League 2, League 1, Championship and Resignation

My 9th and 10th seasons in charge have been good, achieving promotion from League 2 and finishing strong in League 1. My few weeks in the Championship were not.

Season 9: 2025/2026 - League 2 6th - Promotion via Playoffs

I was a bit surprised by this season. We got off to a bad start and never really improved, only stringing together 3 or 4 wins at a time followed by a mixture of losses and draws, for our first 5 fixtures we won our first game 3 - 2, then crashed out of the Carabao Cup first round, 3 - 1 to Sheffield United. Our next game was a scoreless draw, we then lost 3 - 2 and drew 4 - 4. So this start hadn't filled me with confidence and given that I had been considering stepping down for the last 2 seasons I felt I missed my opportunity to jump before I was pushed. Somehow an inconsistent season resulted with us finishing 6th in the league and eventually going on to earn promotion through the playoffs and finishing the season as we started, putting 3 past Hartlepool, this time stopping them scoring anymore than 1. This time I'm done I'm stepping down and moving on before I overstay my welcome. Or so I thought.

Final standings in League 2 for the season

Season 10: 2026/2027 - League 1 3rd - Promotion via Playoffs

Here we go again, another season and more wondering should I have left a hero or am I going to stay until I become a villain. We got off to an alright start, again we went out of the Carabao Cup first round this time against Leeds. Our league results weren't bad though and that was the important thing, we started to pick up wins and win consistently, however I was very aware of how, in the past, we started strong only to trail off later in the season. We lost and drew a few but the victories were there too. We did hit a patch where we couldn't buy a win for five or six matches but we bounced back from that and despite losing those matches we never fell out of the playoffs. The only thing that really bugged me about those losses is that they came at a time when we could've moved into 1st and probably pulled away. We finished strong though, winning our final 7 matches to take 3rd and going on to smash Wigan 7 - 0 in the Playoff final.

Final standings in League 1

Season 11: 2027/2028 - Championship - Resigned

Despite making my mind up to resign at the end of the last campaign, here I am as FC United manager for an 11th season. I had turned down several extension offers but in the last couple of days of my contract we finally reached an agreement. They wanted to extend my contract until the end of the 2029/2030 season but if I was going to stay I only wanted a 1 year extension because this was going to be my last year at the helm of FC United. Before the season started I was having doubts about my choice to stay on because where the players' respect for me was 'Excellent' due to my time at the club, it had now dropped to 'Very Good'. Was I turning into Arsene Wenger? Probably. We lost 2 - 0 to Burnley, Lost the first round of the Carabao Cup 2 - 0 to Doncaster who are in League 2 and then Sheffield United hammered us 4 - 0. I decided it was time to leave and I will now be searching for a new club. I will be looking outside England because I don't want to face FC United as an opposition. After 20 league games had passed I checked in on them and they had dropped to the bottom of the Championship with 17 losses and 3 draws.

FC United - Conclusion

I really enjoyed my time at FC United, I had originally planned to only stay for 5 years if I felt we were progressing, if not it would be 3 years and move on. Instead it turned into a decade in which we were crowned champions of the Vanarama National League North and the Vanarama National League and back to back promotions from League 2 to League 1 and on to the Championship and I think it was the attachment I felt for the club that stopped me leaving. The only regrets I have from my time at the club is that we were were promoted though winning the playoffs, I would have preferred a clean sweep of silverware on my way up the leagues. Also I would have liked another 2 or 3 seasons in League 1 to develop the team and have them ready for the challenge of the Championship. 

Honours

2026/2027

League 1 Promotion Playoff Winners

Manager of the Month (x2)

2024/2025

League 2 Promotion Playoff Winners

Manager of the Month (x1)

2023/2024

Manager of the Month (x1)

2022/2023

Vanarama National League Champions

Manager of the Year

Manager of the Month (x1)

2021/2022

Manager of the Month (x1)

2019/2020

Vanarama National League North Champions

Manager of the Year

Manager of the Month (x2)

2017/2018

Manager of the Year

Manager of the Month (x1)

Life in the VNL and Surviving League 2

I fell behind on the blog and I've covered a bit of ground since my last post so there are going to be several short paragraphs covering the last 5 seasons, from our survival, establishment and eventual success in the Vanarama National League to 2 years of League 2 football after upgrading the club status to professional.

