a lot better, as we've conceded fewer goals than any team except the top four. Basically, on this performance, we're almost guaranteed to stay in the league, and the real question is: how much higher can we go?

During the wild celebrations of the League Cup victory, the chairman's signature somehow finds its way on a piece of paper that says: "i john ward, chairman of livingstone fc, do hereby grant permishun for joe hardman 2 study for his uefa a licence and will transfer £3,000 to pay for the course".

Athough we haven't been spam-applying for other jobs recently, our assistant Susan Dublin has been putting out feelers here and there. During the autumn, we've interviewed with both Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United, but neither wanted Joe Hardman in the end.

"Well, Sheffield can go hang then."

The biggest job interview however is with Fulham F.C., who are currently at the bottom of the English Premier League and have sacked their manager since 2025, Scotsman Nick Montgomery, whose only prior experience was with Central Coast Mariners based in Gosford, New South Wales, Australia. Obviously they like to take risks. But now, Fulham are in big doodoo:

With 1 win, 5 draws and 12 defeats from 18 games, Fulham are in 20th place and have the second-worst defensive record. Even if they climb up a position or two, there is no relief, because in the Premier League, the bottom three teams all get relegated straight away. There are no playoffs or any other divine intervention here. You have to go up to 17th or better.

Still, Joe Hardman doesn't expect much when he makes the trip to West London. On the morning of his departure, he realises that the only suit that he owns, which he wore to a cousin's wedding years before, is all crumpled and smelly after having been stored in a cardboard box in the basement of his new home in Livingston for over a year. The only clean clothes he has are a Livingston FC tracksuit, and a white one. To be as incognito as possible, Joe picks the neutral white tracksuit, and boards the train from Edinburgh Waverley to King's Cross, and gets on the tube from there.

From Putney Bridge tube station, it's just a short walk along the River Thames, past All Saints Church and Fulham Palace, to see Archibald Leitch's façade of the holy ground, Craven Cottage. Half expecting to be met by a secretary or perhaps the director of football, Joe instead recognises the walrus moustache and long hair:

Shahid Khan, the billionaire automotive supplies magnate. Born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1950, he studied Engineering in the USA. In the 80s, he bought the company Flex-n-Gate where he worked, and started supplying bumpers to Toyota. Over time, he grew the company into one of the largest suppliers of auto parts in the world. His rags-to-riches story is considered an example of the American Dream. His sporting ventures include an NFL team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the pro wrestling promotion team, All Elite Wrestling. But in the UK, he is most well-known for buying Fulham FC from Mohamed Al Fayed for a rumoured sum of £150–200 million in 2013. Now, he shakes the hand of Joe Hardman, who suddenly feels very underdressed in his tracksuit. Smelling like a man smells after a 5-hour train ride from Edinburgh, from head to toe, everything about Joe Hardman does not belong at this club, where a nice play by the opposition still gets a polite applause from the home fans.

A typical back-and-forth team, Fulham were relegated from the Premier League in 2026, promoted back in 2027, and now find themselves once again teetering on the brink of relegation. Khan calmly conducts the interview as his secretary eagerly takes notes. He's been here before. When he took over Fulham, he sacked Martin Jol, then replaced him with René Meulensteen, and then replaced Meulensteen with Felix Magath, all in one season. He has seen them come and go, and made plenty of mistakes over the years.

"So, Mr Hardman, I understand you want to be our new fireman?"

"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand."

"Our fireman! The man who comes in and saves a club when it's on fire! Don't look so surprised. We've seen your record, sir. We've seen you taking Livingston from dead and buried, to the top half of the table within one year! The only thing is, we've never seen you do it in England. What makes you think you're qualified for us?"

"To be honest, I wouldn't mind going back to England. I just never expected it to be at a club like this. But I've already shown I can adapt to any circumstances, at any level, and get results."

"In sports, you don't just need results. You need a story. Did you know I also manage American wrestlers? Big guys, in spandex, pretending to beat each other up. A beautiful game. People love it because of the characters, because of the stories. We did not just see you win results. We've seen you play more and more attractive possession football. Our fans are refined people. They want to see a beautiful game over a glass of wine and charcuterie.

"That's not really my scene. Any team that I manage, the first thing that happens is the players will learn discipline, they'll learn to work hard. They'll learn to make the opposition fear coming to our stadium. Whatever tactic we play is a result of the quality of the players at the club."

"But that's the beauty of it. A pugnacious, old-fashioned English bulldog who restores a team's pride and confidence, before getting them to play attractive football. You don't fool me, Mr Hardman. You are more refined than you yourself realise. If I thought you were another Felix Magath, I would not have made you spend the entire day travelling here from Scotland. Will you keep us in the Premier League?"

"I can only promise my blood, sweat and tears. I know Fulham go back and forth a lot, but you are not Derby County or Huddersfield or Sheffield United or any of those other teams that find themselves way over their heads in the Premier League. There is something to work with here, I'm sure."

"Would a transfer budget of £18.75 million and a wage budget of £9.14 million per month be enough for you to turn this around?"

"I think that would be reasonable."

Khan reaches over and offers his hand.

"I thank you for your time, Mr Hardman. We'll be in touch."

In truth, Joe has no idea whether the budget would be enough. At Livingston, the transfer budget has only ever been in the low six figures. £18 million means no more or less to him than £1.8 million, or £180 million for that matter. They are all astronomical amounts of money. But in the Premier League, is it really more than a pittance?

Although not a living soul in all of London would have recognised the manager of Livingston FC on the District Line, a rumour about Hardman moving to Fulham still hits the news. Perhaps Livingston have been approached for compensations, and they leaked the news themselves, to embarrass Fulham into pulling out of appointing a manager unknown in the English Premier League? In any case, the next leak is that Fulham have also approached Bournemouth manager Des Buckingham, and the Hardman rumours soon die down. But the bookies seem to know something the media don't:

In other words, you would get £11 plus your £2 stake for every £2 you bet on Joe Hardman becoming Fulham manager, in the event that it does happen.

We ignore the storm for now and win 1-0 at St Mirren. At Kilmarnock, injury time is rather crazy:

Our results until Christmas:

The Scottish Premiership table after 20 games:

McCausland is our club top scorer, with 7 goals and 1 assist in 17 games, although he only started in 11. What an acquisition he's turning out to be! Middleton, Byers, Johnston, Krauhaus and Campbell all contribute assists.

On the morning of the day before Christmas, Joe's personal assistant, Susan Dublin, forwards an email from Fulham FC with the following comment:

hi joe,

pls find attached the contract frm fulham. don't forget me when u get rich, jk lol!!! happy x-mas joe!

luv,

susan

Joe rubs his eyes and looks at the email from Fulham again. It's right there: the contract in a PDF file with the Fulham FC logo and letterhead. A salary of £732,000 per annum. The sender address that ends in @fulhamfc.com. No strange spelling errors, no mention of Nigerian princes or exhortations to "take action now!" and send Bitcoin in order to continue. Just one real and authentic offer for him to sign on the dotted line and get rich by any normal definition in Joe's signature.

That evening, Joe wanders along the deserted streets of Livingston. Everyone is inside celebrating Christmas Eve, giving presents, pulling Christmas crackers and wearing little paper crowns. In the park, some youngsters have escaped the crushing embrace of family togetherness and are playing football. Joe watches them from a distance. Some of them are wearing replica kits of Rangers or even Liverpool. Only one is wearing the best-selling Livingston shirt, with number 9 and the name of Anderson on the back.

Joe was once a kid like this, dreaming of being a pro, a star. Although he ended up as a serviceable defensive midfielder for Bottlers United, respected and feared on the Sunday league pitches, he was never good enough to make a penny playing football. With no real education, he never wanted to be a scrounger, always willing to do any job that needed doing in the 21st-century service economy. There were always windows to be cleaned or sausage rolls to be baked. But in between jobs, he sometimes knew the ritual humiliation of applying for benefits. Getting a coaching licence was at first no different than getting a licence to drive a forklift, with only one difference: being on a football pitch with the lads was something Joe actually enjoyed. At Briton Ferry, he was able to make just enough money to earn his daily bread and pay the rent in the run-down town. After 3 and a half years, Livingston came along and lifted him right up into the middle class.

Now, Fulham come knocking with an offer that essentially says: "If you want to be rich beyond your wildest dreams, sign here." On the other hand, things are humming at Livingston, and we might even challenge for Europe this season.

So, shall we take Fulham up on their offer? Will Joe take charge of Fulham? Can he pull off the impossible again??? Or do we stay in Scotland?

For reference, Fulham's recent competitive record, general information, and current squad:

(That reminds me, if we're going to work here, we'll need some logo and kit packs to replace the fugly placeholder ones here - unlike the Welsh and Scottish leagues, the English Premier League Jews don't want to just let anyone use their kits and logos. When you buy FM on Steam, even some clubs' names will be fake, most notably Manchester United, although it's relatively easy to fix).

I'm wondering if FM puts its thumb on the scale a little bit to get more dramatic high-profile matches, title / relegation races etc. Or if it's all actually random and those just happen to form more lasting memories. I've had at least the following:
* Team firing on all cylinders, 8 points clear in the 1st place with 5 matches to go with an unbeaten streak stretching to the last season. Suddenly the form collapsed and I had to grind out a 2-1 victory with a debatable penalty shot against a relegation side on the last day to win the title.
* Total meltdown in the 2nd leg of a promotion playoff after a 3-0 away victory in the 1st leg. I think we lost 0-5 at home or something absurd like that.
* Turning around a 4-1 deficit in the CL semis
* Seeing a 3-1 lead against Real Madrid evaporate to a 3-3 draw in injury time only for my substitute centre back to strike a 30 metre free kick at the back of the net with his 11 Free Kicks and nonexistent Long Shots. Last kick of the match too.
* Epic collapse on the last day after going neck-to-neck with PSG all season:

Then again, these aren't too uncommon in real life either. The last few posts are great examples. They still remember in La Coruña when AC Milan came to town two decades ago with an impossible 1st leg lead and "heaven descended on Riazor" for one night. France-Argentina overtime was pure madness. Empoli stayed in Serie A with an injury time winner in the last match just this spring.

I really don't know enough about how things work, especially in recent years, to contribute to the whole "Is FM scripted?" debate. I think on a technical level, what you're seeing happening in the match engine is just the visual result of all kinds of numbers being run under the hood.

In past iterations of FM, I've also had tons of seasons where I pretty much ended up exactly where expected, or slightly above it. At some point I once won the CL with Ajax, then spent ages trying to replicate that success, but never did again. And looking at the teams I built, they tended to be exactly the kind of teams that could dominate the Eredivisie, but are typical CL round of 16 fodder. So the outcomes were usually 'fair' in that sense.

