by MaddFM.
Myth #1: You need to manage a lower league team or manage in an obscure nation in order to have an interesting Football Manager save.
Myth #2: Managing a “big” club in a Top 5 league is too easy in Football Manager.
“The simplest solution is almost always the best one”. Occam’s razor - life doesn’t have to be too complicated, and often the best way forward is the simplest. The same can be said when it comes to choosing a Football Manager save; many of us spend hours pondering over the most random of leagues and save ideas in order to find something unique and engaging, when often the simplest thing to do is to take a quick look around the leagues for a club who are underperforming or who find themselves in a predicament of sorts - maybe they have financial difficulties, have sacked their manager, lost a key player or have even already been relegated.
Whatever it may be - if you are struggling to find a new save that you can easily get into and become absorbed in quickly, here are 5 clubs that are currently struggling in real life and/or are in need of urgent assistance at this stage of the season and therefore offer a highly intriguing proposition for your next Football Manager save.
1. Sevilla (La Liga)
Last Season: 4th
Media Prediction: 4th
Current Position (Jan ‘23): 17th
After finishing in 4th place for the 3rd consecutive season in La Liga, Manager Julen Lopetegui must have been confident of building on Sevilla’s consistent league form particularly having added the likes of Isco, Adnan Januzaj, Alex Telles and Tanguy Nianzou to a squad already boasting World Cup winners Gonzalo Montiel, Marcos Acuna and Papu Gomez, Moroccan World Cup heroes Bono and Youssef El-Nesryi as well as the likes of Ivan Rakitić and Jesús Corona. What he probably didn’t expect however, was the loss and immediate negative impact of the sales of both first-choice centre-backs with Jules Koundé and Diego Carlos leaving for Barcelona and Aston Villa respectively, and this upheaval saw Sevilla open their season with zero points from their first 4 games and led to Lopetegui losing his job by October with the club in 17th place in La Liga, and the board turning to former Sevilla legend Jorge Sampaoli in the hope of rescue and a turn in the club’s fortunes.
Fast forward to January and things aren’t much better. Sevilla are still 17th in La Liga following disappointing defeats against Vallecano and Sociedad as well as draws with Betis and Celta Vigo, and there are little signs of any major turnaround in performance and results which means the club are in real danger of missing out on European football for the first time since the 2012/2013 season. For a club with the most Europa League titles in history (6) this would indeed be a travesty - perfect timing for you to take the reins and see if you can become the saviour of Seville in FM23.
2. Leverkusen (Bundesliga)
Last Season: 3rd
Media Prediction: 4th
Current Position (Jan ‘23): 12th
An under-managed club in Football Manager in this author’s opinion. 20 years ago Leverkusen were narrowly defeated in the 2002 Champions League Final, wherein a side led by a prime Michael Ballack nearly overcame the likes of Fernando Hierro, Roberto Carlos, Claude Makelele, Zinedine Zidane, Raul and the might of the Real Madrid Galacticos only to lose 2-1 after an epic battle in Glasgow. That said, they have failed to reach anywhere close to those heights again since, peaking in a 2nd place Bundesliga finish in 2011 and since gradually declining and allowing the likes of Dortmund and RBL to overtake cement themselves as the best of the rest in Germany behind Bayern Munich.
Fast forward to the present day and Xabi Alonso has recently taken the reins following the removal of Gerard Sleone and while things have slightly improved and stabilised, they remain in 12th place at the time of writing, 10 points outside the Top 4 and after some embarassing results earlier in the season (losing 3-0 to Hoffenheim, 4-0 to Bayern, 5-1 to Frankfurt and of course that ignominious 3-0 collapse at Porto in the Champions League to throw away a 2 goal lead from the first leg) - things definitely aren’t going according to plan for what is an incredibly talented side boasting the likes of Moussa Diaby, Patrik Schick, Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong as well as new signings Adam Hložek and Callum Hudson-Odoi. The question is do we trust Xabi Alonso to get them ticking or is an FM23 intervention needed - sometimes if you want something done right you have to do it yourself.
