Back in December, I started a game of Football Manager Touch. You might remember because I blogged about it. Or, you might not remember because you have better things to remember.
Anyway, I guess I’m not a big gamer. It’s the start of May (in real life – not in the game) and I’ve only completed my first season in charge as Ipswich Town FC. That’s a handful of cup games and a total of 46 league games – and one league trophy!
That’s right, I won the league! 🏆
This was, in large part, down to my newest signing performing so well. James Wilson, ex-Manchester United player, who I swiped from a League Two team.
With 37 appearances, he scored 21 goals. Additionally, Wilson was the highest rated player in the squad, and declared Top Goalscorer for the whole league.
Odd that even after such a performance, when I let the assistant manager “Auto pick” the team – Wilson is never added. Not even as a substitute.
The FA Cup wasn’t quite in sight, getting knocked out by Everton in the fifth round. Alas, I climbed higher in the league ranks.
Now Ipswich Town FC are now in the Championship. The board have set the goal to “Avoid relegation” but I have my hopes set higher than that. Three matches in and I’ve won two of them.
Maybe I’ll blog about this in another 5 months to tell you I’ve finished the league in 1st place once more and I’m fighting against relegation in the Premier League.
If you’d have asked me what a football shirt mystery box was last week, I probably couldn’t have told you. But I do love a good football shirt as much as I love a game of Football Manager. Especially some of the old Umbro kits.
Classic football shirts have become increasingly popular over the past few years – and now there’s a market for your old-but-good-condition football shirt purchases.
You can scour second-hand stores around your local city or online marketplaces for hidden gems. Stores specifically dedicated to the resale of classic football shirts have sprung up and even set up inner-city exhibitions dedicated to football shirts (which I visited).
And now, you can buy a football shirt mystery box.
The football shirt mystery box 📦❓
Sites like Soccer Shirts Club (also on Twitter) allow you to expand your football shirt collection in a ‘lucky dip’ fashion by offering you the chance to get a random soccer shirt in your size, for a fixed price.
For those who want a regular supply, you can get a monthly subscription – guaranteed to grow your wardrobe with one new addition each month.
The fun part is that you don’t know what you’re going to get. It could be a classic Manchester United shirt from the 90s, or an away shirt from a third-tier Japanese league. That’s the mystery part.
Is it worth the money? 💰
Football merch fan and YouTube channel AwayDays asked in a recent video ‘Are football shirt mystery boxes a SCAM?!’, ordering several shirts from mystery box sites.
It’s worth a watch if you are considering a spin on a mystery box. Soccer Shirts Club landed 2nd place, noted as sending shirts matching the value.
So, no. Definitely not a scam. Just a gamble if you go with the wrong mystery box seller.
As you may recall, I am a Football Manager in my spare time. Not a real one, but one limited to digital escapades. And, from big screen to medium screen, I recently purchased Football Manager 2021 Touch Edition for my iPad.
The layout of the smaller-screen app is familiar to the big-computer version, but different enough to have a slight learning curve. Once you’ve orientated yourself, it’s game on! By which I mean managing the biggest football spreadsheet to success!
On my previous outing, I took charge of Oldham Athletic. This time, I replaced the manager of Ipswich Town and have had a very successful run on the first half of my first season in charge.
I’m fifteen games in and topping the table. The media reports that the club are exceeding expectations – and with around 11 players out injured, I’d agree. This success will not last.
What’s odd is that the board isn’t too happy about the signing of one of my two signings so far; ex-Manchester United youth player James Wilson, nabbed from Salford City for £185k.
On his debut match, he scored two goals. Out of the 20 goals we’ve scored in league games, he netted 11. More than half. He’s my super striker! And his weekly salary is mid-range compared to the rest of the squad. Well worth the money, I’d say. He is single handedly saving my season.
I could profess to being a gamer, and I am. But not everyone would consider Football Manager a true gaming experience. It’s more like managing a massive Excel spreadsheet. But that can be fun too, right?