In real life you also sometimes see clubs bottle it in the most amazing ways. Liverpool being 5 points clear with 3 games to go in 2014, which is not exactly unassailable, but a reasonable person would expect that they would win it. And then Gerrard, with all his experience, literally slips up and the rest is history. Man United vs Bayern in the 1999 CL final: Basler 6', Sheringham 90+1', Solksjaer 90+3'. Absolutely incredible things do happen in football sometimes. I saw Ajax dominate all of 2009-2010, scoring 106 goals (35 by Luis Suarez), but losing the Eredivisie title because of one game against Sparta that ended 0-0, despite Ajax having like 40 shots, while FC Twente under Shteeve McClaren had a whole bunch of drab 1-0s and made few or no mistakes. The most disciplined and experienced defenders and midfielders sometimes make critical mistakes. The right-back who couldn't shoot on target if it were 4 metres wide, sometimes scores an aBsoLutE bElTeR!!!1111, usually against you in the 95th minute in FM and it's the first goal of his career.

I do know that in FM, the AI reacts to you to some extent, and this usually causes the famous mid-season slump. Let's say I take over an unfancied mid-table side, and I start knocking off some surprising wins against teams that were the favourites to win. What happens then is that future opponents start approaching the game more defensively, giving me less space. That's usually where the slump comes from. Another thing is when I'm playing FM with a big team, and things are going well all season, I also sometimes start to kinda play these games on autopilot. I start missing signals that I should pay attention to, and then inevitably things go wrong in Liverpool '14 style. This is why I'm loving playing this lower-league or relegation football, since you have to constantly pay attention and tweak to perform above and beyond.

I did notice with FM24 with Ajax that I ended up being drawn in the controversial new-format 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, and I ended up beating the likes of Man City and Barcelona and winning the tournament (which sadly barely earns you any money or plaudits). I thought perhaps they were playing B sides, but at Man City I did see guys like Haaland. And we were never that good in the CL as we were in that Club World Cup. I must admit that did raise an eyebrow.

 

[Andnjord]

Jesus H Christ that’s a lot of cocktails in Tenerife we’ll be able to afford. For ourselves, for our sisters and brothers, for our extended family and for the entire council estate Joe grew up on.

I’ll stick to my initial goal of making as much ££££ as possible even though it’s a little bit of a shame to abandon Livingstone so quickly. What happens if we fail at saving Fulham from relegation, do we get cast out of professional football and relegated to training amateur youth clubs in Finland? And what are Joe Hardman’s prospects at saving Fulham, do we have any chance of succeeding?

Spoiler

Nice catch on the David Cameron reference, took me a few moments to parse this one out

 

[Lucumo]

At least those who survive will come out of the gates like this:

Spoiler

As for the transfer...it would be sad if you don't even complete a full season with Livingston. However, at least you would stay on misery island which isn't too bad either.

 

[wwsd]

Jesus H Christ that’s a lot of cocktails in Tenerife we’ll be able to afford. For ourselves, for our sisters and brothers, for our extended family and for the entire council estate Joe grew up on.

I’ll stick to my initial goal of making as much ££££ as possible even though it’s a little bit of a shame to abandon Livingstone so quickly. What happens if we fail at saving Fulham from relegation, do we get cast out of professional football and relegated to training amateur youth clubs in Finland? And what are Joe Hardman’s prospects at saving Fulham, do we have any chance of succeeding?

Spoiler

Nice catch on the David Cameron reference, took me a few moments to parse this one out

Yeah I'm inclined to do it, it's just always interesting to see what people say when these choices come up. And a good moment to pause the thread since it's all caught up to my playing the game now. My inclination is also that you can afford to be sentimental when you're a retired Premier League player who has gone into management as a multimillionaire, but not when you've come from nowhere and you're offered a ticket to wealth. The manager's salary has literally no gameplay significance, but I think we should LARP it like it does, otherwise what's the fun of having a story about the manager?

I don't think it's very risky. The last time we got a bunch of offers, I noticed some of them explicitly said that they wouldn't be able to keep us in the job if we got relegated, while Livingston didn't mention that. So it would probably depend on the performances and dressing room atmosphere than the final league table. Even if you get relegated, the English Championship still has more money going around than the Scottish Premiership, and is probably equally prestigious or more so. With another coaching badge coming in, even if we get sacked, I bet we'd be able to find a 1st or 2nd tier club.

 

[3 others]

I don't think it's very risky. The last time we got a bunch of offers, I noticed some of them explicitly said that they wouldn't be able to keep us in the job if we got relegated, while Livingston didn't mention that. So it would probably depend on the performances and dressing room atmosphere than the final league table. Even if you get relegated, the English Championship still has more money going around than the Scottish Premiership, and is probably equally prestigious or more so. With another coaching badge coming in, even if we get sacked, I bet we'd be able to find a 1st or 2nd tier club.

I think those "we're unable to keep you employed if relegated" clauses are when you get job offers from the lowest playable league level. There's no way for the game to continue with the same team if you're relegated from Serie B and Serie C isn't loaded as playable, for example.

I was kind of hoping to see a jump to a club in a completely different country next but this kind of a step up is way too good to turn down. Maybe the job offer was a clerical error, maybe the ghosts of Al Fayeds were reaching out for the Princess of Wales one last time and Joe Hardman was karmically the closest entity available. No matter what, sign the papers and squeeze the last 6 months of glory from tired legs of the Weghorst-Dier-Leno triumvirate.

 

[Andnjord]

I’d also like to add that you’re doing a great job with the LARP, makes it all the more engaging and helps with the immersion that we’re not just watching wwsd play FM but rather following the fictional career of Joe Hardman, top British bloke, sound lad and good head cracker in the dressing room.

 

[wwsd]

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Christmas Day, 2027. The news hits like a bombshell: after a little over a year of managing Livingston, and just when they have won the League Cup and are firmly back in the Scottish mid-table, Joe Hardman jumps ship again. Livingston are probably a bit too normal, a bit too middle-class, to really get emotional and rowdy about this. The sense of betrayal is there, but most fans will admit that they would have done the same in Joe's position. They are just a bit too polite to go out and protest or anything like that. A few under-breath "Fuck!"s might have been heard at the Christmas breakfast table, but many are still sleeping off their Christmas Eve hangovers after partying with their office pals in Edinburgh or whatever the fuck people do there.

There is no time for goodbyes. The Boxing Day cracker against Southampton is coming up, and Fulham need their new manager inducted pronto.

If Livingston is middle-class, then Fulham is something else entirely:



Fulham is the only English professional club where I have actually had the pleasure of attending a game. 7 years ago, I went on a long weekend to London with my dad, and we wanted to attend a game without breaking the bank, but at a club with some character and history. Fulham were playing in the Championship at the time, and the choice was between them and Brentford (maybe we should have gone for the latter, as the old stadium is now gone, although at least some of the fabled pubs on each corner still survive apparently). At the time I was reading a book about London's football clubs, and it described Fulham as a suitable "baby's first English club" for tourists, since it's a very aesthetic ground, and has an extremely friendly atmosphere. I think this kind of ties into the "posh" aspect. I don't remember there being a "neutral" stand, but we might have been in it, because we were one of several Dutch father-and-son weekend trippers sitting in the same stand. Fulham were playing against Middlesbrough, the game ended 1-1, and the away fans were by far the loudest. Posh? You might very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment!

To play up this aspect is all very funny, but it would undervalue the uniqueness of both the club and its surroundings.



The area where the stadium is located now used to be woodlands where Anne Boleyn used to hunt. In 1780, a nobleman named William Craven built the original Craven Cottage, which was later inhabited by several famous Victorians, including Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whose famous first sentence from the novel Paul Clifford (which I haven't read, as I'm sure nobody ever has, even if they know this opening) starts off this update. The original cottage burned down in 1888.

Fulham FC started in 1879 as the club for worshippers at St Andrew's Church, located in West Kensington, just off the edge of the area of Fulham. They soon turned professional and after several moves, chose the site of Craven Cottage as their home, with only one hurriedly built "rabbit hutch" of a stand for the fans at first. Following safety concerns, the great Scottish stadium architect Archibald Leitch was commissioned to build a proper stadium in 1905. The Stevenage Road Stand, now named after club legend Johnny Haynes, faces the street with a typical Leitch red brick façade, while the side facing the pitch features a sloped roof, triangular gable and pillars. With its wooden seats, it's one of the most evocative stands in professional football today, and is a Grade II listed building.

When Leitch designed this marvel, he forgot to make enough space for dressing rooms, but when this realisation hit, he didn't let such a minor detail deter him. To accommodate for dressing rooms, he replicated the original cottage between the Stevenage Road Stand and Putney End, and the dressing rooms are still there to this day, while the players' families watch the games from the cottage's balcony.

Johnny Haynes' statue stands outside of the stand named after him. A gracious, two-footed inside forward, Haynes played hundreds of games for Fulham and was at the forefront of increased wages and professionalism. The club legend became England captain in the 1960s, but broke his legs in a car crash in 1962. He was never quite the same player again, and missed the 1966 World Cup that England would go on to win (do I detect a bit of a tragic undertone behind this cuddly posh club?). During Haynes' career, Fulham spent a decade in the top flight, but towards the end of his time at Fulham, they had to endure successive relegations, sinking as low as the Third Division (now League One) in 1969. Johnny Haynes died in 2005, aged 71, after suffering a brain haemorrhage while driving his car.

It's hard to imagine now, but after Haynes' career, Fulham spent three decades out of the top flight, playing long spells in the Second Division (now Championship), and most of the 80s and 90s as low as the 3rd and 4th tiers of English football. During this time, the club struggled financially, and there were serious discussions about merging with QPR in nearby Shepherd's Bush.

Pictured above: Mohamed Al-Fayed and Shahid Khan, the successive owners of Fulham FC in recent decades. Fayed (died in 2023) was an Egyptian businessman whose business ventures included the Ritz in Paris, and the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, London. His son Dodi famously dated Princess Diana, and died together with her in a car crash in 1997. In the same year, Mohamed acquired Fulham for £6.25 million and promised to bring them back to the top flight. As common as foreign tycoon ownership is now in English football, it was still relatively new at the time. "King Kev" Keegan was appointed as manager and given unprecedented spending power, and Fulham won promotion to the 2nd tier in 1999, and returned to the top flight in 2001 under Jean Tigana. However, the relationship between Fayed and Tigana broke down, with Fayed claiming the manager had overspent on players, but he was forced to swallow his words after a legal struggle.



