I’ve hit a fairly strange issue with incoming contracts that I still haven’t completely worked out.

The transfer side is fine. I can negotiate fees, agree deals and get clubs to accept offers. The problem starts when I reach the player contract screen. FM is only allowing me to offer a tiny amount in salary, even though the overall wage budget and salary-cap position suggest there should be considerably more room. At first I assumed it was just a budget allocation problem, so I shifted more money from the transfer budget into wages. That made no difference. I then assumed it was the MLS cap itself, so I bought Viery’s contract down further with GAM to create more space. Again, the figure available to me on the contract screen did not move.

It happened with a defender I approached, Haydon Roberts, and then exactly the same thing happened with my new wing back target, Montell Culbreath. The strange part came when I handed the Culbreath negotiation over to the Director of Football. He immediately offered him $566k p/a. So the club clearly can make the offer. I just can’t.

At that point I stopped trying to throw more GAM at the problem, because I was effectively spending allocation money to solve something that didn’t appear to be changing the actual restriction. Whether this is an MLS-specific quirk, a delegation issue, or simply FM26 doing something odd with the manual negotiation screen, I’m not sure yet. For now I’m going to treat it as a practical workaround rather than let it derail the window. I’ll still identify the players, decide whether I want them, negotiate the transfer fee and make the football decision. If the contract screen blocks me in this way again, I’ll hand the salary negotiation to the DoF and judge the deal once he has agreed terms.

That actually isn’t completely unrealistic in MLS anyway. The manager deciding “yes, this is the player I want” while the front office deals with the contractual and cap mechanics feels fairly believable. The main thing is that I don’t want to start restructuring the whole roster or burning through GAM just to try to satisfy a negotiation screen that appears to be operating by a different set of rules depending on who is doing the negotiating.

This felt like the most useful friendly of pre-season so far, not because of the score line but because a few things are beginning to look less like experiments and more like genuine parts of the team.

We won 4–2 and, for long spells, controlled the game properly. We had 66% of the ball, 22 shots to their seven and finished with 3.58 xG. The first 40 minutes in particular were excellent. Houston changed quite a lot between their in-possession and out-of-possession shapes, which is becoming a bit of a theme against us, but we still found ways to play through it rather than getting dragged into changing everything ourselves.

One of the biggest positives was Viery. I switched him to a Wide Centre-Back both in and out of possession, initially because I wanted him starting a little wider to deal with Houston’s outlet on that side. What I noticed was that it also helped us with the ball. He carried forward a little more, stepped into space when it was there, moved Houston around, then played the pass and dropped straight back into the line. It was only a small adjustment, but his starting position felt much more natural for what I want from that side. This may end up becoming permanent.

Luque was excellent again. What I liked most was that he didn’t just try to beat his man every time. There were occasions where it was obvious he didn’t quite have the pace to simply knock it past the full-back, so instead he combined through them. He ended with seven key passes, four clear-cut chances created and 1.32 xA. At this point I’m no longer looking at him as a problem that needs solving. If Culbreath comes in, it is as another option and a development project, not as somebody who has to replace Luque.

Salvo also keeps making his case. He scored twice, and they were two different sorts of goals. The first was a proper poacher’s finish, while the second came from running the channel onto a Vera pass. That is now five goals across pre-season, and more importantly he is showing different ways of hurting teams rather than just finishing everything that falls to him. After his poor game against Sacramento, this was exactly why I wanted to avoid making decisions too quickly.

Martínez was more mixed. He keeps getting into the positions I want from the box-crasher, which is encouraging, but he lacks composure when he arrives there. Too many shots from outside the box, too many rushed decisions. The role clearly exists in the system, but I’m less convinced he is the long-term player for it. That probably strengthens the case for Gilberto – the Brazilian who I tried to sign a few weeks ago. McGuire looked a level short, but that was also his first 45 minutes of pre-season, so I’m not going to write him off on that. He needs more minutes before I make any judgement.

The two goals we conceded were frustrating rather than especially worrying. Paulsen spilled a catch from a corner which was tapped in, and the second came from a central break that Craig did not defend well enough. Neither felt like something that required ripping up the structure. The wider point is that the team is starting to show me what should stay. Viery as a WCB, Luque high on the right, Salvo through the middle, the asymmetry on the left, and the idea that the attacking structure remains fairly stable while the out-of-possession roles change depending on the opponent.