Recently, I bought myself custom-built gaming PC to replace my Xbox One console. It’s hooked up to my TV in the lounge. Ine, my fiancée, is happy that she can play The Sims with a keyboard and mouse. I am happy that I can play Football Manager on the big screen. It worked out well.
After downloading Steam, I started a new game of Football Manager 2017. Even though the 2019 version of the game is out, I’m still hanging around on an “old” copy of the game. My friend works at Sega and put me in the game as a character. That’s why I stick with FM2017 and haven’t upgraded to 2019 yet.
And so my new season as the manager of Oldham Athletic begins…
Why Oldham Athletic?
When it comes to football as a sport, Manchester United are my team. My family home sat around one mile away from Old Trafford football ground. So close that if the wind blew South, you could hear the roar of the crowd on match days. They are my “local club”. They also happen to be one of the best in the world.
When it comes to Football Manager 2017, I prefer a bit of a tough challenge and so will look to some of the lower leagues. Oldham Athletic are from the opposite side of Manchester, but were a fun team to go and watch live. At the start of FM2017, Oldham sit in Sky Bet League One, the third tier of English football, and seem to have accrued a massive amount of debt.
Year-on-year, Oldham tend to struggle to make any real progress. The end of the real-life 2017/2018 season would see them finish in 21st place and relegated to League Two. They seem the perfect challenge for an aspiring football manager.
Time to rebuild
One of the first things I try to do when I come to a club like this is rebuild. Quite often, that starts with the backroom staff. I terminated a lot of staff contracts and hired Tord Grip as assistant manager.
Having strong support from staff is essential. You aren’t going to get too far if you don’t have some good scouts to find and judge the new talent. Your players won’t progress as well if they don’t have good coaches. I also hired a Director of Football to negotiate contracts and sign players.
The next step was to pick a playing style and tactics. Oldham were already set up with a classic 4-4-2 set-up and I didn’t want to disrupt the team so much. I optimised it for defensive or counter attacking play, then created two others:
4-2-3-1 Wide
A formation with a higher and wider attacking midfield. They had a Control mentality – set up for an attacking game, but cautious of a counter attack.
5-4-1
A bit of a weird formation. It’s what José Mourinho would call “parking the bus”. Useful for when you clinch a winning goal in the last ten minutes of a tough fixture and don’t want to lose the lead.
From here, I started to play through the season and let the games run their course. It wasn’t easy. There were recognisable holes in the Oldham line-up and I set my scouts to work to find replacements.
Through the first half of the season, I won a mere ten games and faced elimination from cup competitions. Oldham sat above the relegation zone by three points and their fate so far looked bleak.
The January transfer window
When you start the season with Oldham, the club is being described as in a period of “financial ruin”. As you can imagine, this means there isn’t much money when it comes to a budget to sign new players. The club has an outstanding debt of £5,000,000 and a whole group of players on expensive wages.
By Christmas, I had identified the holes in the team that needed plugging. Come the January transfer window, I offloaded some expensive players and snatched some good deals. The finance department were trembling at their knees.
A few of my staple signings were; Ben Woodburn from Liverpool‘s youth team, Tahith Chong from Manchester United‘s youth divisions, and Abdi Ibrahim… who I couldn’t scout, but had met in person a few months prior at Oslo airport and found out he used to play for Manchester City. He can’t be bad, right?!
Each of these young players helped bolster my attacking formations. They also worked well with the current players in the 4-2-2 setup.
The unbeaten run
The new year brought the feeling of a new team. Each of the players had become more familiar with the tactics set out and started to score goals. The schedule started to light up green.
Win after win, draw after draw. There were some close calls, and last minute scrambles in the box. The 5-4-1 defensive tactic came into play on some occasions. Oldham went on a twenty-game unbeaten run.
It turned out better than I imagined it would and the result of the final game week left us contenders for a playoff spot. Rochdale beat Oldham to it by a single point, but I couldn’t be happier with how the season ended.