In the late 2000s, Fulham were once again struggling against relegation, but things turned around under Roy Hodgson. In 2008/2009, the club had its best ever league finish in 7th place, qualifying for the Europa League. In the next season, in the round of 16, Fulham suffered a 3-1 defeat at Juventus. Then in the second leg, at Craven Cottage, Juventus went up 1-0, and it all seemed to be over. But then Juventus got a red card, and a resurgent Fulham ended the evening victoriously thanks to a brilliant chip by Clint Dempsey. They then went on to beat Wolfsburg and Hamburg and went all the way into the finals, which they lost to Atletico Madrid. Along with an FA Cup final in 1975, this is the closest Fulham have ever come to top-level silverware. In their long-standing history, Fulham have only ever won lower-league titles and promotions. In 2002, Fulham were one of the three "winners" of the now-defunct UEFA Intertoto Cup.

Fayed was always eccentric. After Dodi's and Diana's death, he famously claimed that the couple was assassinated by MI6 on the orders of Prince Philip, and a 3-metre statue of the couple, titled "Innocent Victims" still stands in Harrods. In 2011, Fayed erected a resin statue of his friend Michael Jackson outside of Craven Cottage. The King of Pop had no known relationship to Fulham, other than once attending a game with Fayed in 1999, when he met Kevin Keegan's squad in the dressing room. Yes, the straight-laced fans of the historical, upper-class club suddenly found themselves faced with this:

Here I think it's best to quote those directly involved themselves:

The artwork was originally due to be erected at Harrods before Mr Al Fayed sold the Knightsbridge store.

His decision to place the Jackson statue outside Fulham's stadium was unpopular, with supporters saying it made the club a "laughing stock".

Mr Al Fayed robustly defended the statue, saying: "If some stupid fans don't understand and appreciate such a gift this guy gave to the world, they can go to hell."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-47468074

After the success under Hodgson, Fulham remained an established Premier League side for a while, hiring Dutchman Martin Jol in 2011. Shahid Khan bought the club from Fayed in 2013 and fired Jol. The Michael Jackson statue went down too. In that season, Fulham had three managers, as another Dutchman, Rene Meulensteen, was hired and then fired. Disciplinarian German manager Felix Magath was then brought in, but he couldn't save the club from relegation. For his part, Mohamed Al-Fayed would always maintain that it was the toppling of the Michael Jackson statue that guaranteed Fulham's doom. The statue was donated to the National Football Museum in Manchester, but was banished to their archives (located at the ground of Preston North End) after the latest child sexual abuse allegations against Michael Jackson in the 2019 documentary, Leaving Neverland. I imagine it must have been something like the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Top. Men. It is rumoured that some day, the statue will return to its rightful place, and it will smite the infidels and melt the faces of all who look upon it unless they support Fulham, and that is the season Fulham will win its first silverware. Will this moment arrive soon?

In reality, Fulham remained in the Championship for a few seasons, including when I saw them in 2017. In the last half decade, Fulham have been a bit of a yo-yo club, although they've had two stable mid-table finishes in the Premier League in 2023 and 2024.

In the early 2000s, Fulham almost moved out of their iconic stadium. When Fulham returned to the top flight in 2001, the stadium still had terraces, while top-flight teams were required to switch to all-seater configurations following the fallout from the Hillsborough disaster. Fulham started playing its home games at West London rivals' QPR's Loftus Road, while Craven Cottage collected dust while the club were trying to figure out what to do. With rumours of a permanent move from the Cottage being planned, pressure group Back to the Cottage and the Fulham Supporters’ Trust fought tooth and nail to keep the club at its home ground, and with all other plans coming to nothing, the club finally renovated the stadium to be compliant with Premier League requirements, while keeping the club at its historic home. In more recent years, the club has started redeveloping the Riverside Stand. When finished, the stand will feature, wait for it, a rooftop swimming pool! We can safely assume this work will have been finished long before Joe Hardman joins Fulham in 2027. The wealthiest hospitality guests will by now have been used to sipping champagne and nibbling on prawn sandwiches while watching Wout Weghorst toiling valiantly against Championship defenders. A posh club, you say?



The aesthetics of the stadium are well-matched by the surrounding area. Located right by the river Thames, Fulham FC is one club that you could theoretically visit by boat if you really want to get into the posh mood. Take the Thames Clippers (now named Uber Boat) to Putney Pier and cross Putney Bridge. For those who want to stay on dry land, just take the tube to Putney Bridge station and walk past the medieval All Saints Church and Fulham Palace, the historic home of the Bishops of London. For a longer riverside walk, go to Hammersmith instead, see Sir Joseph Bazalgette's Hammersmith Bridge, and follow the Thames Path south. On the way you'll see the River Café, the Italian restaurant where Jamie Oliver used to work, and the rather posh Crabtree pub, where your chips will come in a poncey little metal basket and a pint of lager can be had for £6.80. Joe Hardman wants nothing to do with all that, though. He has already scoped a different River Café, the one at Putney Bridge Station. It follows the tradition of greasy spoon cafés stealing the name of a posh restaurant nearby (another one in London is called The Ritz). Instead of wild mushroom risotto, this River Café does a great English brekkie, with football memorabilia covering the walls. A far cry from the hospitality of Fulham FC, but it would be hard to imagine Joe Hardman signing for this club if there wasn't a place offering a good fry-up and a strong mug of tea within walking distance.

Fulham is home to not one, but two top-flight clubs. Yes, Chelsea Football Club is actually based in Fulham! Businessmen Joe and Gus Mears acquired the ground of Stamford Bridge with a view towards luring Fulham FC to play there, but even back then, Fulham were inseparable from Craven Cottage, so the Mears brothers decided to start a new club associated with nearby Chelsea instead. As such, they are Fulham's main rivals, although Brentford and QPR are also considered West London rivals.

Further afield, other parts of leafy West London have a lot more to offer than just train stops between central London and Heathrow. Putney Bridge is where the Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge starts, and before the Riverside stand was covered, Fulham fans were known to divide their attention between the football game and the Boat Race if the two were held on the same day. Following the river Thames upstream leads to several sights, including the Griffin Brewery where Fuller's brews London Pride and other award-winning ales; Chiswick House; Kew Gardens; Brentford, home of another aforementioned West London professional football club; Richmond and Richmond Park; and Hampton Court Palace, the home of Cardinal Wolsey before he totally voluntarily gave it to Henry VIII. Or you can explore the many riverside pubs, and get shitfaced before you even get to Barnes Bridge. Here is another video about Chiswick and Hammersmith.

For Joe Hardman and all others involved, it's probably the strangest Christmas of his life. The players get the afternoon and evening off, but in the morning, they're expected to turn up, as this is the only opportunity they have to meet the new manager and prepare for the Boxing Day game. Joe rushes from his hotel in Earl's Court. The world of having professional secretaries arrange luxury stays, and declaring the expenses to the club, is still new to Joe, and he hasn't thought to ask the club for accommodation for the first couple of weeks; he simply booked the cheapest place he could find, a beautiful town house on the outside, a drab little squat run by Pakistanis on the inside, with stale bread for breakfast (ask me how I know all this). Falling out of his bed to make the tube in time, Joe also doesn't see the text message from Shahid Khan, offering a chauffeured car to Craven Cottage. Entering the club through the front door instead, he is met by Craig Shakespeare.

Shakespeare played for clubs such as Walsall, West Brom, and Grimsby before starting his coaching career. He spent multiple spells as assistant manager at Leicester City, including during Leicester's famous 2016 Premier League title under Claudio Ranieri. When Ranieri was sacked the next season, Shakespeare didn't resign in solidarity, but took over as caretaker manager and then permanent manager, a position from which he was already sacked 3 months later. Ranieri would later claim that "someone" in the backroom staff had undermined him at the end of his spell with the Foxes. Shakespeare complained about being made out to be a "pantomime villain", but that's just what you get when walking around with a name like that. In October 2023, the timelines split: in real life, Shakespeare was diagnosed with cancer. In our FM universe, he went on to be an assistant for Millwall, Bournemouth, and Sheffield United, before finally landing at Fulham in 2025. When Joe Hardman was offered the Fulham job, he decided to let the assistant manager stay to help him settle in.

"Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of pork!"

"Excuse me, are you all right?"

"Just some poetic licence."

"All right mate. Why don't you tell me about what has been going on at this club?"

Fulham were relegated to the Championship in 2026, bounced straight back in 2027, but are now in big trouble once again. They have only won one game so far, and are already out of the League Cup. Although it seems they might have been victims of the playing schedule from 30 October till 27 November: playing against Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United in one month is never going to be good for morale. Bournemouth offered one lighter game, but then Newcastle followed. Then the manager, Nick Montgomery, upped sticks and left for Sheffield United (I thought he had been sacked, but apparently not; I guess he just figured it was better to reign in the Championship than serve in the Premier League). With Shakespeare as caretaker manager, the club then only got one point out of two vital relegation matches against Middlesbrough and Norwich.

Of the Fulham players at the club in 2024 in real life, the following are still present in 2027: Harry Wilson, Bernd Leno, Andreas Pereira, Alex Iwobi, Steven Benda, Sasha Lukic, Carlos Vinicius (not Vinicius Jr, alas), Luke Harris, and Jay Stansfield. Other notable acquisitions since then have been Eric Dier from Feyenoord (!), Jakub Stolarczyk on loan from Leicester (first keeper, with Leno as a back-up now), Daouda Mbaynassem (a newgen left-back) from FC Groningen, Alexander Aravena from Universidad Católica in Chile, Josh Tymon from Swansea, Jack Harrison (fmr. Everton) from Leeds, Jaydon Anthony from Bournemouth, and Wout Weghorst from Burnley. Weghorst has been at the club since 2024, and has been in the first team, but has now been sidelined at the age of 35. Luc De Fougerolles is currently a Fulham breakthrough who has only played one league game; in FM, he has since become a squad player.

Under Shakespeare, the team have been playing a rather impotent 4-2-3-1, switching from a 4-4-2 under Montgomery. Besides tactical failures, Hardman inherits several problems with influential players:

"This is a fucking mess. Wout Weghorst is captain, but he's also on the transfer list, he hasn't played a game, and he's disgruntled?"

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action."

"Whatever you say mate. I want to meet Wout, Bernd, Eric and Talbi in private, after I've met the team."

Wout Weghorst is the first disgruntled player to report to Joe Hardman's office.

