In this episode we play Huddersfield at home in the league and the an FA Cup 3rd round game at home against Southampton.
This is the 61st episode of my long running series bottoms up where the goal is to go from the bottom tier in English football to the very top. Can I do it before the end of this game cycle and the release of FM25?
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Just over halfway through the season and I’m almost at the point where I’m going to say we will survive relegation let’s pick up a win today against Huddersfield in the league and then we got an FA Cup third round tie against Southampton at home welcome to episode 25 of Bottoms Up right let’s have a look at the results since you were last with us drop a like on the video subscribe to the Channel all that sort of wonderful stuff the last time you was with us I believe it was Portsmouth and Coventry I couldn’t quite remember if it was
Middlesburg Portsmouth or Portsmouth centry but I think it was Portsmouth Coventry it was a double win episode anyway and we would love to get a double win episode this time around as well since then we then played hle in a one-1 draw where Alby Morgan got on the score
Sheet in the 76th minute they unfortunately did equalize on the 84th minute but as you can see from the stats we were the better team in that game we definitely deserved to win it we then went and played Derby County away from home and won one n there of a goal from
Aaron Collins in the 93rd minute it was a pretty even game I would say we slightly shaded it we had a better XG more possession shots on target they had one more than us but we had more total shots it was a very even game but I
Would say we slightly edged it so we did deserve to win that game then we played Portsmouth and got a one- nil win in that game Brooklyn fono in the 90th minute I mean leaving it late seems to be a thing we were dominant I mean pth a rock
Bottom of the league we should have won by more we we had four shots on target they didn’t have a single shot and Target in the entire game we had more possession better XG just everything all around was basically in our favor and like I said I’m actually disappointed we didn’t win
That by more goals then we had QPR where we won 3-0 away from home aim Thomas in the e8th minute Aaron Collins with a penalty in the 49th minute and bayy Hobson with a goal in the 74th minute again you look at the statistics we were just better
Than QPR in every single way now the one thing I will say is the the these run of games have been very favorable to us I mean I’m not sure where middles in the league so they are mid-table n top half the table ninth in the league but psth
Like rock botman we’ve played them twice Hull a 15th I think yeah they’re 15th Derby are 16th in the league and QPR are 17th in the league so we have had a very favorable run of games and that does continue with the game against Huddersfield who are 22nd and then
Obviously we’ve got Southampton in the FA Cup third round tie two home games in this episode if we have a look at the table we sit 10th in the league 25 games played 11 wins seven draws seven defeats a goal difference of plus seven we’re on
40 points and like I said we’re 18 points away from the relegation zone so I’m pretty confident that we’re clear of being relegated we should have enough about us for the rest of the games this season to avoid relegation for you know for certain in my opinion we’re only
Four points off a playoff Place could we actually get a place in the playoffs of the championship because in recent Seasons what’s it been 75 has been enough points for a playoff place last season I I don’t think that we should necessarily rule that out
We’ve got 40 so far confidence is up if we have a look at Dynamics Team cohesion is good club atmosphere is excellent managerial support is excellent in our hierarchy we’ve got three team leaders in mingi Collins and Morgan we we’re looking good on the pitch off the pitch in terms of finances
We’re looking terrible 1.7 million in debt we’re £ 22.4 th000 over on a wage budget there’s been no incoming so far the Jan on the January transfer window and it is the 1 of January today if we look at transfer history in terms of going out Frankie Edwards has gone to
Wala on loan for £11,000 loan fee they’re paying I think 60% of his wages if we click on him and have a look it’ll tell us exactly what he is what they are paying but that doesn’t say what I thought it was going to say I’m sure
They were paying 50 or 60% of his fee okay that’s interesting either way it don’t matter I mean even if they pay 50% of it it doesn’t earn a great deal so let’s get into today’s game then and like I said we’re against Huddersfield oh what I will do as well actually while
I think about it is I’m going to put a screenshot on screen round about now of our youth intake preview I’m not going to get too excited about it because even though it says an excellent intake it quite often by the time it gets to a
Youth intake day it’s not the case but you never know hopefully we might have a reasonable youth intake let’s put it that way right we are definitely going to get into the game now so this is how we’re going to line up just checking I have got everyone where I want them yes
I have so we got adamu in goal Pierce on the left back position Hudson right back buron and SAR in the Middle with vasic and job Bellingham in Midfield fono Collins and Hobson in the attacking Midfield role and AEM Thomas up top now it is worth mentioning that obviously