3. Nice (Ligue 1)
Last Season: 5th
Media Prediction: 6th
Current Position (Jan ‘23): 11th
There are no excuses; this team should be doing far better than they have been in recent years considering the money spent and individual talent on show in the South of France. Having reached a peak of 3rd position in 2017, they have been highly inconsistent in terms of league form since and slumped as far as 9th in 2021 - made even worse by the fact that they have spent upwards of €250m on transfers in the same period.
At the time of writing Nice sit in 11th place in the league, a massive 21 points behind PSG and in real danger of missing out on a European place with the likes of Lens, Lorient and Clermont Foot all out performing them on far inferior budgets. Having focused on signing younger players previously (e.g. Amine Gouiri, Kasper Dolberg, Calvin Stengs etc) it feels like they have attempted to balance this with the additions of Kasper Schmeichel, Aaron Ramsey and Ross Barkley, however despite returning to former Manager and fan-favourite Lucien Favre, progress has been slow and at some point we may need to say enough is enough - the likes of Todibo, Thuram and Delort deserve better and surely won’t hang around for long.
4. Everton (Premier League)
Last Season: 16th
Media Prediction: 16th
Current Position (Jan ‘23): 18th
Debatable whether it’s Chelsea or Everton that are in more need of rescue at the time of writing, however the situation has become so perilous at Goodison Park that they are again in real danger of relegation - made all the more hazardous by the fact that they have never been relegated in Premier League history and are one of only 6 teams that have been ever-present in the Premier League since its inception in 1992. The good times of consistent 4th/5th place finishes under David Moyes are almost a forgotten memory despite only being 10 years ago, such has been Everton’s persistent downfall over the past decade.
A media prediction of 16th is far too low for a club like Everton let alone their current 18th place standing. The general consensus is that Everton have spent big but invested incredibly poorly since being taken over by Farhad Moshiri in 2016 and the result is a squad that is clearly struggling to compete in the Premier League under Frank Lampard - with the latter being the current favourite to be the next manager sacked, now is the time to see if you can get a tune out of the likes of Dwight McNeil, Anthony Gordon, Domenic Calvert-Lewin and Alex Iwobi. Survive one season and perhaps you can invest far more smartly than the club have proven thus far.
5. Fiorentina (Serie A)
Last Season: 7th
Media Prediction: 8th
Current Position (Jan ‘23): 9th
Fun fact #1: The highest Fiorentina have finished in Serie A in the last 40 years is 3rd.
Fun fact #2: They haven’t finished above 4th for more than 20 years, in 1999 courtesy of 26 league goals from one Gabriel Batistuta.
Fun fact #3: The last time Fiorentina won a Scudetto title was before man walked on the moon (2 months beforehand to be precise).
If we ever needed an excuse to visit Florence, this is it. While you could argue they aren’t in that much peril sitting 9th in Serie A at the time of writing - a club of this size and stature deserves far more than being 20 points off the top and looking more and more unlikely to qualify for European football this season. The big danger here is that Fiorentina continue to remain static while clubs around them (Lazio, Atalanta, Udinese etc) continue to improve year-on-year - however with a squad that can boast the likes of Sofyan Amrabat, Jonathan Ikoné and Nicolás González as well as FM favourites Nikola Milenkovic and Gaetano Castrovilli, there is no reason why they can’t compete for European football and build from there - aiming to compete with the top teams in Italy rather than having to sell on their best players as has been the case previously with the likes of Vlahovic, Chiesa and Cuadrado. This save is ready.
There you have it - 5 clubs who have been struggling and/or are in desperate need of a saviour. If you have reached that point in FM23 where you are in need of a new club or are struggling to commit permanently to a new save then hopefully this has given you some inspiration or appetite to get back on the proverbial FM horse. As the saying goes - “Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right”; let us know if this has whetted your appetite either on Twitter or in the comments below, we may even discuss some of these on the pod in the coming weeks 👌.
Thanks for reading.
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