Oldham straddled 20th place during the first half of the season and wound up 8th come judgement day.
Next season
I ended my first season as Oldham Athletic manager on a high, but wouldn’t let it get to my head. I have played with Oldham before and this was rare. The following season had to come with realistic targets.
The club still has a debt of over £5,000,000 and I didn’t fix that. I made it worse. I ran the wages over budget. Some key players were on loan to Oldham and are set to go back to their original club.
My goal would be to earn another top-half finish. If possible, to find a spot in the playoffs for promotion. We will see.
The following season has begun and has already thrown up a few surprises. I’ll post an end-of-season review. When I get there.
The Football Editor 2017
With this installation, I added on the editing functionality to the game. The eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted a little pencil icon in the top right of my screenshots.
I am not familiar with the tool and wanted to see what it did – but not cheat my team to success. So, what did I do this season?
After managing Manchester United, I felt that Louis Van Gaal needed a new challenge. I appointed him the job of Yeovil manager. No rest for the wicked!
The Class of 92 have all retired and earned their coaching badges. I made Ryan Giggs the manager of Nottingham Forest and Paul Scholes the manager of Derby County.
In a strange turn of events, Paul Scholes hired Gary Neville as his assistant manager.
Thanks for reading!
If you are a Football Manger player, drop me a note in the comments to let me know your recent successes (or failures)! If you have any tips, tricks, or tactics — feel free to share your wisdom.
I have to admit to having an aversion to exercise. Once I get into a regular routine of going to the gym or playing football, things are fine. But getting into that routine is tough.
Recently, I started to play Cageball again. It’s a game of four-a-side football on a small, indoor pitch and fun to do with friends or colleagues. When I worked at Opera Software, we played almost every week.
Over the past four years, I have only played a handfull of times. Coming back to football after not doing much exercise can be tough on the body. I experienced that this Wednesday.
After playing for about 30 minutes, I ran the ball down the side of the pitch and got into a tough spot with the defence. Two of their players rushed me and I fell to ground in what felt like a harmless challenge. But, when I rose to my feet, I felt a slight pain in my lower back.
I stayed on the pitch for about 2 more minutes, but couldn’t run. It hurt to walk, nevermind run, so sat out the rest of the game due to the back injury.
Later that evening, the pain got so bad that shortly before bedtime, I decided to go to legevakt (hospital). The emergency room was quiet, but we spent from around 12:40am – 3:30am in the hospital. During that time, the doctor examined me and gave me an injection of painkillers. He determined it wasn’t anything that needed immediate treatment.
The next day I was in so much pain. Sitting was tough, standing was tough, walking was tough. Everything was painful – even with painkillers. I took the day off work and stayed at home.
Friday, day 2 of the injury, was also bad. From the minute I woke up I was in pain. I could hobble out of bed and to the bathroom, then back again. From the couch to the kitchen, and back again. But sitting hurt, standing hurt, walking hurt.
The NHS website recommends that if you have a muscular injury that you must remain active. Or, not “active” – but in motion. Lying in bed all day can cause more harm than good. I definitely wasn’t able to stay still for more than 10 minutes though before the pain increased. It was all too much.
That morning, I called Torp&Co – a local business who do massage treatments at companies around Oslo. Trained chiropractors, physiotherapists and specialists in muscle and joint disorders. They booked me in for an appointment later that afternoon.
After a thorough examination, they determined that I have muscle damage. Yet, it’s also possible I have a trapped nerve at the bottom of my spine. If that is the case, I’ll need an MRI scan and things are a bit more serious.
Today is Sunday – day 4 since the injury. I’m still taking the painkillers and most of the muscle pain has subsided. Sitting still or moving into different positions results in shooting pains up from my leg to my lower back – not a good sign. The pain seems to be easing off though.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll try to go to work. I also have another follow-up assessment with Torp&Co to check progress since Friday.