During these increasingly uncertain times here in the UK, there is at least one thing I can be sure of. My Shrewsbury Town team on Football Manager 2019 will always have the capacity to amaze and horrify me, often in consecutive games. Such is the life of a lower-league manager.
This chapter begins with the Shrews’ play-off challenge having hit the rocks again, following an encouraging start to 2020. Scoring goals hasn’t been a problem, but keeping them out of our net has. We also need to be more consistent at home if this season isn’t to end in a damp squib.
YOUTH UPDATE & INTAKE
I’ll kick things off by updating you on the progress of some of our younger players. I’m afraid that there isn’t much to write home about regarding those players who’ve been loaned out to non-league clubs. Our stand-out prospect – midfield playmaker Ryan Barnett – has yet to rediscover his early-season form, even though Hartlepool are steadily climbing back up the National League table.
In the first-team, 19-year-old striker Lifumpa Mwandwe‘s development has been stunted somewhat by a string of minor niggles and knocks. He’d still made 19 senior appearances for us by the end of February (mostly as a substitute), but had only scored three goals.
Our Under-18s were top of their regional league, thanks largely to consistent defensive displays from second-year scholars Zac Hartley (at left-back) and Ryan Millington (at centre-half). Strikers Archie Elemore and Jamaine Turner had chipped in plenty of goals, but their form was more erratic and their development hadn’t impressed. Unless they kicked on in the final few months, they wouldn’t be retained in the summer.
The team’s stand-out performer is first-year central midfielder Danny Hughes, who leads the way on both goals scored and chances created. Danny turned 17 in January and had made steady progress since then. It surely won’t be long before he gets his first taste of senior action.
Dan Roberts – another midfield prospect who came into the Under-18s set-up a year ago – has not looked quite so good. Despite having prodigious technical skill and creativity, Dan’s very low determination and limited ambition has horribly stalled his development. It hasn’t helped that the big FM19 winter update inadvertently disabled mentoring in youth teams (though that has since been rectified in a recent minor update).
Now here’s our first look at this year’s youth intake, which at first glance already looks more promising than the class of 2019. While Hughes and Roberts could still have good futures, the two stand-out talents I’ve highlighted below could yet be even more exciting. For starters, they both have decent Determination, and I’ve got a good idea of where they will fit into my team:
Ladies and gents, meet our future number 9: Nathan Beard (facial hair not included, but he’s only 15, so cut him some slack). Born and bred in Shrewsbury, Beard is a clinical finisher with good acceleration, decent composure, and a talent for free-kicks. Although he currently lacks a bit of pace, I reckon he could be ready to appear in first-team matches this time next year.
Richard Evans is a few days younger than Beard, and arguably just as promising. I love a midfielder with high attribute scores in Stamina, Teamwork and Work Rate, and the Black Country boy already has those. If Ricky can concentrate on honing his technical abilities, we might have a very useful box-to-box player on our hands.
Now let’s turn our focus back to the senior side. After taking just two points from our last three fixtures, could we begin March by returning to winning ways at home to Wycombe?
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs WYCOMBE WANDERERS (League One, Match 36)
I can’t even… I’m… I’m out of ideas. That made it EIGHT times this season we’d lost a league game at New Meadow. This latest defeat came at the hands of 17th-placed Wycombe, who’d been in mediocre form since manager Gareth Ainsworth moved to Charlton in November.
Darren Sarll was now in charge of the Chairboys, though Adebayo Akinfenwa had a spell as caretaker manager beforehand. The 37-year-old attacking powerhouse, who would hang up his boots at the end of the season, scored the decisive goal from a 27th-minute counter-attack. Some dreadful defensive positioning from Kyle Howkins allowed Akinfenwa to pick up Nick Freeman’s weighted pass and fire it in off the post.
We failed to register a single shot on target from several attempts in the first half. So incompetent were we that I made all three substitutions at half-time and switched from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-4-2. Our new ‘route one’ approach yielded more chances, but they weren’t particularly great. The best was an 80th-minute header from Aaron Amadi-Holloway, which was easily dealt with by Wycombe keeper Ryan Allsop.
In the minutes after the final whistle blew, I declined to speak to my players or the press. When most of the dust had settled, I fined Howkins a week’s wages for his point-costing mistake. Kyle was annoyed at first, but captain Omar Beckles managed to calm him down. I can always trust in Omar.
