“C’mon les go!”
George and Theo lead the charge onto the pitch at the Stadium of Light, an atmosphere igniting with wild celebration. Together they have cheered every goal. Every crunching tackle. Breathed in the sweet taste of each victory gained. Train tickets. Bus tickets. Go by coach. Late night banter. Early morning toast. Shirt. Tie. Gym. Sleep. The churn of the working week. Broken up in euphoric late night cup wins. Climbing the league. Securing promotion. Boasting. Toasting. This is the glory in a life of devotion. The love of it all. Forty Thousand converging souls glowing in red and white euphoria. Treading the turf of their heroes. The towering Daniel Ballard, Jair, Caicedo, Quansah. Muci the magician. Clarke the rocket. Mubama, the tank. Patterson, the cat.
“We’re back mate! Back to the Premier League,” said George. “Can’t believe we’ve done it again. Absolutely buzzing! But this time feels different. Dunno what it is but definitely feels better.”
Theo stood with a gentle smile on his face, watching on as nearby, Patrick Eagles and vice captain Daniel Ballard were full of jubilant celebration together. “Yeah mate. This time we’re there to stay.”
Football Manager Focus
We finished the Championship season in second place, securing promotion back to the Premier League and completing a miraculous turn around of form under Patrick Eagles. Sunderland A.F.C had suffered 7 defeats in the early run of fixtures but only lost 3 times in the 31 games that followed where Eagles took charge. We finished joint second for fewest goals conceded and second for fewest shots against showing that it took no time at all to stamp the Eagles defensive solidity into the teams style of play. Despite this we finished top for most goals scored with 90. 20 of these were from corners which also led the Division by 4. This is not surprising with the number of giants playing regularly in the first team. More on this later but first let us take a look at a tactical tweak and a signing that took us to another level.
The initial 4-4-2 high pressing system was getting results but was leaking some clear cut chances to the opposition and impacting the availability of players due to us not collectively possessing the natural fitness and stamina levels to sustain it. We were not getting the best out of our central midfielders who are better equipped to operate from a deeper defensive midfield position. We particularly wanted to maximise the output of Johan Caicedo. If we could find an effective role for him to play regularly we’d also help our chances with set-pieces given his immense presence in the air. He also possesses a very good eye for goal from distance and a lot of potential ability to develop.
Incorporating a positional transition to our progression of play from defense
We didn’t really have a strong enough set of defensive midfielders who could hold position to allow full backs to push forward so we altered the tactic to have the full backs sitting and one of our defensive midfielders set to support going forward in the Segundo Volante role.
With Caicedo looking to support the attack from deep, as is the nature of the Volante role, we have added the role of a libero sitting behind him to transition into the vacated defensive midfield position as our play in possession progresses up the pitch. Ballard is very well suited to this role being very composed in his play and possessing high levels of concentration. New January signing Quansah slotted in perfectly as an inverted full back who is more than capable to cover Ballard as a central defender. At 6’6″ Quansah joins Jair in our group of giants that have helped us be such an effective attacking threat from set pieces.
Further forward we then have Muci playing as a central attacking playmaker with wingers either side stretching the play to help create the space in the middle for him to operate and for our volante to move into. Mubama completes the system as an attacking complete forward. This role is absolutely key in adding an unpredictability to our play. He has the physical attributes to move into space and push back the opposition line but will also come deeper at times to support our approach play as well as pressing defenders into mistakes which he is particularly effective at doing.
We tweaked the in possession tactical instructions to play out from the back and focus our passing down the right hand side. This supported the strength of build up play through our libero to kick start the transitional play while our left winger would then have space to attack into from the left hand side. This also helped us retain higher levels of possession in matches to meet a preferred club vision of playing possession football. With two inverted full backs either side of the dedicated central defender and a defensive midfielder holding position we were very well set up to defend against any counter attacks and our ultimate defensive performance in the league proved this was extremely effective.
We are asking the team to play for set pieces to take advantage of the multiple aerial threats throughout the line-up. In support of this we encourage more running at defence so that, with our wingers already set to dribble more, we are increasing the opportunity for the players to play for and win set pieces in the final third. Finishing top in the league for goals from corners and joint 4th from indirect free kicks demonstrates how effective a strategy this is for us.