That feels much closer to where I wanted to get to with San Diego: less changing the tactic for the sake of it, more understanding what the team already does well and then making small adjustments around that.

Montrell Culbreath is finally a San Diego player. The deal with Bayer Leverkusen is $500k upfront, potentially rising to $825k, with Kaiserslautern receiving a small solidarity payment. He has signed through to the end of 2034 on $556k p/a, with a one-year club option and a $3.4m minimum-fee release clause.

On the face of it, that is a pretty straightforward deal for a 23-year-old who gives us another option on the right and still has room to develop. The process of actually getting the contract done was anything but straightforward.

The original idea was Juan José Rosa. I liked the profile and the idea of converting him into the Advanced Wing-Back role, but that deal eventually fell apart. That left us with a fairly basic squad problem: Luque was effectively the only proper option for the role, and regardless of how well he has played in pre-season, going into an MLS season with one player for that position was never sensible.

Culbreath had already emerged as the alternative I liked most. He is younger than some of the other options we looked at, has the athletic base for the role, already understands wing-back areas and, importantly, has an American passport. That last part matters in MLS. This is not just about finding the best collection of attributes; roster value matters too.

The funny thing is that Luque’s performances have changed the context of the signing. A couple of weeks ago I probably would have described Culbreath as somebody coming in to challenge for the position immediately. Now it feels more like we are building a proper position group. Luque has been excellent and has shown far more intelligence in the role than I initially gave him credit for. Culbreath therefore arrives as competition and development rather than as a rescue job. More importantly, Culbreath fits where the recruitment reset has taken us. This isn’t another signing made because I decided an inherited player wasn’t good enough before seeing him play. Luque has been given the opportunity to make his case and has taken it. Culbreath comes in because the squad genuinely needed two players for the role, and because he gives us a younger, domestic option who can be developed within the system.

That feels like a much healthier reason to make a signing.

Juan Cruz Arno has agreed to join us on loan from Belgrano until the end of the season, and this is probably the cleanest deal we have done so far.

The need was straightforward. Bombino has been excellent on the left as the inverted wing-back, but we only had one natural solution for that role. I did not want to respond to that by going out and buying somebody who expected to start every week, particularly when Bombino has done nothing to deserve losing the shirt.

We looked at a few options. Landon Emenalo was probably the strongest player of the group, but he was never really going to accept the sort of rotation role we were offering. A couple of the others were either too expensive for what they were or better suited to being something different rather than a direct understudy.

Arno made more sense because the profile matched the job. He can play on the left, in defensive midfield and centrally, he is comfortable enough technically to step inside, and he gives us someone who should be able to reproduce the basic structure without forcing us to redesign that side of the team whenever Bombino is rested.

The deal itself is almost risk-free. We are paying 30% of his wages, which works out at roughly $30k a year, with no loan fee, no mandatory purchase clause and no extra appearance payments. He comes in for one season, gives us cover, and lets us judge him properly in our system.

I am trying to get away from signing players because the attributes look interesting and then deciding afterwards how they fit. This was the other way round. We knew the role, knew what we needed from it, and then looked for the cheapest sensible way to cover it. If Arno comes in and does well, great. If he turns out to be nothing more than a competent stand-in for Bombino, that is still a successful loan. And if he struggles, we have lost almost nothing.

It is not the most glamorous signing of the window, but it might be one of the most sensible.

A 1–0 defeat to Columbus in what was probably the lowest-quality friendly of pre-season so far. Not a huge amount happened, we struggled to create anything particularly clear, and Columbus were generally the better side in terms of the chances they did produce.

We had 57% possession and completed 92% of our passes, but 14 shots produced just 0.83 xG and only two efforts on target. There was far too much shooting from outside the box and not enough penetration when in it. Columbus eventually settled into a 4-4-2 shape out of possession with two defensive midfielders sitting in front of the back four, and we never really worked out how to consistently get through it. Plenty of circulation, some good movement, but not enough happening close to goal.

The movement was probably the main positive. Peralta, Culbreath and Lohan all looked comfortable within what we are trying to build. Peralta was showing off within about 40 seconds, isolating the full-back before throwing in a step-over and backheel, but there was plenty of substance alongside that. He naturally came inside, Culbreath recognised when to go outside him, and the two already looked like they understood the spaces they were supposed to occupy.

