I wrote a blog piece on this site for Football Manager 2023 called ‘The Art of Squad Building‘, in which I looked at a number of factors I utilise to initially improve, and then maintain, squad depth and quality. These included the importance of having a balanced squad, with little inequality between wages; player personality types; how to go about ensuring that the next rung of players were ready to go by identifying talent early, and putting these players onto a development pathway (which I then subsequently went into more detail about in a further blog post on ‘The Art of Youth Development‘). However, since rolling over my Football Manager 2023 save into Football Manager 2024, the players that I signed to the squad have now become icons, and in one case a legend at the club. Since time waits for no man, these players are now approaching, if not already in, their thirties. This begs the question, and sets the focus for this blog post – how do you move on from legendary players?
In the below graphic (please click on graphics throughout this post to open in a new window if required) you can see the squad as it stood at the end of the 2035-36 season. Players in orange are those that are out on loan, and those with yellow circles are those that are home-grown at the club.
Here, you can see the spread of minutes, and the value of loaning out players that aren’t yet ready for first-team action, as they will receive far more minutes away from the club than they may have done had they remained at Bayer 04. The line from the player’s marker represents the number of years that the player has been at the club. As you can see, there are a number of players who have been here for a number of years, some of whom, notably Canpolat Darande and Christian Priso, have been here their entire playing careers (if you exclude youth development loans).
The issue is that, three years on from the season shown above, these players are ageing, and in some cases, wanting to leave to experience pastures new. In fact, many have already left. Endrick and Høyenhall have both left after 21 combined years of service, leaving for Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively.
Yet, others remain. Juan Manuel Fornals is a perfect example of this. Signed from Valencia for £63m, Fornals has been the lynchpin in the side for ten years now. Now though, with interest from Saudi Arabian clubs, he’s refusing to discuss a new deal and so I face losing him. This is tough to take after years of loyal service. Whilst his individual tenure here has been entirely unremarkable in terms of goals scored and assists made (which is incredible given his natural playmaking ability) – he has been a piano carrier rather than a ‘player’, to paraphrase the great Billy Shankly. In his time at the club, he has a palmarès that would rival any greats in the world.
His is a similar story to club captain, Todor Engibarov, who has been at the club three years longer than Fornals. The two are close friends away from the training field, along with Argentine forward Federico Parilla. The Bulgarian was appointed club captain on 31st July 2028, and the club hasn’t looked back since. Under his natural leadership in the dressing room, the club has lifted no less than twenty-three trophies. Engibarov has shown that whilst he is also happy to ‘carry’ the piano, he does have the ability to play a tune on it when asked to play a more attacking role, either in behind a lone striker, or even upfront himself during an injury crisis in the 2035-36 season.
Both could have had far more illustrious individual careers in terms of goals/assists, but theirs was a role of collective functionality over sole output.
One of the main ‘players’ to play the tunes is Jannik Weuthen. The German international signed in the same summer Fornals arrived at the club, in what turned out to be a pivotal year in the transfer market. Weuthen has scored 55 league goals for Bayer 04, with 98 in total across all competitions. An attacking left inside forward, his electric pace, matched with his agility and technical skills, have seen him assist 115 goals. Overall, he has 213 goal involvements across 354 games (including substitute appearances), or 0.60 per appearance. In only two of the ten years he’s been at Bayer 04 Leverkusen has he failed to achieve twenty goal involvements in a season (managing eighteen in both seasons – 2030-31 and 2036-37).
However, their futures at Bayer 04 Leverkusen are set to be short-lived from here on in. Not from the wishes of their manager, but in two of the three, through their own choice.
Together, they have been a stalwart in the side since joining the team, and there will be a seismic change when they leave. All three are the team leaders in the dressing room dynamic, and so it will need to be carefully managed in terms of timing. There is, as yet, no interest in Engibarov, so it’s quite possible he will stay beyond the 2037-38 season, but it’s likely that the other two will leave for Saudi Arabia and the riches that will no doubt ensue for players of their talent. To give some idea of what that might involve, Diego Coppola, who was himself at the club for ten years, left for Al-Hilal in a £25m deal and a contract worth £1.2m/week.