January signings
Only the two additions in January in defender Quansah from Liverpool and Kusi-Asare from AIK in Sweden. Initially coming in as a loan Quansah now has a future transfer planned for a bargain 675k. His performance in the Championship, with an average rating of 7.5 and 2 goals and an assist, has been reliably solid. Both signings stand out as incredibly impressive aerial threats in their towering 6’6″ height and physicality that helps support us in achieving a preferred club vision to ‘make the most of set-pieces’.
Kusi-Asare signed for 2.2m and acts initially as an impact substitute to help break down any low defensive blocks as a target man or when we want to start with a two striker approach for the same purpose to compete in numbers against a back 5 defensive wall. Kusi-Asare supports a desired club strategy to ‘sign players under the age of 23 for the first team’.
Cup performance
In the FA Cup we reached the quarter final with an impressive home win in the fifth round against Arsenal. This was a closely fought 1-0 victory and a very encouraging demonstration of how our solid defensive structure can work at the top level with Arsenal only managing 3 shots in the match. In the quarter final against another Premier league team in Bournemouth, it was a similar story with only 3 shots faced and one on target. We dominated the match in possession and with 15 shots produced ourselves, we were very unlucky to finish as 0-1 losers. We were knocked out in the first round of the league cup, prior to Eagles joining.
Forward planning
There are no plans to tweak the tactic any further until we can analyse how it is performing regularly against Premier league opposition.
With Quansah already lined up to come in on a permanent transfer I think our priority positions to strengthen are;
- Left back. Jayden Meghoma performed ok as a loanee from Southampton but was not ideally suited to playing an inverted full back role with a tendency of wanting to get forward and a weakness in the air meaning he was vulnerable when covering the centre-back position. We will look to make a signing more capable of covering as a central defender.
- Defensive midfielder. All three of our defensive midfielders like to get forward and have a strong ability to do so. We’ll be looking to sign at least one player with more defensive strengths who lives to hold his position and dominate in the tackle.
- Winger. With 9 goals and 14 assists, player of the season Santiago Lopez is set to rejoin Manchester United from loan. With no desire to sign for us permanently as things stand, we will need to sign at least one other winger as a priority with such a high number of attacking output to cover.
- Striker. Mubama has been hugely successful in the complete forward attacking role with 14 goals and 12 assists. He has been on loan to us from West Ham and is interested in a transfer. We won’t be looking to complicate things here and cannot look beyond bringing him back in on a permanent deal.
We will also be looking to expand our scouting set-up and take full advantage of a new limit of 11 scouts allowed by setting up global recruitment focuses in areas known to produce a high pool of talent. The aim will be to increase player knowledge to better equip our capability to sign strong players that only strengthen and improve the squad in an attempt to cement our stay in the Premier league. To support this we will bring in scouts with existing comprehensive knowledge of the areas around the world that are among our high priority localities to scout.
Final thoughts – a note from the author
I really do hope all reading this have enjoyed following the Patrick Eagles saga, a journey from league two to the Premier league. From Notts County to Sunderland. I have had an absolute blast writing it for you in what has been my first venture in creating content in the world of my all time favourite game, Football Manager. A game I have been playing since the 97/98 Championship Manager edition. The ways in which I enjoy the game constantly evolve and I feel my decision to share my saves in this way is the greatest of these. There is a wonderful plethora of creative writers out there sharing their own football manager saves that never fail to inspire me. Too many to list here but I would make special mention to FMStag, ThrowingCopperFM and SteinkelssonFM who are among my favs. I probably wouldn’t be doing this without the inspiration their stories give me. Also The Gaffers Lounge, previously View From the Touchline, is a fantastic hub of creative writers and a superb FM knowledge base primed to re-launch with FM26. Oh yeah about that…
This does sound like a close of the Eagles content doesn’t it! I will probably continue the save into the Premier League but at this point in time, late August of 2025, it looks like we do now have an imminent release of a new football manager game with the recent teaser trailer released by Sports Interactive for Football Manager 26. I’ll be there, all over it, and itching to start a new save to be shared here. As always I’ll be announcing new content from X using my @FarPostFrenzy account so feel free to give me a follow there. Very excited to see where we go with the next story and hope to see you there!