Season 4: 2020/2021 - Vanarama National League 16th
Our first season in the VNL was a success in my opinion, we were tasked with fighting relegation and that's what we did. We got off to a decent start and picked up a few early results using a 4-1-4-1 tactic but it gradually fizzled out and we dropped down the table. Throughout the middle of the season we couldn't buy a win which saw us yo-yo in and out of the relegation zone for a time thanks to the occasional draw. Towards the business end of the season we started to gain 3 points for a few matches and this helped us to finish 16th in what was a nervy end to our first year in the VNL.

Final standings for 2020/2021 season.

Season 5: 2021/2022 - Vanarama National League 6th

Our second season got off to an inconsistent start, struggling to string together any number of wins. I thought this was the season we were going to to go down because our inconsistency became consistent losing but towards the halfway mark in the football calendar we reversed our fortunes and started to win most of our matches, drawing occasionally and only losing a few. In our final 10 matches we won 7, drew 4 and lost 1. The form we found in the second half of the season left us sitting 6th. In the first round of the promotional playoff we beat Sutton 5-2 but in the semi final Shrewsbury beat us 3-1, leaving us in the VNL for a third season. We got knocked out of the FA Trophy Semi Final on penalties by Carlisle. They beat us in the first leg 2-1, we won the second leg 4-3 and this was what made it so sickening, we were 4-1 up nearing the end of the match and they just fired in 2 quick goals to push it to penalties. This is the last of our cup action as the next few seasons saw us crash out in the first round of all cup competitions.

Standings for Season 2021/2022

Season 6: 2022/2023 - Vanarama National League Champions

We kicked off our third season in good form winning 7 of our first 10 matches, drawing 2 and losing 1. The defeat was a heavy one, 5-1 to Bromley but Stevenage were on the end of a backlash in the following match where we won 6-1. We maintained good momentum throughout the season except for one pocket of games where we went of the boil losing 4 out of 5, but we got back on track. Unfortunately this bad patch gave the other teams a chance to catch up meaning it was only 3 points keeping us on top for the final 5 matches. Our second last match was particularly worrying because Carlisle had been in good form and were after charging to second place like a train. We had a vastly superior goal difference going into the final match of the season so I felt comfortable enough and it was just as well too because we lost 3-1 leaving both us and Carlisle on 90 points but our goal difference was the deciding factor in who moved to League 2 as VNL Champions.

Standings for Season 2022/2023

Season 7: 2023/2024 - League 2 18th

Going into my 7th season I was a little undecided about whether I wanted to continue as manager at FC United because of how close things were at the end of the previous season. If we had won the league by a bigger margin there wouldn't have been any question , I would've felt we had what it took to stay out of the VNL. Anyway I stayed on even though I had a strong feeling we were going to be relegated and during the summer break the board announced that the club was turning professional. There wasn't a lot to report on for my first year in League 2, we had an inconsistent run, we didn't go on any great winning streaks but more importantly we didn't hit any long losing streaks and despite my relegation fears in the summer we finished 18th.

Standings for Season 2023/2024

Season 8: 2024/2025 - League 2 16th

This season saw us improve our final position by 2 places over the previous year  but much the same as the 2023/2024 season it was a fairly mundane campaign. Again it was an inconsistent performance throughout. During this season we leaking some ridiculous goals so this was something I knew we had to address, I tied down a few players who were previously on loan with us and brought some of our academy players into the first team. I felt a bit happier to stay on as manager at this point due to the fact that we were showing signs of improvement and growing into the league plus the board had offered me a contract extension until the end of 2026.

Standings for Season 2024/2025

So that's it, the blog is back up to speed, I think I might post like this more often and accumulate a few seasons together rather than trying to dissect each individual season. Hopefully it won't be as long before the next one 

Season 3: Vanarama National League North Champions

Three seasons with FC United and we are the Vanarama National League North Champions! 

