As many of our readers may know, I am a diehard Everton fan, so I always start my FM saves with the Blues. (Yes, I know how boring!). In fact, most of my long-term saves are with my own club, as ‘I feel the call of Everton come riding on the breeze’ when I manage another club.
Everton is not an easy team to manage
As we all know, things have not exactly been going great for Everton in recent years, well, decades, really. In the last few years, the club has not only been involved in relegation battles but also had points deductions and an owner desperate to sell.
Every summer, the squad seems to be trimmed down to the point that the quality and quantity of the squad are diluted greatly. A mediocre squad plus probably a transfer budget of nothing makes Everton a challenge on FM.
It has been the same for a good while, and with issues surrounding ownership likely to rumble on for a good while longer, that’s not likely to change anytime soon.
Who needs money, eh?
The fact that you will have no transfer funds to spend at the start of the game and could even have issues with wages is what makes Everton an interesting club to manage at the beginning of the game.
If you fancy a challenge, taking Everton to domestic and European dominance without many resources could be the challenge for you. However, I do it on every edition of FM, so if I can do it, then you can do it too.
It just puts your tactical acumen to the test. If you are a tactical genius, or heavens forbid you download a tactic from somebody who may well be a genius in the game, then you should be up and running in no time.
You generally don’t win the Premier League title in your first season with Everton. Still, it is achievable in two or three seasons if you are highly familiar with the squad and tactics of FM.
You have to be shrewd in the transfer market
The key to success with Everton is operating shrewdly in the transfer market. Over the years, I have grown accustomed to not having any money to spend on transfer fees or wages in FM until the team qualifies for the Champions League.
However, if you work shrewdly in the opening transfer window, there are ways of improving the team in weak spots, which is most positions in the team, unfortunately.
Trying to do so just shows how hard Everton director of football Kevin Thelwell’s job is in real life.
There are players you can offload in order to raise for transfers or wages to bring in new signings. The loan market has always been the key for me when managing Everton or any club where finances are stretched.
You are able to sign four loan players, two domestic and two foreign. However, you can only sign one player from each club on a temporary basis.
One other option to strengthen your squad is to bring in free agents. While the quality is obviously not the best when you sign players without a fee, there are always some exceptions.
When a club has little room to manoeuvre, free signings can add depth to its squad and plug any gaps, such as signing a backup goalkeeper.
One good example of a free agent in FM24 was former Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea. He was obviously in demand because of his outstanding stats, but he was signable if you had the wage budget to bring him into their club. The Spaniard recently secured a move to Serie A outfit Fiorentina.
I will start my first FM25 game managing Everton
Despite the not-so-great circumstances at Everton, my first save on FM25 will be managing the Toffees. Unless you support Manchester City, Real Madrid, Barcelona, or some of the other elite clubs, I don’t get the attraction of managing them in FM.
Turning one of the elite clubs into European champions doesn’t appeal to me, as it’s not much of a challenge. If I were going to move away from managing Everton on FM25, then I would decide to manage a team that was mid-table or just below the elite.
In the past, I have enjoyed saves as Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen. However, as the latter are now German champions with a high-quality squad, managing Die Werkself would even feel like that was almost cheating.
In spite of my Everton bias, one of my aims is to enjoy a long-term save with another club, like I used to do, especially in a different country. However, like every other edition of the game, I will likely get bored and come back to Everton.
Would you take up the challenge of managing Everton on FM25?