Therefore, there are a number of questions to address: When do I look to move on from them? How to replace their minutes, but more importantly, how to replace their quality?
The former is tricky – they’re still performing at a top level. Do I cling on and let them go on a free? With the service they’ve given, they owe nothing to the club. At the same time, my finance head says that it’s better to realise value from them now rather than let an asset leave for free.
The middle of the three questions is by far the easiest – there are players in the pipeline who are out on loan who could step in and play the roles of both Fornals and Engibarov. Even Engibarov’s leadership skills will be covered upon his time at the club coming to an end. Whilst Fornals and Engibarov have been dominating both the Bundesliga and the Champions League, Leon Bernsdorf (acquired from RB Salzburg in 2033 for £10m), Adrian Mihăilescu (FC Voluntari in 2032 for £2.5m), Rainer Neumann (Lugano in 2032 for £10m) and Emre Yüksel (Bayer 04 Leverkusen academy graduate in 2033) have all been on their own development pathways since joining the club.
The pathways are shown below in the clickable infographics:
As can be seen, each player has achieved substantial minutes at pretty much every step of their pathway. It’s also worth remembering these players need to be functional players – so outstanding goals and assists records aren’t required. They need to be able to keep shape, retain possession, and then work hard to quickly regain possession when it is lost before recycling it. Some are ready for first-team action back at their contracted club, but it is not as easy as that, given the longevity of the service given by Fornals and Engibarov.
This is what makes the latter question – in respect of their quality – so difficult to answer. It’s questionable as to if it’s even possible. Only time will tell if these players are the ‘next one up’. Perhaps my hand will be forced with Fornals – an offer of around £100m would be hard to turn down for a player at his stage in his career – but I would also lose a valued mentor with his perfectionist personality. At least I do have players who are potentially ready to go, and I have already been blooding French youngster, Anténor Aristide, in the first-team squad so that he may develop alongside Engibarov, Fornals and Petyo Bachev.
Certainly in respect of Weuthen, there appears to be a dearth of high quality, young wide players that are as well-rounded as he is. A recruitment focus has been going for more years than I care to remember for a left-sided inside forward, and none have been returned, despite only setting current ability at three stars.
It may well require a tactical shift to a back five, the utilisation of wingbacks to provide the width, and a focus on recruiting more centre backs and central midfielders to have the players for the tactic.
As you can see in the squad depth graphic below, we have a good level of depth in both centre midfield and in defence. However, with only Andy Hillman brought in to act as new blood down the attacking left flank, and with Batuhan Kılıç already having been retrained to play there from his central midfield preference, tactical considerations will need to be thought out.
I have already tried this out, utilising the Alonso tactic recreation available from The View from the Touchline, and it worked quite well with either Elliot or Ballesté stepping up into the CW(S) role, and Portilha or Nyamsi doing the same on the right-side of the defence. I have then moved onto making my own Klopp-inspired tactic – which worked rather too well, with far too many offsides, and underperforming our xG against sides that opted for a low-block.
If this is to be the way forwards, then time will only tell. The above 4-2-3-1 tactic has seen incredible success over the years – including a domestic invincible season across both league and the DFB-Pokal, only losing once to Liverpool in the Champions League group stage on our way to winning the top European club trophy.
Clearly, both Fornals, Engibarov, Weuthen and others will leave the club – football clubs are bigger than any individual players. Indeed, looking again at the squad depth list, there are quite a few contracts that I’m going to have to renew this year before we get to 12-months left on player contracts, and they show less desire to want to renew, as Fornals is already doing.
I guess it boils down to the fact that Fornals, and probably Weuthen, will leave not necessarily on my terms – player power has risen such that they are able to exert more control over their destiny. Perhaps this isn’t a bad thing – I’m very much in favour of freedom of movement of labour (ahem)…. I will await any offers from Saudi Arabia for Fornals – if they don’t arrive, then OK. He will have spent twelve years at the club, Whilst he inexplicably isn’t even a favoured personnel (for context, Weuthen is a club legend), he will be fondly remembered as a quiet leader, and will leave with our blessing.
A FM Old Timer 