A 2-metre force of nature, Weghorst is a man after Joe Hardman's heart. A late bloomer, he played for amateurs RKSV NEO (RKSV indicates a Catholic club; NEO stands for "Nomen est omen") in his hometown of Borne, in the rural eastern part of the Netherlands. Unlike Joe, he comes from a privileged background, as his father owns a successful oil company. At NEO, he was often accused of only being in the first team because his dad was the sponsor. Although he was talented in the amateurs, he was only discovered by the pros at the age of 19, joining Willem II. Through Emmen, he finally worked his way up to the Dutch top flight with Heracles Almelo, and into the top of the Dutch game at AZ Alkmaar, earning a transfer to Wolfsburg in 2018. During the Covid period, he publicly stated that he wouldn't take the vaccine, which had far-reaching consequences for him, as he was attacked by the German media and had to move to Burnley because of the vaccine mandates in Germany, and Dutch media suggested that unvaccinated players should not be called up. By the time of the 2022 World Cup, Covid had disappeared as a going concern, and Weghorst was the one who brought the team back from the brink against Argentina. The Netherlands were then eliminated on penalties, and Weghorst was involved in an altercation with Messi. Now, he sits opposite Joe Hardman.

"At the start of this season, Montgomery promised me I would still be used as a pinch hitter. But instead, I haven't even been on the bench all season so far. After two months, I got sick of it and confronted him, and he admitted that he thinks I'm too old and offered to loan me out. Is that your wish as well? Then offer me to clubs already when the transfer window opens. I want to do something useful at the end of my career, not sit in the Cottage Pavilion for a year."

"No mate, I'm going to change some things around here. You still have a role to play. You'll get a chance from the bench against Southampton tomorrow, and I'll probably start you a couple of times too. I need a few weeks to train with the entire squad, and I need to try some different tactics, but you're definitely in my plans. They tell me you're a fucking nutter. That's what I need on this team right now. You've already got the captain's armband, and I'm not going to change that until I've trained with all of you for a while. You're hereby off the transfer list. I expect you in first-team training tomorrow, and I expect you to give the defenders a fucking headache. Don't make me regret this."

Eric Dier, 49 caps for England. After a long period with Tottenham and a loan spell with Bayern, he spent 2.5 years with Feyenoord, who then loaned him out to Shakhtar Donetsk. Fulham took him over last season, but already transfer-listed him after one season. Joe has a heart-to-heart with him too. The gist of the conversation: there are plenty of nice guys on the team, but not enough warriors. We need a bit of that Portuguese combativeness.

We leave it to Iwobi to talk some sense into Bernd Leno. Loanee Stolarczyk has been the first goalkeeper this season, but he hasn't been saving a lot of points for Fulham. Jakub has never been able to break into the first team at Leicester, and his only other experience has been on loan with League One and League Two clubs. He doesn't enjoy big matches, which is basically every match when you're 20th after 18 games. It's not fair to put the responsibility for the relegation fight on his shoulders when Bernd Leno is there as well. After almost a decade in London, Bernd is starting to miss the green hills around Stuttgart from where he came, but Joe wonders if it's not just due to him being on the bench all the time. Iwobi takes Bernd to Katzenjammers off Borough Market for some Spätzle and Paulaner, and convinces him to endure London a little while longer before going back to his Swabian wonderland.

The Tunisian defender Talbi is not that important, but we can certainly give him some more chances, just so he doesn't disrupt the harmony of the squad. But for the moment, he'll be away for the African Cup:

"I'm not trying to be a bigot, BUT, do we really need three African players in the first eleven? Now we have to do without them for a month, right in the middle of the season."

A good start in Joe's Premier League debut, at least.

Against Wolves, we try to use 4-4-2 with both the big guys, Weghorst and Vinicius, up front. Weghorst rewards Hardman's confidence, laying on an assist for Andreas, but then misses a penalty. Wolves take the lead, and we push players forward to chase the game. This is a mistake, as we leave too much space, and the defeat becomes a rout.

Against West Ham, we try our third possible tactical variant that might save Fulham from relegation: a defensive approach that is all about disruption, preventing the opponent from getting into their stride. It works a bit too well, as we have all the possession but don't create anything. But West Ham are a pretty good side, so a draw is a fine result. Looks like someone got FM'd again.

Millwall are beaten 2-1 in the FA Cup, and the next game will be against Sutton, playing in the League Two. They are beaten 4-0. But we remain winless in the Premier League, until we face off against Burnley. The results until February:

The tactical style that we settle on for now:

Another tactic that I lifted from YouTube. We were trying to solve the "problem" that both Andreas and Iwobi excel in the "Mezzala" role. A mezzala is a central midfielder who creates danger by drifting wide, into the half spaces. The term "half space" is really just mistranslated German.

The orange lines indicate that the players don't link up well together. This was already the case when Hardman started, and has unfortunately not improved in his first few games yet. Aravena is supposed to be the primary goalscorer in this tactic, but he has not been very productive yet.

Leno starts complaining about homesickness again:

This is a big problem. Stolarczyk is only an OK alternative. Perhaps it's better to save up a war chest and then buy a real Premier League-level goalie.

We fuck up the winter transfer window. We tried to sign either midfielder Tommy Doyle from Sheffield United, or goalie Niklas Hedl from al-Wehda in Saudi Arabia, but al-Wehda are only willing to sell him if they can find a replacement. Sounds good so far. Although we can't get a work permit for Hedl, we can sign him under the ESC slot. We withdraw our offers for Doyle and for other goalies, like Croatian Ivo Grbic, but this is a mistake. On the final day, it turns out that al-Wehda haven't found a replacement, and the deal falls through. The other players that we had withdrawn offers for, don't want to talk to us again.

We let Boselli go. Although he's a good defender, we could use this money. We just don't have anyone to spend it on now that Doyle doesn't want to talk to us anymore. We also sell Josh Tymon to Leeds for £8.75M.

Instead of Hedl or Grbic, we sign Nathan Baxter from Southampton as our first goalkeeper for only £7M. We are therefore in the position to refuse this offer for Lukic, but it does kind of feel like we're left holding the bag when the transfer window closes.

The next two games are an away day at Brighton, a home game against Crystal Palace, and the FA Cup 5th round against Leicester. All must-win games, because after these, there is another insane run of games:

26/02: Liverpool (A)
04/03: Arsenal (H)
15/03: Chelsea (A)
01/04: Man United (H)

In the worst-case scenario, we could lose all these games and, depending on what our competitors do, fall way behind on the 17th place.

Maybe it's just the pink away kit, or maybe the 4-4-2 is just too dangerous, but the Brighton game is a disappointment.

Against Crystal Palace, we take the lead, but fail to hold on to it. They are mainly forced to shoot from distance, but eventually, Doucouré gets a shot in from the edge of the area.

Leicester knock us out of the FA Cup. Although they're in the Championship, they're a great team. Like us, they fluctuate between the Premier League and Championship a lot, and are likely to get promoted back this season.

We remain in 18th position, still a relegation spot, but we haven't fallen behind too far yet. But will it remain that way with four games against the traditional top four coming up? In the next update, we'll go into the final 10 games of the season, and see if we can save our skin.

 

[Andnjord]

Oi mate! You've got a loicense for that poetic license?

Jokes aside, that was a rough start and it only promises to get rougher. Hold on Joe! Every week on the job is worth an entire year selling sausage rolls at Greggs!

 

[Modron]

This is what you get for transferring to a non food themed stadium.

 

[wwsd]

RECTIFICATION

I don't actually know whether the richest Fulham fans will be able to watch the action from the swimming pool.

The stand will include a rooftop swimming pool
Renders also show a rooftop pool, which will form part of the Sky Deck on the top three floors of the stand. The images suggest that the pool will not have views of the pitch, but will instead look out to the Thames.


"Our vision for the New Riverside Stand at Craven Cottage was to create a unique experience that has not been seen before, whether in the context of football or beyond," said Populous senior principal Philip Johnson.

https://www.dezeen.com/2024/04/02/fulham-fc-swimming-pool-stadium-riverside-stand-populous/



So what's the point then? You can see the Thames from anywhere, although with the way things are going in London right now, perhaps people will soon be paying for that pleasure as well. But what a cock tease!

 

[wwsd]

I wanted to start us off by paying tribute to the actual Craig Shakespeare, whose death was announced this morning: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c727p2mmzxpo

Every once in a while, you get players and staff in FM that died in real life, or who die while you're playing with them. Of course it's just a game, and age comes for us all, but it's sad when someone passes before his time. I used to play old FM for years after they came out because I couldn't be bothered with playing new ones, and I would see names like Theo Bos or Robert Enke pop up every once in a while. It feels like the timelines diverged: in real life, he died in 2024, but in this fictional universe, he lived on and had many more successes. Weird. As long as we're at Fulham, I will keep Shakey in the assistant manager job as a little digital tribute.

Motspur Park, New Malden. Yes, Fulham's training ground is pretty aesthetic too, and it has been used as a filming location for several sports films.

Shakespeare is still busy in 2028, helping Joe prepare the team for the brutal month of back-to-back games against the old-school top four: Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United. In the boardroom, however, there is a different struggle going on:

There are several types of board takeovers that can happen in FM. Although sometimes you can also play for 20 seasons and be stuck with the same board forever. Sometimes your chairman will love the club and would never dream of leaving, sometimes he is seeking to sell the club. I didn't actually check what was the case with Shahid Khan here. But a tycoon takeover is a godsend: massive cash injections will flow into the club, and transfer budgets will improve massively. After our botched transfer window, we were already sitting on a big war chest anyway, and this will make it even better. If we stay in the Prem, we'll be set for life. I don't want to jinx it, but even if we get relegated, we'll probably be able to make the investments to bounce straight back. The downside is that the new owner will probably also have higher expectations. The worst-case scenario is that the new owner wants a more experienced manager right off the bat, and we get sacked.

Mohamed Al-Fayed once bought the club for £6.75M and sold it to Shahid Khan for £150M-200M. Now, apparently Fulham FC is worth £810 million! Not a bad piece of business, although surely Khan must have invested some of his own money into the club as well. A break between the game and reality happens here: Tony Khan, Shahid's son, is our Director of Football, but he doesn't get replaced, even though he obviously should be.

But for now, we have no time to worry about any turmoil in the boardroom. The goal here is simple: deploy the Defending 4-1-4-1 tactic that we've used in some away games to frustrate the opposition as much as possible. Disrupt their passing lanes, tire them out, and hope for a break, a long throw-in to Weghorst, or some other way to break their advantage. At West Ham, this tactic worked too well: we had all the possession but none of the chances, and stole a draw when perhaps we should have put more attacking pressure on them. Against the top teams, it would be nice to grab a point or two, or at least don't get humiliated.

Against Liverpool, we hang on and keep them from creating anything for an hour, but eventually they break the deadlock with a long-distance shot from a badly cleared corner, and a header from a cross to the far post, where Lukic can't beat their tall centre-back. We break the Weghorst glass, but he only manages to hit them back (from a cross on the break) in the 95th minute.

That weekend, things suddenly go very quickly in the takeover negotiations. What kind of tycoon will we get? A Transport Tycoon? A Rollercoaster Tycoon? A Zoo Tycoon? Or maybe... a K-Pop Tycoon?

