Football Manager P17 – Tough Lessons

The 25/26 season would be a landmark season. For the first time, I’d be leading a Premier League club, the one I’d guided most successfully to the top flight – Crystal Palace. I took a look at my old club, Aldershot, and sadly the 24/25 season saw them end up being relegated from League One. […]

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Football Manager P16 – Mighty Eagles

I had five games to save my job. I felt this was most unjust, given the season so far, but so be it. To begin Crystal Palace would travel to Rotherham, who were hovering above the relegation zone. The press was sniffing around at the prospect of an ultimatum, something I naturally poured scorn over. […]

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Football Manager P15 – Soaring Eagles

Having successfully navigated the first third of the 24/25 season, it was time to kick off (heh) the middle phase. By regularly switching between the 4-4-1-1 formation (and its underlying philosophy) and the 3-5-1-2 formation, I could keep opposing teams off-balance, and rotate the squad a bit, keeping my players fresh. This would hopefully be […]

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Football Manager P14 – Playing at the (Selhurst) Park

For the previous post, click here. So, Crystal Palace. Officially founded in 1905 (and some might argue they are an older club, the oldest club, in the world, via connections to the original amateur Crystal Palace that were established in 1861), they ply their trade at Selhurst Park, London. Throughout their history Palace have often […]

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Football Manager P13 – Facing Up and Moving Up

After a fairly mixed middle part of the season (that nonetheless saw Aldershot remain in the playoff places), it was time to bring the 23/24 season to a close, starting with a trip to Leyton Orient. Orient were in their first season back in League One after an absence of a few years, and they […]

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Football Manager P12 – Unexpected Heights

The next phase of the 23/24 season began with a rumour linking me to the vacant manager role at Wycombe. I had no idea why, and I made it clear I wasn’t keen. Aldershot had thrashed them 5-0 at their own ground earlier in the season – I seriously doubted they’d be a team I […]

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Football Manager P11 – New Styles

The 22/23 season was over, Aldershot had stayed in League One for another season, and the players were about to go on a break. They collectively disappointed me in their reaction to my notion that we’d survive again in 23/24, leading me to look all the harder at making changes. Whilst I began to hunt […]

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Football Manager P10 – Will we Survive?

Here we go. The final third of Aldershot’s first ever season in League One. Would the team have enough about them to stay up, or would we be sucked down back into League Two? What twists awaited? We’d been pretty inconsistent up until now. Well, firstly, we had visitors from Oxford. They were 9th and […]

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Football Manager P9 – Inconsistency

With a third of the 22/23 season completed, Aldershot Town sat in 13th in League One, after 5 wins, 5 draws and 5 defeats, landing us 20 points. A repeat of this pattern in the next two thirds of the league campaign would almost certainly give us enough points to secure a place in League […]

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The Meerkat Muse – 10/02/21

February! We look to the horizon, in hope, though alas there is still a long way to go before normality returns. I wish Covid-19 was not the dominating factor behind so many Muses, but it’s impossible to avoid how the pandemic treads upon virtually all aspects of our lives. Take work for example. Over the […]

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