Beta Than Nothing Episode 2: Best Of Enemies


Hello everyone and welcome to the second instalment of my 22/23 database save on FM22 that I'm playing through to keep myself occupied until FM23 comes out. If you're new here then take a look at yesterday's episode in which my Manchester United side kicked off the 2022/23 season. 


With an eleven day gap between Premier League outings, we play a friendly match against Celtic in an effort to get some minutes under the belt of some of the fringe players. The game ends scoreless but the main point is Antony suffering an injury that will keep him out of first XI action for the majority of the month


September's action gets underway with a long visit to the South Coast to take on Brighton at the AMEX Stadium. Some fine link up work between Anthony Martial and Bruno Fernandes culminates in captain Bruno giving us an early lead. Christian Kouame runs our defence ragged and pulls the home side level before they go on to dominate the remainder of the first half leaving us fortunate to not be behind at the interval. The introduction of Cristiano Ronaldo gives us an extra edge as we reverse the flow of the game to deservedly go ahead with his first goal of the season with just under twenty minutes remaining although frustratingly we're pegged back by Kouame levelling for Brighton once again. A bit of the Manchester United of old is displayed as Ronaldo gives us what appears to be a decisive 3-2 lead with a late goal before the more recent United rears it's ugly head once again as we concede an even later soft equaliser as Cedric manages to nab the hosts a point. 


As it's September it can only mean one thing, the return of European football as we commence our assault on the Europa League. Progression to the latter stages and potentially winning the competition is arguably my main objective for the season so it's imperative that we get off to a decent start. Thankfully we kick off our continental commitments with a win although we labour for our three points as we make hard work of our assignment and only prevail over Qarabag via a Bruno Fernandes penalty. 


We go from Qarabag to Carabao as we welcome Everton to Old Trafford for a third round League Cup tie. I make wholesale changes as the competition is relatively low on my list of priorities. With this in mind there are few tears shed when Idrissa Gueye curls home the winner. 


Due to some poor fixture scheduling, we take to the field at the Etihad for the Manchester Derby against City just three days after the Everton defeat however this can't be used as an excuse as there's a visible chasm between the two sides. We struggle to get out of the traps and Pep's men punish this with Erling Haaland giving the hosts an early lead, we're thankful for VAR ruling out a second strike for the Norwegian powerhouse but we can't capitalise and barely lay a glove on City so it comes as no surprise as they run out comfortable 2-0 winners thanks to Ruben Dias netting a second half winner. 


This rebuild lark might be a bigger task than I thought. See you tomorrow

Ciao for now! 

Follow me on Twitter @DanBarkerGray and check out my podcast Not Another 90s Football Podcast on YouTube, Spotify and @90sFootballPod

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