Yes, our new owner, sporting an unusually bushy beard by Korean standards, became a billionaire by making little malnourished girls get plastic surgery and sing and dance in South Korea's capitalist paradise! Hopefully the "mid-table finish" expectation is a mistake in the game, because we can't deploy any of this money yet.

Our scouting team gives us little to work with in preparation for the Arsenal game. The only weakness is that they concede more chances playing against a 4-4-2 formation, so we'll try that once more, with Weghorst as the big guy and Aravena as the finisher. At Craven Cottage, a strange sight awaits us: Korean flags hanging from the stands, boys with mop haircuts and eye-liners ("Who are these poofs?" -Joe Hardman) and girls in mini-skirts despite the March weather in London.

It's not as close-run as against Liverpool, with Arsenal clearly the better side. Next up is a week without any games, so we schedule a friendly against Maccabi London Lions, an all-Jewish club based in Barnet. We get to scor som fackin goals, they get some shekels from having a Premier League team at their ground. Win-win!

More trouble on the horizon:

This is actually pretty weird. I saw that Vinicius was getting homesick, like Leno before him, but he never came to Joe Hardman about it, nor did I have the option in-game to speak to him about it, unlike with all the other unhappy players. So now this happens. Fuck this guy. We've been playing Vinnie (as Joe has taken to calling him) intermittently, as he is a tall, fast, well-rounded striker. He can lead the line on his own, or he can be part of a pairing. He is technically capable of playing in all roles, but since he plays with his back to the goal and likes to play one-twos, he's a pretty decent target man or deep-lying forward who can hold the ball and bring others into play. But under Hardman, his playing time has dried up a bit as we've tended to use Weghorst in the same role, and Aravenas as the most advanced striker. So it's understandable that he wants out.

At Fulham, we've got a great youth set-up, so we can actually develop players. De Fougerolles already broke into the first team before Hardman. There are several good prospects out on loan, and the new generation has some great talent too. The goalkeeper here is great, but standing 1.81m, he's a manlet by goalie standards. But it's all good, because both the old and the new board expect us to develop some youth players. If nothing else, we can always sell them on.

Against Chelsea, we don't create anything, but we hold them back for 90 minutes. Then, in injury time, Jaidon Anthony gets pressed on the left flank and loses the ball:

They get the ball into the box. Lukic seems to make a correct tackle on the ball, but the ref and VAR think differently:

Undeserved? Not really, as they bossed us all game. But we were so close to an upset against our rivals! Taking 3 points here puts Chelsea in 1st spot, 10 points clear of Man City, with a game in hand and 8 more games to go, heading towards their first Premier League title since 2017!

Another week without a league game follows, so Joe decides to schedule a friendly close to his heart:

Joe never got to say goodbye properly, as he was whisked away on Christmas. So the return to the Tony Macaroni Arena is one of mixed emotions. At least the club has been getting on well without Joe Hardman, as they are in 7th place, and they still have a slight chance of sneaking into the top 6 to compete for European spots. The new manager, Calum Elliot, tends to play a 4-4-2, with Aaron Pressley as a target man next to Bruce Anderson. After the game, Joe addresses the fans to thank them for their support and wish them luck in their future endeavours. And since we left a solid foundation, they don't throw tomatoes.

Against Manchester United, we can throw away our game plan after less than half an hour thanks to a reckless challenge by Lukic on Koopmeiners. Thanks mate!

We end the run against the four top teams battered, but not broken yet. Although we're 6 points deep into the drop zone, we'll be playing some of our direct competitors in the last few games, starting with 17th-placed Bournemouth on Sunday, April 9th. The Saturday before that, Middlesbrough win another relegation cracker against Norwich, so we know the task that lays ahead of us. We need nothing less than a win against Bournemouth, or the season is effectively over.

Besides a ton of other problems, we have still not settled on one starting tactic, as the 4-3-3, 4-4-2 and 4-1-4-1 all expose different weaknesses, and some of our players still don't work very well together. Unfortunately, Mbaynassem is pretty much our only option at left-back now that Tymon is gone, and Mbaynassem is more a defensive-minded full-back than a modern wing-back. With Lukic suspended for 3 games, now is the time to go back to basics:

So far, we've been using Eric Dier as a central defender, competing for the spot with Gibson and Boselli, and Sazonov after Boselli's transfer to Everton. But now, Hardman decides to reshape the midfield. Since there is no replacement for Lukic in the deep-lying playmaker role, we dump the "two mezzalas" and keep only one running into those channels. Dier becomes a half-back, meaning that when we have the ball, he will drop between the two central defenders to help recycle possession and stop any counter-attacks. The creativity will no longer come from Dier's "no. 6" position, but from the guys in front of him, and the wing-backs if possible. The main weakness of this is that the wing-backs aren't really great crossers of the ball, so we miss that element a bit still. This will have to be addressed in the transfer window when we can deploy our K-pop bucks. It will have to be done, because we've also ditched the old-school wingers for inside forwards to take advantage of Anthony's and Harrison's ability to cut inside.

Against Bournemouth, we are on the brink, but we turn things around at the beginning of the second half. Georgian giant Sazonov is not a very subtle defender, but he's great at headers from long throws. Here, he doesn't even flick it on, but just heads it straight beyond the reach of Bijlow. Then shortly after, Anthony crosses the ball to Weghorst, who heads it against the post, and Harry Wilson taps it in as it comes back. Our first league win in 2 months, and it could not have come at a better time as we reduce the deficit to 2 points.

At the fag end of the season, we are facing some of the weaker teams, with the exception of Newcastle. But then, they will see us as a weaker team as well. The bottom four teams, including us, have been extremely weak all season, and nowhere near the oft-cited 40 points. All deserve to go down, and all but one of them will.

Bournemouth and Middlesbrough have a slightly harder schedule, with both still playing against Manchester City. But they might still get some points out of the other games, so we really need to win 4 of these 5 last games.

Against Newcastle, we make probably the best start of the season so far. Newcastle don't take this sitting down, but just when they start to seize the momentum, Iwobi seems to decide the match! Or does he?

After scoring the 3-0, we switched to the more defensive 4-1-4-1 tactic, as Newcastle were clearly pushing players forward and getting the better of the game. But this might be a mistake: although this system still keeps a higher defensive line, it may concede too much space from which the opposition can whip in crosses. What's worse is that Sazonov first misses an interception, and then loses an aerial challenge to Swedish striker Alexander Izak. The 3-3 comes when Vinicius, instead of holding up the ball, lets it come off his foot straight to Tonalli, who immediately lobs it over to Izak, who gets a free run on goal as Sazonov and Dier are still at the middle circle to support the counter-attack, and Dier completely misses Izak.

After the final whistle, Hardman doesn't hide his anger at conceding five goals in just half an hour:

Although the team are not happy at being given the hairdryer treatment, all of them accept it was fair and are determined to do better next time. All except Vinicius:

"Mate, I'm not going to stop speaking my mind. What happened against Newcastle is unacceptable and I'm not going to stop saying that just because it hurts your feelings."

"Just wait until the squad hears about this!"

Yes, we have a full-on dressing room revolt. Or rather, it's mainly a revolt by the players who have been on the bench most of the time under Hardman. Only Baxter and Lukic have been in the first team recently, and Lukic wasn't even there, while Baxter supported the team talk at first.

"Are you having a fucking laugh? You think I'm going to sit there and pretend that it's OK to concede five goals in thirty minutes? Everyone makes mistakes, I make mistakes as well. But when I tell you to hold the ball and recycle possession, you don't fucking give it to them on a silver platter. This isn't about mistakes, this is about not fucking listening. Most of the lads who were actually on the pitch agreed with me and they are determined to come back from this. If they can pick themselves up, then so can you. If you don't like it, I honestly don't give a toss."

"Noooo REEEEEE, we just want to sulk! Don't you know it's current year?"

The news soon spreads, but the press cofvefe is pretty positive still. The former manager weighs in. He knows most of this squad, so he understands what we're up against. Maybe he just moved to Sheffield United so that he no longer had to deal with all this toxicity?

Leno announces his retirement. Apparently he has already found a nice little vineyard in Württemberg, and he'll live out his days in peace, growing Trollinger.

It would be nice to say that the unrest doesn't affect us on the pitch, but that would be a lie. We lose the one game we really cannot afford to lose. It's a story we've seen all too often this season: we don't play badly, and even take the lead. Then Middlesbrough equalise from a corner. OK, that can happen. But then, Mbaynassem lets his man run away from him from behind his back, and Middlesbrough take three vital points.

Worse, Bournemouth get a vital win over West Ham, and now we're really up the proverbial creek without a paddle.



The verdict on Hardman's takeover of the club is decidedly mixed:

The players are less generous:

The relegation match of Fulham vs Norwich is eagerly anticipated, if only because it's almost guaranteed that someone will be leaving this game with their belongings in a cardboard box in front of the nation's cameras.

Norwich's manager is Liam Rosenior, a former full-back who spent a few seasons at Fulham. If we draw the game, do we both get sacked?

We bring the entire squad together one more time to make sure they're all pulling in the same direction.

"You know by now that I always give it to you straight. We need to grow a fucking nutsack, and start by showing Norwich what we're all about. They are even more fucked than us. They're already as good as relegated, but they are going to come at us, if only to show the world they were not in the Premier League just for target practice. If I get sacked, I get sacked. It's not your job to save my job. But I think we all have relegation pay cuts in our contracts. So go out there and show them we're not taking a fucking pay cut!"

"He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart. His passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother!"

The new 4-3-3 variant begins to gel, and Norwich are seen off with ease! All the attacking players perform well, and Andreas is deadly moving into those channels. Even Mbaynassem makes a once-in-a-lifetime, pinpoint cross. OK, Norwich are probably the weakest team in the league, and this result definitely sends them down. But it's still a great morale boost. Bournemouth have lost at Burnley, so we're once again within striking distance. They have the harder schedule on paper, with a home game against Everton, and an away game against Tottenham.

We're not the best against Southampton, but this time, we do what we had to do. We convert the one shot on goal we've got, and hold on to the lead. The goal is another Jaidon Anthony classic, cutting inside like a mirrored Arjen Robben. If only we had started him as an inside forward from the beginning!

Everton's form has been poor in the meantime, and Bournemouth beat them 4-2. Once again, Joe Hardman finds himself in a final match-day decider, but with even higher stakes: there are no play-offs to save us here like in Scotland. You win or you die. Here is the table ahead of the final match:

At Craven Cottage, Jaidon Anthony opens the score against Wolves in the sweetest way possible: aggressively pressing, he forces their defence to make an ill-judged backpass to the keeper, he gets the ball, and puts it in the back of the net. It's only his third goal of the season, and all three goals have come in the last three games. If only we had used him like this before! Jobe Bellingham, Jude's less gifted little brother, pulls one back for Wolves, but then it's Carlos Vinicius of all people who heads in a perfect cross from Harry Wilson in the 74th minute. The cheer around the stadium is muted, however, as Bournemouth are up 1-0 at Tottenham thanks to a Justin Kluivert goal.