That result could – and perhaps should – have knocked us out of the play-off places. Fortunately for us, Scunthorpe went down to a 3-1 defeat at Yeovil, while Luton choked on a 2-0 lead at Port Vale, eventually losing 3-2. We thus stayed 5th and remained two points clear of both Scunny and the Hatters.
You might have noticed that leading scorer Lee Angol had missed our last three matches, after pulling his ankle ligaments in training. Having taken just one point out of a possible nine without the 25-year-old, we were understandably glad to have him back in the side for our next fixture.
PLYMOUTH ARGYLE vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 37)
We actually played better away from home these days, so to bounce back at Home Park against struggling Plymouth was no surprise. Mind you, things could have turned out differently had Shrews keeper Freddie Woodman not saved a couple of early shots from Argyle attackers Graham Carey and Ryan Taylor.
We’d put a greater emphasis on passing into space in this match, and that paid dividends after 22 minutes. Sullay Kaikai‘s searching ball into the box was picked up by Angol, who chested it past defender Jan Simunek and fired home. Lee had found the net against Plymouth once more, and his celebration this time around thankfully didn’t involve trying to break an opponent’s legs off.
Pilgrims boss Derek Adams took desperate action at half-time by switching to a narrow 4-3-3 (which I like to call the ‘Cheat Tactic’, thanks to its effectiveness in FM18). We were crying foul in the 58th minute, when one of the three strikers equalised. That man was Carey, who cleaned up from target man Calum Dyson’s deep cross.
In going gung-ho, though, Plymouth had left themselves even more vulnerable to counter-attacks – and boy do I love a breakaway! Midway through the second half, Salop vice-captain David Edwards crossed towards winger Rafa Mir, who surged past Simunek and headed in his 10th goal of the season. 2-1 Shrewsbury!
When Dyson shoved Tosin Adarabioyo in the 77th minute, the referee awarded us a penalty, which gave Angol the chance to put us into a commanding 3-1 lead. Lee’s spot-kick was tipped wide by Luke Southwood, but our visiting fans’ anxieties only lasted for another nine minutes. That was when Mir secured victory with his powerfully-struck second goal, set up by a first Shrews assist from 16-year-old midfield starlet Jack North!
It seemed that the tide had turned back in our favour. With 7th-placed Luton falling to a surprise 2-1 home defeat to second-from-bottom Rotherham, we now found ourselves five points ahead of the Hatters again. However, Scunthorpe in 6th place were comfortable 3-0 winners at Coventry and stayed two points behind.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs SUNDERLAND (League One, Match 38)
Victory in our next match at home to Sunderland – who’d sat in 2nd since the back end of December – would have moved us to within four points of the Black Cats. Were we to lose, though, we would fall 10 points adrift, and it would surely be the end of our automatic promotion aspirations.
What else did you expect? We’d become scared of playing in front of our own fans, while Roberto Di Matteo – who was fearing the sack only months ago – had rebuilt the visitors into confident promotion contenders. And quite frankly, this was more a case of us being outplayed than being truly incompetent.
We did make an ambitious start to proceedings, with Angol and Josh Laurent each having early shots saved by Jon McLaughlin. In the 26th minute, though, Sunderland’s greater class started to show. Former Spain and Atlético Madrid right-back Juanfran, who still looked bloomin’ good at 35, delivered a low cross that the big Norwegian striker Alexander Sørloth tucked away. That would no doubt have impressed Sørloth’s former club Barrow.
Then, to make matters worse, Homer Simpson made it 2-0 to the visitors in the 59th minute. The hard-working midfielder more commonly known as Max Power curled a free-kick around our wall and into the net after Sørloth was tripped by Laurent. D’oh!
Five minutes later, though, the Black Cats gave us a helping paw. Congolese forward Neeskens Kebano showed none of the technical brilliance of his famous Dutch namesake Johan when he chested the ball to Angol in Sunderland’s penalty area. Lee dribbled forward before chipping a ball that Rafa drove home to give us fresh hope again at 2-1.
Sadly, our hopes would be well and truly dashed three minutes from full-time. Wilson clumsily upended Power on the edge of our penalty area, and his adversary duly slammed the spot-kick into Woodman’s top-right corner. We now had to pick ourselves off the floor and get ready for a visit to one of our bogey clubs.
