This is my first save of FM23 and I couldn't decide who I wanted to manage. I thought about a prem side but I wanted a bit more of a challenge. After looking at the championship teams and Middlesbrough stood out.
History
Middlesbrough was largely a mid-table premier league team with one season they finished 7th (their highest). they eventually got relegated to the championship in the 08/09 season. Their ride in the championship wasn't an easy task and it took them until the 15/16 season to get promoted back to the premier league. Their return was short-lived and was relegated back to the championship by finishing 19th.
They have bounced from manager to manager trying to find a good fit and for a manager to come in and get them back to the top division of English football (with Michael Carrick being the latest appointment). I'm a huge Carrick fan (united fan here) and rooting for his success at boro. Unfortunately for the boro fans, they are still waiting to return to the top division.
My aims and opinions
I'm looking to give the fans the stability that deserves and have a long successful reign. My first and main goal will be to get the club promoted back to the premier league. once I have achieved this, then the key to cementing Middlesbrough as a premier league team is to bring in the experienced and quality players that will help avoid relegation from the premier league and work our way up the table.
I have to say I am very pleased with the group of players I have inherited. We have a good depth available to us, however, I will look to bring in some players to improve in areas which I feel are needed. with the formation ill be using, bringing in players in my first season is key.
i will talk about formations, transfers, and the start of my season in my next post.
im hoping to continue sharing my journey with you guys so interact with me and see where we can take Middlesbrough!! Until
After looking at my squad and wanting to play a possession style football I’ve decided to go with a 3 at the back formation.
I’ll admit that using this formation will be a gamble and even more so when everyone in the media favours other teams over us and have already ruled us out for promotion in my first season. As I said I want to play a possession style football where my team dominates the opposition. On my previous post I said I was pleased with the squad ive inherited, which I still stand by. However, new signing are needed for me to try and get my chosen formation to work.
I feel that our defence isn’t a top priority as Fry, McNair and lenihan will take over the CB positions. One of the important positions of this formation is the wing backs. Luckily for me we have 2 very good, young players in Isaiah Jones and Ryan Giles (loanee from wolves) who will fill these wing back positions.
Across the centre on midfield is an area where I feel new signings are needed. As for our striking options, I feel that we have a couple of good players that can bag us their fair share of goals.
Transfers
Josh Benson was signed from Barnsley for 2.5m who can play a number of roles within the centre of midfield. He’s a 22 year old who can potentially improve in the future.
Emiliano Marcondes was signed from Bournemouth for 2.5m. The 27 year old danish international was brought into my squad to add depth with the centre of midfield and he can also play as a striker.
Harrison Burrows was signed from Peterborough for 4.5m. He can play as a wing back or a left winger. At the age of 20, he can progress significantly in the future…hence the pricey transfer fee for a player in league one.
The last transfer and the one that I was surprised to get I’ve the line is Marco Benassi who I signed from Fiorentina. With a small price tag of 350k, the 28 year old Italian was a great bargain who can bring. A player that has bounced around Seria A, his experience in a top league is something that our team needs to be able to fight for promotion.
In my next post I will share how the start door the season has been so far.
sorry for my english, I am thai.
KG92, I know you decide to use 3 at the back.
But in real life, championship team hardly success use this formation.
Example match blackburn rovers vs boro last night.
Jdt, rovers's manager use 3 at the back ok defensive solid,
but boro better in possession.
Because 4-2-3-1 narrow that carrick use, can tweak to
3-2-4-1 by push Lb gile to LM or LW.
I suggest you to consider use tommy smith in cb/rb role same as
carrick use, this can give you more possession in narrow width.
I agree with you that midfielder is main for transfer.
Marcondes can play like mcgree and Josh benson
can play in Howson role.
And Harrison Burrow could be your key man
on left wing as Giles.
I only concern in defensive midfiled position,
in real life this is weakest position in carrick team.
Although Hackney passing is very good,
but his defensive ability quite poor.
And Howson's age cause speed to low for defensive duty
in box to box midfield like him.
We managed to win our first 4 games of the season with the, with West Brom being the hardest opponent (2-1 win) on the opening Midway through August We then started to struggle for results picking up 1 draw, a win against swansea and losing against reading, Watford and losing again to Barnsley on penalties in the cardboard cup second round.
At this point I began to question my tactics, is 3 at the back the wrong tactic. The injury list hasn’t helped with the results as this players on the list is growing each week. I decided to tweak the tactics slightly but sticking with 3 at the back. In the month of September and October we were unbeaten. The tweaks in tactics have worked wonders and out of our unbeaten games there were 8 wins and 3 draws.
November came and I was hoping that we could continue our great run of form. The media was surprised how good we have been in recent months. The stand outs of the team were both wing backs Giles and Jones, providing great attacking threat, our Loanee Rodrigo Muniz who was already at the club when I took over. Muniz is our top goal scorer. Unfortunately we couldn’t keep the unbeaten run going and suffered 2 losses and manage to get a draw in all of 3 November games.
The World Cup break has now been and gone with England managing to beat France in the final on Penalties. We are now just about to enter into February and currently we are sitting in 3rd place. Watford are top of the league with 68 points, Norwich sit in 2nd with 65 point and we have 57 points. Blackburn, QPR and Hull make up the rest of the playoff positions with only 6 points separating us from 6th place Norwich.
Our stand out performers so far are loanees Ryan Giles (wing back) Rodrigo Muniz with 17 goals. Dale Fry and Darragh Leninhan have been great playing in a back 3 with the 3rd position of the defence being rotated with paddy McNair and Matt Clark.
Results have been drying up as January only provided us with 1 win out of a possible of 5. Although we are unbeaten in the league in January but 3 of those games were draws. The only loss came at the hands of Blackpool in the FA Cup third round.
As for my thoughts on promotion, I think we can rule out winning the league as Watford have been difficult to stop with only one loss out of 29 games so far! We are 8 points behind 2nd place Norwich which is still achievable, but we need to try and replicate some of our good form we had early on in the season and hope Norwich make a few mistakes along the way.
Can I lead Middlesbrough to automatic promotion? Or is this just too much of a challenge…
Hi there, perhaps add some screen shots of your new signings stats etc and tactics.... other than that interested to see how you get on
U satisfied with your signings....
2023-04-19 09:00#292598 marre :
U satisfied with your signings....
my signings were good. I have started a new save which you can follow on here. Go and take a look and interact with that. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have