Then, in the last minutes of the season, a cheer goes up:

Tottenham have drawn level! But as things stand, Bournemouth are still one point ahead of us. Will Spurs save our hides?

The referees in West London and North London blow their whistles almost at the same time. And when they do, the realisation sets in: we've done our duty, but Spurs did not get more than a 1-1 draw, a fitting end to a disappointing mid-table finish for them. Spurs are now so Spursy, it's affecting even Fulham! They sacked Postecoglou in November and replaced him with Mark van Bommel, but that did not improve matters much. They did make it all the way into the semi-final of the Europa League, which they lost to Feyenoord. A shame, because it would have been a home game for them otherwise, as the 2028 final is at White Hart Lane. Did they do enough against Bournemouth, or did they screw us over?

It doesn't really matter much. Hardman took over Fulham in its darkest moment, when they were in 20th place with only one win in the first half of the season. Things improved somewhat, but we were simply never good enough to avoid relegation. We blew our best chance at safety against Newcastle and Middlesbrough, and from there on, it was out of our hands. We struggled to settle on a tactic until the end of the season, and had an undignified bust-up with some of the squad over the collapse against Newcastle. Fulham have been no strangers to yo-yoing back and forth between the Premier League and the Championship, but what will the new Korean owner think of our performance? Will Joe get the sack?

Well well well! We take a pretty big relegation pay cut, but our job is secure! "You did your best, here's £50 million to spend" is not something English managers hear very often. Don't buy that Porsche just yet, Joe!

We have to reduce the scouting team a little bit, but some of the scouts we've inherited are not very good anyway, so we'll just let their contracts expire at the end of the season.

We lose some glory hunter fans, but they'll come back when we do!

We will have the best squad in the Championship, but many of them don't want to play at that level. Thankfully, only Mbaynassem, De Fougerolles, and Ibrahim have relegation release clauses, and all of them are replaceable, so we don't have to listen to just any offer. Our wage budget is a bit lower, but most player contracts do have relegation pay cut clauses, so that will balance itself out.

Meanwhile, Chelsea also win the FA Cup, earning them a domestic Treble of the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup.

Our new owner has no intention to stay in the Championship for long, and pumps more of his own money into the club. Excellent! Although Joe has had to take a pay cut, he will have a lot of the club's money to spend on players! Will this be a recipe for success, or is giving £50 million to a man like Joe Hardman like giving dynamite to babies?

One last look at the harsh reality:

To add insult to injury, our rivals Chelsea won their first title in over a decade. Brighton have showed their staying power since they entered the Premier League in 2018, earning a Champions League spot for the second time (they previously made it in because they won the Europa League in 2027). Liverpool and Man United both fall out of the top four, and Tottenham drop into the mid-table. The relegation teams have been exceedingly weak, with Norwich winning only 2 games all season, and Middlesbrough, Fulham and Bournemouth all in the low 30s in terms of points.

Joe has difficult conversations with several of his best players, who all want out. But the compromise he reaches with each of them actually favours the club:

As usual, these spoiled brats, who became millionaires before they became grown-ups, are overrating their value. There's no way that clubs are going to be offering this kind of money for all these players. Many of them can be replaced. With his job secure for now, Joe Hardman's first priority is to sign (potential) replacements. The rebellious mood in the dressing room has neither been forgiven nor forgotten. Some of these players are going to be offloaded. But we will also need depth in the squad, because the Championship has 24 teams and 46 games per season, so there will have to be some rotation.

Although the result of Joe Hardman's takeover of Fulham was disappointing, he's still hanging in there. Fulham are expected to bounce straight back next season, so that's what we'll have to do. The worst risk is if we have a poor start, then we could find ourselves sacked pretty quickly. But for now, we have all the cards in our hands, as well as deep pockets of money thanks to our new owner and our player sales so far. Next time, we'll purge the disloyal elements, make new signings, and we'll try to grab the Championship by the balls!

 

[Andnjord]

Joe still has his job, I call this a complete success of a season.

 

[3 others]

What's the 2nd half standings table look like? That was a very respectable points pace you squeezed out even if the starting situation was too dire in the end.

Are you planning on applying for higher profile clubs while in Championship? I mean, Lyon or Freiburg might have an opening...

 

[wwsd]

What's the 2nd half standings table look like? That was a very respectable points pace you squeezed out even if the starting situation was too dire in the end.

Are you planning on applying for higher profile clubs while in Championship? I mean, Lyon or Freiburg might have an opening...

I'm not sure where I can find the form table for a specific half of the season, especially since the game has already moved into the next season, so maybe those stats are gone. I did notice we were 7th in terms of the last 5 games of the season, but that's pretty obvious when we won 3 of them.

I did put in a cheeky application for the Ajax job, but haven't applied anywhere else yet. At some point we'll definitely leave Misery Island and give continental management a try. Especially if it can be in a European top flight leave, even if it's just mid-table, it's a great opportunity to overperform and get ever better job prospects. Ajax, unfortunately, decided to bring back the worst manager in the history of the Premier League, although one of the better managers in the history of Ajax.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

I wanted to start us off by paying tribute to the actual Craig Shakespeare, whose death was announced this morning: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c727p2mmzxpo

Just saw this on the news this morning. Very strange to find reality intruding on a playthrough. But good stuff, wwsd, I haven't played Football Manager since the 1997 edition and I felt the tingle of need after following your progress. But 60 dollars? No thanks, I shall live vicariously through you.

 

[wwsd]

Last season, Joe Hardman took over a Fulham side that was going down with 1 win out of 18 games and only 8 points. He led the fightback that saw the team recover to end the season with 8 wins out of 38 games and 31 points, but this wasn't enough to avoid relegation, as Bournemouth beat us by one point, by drawing against Tottenham on the final match day. With a big treasure chest full of Korean money, the task at hand is now clear: get back into the Premier League as soon as possible, preferably by automatic promotion by finishing 1st or 2nd in the Championship.

First order of business is the transfer window. Since we didn't do much in the winter transfer window, we're sitting on a pretty big pile of cash, in addition to what has been injected into the club by the new Korean owner. We want a new striker, preferably one who can play as a deep-lying forward who can drop deep and redistribute balls to, for example, an inside forward in a 4-4-3 or 4-2-3-1 system, or a strike partner, or even a shadow striker. These are just some of the tactical options that Joe is thinking about, since we've found it hard to get goals in the Premier League. But in the meantime, Weghorst and Vinicius are already capable of playing such roles, so they would be useful back-ups at least. Weghorst's contract is expiring, but he has an automatic extension clause. He wants to leave the club though. What could possibly go wrong if we trigger the extension clause anyway?

"Well, I see nothing but positives here. First he was leaving us on a free, now we can ask a transfer sum for him. I'm beginning to get good at this business thing!"

We move Vinicius to the second squad, since he wants to leave and we want to keep a clear view of who our actual squad is going to be. Big mistake, apparently:

My brother in Christ, you wanted to leave! Oh well, we'll sell him too then. Actually, here I wanted to try a game mechanic that I haven't used much yet: our club has a Director of Football in Tony Khan, and we promised to keep him in his spot. Even though his daddy sold the club, that promise is still active for some reason. Not sure what happens if we sack him. Anyway, thankfully you're not actually forced to consult him and he doesn't take any executive decisions. Unlike in real life, especially in continental Europe, where the DoF often appoints the manager (or rather, head coach) and makes all transfer decisions. In FM, you can optionally give yourself the "Head Coach Challenge" by appointing a DoF and delegating all transfers, contracts and staffing to him.

I'm not going to do that here, but another feature of the DoF is that you can add players as "Transfer targets", and then the DoF will try to sign them. Or you can add players to the "Unwanted list" and he will try to offload him, without Joe as the manager having to spend time on negotiations. So, let's see what happens when we ask the DoF to offload Vinnie for us. We ask him to sell Vinicius by any means necessary, up to a minimum of half his transfer value.

"We're not just going to give him away. They'll have to come up with something better than that."

OK, whatever, let's just instruct the DoF to sell him at any price.

"Wait, you rejected offers for him before, but now you're OK with letting him leave for free?"

"Just following orders, chief!"

"Well, I made a promise to the old boss, so I'm definitely going to keep you around and I will be consulting you a lot. Here is a new contract. And here is a keyboard and a phone. Go play with that. Just sit in your office and play with that keyboard. You're a very important man at this club son, I hope you realise that."

"Look Tony, it's an offer that meets his release clause, so we have to sell him anyway. But since you're so important to the club, you get to make the final call. Just click "send" right there!

"YAAAAAAAY!!!"

"You can do it, big guy."

With the backroom now functioning and the Director of Football getting the respect he deserves, it's time to sit back and enjoy Euro 2028.

This is one of our lads, but he has been out on loan. He's a decent central defender. We'll bring him back next season to help keep the bench warm, let him have a few games, and maybe sell him if the price is right.

We were actually already negotiating quite a few transfers in late May to early June. We bust the club spending record by signing Milan van Ewijk for £45M. In fact, both defensive flanks are Dutch now, as Quilindschy Hartman comes from Milan for a reasonable price. They paid Feyenoord £27.5M for him, but he never really broke into their first team. We now sign him for £16.75M. Berisha is a striker who will hopefully be able to play the same role as Weghorst. Alvarez is a Uruguayan wonderkid, a signing for the future. The Portuguese striker Gabriel Silva was a talented player for Sporting Lisbon, but never made it into the first team there. Let's hope his finishing ability will serve us better than Aravena.

This is another one of our top signings. IRL, the Brazilian plays for West Ham as of 2024, but hasn't had any games yet. In FM, he's been out on several loans before Ipswich got him on a free, and he finally broke through in the Championship with them. We are not so lucky, as we have to shell out £20M.

As expected, most of the players who wanted to leave don't even come close to getting any big-ticket offers. Iwobi here estimated himself to be worth £37.5M, so we promised to let him go if any club offers that sum. The reality is a bit different. We laugh in their fat Turkish faces and move on.

As if we didn't have enough money yet, we also get this parachute payment as a reward for getting relegated. Just in case you were wondering why some clubs yo-yo so much between the Premier League and the Championship. This is one of the complaints people tend to have about the Championship. Any Prem clubs that get relegated get this parachute payment, so they can usually make some investments and do well. It's not like promotion is guaranteed or that you'll dominate the league, as we'll find out, but it helps a lot. Whereas the other clubs in the Championship will have to pull off a bit more of an upset to stand a chance of going up.