ACCRINGTON STANLEY vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 39)
Before this match, Accrington had won twice from 13 outings since the turn of the year. However, we got a nasty case of the jitterbugs at the Wham Stadium, and Stanley played with the freedom to take victory. Their goalkeeper Fran Dorronsoro was once again infuriatingly excellent, constantly saving shots like he was Iker Casillas’ long-lost brother.
Accrington found the Kee to success in the 24th minute, when we conceded another penalty. This time, our inside-forward Arthur Gnahoua was made to pay the price for an over-the-top lunge on right-back Callum Johnson. Up stepped Billy Kee, whose penalty proved too good for our reinstated backup keeper Jack Bonham to kee-p out. I’ll stop with the stupid puns now, I promise.
We weren’t able to bounce back in the second half. Not even replacing the perpetually frustrating Fejiri Okenabirhie up front with Angol could bring about a change in attacking fortunes. Though some impressive passing from playmaker Charlie Colkett produced several good opportunities, Dorronsoro and a resilient Accrington defence just wouldn’t budge. They held firm to record a FOURTH straight victory over us.
That result was made even worse by Luton’s 4-0 thrashing of Peterborough, which moved them to within two points of us again. All of a sudden, our midweek trip to runaway leaders Bolton had taken on even more significance, becoming a match that we dared not lose.
BOLTON WANDERERS vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 40)
Please forget about the 4-1 towelling we inflicted on Bolton at New Meadow back in October for a moment. That would have no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of this rematch.
The Trotters had only lost one other match in an outstanding League One campaign, falling 2-1 at Coventry in late December. Since then, they had taken an incredible 34 points from 14 matches, securing a top-six finish with bags of time to spare. It surely wouldn’t be long before John Coleman’s side had the title in the bag too.
As I suspected, they were far too strong. I knew this would be a long old evening in Lancashire as early as the fifth minute. Bolton goalkeeper Ben Amos saved a blistering shot from Bryn Morris, and within moments, the Trotters had trotted up the other end and scored from a cheeky chip by Benjamín Garré. The 19-year-old Argentinian midfielder was on loan from Manchester City.
Before long, though, we had somehow turned the match on its head. Mir continued his scoring form by equalising with a header from Angol’s left-wing cross in the 17th minute. Less than a minute after that, Lee found the net himself, latching onto Beckles’ through-ball before hammering it past Amos for a 2-1 away lead! We weren’t going to stun the leaders again, were we?
Of course, we weren’t. Wanderers roared back to life in the 35th minute after an excellent direct attack involving two more of their youngsters. 18-year-old right-back Ted Moulden looked a long ball forward to 22-year-old Chelsea loanee Tammy Abraham, who got past Beckles and unleashed an unstoppable equaliser. That begged the question: why the hell was last season’s Championship Golden Boot winner – and two-time England international – Tammy Abraham playing in League One?!
Bolton’s turnaround was completed in the opening stages of the second half. Ademola Lookman’s fancy footwork proved too much for Anthony Grant, whose clumsy foul gave away a free-kick close to goal. Up stepped Moulden, whose rocket into the top corner gave him his first senior goal and restored his team’s lead.
Then came the killer blow, as Bolton completed a 4-2 win – and our third straight defeat – in the 72nd minute. Attacking midfielder Erhun Öztümer came off the bench to swing a corner to centre-half Mark Beevers, whose close-range knock-down was finished by 20-year-old Romanian winger Dennis Politic. I’m sick of Politics right now.
With Luton having scraped a 1-0 win at Wimbledon, we conceded our play-off place to Steve Evans’ mad Hatters. Could things possibly get any worse?
Oh, yes. Our top right-back Kane Wilson broke his arm in training and would have to play with protective equipment for the rest of the season. I wasn’t prepared to risk Wilson’s long-term wellbeing in our next match at home to in-form mid-tablers Charlton, which meant Ryan Sears made just his third start for the club. His previous two starts had ended in defeat, but would the young Welshman’s luck change here?
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs CHARLTON ATHLETIC (League One, Match 41)
Words fail me. Are our players allergic to the New Meadow grass or something? If not, then how the frig could we have lost our TENTH league game at home this season?!
The writing was on the wall when Sam Smith put Charlton ahead after 18 minutes. Yes, I’m pretty sure I made that quip in a previous chapter, but whatever. Anyway, the move came about after a sloppy pass from Sears was intercepted by Addicks left-back Lewis Page and pumped upfield to Smith. The on-loan Reading striker had (goal bonus) money on his mind as he ran through a huge gap in our defence and beat Woodman.
