Football Manager Realism for Bradford City Fans

BCAFC Realistic Update Coming Soon

Work is nearly finished on the first version of the update for FM24 which can be best enjoyed as a challenge if you begin life unemployed and wait until October to apply for the vacant position at Bradford City Football Club.

All transfers are correct to 28th November 2023, and there are even injury updates to this point in order to keep things real (so you've got a mini spoiler about Daniel Oyegoke, so its down to you to decide how you'd play it if you were in the shoes of Graham Alexander).

The original release of FM24 has the budget pretty much real to life, so there's no change there, with the aim of the job still being realistic to life with it's "self-sustainable" approach that is set in the original FM24. However, other changes have been made because the original FM24 release makes it way too easy and therefore a bit unrealistic when you are faced with the challenges that Graham Alexander faces.

Instead of the team being pretty much guaranteed promotion whatever you do and there being a probability that when you take the club over, it will most likely already be in the top three, the team and club have been set up to be much more realistic, but carefully balanced not to be in a state that is worse than it is in real life.

What can you expect?

• Start Unemployed: Your first match will be H vs Barrow as per real life.
  
• League Position: Points likely to be within 3-5 points better or worse than in real life, with it sometimes being exactly the same as at that point in real life.
  
• Wage Budget Between £72,500-£74,500 per week putting it in the correct "competitive budget" realms of Bradford City and in keeping with where the budget is in comparison to other clubs in League Two.
  
• Player Edits: Wanted Status Players like Timi Odusina aren't going to get signed by Bolton Wanderers in real life at the moment, and so, his current ability and reputation have been edited accordingly, because Graham Alexander isn't going to be able to offload him there, and neither are you. The same applies to a number of other players that on FM24 are "wanted" by certain clubs that are unrealistic.
  
• Player Edits: Realism Everything from personality, and playing ability has been made more realistic. Brad Halliday has improved and is more consistent and as things will be a mainstay in your starting 11. Andy Cook keeps most of his ability but some minor edits have made his tendency to go off of the boil a more likely issue, it's all going to depend what Andy Cook you get. Also some players have been downgraded such as Ash Taylor to better reflect the weaknesses in his game and also maintain his strengths.
  
• Other Clubs & Players There have been some minor edits to other clubs, Sutton United being one because they were very overrated in FM24. But most notably for Bradford City fans improvements have been made to Jake Young to better reflect his form and potential. This doesn't always result in him having a similar goal tally, it doesn't guarantee you he will do a job for Bradford City, but in most cases he will be scoring goals, and how that translates to coming back to City, nobody knows.

Examples of Challenges
There are so many different things you will have to decide, which pretty much will be similar to decisions the manager is making in real life. For instance how are you going to set the team up? You'll notice some overloads in certain positions and shortages in others. What formation will you want to play if you bring back Jake Young? And should you prepare your tactics with that in mind before January?

Also as is the case with Graham Alexander, you're likely going to have to get creative to make room for new players if you want to make an impact in the January transfer window. There are some ways to do this, but I will leave that down to you to work out.

Do you plan for promotion this season or next season? Given the time frame are you going to be able to get the players you need at such short notice? Derek Adams had a similar challenge in his time at Bradford City. Do you get who you can on short term deals just to see you through the season and wait for contracts to expire? Or do you decide you want to try overhaul some of it in January by bringing in players on 2 or 3 year deals?

One issue you will also face is Brad Halliday. His contract expires in the summer just like in real life. Are you keeping him or letting him go on a free? Remember, he's as important to your team as he is to the real team.

So that's just some of the things you'll get your teeth into. I've also added real journalists such as Simon Parker, Louis Reynolds and Jamie Raynor and am already creating a Bradford City face pack update to go along side any other face pack updates you may already be using to cover all things Bradford City too.

Keep an eye open for announcements!