The liks of Alby Briggs is on the bench Thomas has missed a couple of games recently through injury and is out injured at the moment he’s out for up to another 3 weeks so I have been playing bellinham and vasic together here and as you can see vasic is average rating over
The last five games 7.24 he’s got an assist as well he’s actually been looking pretty reasonable so I’m hopeful that he can do the job for us right let’s submit the team and get into the game and I hope you all had a wonderful weekend if if you done anything fun and
Interesting let me know in the comments I’d love to hear what what you get up to over a weekend for me personally not a great deal just boring I was recording doing household stuff but anyway let’s get into game enough about all that so we against Lot say they’re 22nd
In the league so the fact we’re at home as well we should be beating them 8,245 people here I’m really hoping we get Stadium expansion at the end of this season because we can fit so many more people in into our Stadium oh dear well that stopped the stadium talk
Cross in gimenez came empowered the ball in we have a corner now with fono we need to getting equalizer that’s for certain oh we’ hit the post oh of course they score by a first shot target because that’s what the opposition does in football manager to
Be fair we haven’t had a shant yet so we could still do that as well his vasic to Bellingham to burden to pierce he’s actually a top assist maker um Tom Pierce that was a rubbish pass from fun oh mistake oh my God AEM Thomas what are you
Doing oh for crying out loud we we have to give this boy some leeway because he is a youngster he’s going to be inconsistent and make mistakes and what else but he didn’t even get that on target you have to punish mistakes in this game you really do I mean what’s he
Doing okay we had a bit of a moment I think he was sniffing the ball or sniffing the white line enough of that right Collins with a free kick oh is it the crossbar so we’ve hit the post we’ve hit the crossbar AEM Thomas has pretty much missed an open
Goal pierce with the corner come on put this on burden no set it away Pierce does win it back but the Highlight finishes and that’s Hal time well I am not happy thrash arms you’ve been terrible go out there and sold it out we’re supposed to be favor
Here I mean that was that was an unbelievable half that was a bit of a weird throwing from hfield but Pierce has it gives it to Hudson goes inside to Bellingham gives it to Collins goes back to Henri Kar I do like this team as well I really
Like this team they got so much about them but we’re just not showing it in this game for certain Hobson gets the ball into the box but it’s cleared by Huddersfield s picks up gives it to bellham again Collins now we can carry on their attack bellham to vasic to Von
Kaya oh dear God what are we doing how are we not getting shots on target C Thomas look like he’s picked up in in right I’m going to make substitutions cuz I’m not happy fono has been rubbish he’s on a six so Hedges I think no we’re going to bring Alby Morgan
On do a bit of swapping around like that AEM Thomas can come off for Manuel Pano yeah I mean as I was saying I really like this team we’ve got so much about us but we don’t tend to score a great deal of goals even if you look at this little
Run we’ve been on it’s been 1 n one n you know we don’t score a great number of goals it’s what seems to be an age-old problem for us in football manager in you know fm24 I found it a real struggle to get Strikers that can actually be decent and score a good
Amount of goals that’s why I thought might as well just go over Keem Thomas because he’s not going to do any worse than what Pano or Smith or whatever going to do they put the ball in and it’s 2N I mean how are we losing to 2-0 to hfield it’s
Been disallowed but that would have been two goals with two shots on target right Pierce wins it back come on boys you’re better than this with Pierce again to Collins finds Alby Morgan Ali Morgan puts it out for Hobson brings it back to Bellingham oh even Morgan can’t hit the
Target right what else can we do bring Ryan Hedges on for Collins I think well Collins is a top scor so I think bring him on for Hobson uh yeah for Hobson Bell or vassage I think we take vassage off and bring Jay Ming on maybe swap them around like that get the
Best out of Bellingham oh this is is so frustrating the amount of shots at goal we’ve had the fact we’ve only had three on target just shows you how terrible we’ve been in front of goal and our XG is like nearly two and a half and we haven’t got a single
Goal right Hudson wins it back gives it to S goes back to Ado to buron pierce we play so this the thing A buildup play is good gorgeous well except we do that but it you know we build it up really what was Pierce doing there headed forward not backwards where there isn’t
Anybody howfield coming forward I mean that was a partner of the Seas there that was terrible defending really really bad I’m dreading playing Southampton now I mean this could be a case of big game nerve sort of thing you know we’re focusing too much on the next game
But this has been a difficult defeat to swallow it really has ball into the box Collins sh oh how many times have we at the woodwork seriously how many times mingy to Collins to pierce no still can’t fashion goal I mean 2.77 XG to they 0.86 we’ve had 10
Corners and we still can’t score a goal 62% possession we’ve been robbed in this game I mean I say we’ve been robbed we’ve robbed ourselves we’ve hit the woodwork three times oh my days forget what I said early on about being safe and relegation because that was absolutely atrocious