Culbreath was good on debut. Eight dribbles, three key passes and 0.28 xA, but it was his positioning that interested me more than the numbers. Luque has been excellent so far, so Culbreath does not arrive with any pressure to immediately replace him. What we have now is two players for the role, which was the original objective after the Rosa deal collapsed.

Lucas Lohan was another positive and has probably convinced me to follow through on my initial instinct. My staff do not rate him as highly as another player we’ve been linked with – ex-Leipzig youngster Niko Tomasevic, but I prefer the profile for what I actually need. He has a little more defensive substance, can play on the left of the midfield pair, and his traits look useful for the way that side develops. He completed 93% of his passes here and looked comfortable enough within the movement around him. He needs to crash the box a bit more and I will encourage him to get into stronger attacking positions as he develops, but, at around $130k a year, I think there is a sensible rotation player there.

Arno also did exactly what I hoped. He was never supposed to be a challenger to Bombino, who has been one of the best players of pre-season. The idea was simply to find somebody who could cover the inverted wing-back role without forcing us to change the entire left side. He completed 94% of his passes, looked steady enough and has now agreed to join on loan for around $30k in wages with no fee or obligation. Hard to ask for much more from that deal.

The one trial that ended fairly emphatically was Matheuzinho. I liked the idea of an experienced, technical player coming off the bench for a year, especially at close to minimum salary, but the match exposed why that probably would not work. He was too soft defensively and was knocked off the ball several times when we tried to progress. I took him off after 20 minutes and that will be the end of that one. It probably answers the question of whether I need another attacking player as well. Rotondi has been decent, while Ríos can cover both the left-sided forward role and striker. That allows him to become the rotation option for both positions, with McGuire essentially third choice through the middle, and saves another roster spot. After spending the early part of the window looking for solutions everywhere, I am becoming increasingly comfortable leaving some spaces alone.

The main thing to take away tactically is the difficulty we had against the 4-4-2 with two DMs. It was not a case of being unable to keep the ball. We had plenty of it. The problem was turning possession into good chances. The central spaces were crowded, the box-crasher kept finding shooting positions outside the area, and too many moves ended with speculative efforts rather than getting somebody behind the midfield line.

Not every friendly needs to be good to be useful.

Another defeat, this time 2–0 at Charlotte, but I came away feeling like the game moved a few things forward rather than backwards.

The first goal was frustrating because it was mostly self-inflicted. Uribe and Paulsen both made poor decisions in the same sequence and Charlotte punished it. The second came later, after the game had changed through substitutions, and felt more like the sort of moment worth reviewing properly rather than something that immediately made me question the whole setup.

The bigger focus for me was how we are starting to use the out-of-possession phase. I do not want the 3-4-3 we use with the ball to simply collapse into a passive version of itself every time we lose it. Against Charlotte we moved Peralta inside alongside McGuire so that he could occupy one of their centre-backs and affect the central build-up. Lohan was then able to step onto the midfield progression while Müller stayed underneath as the screen.

Charlotte reacted by finding left back Báez as the spare man as a playmaking wing back. Rather than undo the whole idea, we changed Culbreath’s role and let him become more aggressive in pressing that side. That is the kind of thing I want more of this season: not necessarily changing the attacking structure every ten minutes, but being much more reactive with positions and roles when we are out of possession.

The interesting part is that it did not feel chaotic. Peralta moved central, Culbreath took more responsibility outside, Simpson-Pusey covered behind him and Müller remained the stabilising player in the middle. The shape changed because the problem changed.