Though Woodman twice stopped winger Dodi Lukebakio from finding the net, he would be beaten for a second time just before the interval. An absolute howitzer from Charlton’s homegrown midfielder George Lapslie left us staring at the prospect of a 2-0 defeat at half-time.
The Fuller hairdryer was on full blast in the Shrewsbury dressing room, and my players responded by blowing Charlton away early in the second half. Brendan Galloway‘s cross from the byline was headed in at the back post by Angol, who reached the 20-goal mark for a second season in a row. More importantly, we were back in the game and ready to take the game to our opponents…
…or perhaps not. We couldn’t muster another shot on goal before the visitors put us to bed with a little under 15 minutes to go. When their Polish winger Michal Zyro proceeded to crash a 25-yard drive into the net for a 3-1 away win, I reached breaking point. I can only apologise to my keyboard for what happened next.
This was our fourth straight loss at home, our fourth straight loss in general, and our sixth defeat in eight outings. Salop were in freefall, and had Luton not contrived to lose 1-0 at home to Milton Keynes, the top six might have drifted further out of our view.
Edwards was one of the few Shrews players to have come out of the Charlton defeat with some dignity still intact. I’d opened talks with Dave about extending his contract prior to that match, and we reached an agreement a few days later. Though it took a small pay rise to seal the deal, I’m delighted that the evergreen box-to-box midfielder is staying at New Meadow for another year.
Bonham signed a contract extension back in February, and Howkins looks set to be the next man to commit his long-term future to this club. There are a few first-teamers who still have less than three months on their existing deals (including Angol), but I won’t open negotiations with them until the season’s over.
After that brief detour – and with keys carefully pressed back onto keyboard – I will conclude this chapter by showing you what happened when we went away to Fleetwood. Would this be our FIFTH straight defeat, or could we get ourselves back on track?
FLEETWOOD TOWN vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 42)
When you’re in a rut, you sometimes have to go back to basics and try to grind a result out. Reverting to Mike Bassett’s beloved 4-4-effing-2 helped us to frustrate another sweary, no-nonsense Scouse manager in Joey Barton. I’ve run out of philosophic quotes, but it’d be fair to be say I was happier with a 0-0 stalemate than my Fleetwood counterpart.
Mwandwe had recently grown frustrated at a lack of first-team opportunities, so I started him up front alongside Angol. Both strikers would have efforts saved by Town goalkeeper Alex Cairns midway through the first period, during which Fumpa flicked another effort wide.
It was in defence, though, where we truly excelled. Chris Long loved to feast on the Shrews, but spirited performances from Adarabioyo and Beckles meant he was still going hungry when he was subbed early in the second half. With Long enduring a torrid time, Fleetwood’s main attacking threat was Conor McAleny, who was thrice stopped by Woodman. However, some slack passing contributed to another sub-standard display from the Cod Army, who drew their fourth game in a row.
So, after four consecutive defeats, we had at last got another point on the board. However, we would still end this chapter on my worst run as Shrewsbury manager, and with our play-off hopes hanging by a thread, as the table shows:
6th-placed Luton recorded a 2-0 win at Mansfield, which meant they had a three-point lead on us with four games left to play. We still had a chance of leapfrogging them and/or Scunthorpe – and holding off a late challenge from Coventry – to book a play-off place. However, we could ill afford any more slip-ups.
Unfortunately, Milton Keynes and Fleetwood were so far ahead that we could surely forget about a third consecutive top-four finish. Automatic promotion was definitely out of the question, with Sunderland set to join Bolton in returning to the Championship.
At the bottom of the table, things weren’t looking good for Port Vale and their hapless defence. Seven other teams were realistically battling to stave off relegation, including Rotherham, who were now seriously worried about dropping down another tier.
Yes, that’s quite a relegation battle brewing, isn’t it? Of course, it’s not quite as ludicrous as the real-life chaos in League One’s bottom half, where 13 teams (including Shrewsbury) are desperately scrapping for survival. Even so…
Anyway, I think I’ll call it a chapter here, lest my anger gets the best of me. The Season 2 finale will go live next week, when I’ll hopefully have calmed down and we’ll hopefully have got ourselves back in the play-offs. Let’s not give up on promotion just yet!
Fuller FM 
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