This season's goals weren't set too high by the board, they were actually surprisingly low as far as the league was concerned: Top Half Finish. I was expecting them to look for promotion as the first season I was with the club they asked for a top half finish, last year they wanted mid-table and in both campaigns we finished 2nd and 4th. We went top in the third week, dropped down a place the sixth week and return to top spot the seventh week where we stayed for the rest of the season.

Goals and performances across all competitions

We had a couple of lucky escapes towards the end of the season where we lost matches narrowly but the teams that were occupying 2nd place lost or drew too meaning we managed to hold onto our place at the top of the table and mostly retain our 6 point cushion.

 Awards for some of the Players

Below are some screenshots of our fixtures throughout the season and you can see for about two thirds of the season we were consistent enough...

...and then a few dodgy results before finishing on a high. It was starting to feel like one of those situations where we began the season too strong and were going to let it slip when it counted.

Kanye Diedrick - Roberts was 2 goals off matching the league's top goal scorer. He only played 23 matches during the season and still received the Player of the Season Award.

 Player Stats

Team Stats.

You can see from the team stats above that we were the top scorers in the league with 91 goals, it doesn't say it but we conceded 41 giving us a goal difference of 50.

 Final League Standings

Overall a really good season, I kind of put all our eggs in one basket though. I felt like this was our year and didn't bother too much about the cups, using them to play with tactics a not worrying too much if we got beaten which meant underachieving slightly but the league was my focus. During the blip in results I had thought to myself if we don't hold on or if it slips at that stage after such a good season I don't know if I'll stay another season. We won, and I'm staying for a while longer.

Season 2: An Inconsistent Overachievment

My second season in charge of FC United got off to a shaky start, winning 3 and losing 2 in our first 5 games. I think subconsciously I was comparing it to the 20 game unbeaten run of the previous season which was always going to be difficult to match.

From the beginning I had a bad feeling about this year's campaign because the matches that we won we were only scraping them by a goal and having to absorb constant pressure for the last 10 minutes. The matches that we lost we were getting peppered with shots and shouldn't have even been in them. Match number 5 was the one that felt like an omen. We lost 5-3 to Stockport and first off conceding so many goals so early in the season was a worry and second it was our former winger who they signed during the summer that scored their first goal. A cheap in-swinging free kick that he latched onto at the near post.

Our next 20 results were a little more positive across league and cup competitions. We lost 4 but we were starting to play a little better on the pitch. It could have been at some stage during this period that I changed the roles of the back 4. to Defensive Full Backs (Defend) a Defensive Centre Back (Cover) and a Centre Back (Defend) because a lot of the goals we were defending were coming from passes going over the backs. I found they had been rushing forward and a big looping ball from deep was just asking to be put in the net.

After that little adjustment at the backs we seemed to be conceding less and we started putting together a couple of winning runs. We did have one horrendous result though when Salford hammered us 5-1 but I think that was down to the tactic that I had picked. We finished 4th in the league which wasn't bad considering we were only 4 points off of top spot and with an equal goal difference. We also had a few big results of our own against Tamworth, Darlington and Gainsborough, beating them 5-0, 7-2 and 5-1 respectively. Salford would go on to beat us in the playoff 1st Round thanks to a late goal ending our hopes of promotion.

Our board expectations and goals for the season across all competitions

The cups were fairly successful. We reached the first round of the FA Cup holding Wrexham to a 3-3 draw but going down 2-1 to them in the replay and reaching the fourth round of the FA Trophy after defeating Accrington and Leyton Orient but eventually going down 1-0 to Barrow.

Player statistics for the season

Bradley Bauress won Player of the season who we signed as a replacement for Tom Walker. I just missed out on a consecutive Manager of the Season Award. Jason Gilchrist was the league's 3rd top goalscorer with 26, he scored 32 goals across all competitions. We were the top scoring team in the league with 91 goals, 17 more than FC Halifax who won competition. 

Team statistics

In 2018 I signed a new contract keeping me at the club until 2020 so I'll be posting about my third season with FC United soon.