Culbreath was probably the biggest positive individually. He finished with a 7.5, ran almost 15km, made five key passes and produced 0.39 xA. More than the numbers, though, he looked comfortable with the amount of responsibility we gave him. He was asked to provide the width with the ball and then became the player we used to shut down Báez once Charlotte started finding him. Very encouraging. Müller was good again too. Eleven progressive passes, three key passes and 90% passing. He is becoming the player who allows us to be adventurous around him because there is always someone underneath the movement who understands the structure. Peralta had a poor rating, but I am not too worried about it. He still generated 0.58 xG, had our only clear-cut chance and showed enough threat in possession. We were also asking him to perform a very different job without the ball, so this was as much about learning how far we can stretch his role as it was about the performance itself. Lohan and Arno were quieter. Both were tidy, both completed over 90% of their passes, but neither really imposed themselves. That is fine for now. Arno is here to be inexpensive cover for Bombino rather than to win the position, while Lohan is still being judged as a rotation midfielder rather than somebody expected to transform the side. McGuire probably confirmed where he is in the pecking order. He completed every pass he attempted, but had no xG, no xA and no progressive passes. He did not do much wrong, but he did not really affect the game either. I am increasingly comfortable with him being the emergency third striker rather than feeling the need to manufacture a bigger role for him.

The other big piece of work this week has been set pieces.

I have spent a fair amount of time rebuilding them from scratch rather than leaving them as generic routines. The attacking corners now have three very different ideas rather than three versions of the same delivery: a near-post overload, a far-post isolation routine and a short-corner option designed to move the defensive block before attacking it.

The defensive side is deliberately aggressive too. On corners we are leaving three players high in separate lanes rather than dragging everyone back into the box. The first picture against Charlotte looked exactly how I hoped it would. We still had enough bodies protecting the six-yard area, but Peralta, McGuire and Culbreath were already spread across the pitch waiting for the clearance.

The idea is that defensive set pieces should not just be about surviving the delivery. If we win the first contact, I want the opponent immediately worrying about what happens next.

We have carried the same principle into free kicks as well. On deeper and wider defensive free kicks, there are conditional wall roles that can turn into counter-attacking positions if the wall is not needed. It is probably the most aggressive set-piece setup I have used in one of these saves, but I want it to become part of how we play rather than an isolated specialist area.

The attacking KPI is fairly simple: I want us to be right at the top of MLS for goals from corners. The defensive ambition is just as important, though. I want clearances to become transitions, not simply the start of another defensive phase.

As for the match itself, Charlotte were better. They had 17 shots to our 12 and generated 1.75 xG to our 1.22. We still had 53% possession and completed 91% of our passes, so once again the issue was not getting the ball. It was turning possession into enough genuinely dangerous moments. That remains the bit to work on. But I am becoming much happier with the direction of the team. The attacking structure is starting to settle, the OOP work is becoming more opponent-specific, the set pieces now have an identity of their own, and a few individual roles are beginning to make sense.

The results have dipped, but pre-season is doing what I wanted it to do: giving us answers.

With pre-season finished, I’ve spent most of this week trying to work out what the training week should actually look like rather than just leaving the default schedules in place.

The biggest thing I wanted was for the week to reflect what this team is becoming. We finished bottom last season, the squad is still learning a fairly specific way of playing, and I am asking quite a lot of them tactically, especially without the ball. The attacking shape is relatively stable, but the OOP work is deliberately much more reactive. Peralta might move centrally, one midfielder might jump while Müller screens, a wing-back might become the pressing player depending on where the opponent finds the spare man. That only works if the players are given enough time to rehearse it.

So the schedule is going to be more tactical than I would normally use. I am quite happy to sacrifice some generic development work if it means we are better prepared for the actual game in front of us. This is not really a squad where I need to build the week around maximising youth development anyway. The priority is getting the first team tactically sharp enough that the OOP changes are deliberate rather than improvised.

The other big commitment is set pieces. We have spent a lot of time building the routines from scratch this week, both attacking and defensive, and I want that work reinforced on the training pitch rather than becoming something we set once and forget.

I also wanted some physical work in there without turning the schedule into a conditioning programme. The compromise is one broader physical block in a normal week rather than rotating specific endurance, resistance and quickness sessions. That should give us enough maintenance while leaving most of the week free for tactical work, technical detail and preparation for the next opponent.

The congested weeks are much simpler. If we are playing twice in a week, the matches themselves provide enough physical load, so training becomes much more about recovery, tactical clarity and set pieces. On the really short turnarounds I would rather arrive physically fresh with a simpler plan than try to cram in extra work and have the players execute it badly.

The main thing I like about the new setup is that it has a clear purpose. The physical work is there, but it does not dominate. The team still develops, but the priority is being tactically sharper than the opponent, understanding the OOP plan properly and making the set pieces a genuine weapon.