***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[Suntan Superman]

So I ended up at Wolfsburg, just outside the relegation playout spot. Thankfully the squad seems good enough that I didn't have to do much re-tooling, though I did make some additions in January(I joined in December), most were young player. I wasn't able to get a good ball winner for midfield though, now I know I just have to wait two years...

[jasontoddwhitt]

You can forget about that ten in a row Celtic. Brendan Rodgers left Celtic to take the job at Dortmund and they hired.....Jack Ross of St. Mirren????

But even before Rodgers left, the sour taste that was in our mouths after losing the title the way we did last season had us come out strong with a 3-0 victory over Celtic on opening day and we never looked back. It's hard to win the title Celtic if you never beat us



Even having to sell Alfredo Morales in January didn't stop us ($14.5M with futures to $21M to Red Bull Leipzig), as I found another South American striker in Walter Gonzalez to step in. Not quite the goal scoring threat that Morales was (63 goals in 67 appearances), but he got 7 goals in 11 appearances down the stretch. Also brought in Harry Wilson from Liverpool on loan and he added another ten goals in 15 appearances.

Only lost three matches in Scotland....a 0-1 defeat to Hibernian...an inexplicable 1-3 loss to Kilmarnock...and then we crashed out of the Scottish Cup in our first match 0-1 to Airdrie (typical FM gods smash and grab).

So next season...back in Champions League...a lot of Caixinha's horrible high dollar signings are gone now (thank you Cruz Azul for paying $2.2M for Carlos Pena)...and I'm setting this club up to dominate Scotland.

[jasontoddwhitt]

I said that I was prepping for Rangers to take over Scotland. Unfortunately for me, Celtic didn't take it lightly that I broke their streak of winning in Scotland. Celtic ended up investing $58 million into their squad, compared to our investment of just over $3 million. Needless to say, we were not going to walk away with the league to the tune of 17 points.



I feel like I caught a break in the Champions League by drawing Sparta Praha in the Playoffs, but oh boy did the group draw more than makeup for it. Still, for our first Champions League football as a club since the 2011-12 season, I felt overall we did great, especially getting a victory over Valencia in group play.

The Betfred Cup went fairly easy, as Raith, Kilmarnock, and Inverness CT offered up token opposition as we shut out all three teams. The final would see the Old Firm visit Hampden Park and it went down as an instant classic. Rangers would strike first in the 25th minute on a Walter Gonzalez strike, but Celtic would answer back in the 33rd minute. The match would go into extra time where a header by Ross McCrorie in the 111th minute sealed Rangers' 29th league cup title.

The William Hill Scottish Cup proved just as easy, with the only competition really coming in the semifinals, when Rangers defeated Aberdeen 1-0. Rangers would win their 34th Scottish Cup title with an emphatic 4-0 victory over Raith.

As for the league...it was neck and neck for the whole season. After the split, Rangers and Celtic were tied on points. We promptly dropped our first game 0-1 to St. Mirren, which found us down three points to Celtic, with no margin for error. A 2-0 victory over Celtic at Ibrox would bring us back into the title race and on the final day of the season....we defeated St. Johnstone 3-0....Celtic....



Thank you Hearts.

And for the first time since 2003....a domestic treble!

[Zac]

Started a new save. Went on holiday until today's date to see what interesting jobs would be open. Nothing interesting was open so I continued a couple more weeks. Spurs ended up firing Poch for finishing 6th. Spurs then hired Rafa. So I applied for the Newcastle job. They finished 7th. So into the Europa League. No idea why AI Rafa would make such a dumb move, but whatever.



Proceeded to sign Ante Rebic (20M), Helder Costa (8M), Ben Davies (8M) and Donny van de Beek (12M) for a total of 48M. Want to sign more but ran out of money. Still need depth in certain spots and upgrades in a couple as well. And no one wants any of the other players I'd like to move on. But I did sell Atsu, Perez and Saivet for 20M. However I only got 8M in transfer from the sales. Probably save that to see what I can get in Jan if something is needed.



This should be interesting.

[jasontoddwhitt]

I told myself that I would stick with Rangers on this save, but I keep getting interview offers from Premier League teams.

Then my squad got aggravated with me because I sold Jordan Rossiter to Huddersfield for $6.75 million ($8.75 in futures). Come on guys, one...he's injury prone. Last season was really the first season that he stayed relatively healthy. Hell, I was able to add an injury clause to his contract when I signed him to an extension. So when Huddersfield made that offer, hell yes I accepted it. Two...Jamie Barjonas has had two good loan spells in the Scottish top flight with Partick Thistle and Aberdeen and I feel he's ready to contribute to the first team.

But I promised the guys I would strengthen the midfield, even though I feel it's perfectly fine. Struck out on a couple of signings and found myself scrambling on deadline day to bring in someone on loan. With eight hours to go, we had an agreement with Chelsea, however, the player must've been really stumped on what to do because the deadline passed without an agreement from the player. Which then brought several players to my doorstep. Luckily I was able to talk them down.

But I feel like I strengthened the team. After spending 18 months on loan with us (and scoring 19 goals and assisting 20 more), when Liverpool transfer listed Harry Wilson, I lept at the opportunity and was able to fight off a couple of Championship sides and signed him for $3.9M. I went back to the Liverpool well and signed Sheyi Ojo on a free. I also managed to sign Cameron Bothwick-Jackson on a free from Manchester United.

Celtic meanwhile fired Jack Ross after 525 days in charge and failing to win a single trophy. Celtic promoted coach John Kennedy to the head role, I guess hoping to strike as they did with Neil Lennon (hell I'm sure they could've pried Lennon away from Killie). Celtic invested $19.5 million into the first team, so they outspent me again.