The bookies expect us to win the league, and they expect Aravena and Van Ewijk to be two of the stars of the league. Aravena is the 5-4 favourite for being top scorer of the league. Didn't they watch him last season? Sadly, there are no rivalries for us to enjoy. Chelsea and Brentford are still very much in the Premier League, while QPR are in League One. In fact, we're the only London team in the Championship this season, unless you count Watford. Which would just be crazy, right?

Meanwhile, all the players who were unhappy with our team talk in that dreaded 5-3 against Newcastle are coming back into the fold.

In 2024, football finally came home, but since then, it has gone into puberty and has run away from home. In fairness, Spain is a tough opponent for a second round, but this is the second time England fail to reach far into a tournament, having been eliminated by Nigeria in the 2026 World Cup. The obvious lesson here is: never let Gareth Southgate go!

We finally say goodbye to Wout Weghorst, after extracting an extra 1.7 million out of him thanks to forcing a contract extension.

But big transfers are not the only part of our strategy. We promised to give chances to youngsters, and so Louis Bekoe is brought into the squad for the new season. The left-winger will have one or two guys above him in the pecking order, but we'll definitely let him make an impact. While most of our left-wingers are of the inverted, cutting-inside variety, Bekoe is a straight-up left-footed left-winger.

This guy was out on loan all season. He could have been useful, but he would have probably been our 4th or 5th striker. So getting this kind of money for him is a good deal. Although we've spent most of the original transfer budget, this keeps some money in our coffers at least.

Perfectly illustrating the stupidity of the Championship: you have what is on paper the best second tier in Europe and probably the world, with more money and reputation being thrown around than even in top flights of non-top 5 European countries, but then you also have a club like Luton that managed to rack up a £148M net debt.

"Good night, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!"

After Stolarczyk left, and with Baxter also not generally saving a lot of points for us in the Prem last season, we sign one more goalkeeper. Will we come to regret this? Scherpen is a good shot stopper and great in the air, but not so good as a sweeper.

We're loaded, so of course we offer big bonuses!

For some reason, the game didn't plan any friendlies yet, even though it's the backroom staff's task and it's already mid-July. Some kind of glitch, or will they organise it at the last minute? Anyway, Joe decides not to wait any longer, and decides to give another former club some much-needed gate receipts.

Is it too soon to revisit an old love? Anyway, Briton Ferry finished 4th in the 26/27 season when we left them for Livingston, but lost the play-off finals to Colwyn Bay. Then in 27/28, they finished 9th. Not great, but they've obviously become an established Cymru Premier side. Some of our old stalwarts like Keane Hazeldine, Billy Brooks, Mungo Bridge and Ben Milburn are still at the club, while some others have moved to the English non-league. We beat them by a rather mediocre 2-0. It won't be our last time in Wales, because both Swansea and Cardiff are playing in the Championship.

France win the Euros by... wait, how much?

I never want to hear complaints about anaemic major tournament finals ever again.

We win other friendlies against Girona, Slavia Prague and Sigma Olomouc, but after that, there's no place to hide anymore, it's time to finally begin the Championship with a NEW TV MATCHDAY EXPERIENCE!!111

Yeah. Now I just need to figure out how to get the proper logos to display correctly.

The first Championship game is a bit of a let-off, and our fated league top scorer isn't hitting much of anything yet. Next up is a home game against Peterborough United. That's right! Who said there are no derbies this season? This is the Posh Derby! Fulham are posh, and Peterborough are nicknamed THE Posh. Because back in the 1920s, their founder was said to be looking for "posh new players for a posh new team". Despite having this nickname for 80 years, Victoria Beckham tried to sue them when they tried to trademark the nickname, but she failed. What a cunt! Anyway, Peterborough are newly promoted and are expected to finish 21st, so a home game against them should be a good opportunity to light a fire under our Championship campaign, right?

This is an all too typical mistake I tend to make Joe Hardman tends to make. We start OK and dominate the game, but concede an unlucky goal. We start pushing men forward to chase the game. We get tired, they counter and then this happens. I wouldn't call this a pure FM'ing as they had the best chances in the last half hour, but if this is what the season is going to look like, we're going to have a bad time.

We are able to offload Bowat for a decent sum, considering he wasn't likely to play much.

We follow up with 1-1 draws against Sunderland and Ipswich before finally getting a 1-0 win at Birmingham City. In the League Cup, we get an early exit against Premier League side Aston Villa on penalties, as Aravena and De Fougerolles miss theirs. What, Joe Hardman takes over a club and doesn't even win a League Cup? Inconceivable!

Against Sheffield Wednesday, also contenders for promotion, we take the lead, but concede a penalty in the 88th minute. But Aravena saves our bacon with a 90th-minute tap-in from a free kick.

Although it's the board's policy to sign under-23s, we need a bit more defensive midfield stability. A strong, hard-working guy like Keita is the perfect anchor man or half-back, and also a good long-term replacement for Dier, who is getting on in years. We get double coverage for this position by loaning João Gomes from Wolves. We also loan in Barcelona's Bulgarian defender Martin Georgiev. Named by The Guardian as one of the greatest talents born in 2005, he is a good ball-passing defender who can help our build-up play.

We gravitate between different systems for a bit. This 4-2-3-1 system is already pretty familiar to the players, since the playing style is not so different. We squeak out a 1-0 win against West Brom, but it's not exactly lighting up the game yet. At Leeds, we play a pretty boring 0-0, and we don't really want to be the boring team that gets a lot of draws right now.

A switch back to 4-3-3 creates far better chances against Norwich, but only one point, as the finishing remains disappointing. This is born out by the stats too:

We create a lot of good chances, but fail to convert them at anything near an acceptable rate. If this doesn't improve soon, the board and fans could start getting twitchy.

Eric Dier breaks his ankle in training. By jumping. Not by landing, perchance? In any case, he'll be out for a long time, so it's a good thing we've got João Gomes and Mandela Keita.

At Cardiff, Hardman decides to give Gabriel Silva a chance, and the Portuguese promptly rewards his manager's confidence. He is blessed with some great off-the-ball movement, and seems to get into scoring positions a lot more often than Aravena.

Although the plan was for Scherpen to be the first goalkeeper, he has not been without mistakes, whereas Baxter has improved a lot. Or maybe it's just that he has less to do than in the Premier League, as we become the best-defending team in the Championship. Whatever the case may be, Baxter becomes our go-to again, and he rewards us with ever-improving performances.

To finally start getting a run of wins, our next opponent is Stoke. Although Tony Pulis is long gone, he still casts a large shadow over Stoke, as they play 4-4-2, trying to pump the ball towards this giant of a man:

Sazonov is the tallest, strongest defender we have that could square up against him. Luizão is OK too. All others would probably get bullied by this guy.

One other man is really excited by this game:

Respect? If by respect you mean "didn't really rate him, and replaced him with Baxter at the earliest opportunity", then sure!

As much as Joe Hardman loves a bit of Brexit-ball himself, we need to put our thinking caps on here: Stoke are obviously going to sit back with their two banks of four. They know we like to play a high tempo, but a high tempo can lead to a high number of mistakes, and they will wait for the turnover. The solution? We'll slow things down a bit. We'll probe them methodically. We'll prevent their wingers from crossing the ball at all costs. We'll keep pressing them, but we won't get tempted into rushing into ill-conceived counters, otherwise there's a risk we'll lose our shape and be... counter-countered? Whatever you call it. Seriously, one underrated thing in FM is to turn off the "Counter" setting. It doesn't mean your team will never try to break, it's just that they will not do it when it's not safe.

We are up 3-0 at the break, and score the 4th right afterwards, showing this approach has already worked out amazingly well:

The final score is a bit flattered, since Stolarczyk has faltered completely and let through some goals that could have been stopped. But the plan has worked, showing it can be good to pay attention and adapt your approach to the opposition.

We keep winning against Coventry and Preston North End. At home against fellow title contenders Middlesbrough, we draw 0-0, and then another 0-0 away at Swansea. Silva has been good so far, but the opposition are increasingly able to stop him, and the lack of fackin goals continues to be a problem. Against Blackburn Rovers, we win 2-0, and then we go into potentially the toughest month of the season:

With seven league games and one FA Cup match in this month, December is fixture congestion at its finest. Hull City have been leading the league, and if we lose to them, they will take a huge lead in the title race very early on.

At Derby County, their striker Tattum is left completely unmarked and scores two goals. Wait, what the fuck is going on? Turns out that Luizão was still set to specifically mark the other striker, an instruction that I think I accidentally carried over from the Stoke game. Oops! Pay attention to player instructions, kids. Hartman, who rarely ever scores, crowns our comeback with a beautiful shot into the corner of the net from the edge of the area.

Hardman <3 Hartman


Seriously though, the two Dutch full-backs didn't have a sensational start to the season, but have been doing better and better. Pulling them back to full-backs has actually helped, strangely enough. I find wing-backs very useful, but they can also be extremely aggressive and leave large gaps on the sides. I was hoping the athleticism of these two guys would make it better, but it's still pretty hairy. The full-back will still overlap when necessary, but he will support us more into the midfield.

Seen on the right wing in this game: Kofi Fosu, Ghanaian, and another product of our youth academy. He plays as a winger, but loves to dribble into the box and aim for the far corner of the net. He's already scored 3 goals in 7 games.

Against Portsmouth, we get two injuries after having already made five substitutions:

Hey, who needs a striker and a left-winger, right? Although we have tried to rotate some players in and out during this month full of two-game weeks, these things are unavoidable sometimes.

The away day at Hull is another cracker. Their Croatian midfielder Baturina has contributed 7 assists this season, but we mark him out of the game and leave their striker isolated. We score three early goals, all from set pieces, and by the time they wake up, it's already too late.

Looks like the youth academy will be churning out talents for another year, with great strikers coming up that can either scor som fackin goals for us, or eventually get sold off in lucrative transfers.

Although we won at Hull before, we can't capitalise and seize control of the title race, as Norwich beat us against the run of play. Baxter has been an incredibly consistent goalie this season, but in this game, he can't get his hands to a long-distance shot that did not look incredibly well placed. Norwich then score the 2-1 from a corner, and just when we are getting back into the match, they get a penalty. They have us well beaten in the big black dude department, as Issa Diop (ex-Fulham ) and Adam Idah bully our defenders in the air. Seriously, three of the goals were conceded from penalties and free kicks where these guys won the aerial challenge or escaped their guards. We may need to rethink how we defend these. Sazonov can normally be depended upon in these situations, but he looked a bit shakey, especially after getting a yellow card. We rarely conceded this season, but now we let in five. Not a good look at all. This ends a series of 20 games unbeaten.

