In the last two versions of Football Manager, we’ve run experiments with Big Sam Allardyce stepping in to try and rescue teams sitting bottom of their leagues at Christmas time. We weren’t planning to run it on FM24 but, with the delay to FM25, this Christmas period seemed like a good time to revive the series.
In the first Bottom At Christmas series on FM22, we did 4 seasons with 4 Premier League sides, and in our FM23 Bottom At Christmas series, we extended the series to a few European countries. This time, we’re extending it further, with the top 8 European nations of England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland and Spain available. Like the previous saves, we’ll holiday ahead, create a new manager to take control of a team bottom of the league, manage them until the end of the season (or until we get sacked), resign and holiday ahead to the next Christmas, and repeat…
So with no further ado, we created Big Sam Allardyce and holidayed ahead to 25 December 2023.
Bottom At Christmas Season 1
At Christmas 2023, the teams available for Big Sam to pick from were:
- Premier League: Nottingham Forest, 8 points, 8 points from safety
- LaLiga: Leganés, 11 points, 6 points from safety
- Bundesliga: Mainz, 12 points, 1 point from safety
- Serie A: Genoa, 9 points, 6 points from safety
- Ligue 1: Saint-Étienne, 12 points, 3 points from safety
- Eredivise: Almere City, 10 points, 2 points from safety
- Liga Portugal: Nacional, 9 points, 4 points from safety
- cinch Premiership: St Johnstone, 9 points, 5 points from safety
There were a few easier options but Big Sam decided he wanted to begin with the biggest challenge and started in England.
After 18 games, Forest had only won once, had just 8 points and had only scored 13 goals and conceded 29. However, they did somehow knock Man City out of the Carabao Cup quarters on penalties.
Big Sam had about £11m and £200k of wage budget to work with to strengthen his Forest side, which began by selling underperforming midfielder Danilo to Porto for £20m. The signings began by loaning in former Celtic winger Jota from Rennes and left back Leonardo Spinazzola from Napoli. On deadline day, he panicked slightly to bring in centre back Tosin Adarabioyo for £12.5m and midfielder Enzo La Fée for £8m from Roma. Then he panicked a lot by signing Danny Welbeck for £4m on a 5-month deal. With that work done, and with his best players occasionally fit, he opted for a take on a 4-5-1.
December to January: A Tricky Start
Big Sam’s career began with a must-win game just 1 day into the job as Forest entertained 15th-place Bournemouth on Boxing Day. And they started well, dominating by 23 shots to 5 and Alex Moreno created Taiwo Awoniyi and Ibrahim Sangaré second-half goals to earn a deserved 2-0 win. Much tougher tests followed in the next 6 days, and they only lost 1-0 as Big Sam trialled a 3-5-2 at Chelsea before James Ward-Prowse nicked a 2-1 win at home to Villa on New Year’s Day. A mass of injuries (12 in total) and international call-ups (4) saw a difficult January, losing to Villa in the Carabao semis, 4-0 and 4-1 batterings at home to City and at Arsenal, but edging past Cardiff then beating West Brom 3-0 away in the FA Cup.
February to March: Staying Bottom of the League
The poor January left Forest 6 points adrift. But February started by at least earning a point in an absolutely terrible game at home to Everton. However, the tough fixtures continued and they lost 3-2 at Man UFC and 1-0 at home to Spurs before Big Sam’s switch to a negative 3-5-2 led to a brilliant defensive effort for a 0-0 at Liverpool, despite having 1 shot to 19! Hpowever, Fulham won so they actually dropped 8 points away from safety.
March began with a huge game at 19th-place local rivals Leicester. Lose this, and Forest were probably doomed with 10 games remaining. It didn’t start well as Leicester predictably scored their first shot from a corner then nearly scored from another. Big Sam switched to the 4-5-1 after half an hour and it changed… absolutely nothing, so he chucked Welbeck up front with Awoniyi. Yet the players still failed to do anything and 6ft5 Nikola Milenkovic somehow let Jordan Ayew score a header. And that humbling probably sealed relegation as they dropped 9 points from safety.
Forest’s fate was more or less sealed as they lost 2-0 at home to title-chasing Newcastle. They hung on for a 0-0 at Palace, lost to Villa in the FA Cup quarters, but another solid defensive effort and Morgan Gibbs-White’s 1st goal in 6 months earned their first win in 9 games.
April to May: Looking Doomed
Despite a couple of positive results, Forest remained 9 points from safety with 7 games remaining. So they realistically needed 4 or 5 wins from a relatively favourable run-in. That looked doubtful as they began it with a tame 2-0 defeat at West Ham, unlikely with a 1-0 loss at home to Brighton, but slightly more possible as JWP’s late penalty nicked a 1-0 at Southampton. That left Forest still bottom, but 6 points adrift with 4 games remaining.
That was until Ipswich, who’d gone 16 games without a Premier League win… somehow won their 2 games in hand 1-0 at home to Man UFC and 4-1 at home to Chelsea!
As a result, Forest were 10 points from safety going into the final 4 games. That began with “El Sackico” at home to 16th-place Wolves, knowing anything but a win meant relegation. They started terribly as Murillo gave away a penalty in the 13th minute for Wolves to score with… you guessed it, their first shot. The players clearly weren’t interested and did absolutely nothing and a goal from a corner put them out of their misery on 77 minutes. A pathetic performance perfectly epitomised a pathetic team and a pathetic season. Nottingham Forest were relegated!
Big Sam was done with useless striker Awoniyi, so he threw in a strikerless formation to lose 2-0 at Fulham before a 0-0 with Ipswich in the worst match of all time and an undeserved 1-1 at Bournemouth. Forest finished 20th and last with 25 points, only 5 wins, 23 goals scored and 55 conceded. At the other end, City edged an exciting battle with Arsenal and Newcastle with all three winning their final match.
There were very few positives to take from the season, but JWP got the most assists with 7 and Awoniyi top-scored with 8 goals but 0 in his last 13 games after mid-February.
This was an embarrassing start to the Bottom At Christmas challenge. So I think it’s high time we escape Nottingham and holiday ahead to Christmas 2024. Until next Wednesday!
Football Manager Addict 
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