Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***
So after a number of failures, I decided to take on the SAF Challenge, and it was an interesting ride. First, I absolutely cheated the system, and instead of taking Stoke like I was meant to I took over Brentford in 20th instead. Also, I had simmed this year, and post World Cup made all of the high level managerial changes, even with different results, so Manuel Pellegrini still took charge at the recently relegated West Ham.
Things started out poorly, a row with a player wanting a new contract took hold of the team within days of me joining. I sold him off for 1/2 his value and the supporters were mad. I wanted to overhaul the defense and midfield of the squad and asked for more transfer funds on January 1st, and Brentford has some generous owners and gave me an additional 40m to work with. I secured players above the standard with Relegation Release Clauses of $0. Predrag Rajkovic joined for 6m, Tyler Adams joined for 5m, Ruben Loftus-Cheek joined for 6.5m, Rob Holding joined for 9m, I player swapped another unhappy player(Ollie Watkins) and 4m for Mathias Jorgensen, and paid 15m for Kenneth Zohore to shore up the top. I sold off players I didn't want or were no longer going to feature, and because I planned on staying, I was brought in Timothy Weah on loan from PSG, with a view to purchasing him later on. I was especially keen to develop Tyler Adams and Timothy Weah mostly for UNCftbl's sake here to see how good I could make them.
By the end of January we had moved to 19th, ahead of the now winless-in-11-games Bristol City, I was told by the board to turn it around and 6 points in the next 5 matches. 3 of those points came against the title challenging Tottenham, with another 3 secured by besting fellow relegation candidate Bristol City. Suddenly I was on a run. A few good FA Cup Draws (Didn't play a PL team til the Semi-Final drubbing by Man Utd) and a few more wins in the league saw us escape the relegation zone and get as high as 14th.
Then it happened, the squad had finally turned on me, I was flat ignored during team talks, I was denied a team meeting, our form faltered a bit, but we stayed above water, even moving into 12th after a win at home against Southampton. It was clear that the players, other than the ones I brought in, didn't and weren't going to like me anytime soon. After a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of now-relegated Stoke, I announced I would be resigning at the end of the season, a strange and tumultuous 7-month stint in the Premier League with Brentford came to close with a 4-0 victory at Griffin Park against Swansea. A victory so sweet, it saw us jump Preston to 11th place in the Premier League.
A 17-5-12 record at Brentford left me feeling good, so I decided to continue on in the save, and see where it took me. Then, just ten days after leaving Brentford, I interview with recently-relegated-to-League-One Nottingham Forest, the day after 17th placed Newcastle interview me. I figured I'd be happy with either position and whichever came first I'd join. One month and two days past my exit from Brentford, I was hired as Nottingham Forest's manager. The locker room is in turmoil, everyone wants to leave. There's no way this could go poorly, right?
So after a number of failures, I decided to take on the SAF Challenge, and it was an interesting ride. First, I absolutely cheated the system, and instead of taking Stoke like I was meant to I took over Brentford in 20th instead. Also, I had simmed this year, and post World Cup made all of the high level managerial changes, even with different results, so Manuel Pellegrini still took charge at the recently relegated West Ham.
Things started out poorly, a row with a player wanting a new contract took hold of the team within days of me joining. I sold him off for 1/2 his value and the supporters were mad. I wanted to overhaul the defense and midfield of the squad and asked for more transfer funds on January 1st, and Brentford has some generous owners and gave me an additional 40m to work with. I secured players above the standard with Relegation Release Clauses of $0. Predrag Rajkovic joined for 6m, Tyler Adams joined for 5m, Ruben Loftus-Cheek joined for 6.5m, Rob Holding joined for 9m, I player swapped another unhappy player(Ollie Watkins) and 4m for Mathias Jorgensen, and paid 15m for Kenneth Zohore to shore up the top. I sold off players I didn't want or were no longer going to feature, and because I planned on staying, I was brought in Timothy Weah on loan from PSG, with a view to purchasing him later on. I was especially keen to develop Tyler Adams and Timothy Weah mostly for UNCftbl's sake here to see how good I could make them.
By the end of January we had moved to 19th, ahead of the now winless-in-11-games Bristol City, I was told by the board to turn it around and 6 points in the next 5 matches. 3 of those points came against the title challenging Tottenham, with another 3 secured by besting fellow relegation candidate Bristol City. Suddenly I was on a run. A few good FA Cup Draws (Didn't play a PL team til the Semi-Final drubbing by Man Utd) and a few more wins in the league saw us escape the relegation zone and get as high as 14th.
Then it happened, the squad had finally turned on me, I was flat ignored during team talks, I was denied a team meeting, our form faltered a bit, but we stayed above water, even moving into 12th after a win at home against Southampton. It was clear that the players, other than the ones I brought in, didn't and weren't going to like me anytime soon. After a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of now-relegated Stoke, I announced I would be resigning at the end of the season, a strange and tumultuous 7-month stint in the Premier League with Brentford came to close with a 4-0 victory at Griffin Park against Swansea. A victory so sweet, it saw us jump Preston to 11th place in the Premier League.
A 17-5-12 record at Brentford left me feeling good, so I decided to continue on in the save, and see where it took me. Then, just ten days after leaving Brentford, I interview with recently-relegated-to-League-One Nottingham Forest, the day after 17th placed Newcastle interview me. I figured I'd be happy with either position and whichever came first I'd join. One month and two days past my exit from Brentford, I was hired as Nottingham Forest's manager. The locker room is in turmoil, everyone wants to leave. There's no way this could go poorly, right?
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