But there's no time to mourn now, as Blackpool are waiting.

The tactic is pretty settled now. Iwobi is sometimes rotated in for Pereira, as in this example. Some strong link-ups are beginning to emerge (the lines between players that indicate they play well together).

But Blackpool manage to nullify our attack. Although we've become pretty adept at breaking down counter-attacking 4-4-2 teams, a defensive 4-2-3-1 like this has proven to be a tougher nut to crack, as it tends to leave the three forwards pretty isolated.

All in all, that leaves us with the following results and league table at the halfway mark:

After a slow start, we recovered well, and made an impressive unbeaten run. In most games, we control possession, and are able to break down some teams that park the bus. At the same time, a lot of these unbeaten games were draws, and we'll have to be more ruthless in getting the goals. 3rd place with 6 points behind the automatic promotion spot is not terrible, but neither is it what the board will be expecting after investing large sums of money into the squad. We definitely need to take it up a notch.

Also, to Luton for hovering just above the relegation zone despite being docked 12 points for going into administration.

Another reason I'm stopping here for now is that an intriguing offer came in just before the Blackpool game:

PEC Zwolle's goal is to be in the top half of the Eredivisie, but they sacked their manager when the team was floating more around the mid-table, between 9th and 13th, with very few points keeping them apart.

Obviously, this level of the Eredivisie has far less money and clout going around than even the Championship, but I still wanted to check what readers think about it. Managing outside of the UK is one possible road we could take for the Journeyman challenge, and I'm a bit biased towards managing in the Netherlands myself (I kinda like PEC Zwolle too). In the Eredivisie, places 5 to 8 also allow you to compete for play-offs for the Conference League spot. So it might be a good stepping stone. On the other hand, Fulham are undoubtedly a bigger club. Although promotion back to the Premier League is far from guaranteed yet, it should be within the possibilities of this club if we start getting wins again. And if we can then spend our money well and survive in the Prem for a season, we'll probably be able to keep working in the top flight, and at a far higher level than PEC Zwolle. And although part of being a Journeyman is changing clubs every so often, Joe has not seen through a full season with either Livingston or Fulham so far, so it could be worth staying put for a while. I'm not sure yet, but let me know what you think.

 

[Andnjord]

We left Briton Ferry after they anchored themselves in the top flight of Welsh football and Livingstone after saving them from relegation, it would be dishonourable to leave Fulham before getting them back into the Premiere League, we have a reputation to uphold.

Also, even with the pay cut we’re still payed more at Fulham than what they’re offering, right?

 

[3 others]

Zwolle in itself would have been a great career progression in five years from practically nothing, but since you've pretty much made it into the big leagues with Fulham, it's a clear step backwards in prestige and salary. Unless you're completely fed up with the Championship grind, just stick with what you've got.

Really enjoying the series, the LARP, and the writing btw.

 

[wwsd]

We left Briton Ferry after they anchored themselves in the top flight of Welsh football and Livingstone after saving them from relegation, it would be dishonourable to leave Fulham before getting them back into the Premiere League, we have a reputation to uphold.

Also, even with the pay cut we’re still payed more at Fulham than what they’re offering, right?

Yeah, I think it's like 40k per month now vs 28k per month at PEC Zwolle. I am inclined to at least finish the season with Fulham, and then strive to keep them in the Prem too. But let's not jinx it, we need to step it up a notch too.

Zwolle in itself would have been a great career progression in five years from practically nothing, but since you've pretty much made it into the big leagues with Fulham, it's a clear step backwards in prestige and salary. Unless you're completely fed up with the Championship grind, just stick with what you've got.

Really enjoying the series, the LARP, and the writing btw.

Thanks, I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying it myself. Part of me wondered if I wouldn't get sick of it after struggling in the Welsh leagues while getting rejected by even slightly bigger clubs. I thought perhaps I might only transition to some National League or League Two level side at best, and that can become a bit of a grind when you're just plodding along at that level for a long time. The Livingston offer was really lucky, since it allowed me to suddenly get a very big reputation boost by simply surviving. And that in a league that gives you a few good opportunities to save your bacon, not like the English leagues that have this "bottom 3 go down, gg, no re" system.

I think generally FM improves your perspectives a lot if you overachieve. Briton Ferry from Welsh 2nd tier to Conference League qualification + minor silverware in 3 years is definitely an overachievement, but one that's feasible. And then it also takes a bit of patience to not immediately jump on every little opportunity like those 3rd-tier Spanish strugglers (I guess that may have been fun in another way, but you get the point). The best approach then seems to be "Keep calm, overachieve where possible, then when the board are delighted with you, ask for more coaching badges", and that's how the big career jumps seem to materialise.

 

[Luka-boy]

Nah mate. Less dosh and I don't think they even have Greggs over there.

 

[Lucumo]

Joe hasn't accomplished anything with the club, except for getting relegated. So it would be really unreasonable to run away to live among the Swamp Germans.

 

[Percy]

Stay with fulham and download a facepack

 

[3 others]

Thanks, I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying it myself. Part of me wondered if I wouldn't get sick of it after struggling in the Welsh leagues while getting rejected by even slightly bigger clubs. I thought perhaps I might only transition to some National League or League Two level side at best, and that can become a bit of a grind when you're just plodding along at that level for a long time. The Livingston offer was really lucky, since it allowed me to suddenly get a very big reputation boost by simply surviving. And that in a league that gives you a few good opportunities to save your bacon, not like the English leagues that have this "bottom 3 go down, gg, no re" system.

I think generally FM improves your perspectives a lot if you overachieve. Briton Ferry from Welsh 2nd tier to Conference League qualification + minor silverware in 3 years is definitely an overachievement, but one that's feasible. And then it also takes a bit of patience to not immediately jump on every little opportunity like those 3rd-tier Spanish strugglers (I guess that may have been fun in another way, but you get the point). The best approach then seems to be "Keep calm, overachieve where possible, then when the board are delighted with you, ask for more coaching badges", and that's how the big career jumps seem to materialise.

I was intending to type a post on how FM probably makes reputation gain a bit easier for the player to create more captivating career stories, but just digging a few random head coaches from lower-half teams of Scottish Premiership or Austrian Bundesliga showed that either they are either former internationals like Joachim Standfest or Don Cowie on their first try-and-see coaching gig, or determined nobodies who've been grinding upwards from Montenegrin or Albanian 2nd Divisions. And that's not even getting to the current manager of Livingston whose Wiki article opens with this gem:

So yeah, got to hand it to FM once again. Overachievement and steady results - even if on a lower level - gets recognized by the other teams' boards at a plausible rate. Perhaps my main gripe with the game is that overachievement is easier than it should - especially at the top levels of the game - because the AI teams keep shooting themselves in the foot with their stupid squad management, but it's still remarkable how many discrete elements in a game/simulation of this complexity are really well in line with what we see in reality.

 

[wwsd]

Thanks, I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying it myself. Part of me wondered if I wouldn't get sick of it after struggling in the Welsh leagues while getting rejected by even slightly bigger clubs. I thought perhaps I might only transition to some National League or League Two level side at best, and that can become a bit of a grind when you're just plodding along at that level for a long time. The Livingston offer was really lucky, since it allowed me to suddenly get a very big reputation boost by simply surviving. And that in a league that gives you a few good opportunities to save your bacon, not like the English leagues that have this "bottom 3 go down, gg, no re" system.

I think generally FM improves your perspectives a lot if you overachieve. Briton Ferry from Welsh 2nd tier to Conference League qualification + minor silverware in 3 years is definitely an overachievement, but one that's feasible. And then it also takes a bit of patience to not immediately jump on every little opportunity like those 3rd-tier Spanish strugglers (I guess that may have been fun in another way, but you get the point). The best approach then seems to be "Keep calm, overachieve where possible, then when the board are delighted with you, ask for more coaching badges", and that's how the big career jumps seem to materialise.

I was intending to type a post on how FM probably makes reputation gain a bit easier for the player to create more captivating career stories, but just digging a few random head coaches from lower-half teams of Scottish Premiership or Austrian Bundesliga showed that either they are either former internationals like Joachim Standfest or Don Cowie on their first try-and-see coaching gig, or determined nobodies who've been grinding upwards from Montenegrin or Albanian 2nd Divisions. And that's not even getting to the current manager of Livingston whose Wiki article opens with this gem:

So yeah, got to hand it to FM once again. Overachievement and steady results - even if on a lower level - gets recognized by the other teams' boards at a plausible rate. Perhaps my main gripe with the game is that overachievement is easier than it should - especially at the top levels of the game - because the AI teams keep shooting themselves in the foot with their stupid squad management, but it's still remarkable how many discrete elements in a game/simulation of this complexity are really well in line with what we see in reality.

I can't believe I missed that! Would have made for a funny job interview.

"You're applying for us even though you have no experience managing in this country. What makes you think you're the right man for the job?"

"Well, for one thing, I was never convicted for cocaine trafficking. I've had my run-ins with the police, but I never did anything important enough to be put into prison."

Honestly though, reality is just better than fiction sometimes. I couldn't dream up a better zero-to-hero story than this guy's, but he did it in real life.

In the Netherlands, most of the smaller Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie managers IRL do have some professional footballing background, if only playing in the mid-table or Eerste Divisie. This kind of background can get you pretty far, just look at Arne Slot. And maybe a few who have no background in professional football at all. In either event, the most common career path is to start as a coach, assistant manager, youth coach, manager of the youth team, etc. and then get promoted into their first professional manager/head coach job. There are a couple who did have a professional player career, if only at the 2nd tier, and then managed amateur clubs first before getting hired by pro clubs.

There are some exceptions, like Henk de Jong at Cambuur, who had an injury before his career took off, so he then went to physical education training school. So basically, learning to be a gym teacher. Also some former pro players studied to be gym teachers before going into management. Especially men from the generation that couldn't become multi-millionaires just by having a footballing career, so they had to actually get a job. The most famous example is Louis van Gaal, who never really stopped being a gym teacher IMO.

There are two managers, Willem Weijs of FC Eindhoven, and Michele Santoni of Dordrecht, who have slightly different backgrounds as well. Weijs had no playing career at all, but earned his 'Master in Coaching' at the Johan Cruyff Institute and got his UEFA Pro Licence. He is an adept of Pep Guardiola-style football, so I would consider him the most 'theoretical', FM-style manager who learned everything in theory instead of practice. Santoni worked both as a coach, and as a performance analyst.

Stay with fulham and download a facepack

Done and done. Figured out how to get the logos to work too. Next update, people will be amazed to find that Fulham actually have a proper logo, not a black-and-white ball. Result!