And they definitely outspent me in the name department...signing Nottingham Forest regen Elvis Sithole.

[Zac]

Really? You're upset I didn't fine your teammate?






Well guess who's getting a fine for being a unprofessional.

[Kobalt]

Poor guy, still need him though.

[jasontoddwhitt]

2020-21 Rangers FC Season Overview

Scottish Premiership: 2nd
Champions League: Playoff
Europa League: Quarterfinals
Scottish Cup: Semifinals
Scottish League Cup: Winners (3rd straight)
Top League Goal Scorer: Dapo Mebude (21) *ties Alfredo Morales 17/18 in-game record
Top Goal Scorer: Dapo Mebude (37) *breaks Alfredo Morales 17/18 record of 33
Most Assists: Sheyi Ojo (24) *breaks Jamie Murphy 18/19 record of 15
Average Attendance: 49,142

John Kennedy has turned Celtic into a stalwart defensively. Our team gave up a league-low 20 goals last season. This year, was slightly worse, but still, we only gave up 26. Last year, Celtic conceded 40 goals, which I feel played a part in their poor season as they dropped points they never used to drop.

This year in Kennedy's 4-5-1, Celtic conceded only 14 goals. I scored a league-high 96 goals on the season with my personal take on Jurgen Klopp's system at Liverpool. We only put two past the Celtic defense in four games. That's how unforgiving they were this season. And that set the tone for the title fight.

After making the group stages of the Champions League last season, we thought we were sitting pretty. After breezing through the first three rounds of qualifying, we got drawn with Basel in the playoff. After a 2-2 draw at St. Jakob Park, we felt very confident going back to Ibrox. Basel though had other ideas and blitzed us 3-2 at home. Though we generated more scoring opportunities, they were more clinical and we got bounced down to the Europa League, where despite being seeded 4th and being drawn with Besiktas, FC Kobenhavn, and Rostov, we won our group running away and advanced to the knockout stages.

Heading into January and in the midst of a heavyweight title fight with Celtic, the board came to me and said here's $20 million in transfer monies. Have fun.

First, though, a couple of sells were made. I cut my losses and sold striker Denis Alibec to Turkish side Genclerbirligi for $800k. We purchased him from FCSB for $3.5 million and he only made four appearances for us before suffering ligament damage in his knee. The second sell I didn't want to make, but Gladbach decided to hit the $17.5 million release clause on striker Walter Gonzalez. We purchased Walter in January 2019 for $800k from Olimpia in Paraguay. Walter would make 82 appearances, scoring 53 goals, registering 21 assists, and 16 man of the match awards.

The silver lining in selling Walter was this allowed me to move Dapo Mebude from splitting time out on the wings to now being the fulcrum of the attack, and that simply unlocked in his goal ability.

With the money from the Walter sell and the money the board gave me, we went on a spending spree. After captain Ross McCrorie broke his leg late in November and pretty much missed the rest of the season, I bought two center backs to bolster my back line. I brought in Alfie Mawson from Swansea for $1.4M and Liam Moore from Huddersfield for $2.8M.

Because Dapo's agent insisted I put a release clause in his latest contract, I felt it necessary to find another striker or two. I sent $8.75M to Hamilton for 18-year-old regen Kenny Finnie, who at the age of 17 last season scored 19 goals for Hamilton and led the league in goal scoring. I also brought in 19-year-old regen Robert Roberts from Bolton for $700k.

I also set about strengthening the midfield like I promised Ryan Jack. I sent $10.5M to Hull for midfielder Kevin Stewart and because I'm likely not resigning James Tavernier and Joao Aurelio isn't getting any younger, I sent $3M to Hertha BSC for right back Milan Gajic.

Everything was going well. Celtic would punch...we would counterpunch. We'd win, they would win. We got past CSKA Moscow in the first knockout round, we blew out Celtic in the Scottish Cup quarterfinals, we turned around a 2-3 deficit against Everton by beating them 4-0 at Ibrox to advance to the quarterfinals.

April 11th was when the season turned. The Old Firm derby had come around. Rangers and Celtic tied on points. Early on in the game, Harry Wilson went down with what would be a torn hamstring. In the 77th minute, Kevin Stewart picked up his second yellow for persistent fouling. Six minutes later, Scott Sinclair scored the game-winner for Celtic. It was a kick to the teeth...

...and we never recovered.

What followed was six straight games where we failed to win a game. We crashed out in Europa to Valencia on penalties. We crashed out in the Scottish Cup to eventual winner Aberdeen. We followed up our league loss to Celtic with a 0-1 loss to Partick Thistle and a 1-2 loss to Hibernian. We defeated Aberdeen 5-2 to keep our hopes alive, but a 0-1 loss to St. Mirren sealed the title for Celtic.

Injuries to key players combined with the deep run in Europa seemed to doom our team. We hit a brick wall and we couldn't recover. It was simply the worst run of form I've had in this save.

And we'll have some decisions to make. The lack of Champions League group money led to a $31.5M financial loss on the season. That combined with improvements to youth facilities and training facilities put us back in the red as a club. Mebude's $17M release clause will most likely get activated this season. That will certainly help a bit.

We've got to have a deeper Champions League run. To the board's credit, they are giving me $18.06M to spend. May not be wise financially, but we'll see if we can use that wisely.

Fans Player of the Season

Despite missing the final two months of the season, winger Harry Wilson was voted the player of the season by the fans. In 46 appearances this season, Wilson scored 29 goals, registered 21 assists, won 9 MOTM awards and had an average match rating of 7.64. He also earned 11 caps for Wales.