Final league standings at the end of the season

A Season of Highs and Lows

I finished my first season with FC United and overall it was a solid start to FM18. We finished in second place, 4 points behind Kidderminster, we overachieved but the season also ended in real disappointment. Kidderminster, for a large portion of the season were ahead by 10 points and we managed to get within 3 points of them with only an few matches to go but a draw and a loss meant we lost ground again and going into the second last match we were 4 points behind and that is how it stayed. Below are the fixtures that I had to play after the first blog post and how they finished up.

The next disappointment was against Harrogate. Towards the end of the season we beat them 4-0 and then we met again in a promotional play-off match in which we made a terrible start. We missed sitters and they got 3 goals unanswered. Normally when a competition is described as "not a fair reflection" it tends to mean that one team was better than the score shows. The opposite was true for this match because we had no right being as close to the opposition as we were on the scoreboard. We pulled one back after the break immediately answered by another goal for Harrogate. At 4-1 I set them to an attacking mentality, told them to play wide, exploiting the flanks and pump the ball into the box in the hopes that we could stretch them and possibly drop the ball in behind the backs. It worked, sort of, we got 2 more goals and with the score 4-3 we were the better team, we were creating chances but we lacked the finishing of earlier fixtures. The last 15 minutes saw Harrogate score their fifth goal effectively killing the game off before we score a consolation goal in the dying seconds for a 5-4 finish. As I said we were lucky to be in it at 90 minutes as 2 of our goals came from huge mistakes by the Harrogate defenders, although if our strikers had taken advantage of the opportunities presented to them we may have been out of sight in the early stages of this match.

Kidderminster won the league with us in second and York, who we also beat by sizable margin went on to earn promotion through the playoffs.

There were plenty of positives on individual levels though. Kanye Diedrick-Roberts was the league's top scorer with 26 goals (34 across all competitions), player of the season was Tom Walker with an average rating of 7.61 and I was awarded Manager of the Season with a win rate of 58% across 43 matches. We bagged the most goals too, scoring 86 in the league. We had 8 more from the two cup competitions.

Top Goalscorer - Kanye Diedrick-Roberts

Player of the Season - Tom Walker

Manager of the Season - Me

Tom Walker has left leaving a gap to fill on the left wing, so I'll be searching for a replacement or as close as I can get to one. I'll also be looking for a few defenders and striker and as Allinson is out of sorts in goal that will be another position that needs addressing. That's the end of my first season, I'll be blogging about my second season in charge of FC United in the next few days. Hope you enjoy the read.

Football Manager 2018 Main Save

I started playing Football Manager with the release of FM14 and every year I start unemployed and go through the job application process. This year having got the FM18 Beta was no different but for one thing. I normally start in the bowels of the Irish first division dragging a broke, not so great team kicking and screaming to the the top of the table and into the top flight. On this occasion though I started in the Vanarama National League North because that's where the work was at a level I enjoy playing at.

However this is where there was a slight inner conflict and I was also called out on my appointment during my first encounter with the media. I'm a Liverpool supporter. I was appointed the manager of FC United. The reason for taking the job was simple, I didn't want to start FM18 spending ages waiting or looking for work so I applied because there was a vacancy, got an interview, got the job. The media asked if I thought there would be an issue among fans because I'm a Liverpool supporter but 20 games unbeaten helped me out there a little bit.

This brings me to the tale of the tape to date. Below are images of the league table, results and my tactics.

Fixtures and Results:

We've had a solid season, one of the surprises of the season was the Oldham fixture in the FA Cup 2nd round. What annoyed me was we took an early lead in both matched only to give it away 2 minutes later. To be honest we were lucky to stay in the replay, they gave away 2 or 3 penalties but still came out winners.

Tactics:

 Simple 4-4-2

Team Instructions

Objectives set out by the board and our performances in all competitions

So that's where we are at the moment. As of this post we are sitting in 2nd place closing in on a Kidderminster team that have spent the majority of this season sitting on a 10 point cushion at the top of the table. We have the top goal scorer in Kanye Diedrick-Roberts with 21 goals in the league, 29 across all competitions. We have the highest number of goals scored in the league with 64.

It's a bit of a long post as it's my first and kind of playing catch-up, hopefully they'll be a little shorter in the future, I'll post again soon to show how my first season ends up and the inevitable battle to hold onto some of my best players. Hope you enjoyed it and I'll post soon.