Hfield have moved up to 18th we’re down to 11th we’re not playing a league game next of course because we have um Southampton in the FA Cup and let’s get into that game right now and see if we can perhaps beat Southampton right let’s get into the game then against Southampton we’ had to make a couple of changes because Christopher Hudson and fono Brooklyn fono are both out they’ve both got colds basical viruses Hudson’s out for two weeks with with the flu and fono is out for two days with a cold we’ve
Sent them both hes that they’re not hanging around the team but I bet Southampton don’t have players out with colds and viruses do they anyway get so getting into game a lineup is Adu in goal Pierce left back C kathin hand and C hean Andrews comes in at right back
Buron and SAR in the middle vasic and job in the Midfield Collins Morgan and Hobson in the attacking Midfield positions with AEM Thomas up front so basically Hobson is in for f c just switch players around a little bit let’s get into I mean it’s not within the
Realms of possibility that we win this game I mean Southampton are 16th in the Premier League so they’re not exactly having a great season we’re actually doing pretty well this season despite the horrific of the last game against Huddersfield and I think we are on the
Tell as well we’ve got full out of 10,15 imagine if we’d been playing this at Southampton we could have had 30,000 people and a cut of them gate receipts and that’s another reason as well why I really want to win this game as well as
The fact that it’s nice to win games of football we could also do with the money quite frankly you know and playing against a big team away from home as I always bang on about does help to bring in a nice amount of money for us so 25
Minutes gone we’ve not really been in any danger they’ve had the only shots on target two of them we haven’t had a shot on target yet but like say it’s only been the one highlight which is our corner right now we’ve got another highlight which is with
Southampton can we get a tackle in and Counterattack no they’re through one nil oh it’s a good save from adavi to be fair he’s been brilliant for he’s actually a high Savage rating player so I’ve had no no regrets about bringing him into the first team instead of
Mayard mayard has complet about it and I basically told to shut up I told him I’ll sell him if you don’t like it he just said no I don’t want to leave so he’s going to sit on the bench and moan once a month like seven of the players
Do which is something that really does baffle me as to why players are moaning every single month you would have thought with interaction logic impr proving that football manager might have actually done something about that but yeah it’s it’s not an issue it’s just a bit of an inconvenience so we’ve not had
A single shot at goal yet they’ve actually had a player go off injured on 15 minutes oh we’ve had a first shot on target let’s go us they’ve had nine Corners we’ve only had four they’re ahead of us on XG we are we have got the most possession well
Let’s see what substitutions we want to make so vasic is doing all right I think what we’re going to do is bring mingi on for Bellingham because he’s I don’t want him to think he’s Untouchable basically Ryan Hedges can come on for bayy Hobson I think we going to swap them
Over don’t really matter I think we leav them where they are well actually Aaron Collins isn’t having a great game either so we switch over see if he does anything better on the right hand side and let’s see if we can uh if we get a goal because we’re still
In this 70 minutes gone I mean we could actually be about to get a replay at Southampton and ordinarily I wouldn’t want replays because we we play enough games as it is we don’t really need to be playing more Pano can come on for Thomas and I think Ed
Turns can come on for Tom Pierce he’s looking a bit tired as well we’ll keep one substitution spare just in case we get an injury but then we might make that substitution fairly soon like now just waste a bit of time really don’t it I
Mean I don’t think it does I think they just Collins can come off for Kai Martin he don’t really have a preference as to what side he plays so looks like three minutes of added on time a winless episode but we’ve got a nil nil draw at home to
Southampton we’ve not actually scored a goal in this episode and I don’t really know how I can turn that around because the only option really really that I’ve got if we go to a tactic screen is to go attacking but I don’t really want to go attacking can we do overlap left and
Right maybe that might help we’ll go with that for the next few games see if it actually does us any use but in terms of the schedule we’ve got Southampton next I’m not going to come back for that game because it’s only in one game’s time probably look at coming back for I
Mean we want to get through to the end of the season by Friday’s episode so Friday will be down here Thursday will be around here somewhere so yeah I think we come back for maybe Stoke and Sheffield United or Sheffield United and Burnley because then we’ve got home game and an away
Game so yeah we’re coming back around here for the next episode so thank you very much for watching folks it’s been a pleasure losing and drawing and not scoring a single goal please leave a like on the video subscribe to the channel and I’ll see you tomorrow for
The next episode thank you very much for watching Bye