# Football Manager 2020 & FM Touch



## Orikoru (Apr 22, 2020)

Anyone else got this during lockdown boredom like I did? If so, how the heck do you win?

I have the FM Touch version as I prefer simplicity, especially as the other game I played most frequently was CM01/02 . But nearly at the end of my first season at Spurs, we're scraping 6th place but a good 20 points below the top four. The board are fuming. I got to the Champs Lg quarters and we were unluckily knocked out by Real Madrid, they were still fuming at that though - I've apparently been on the verge of the sack ever since. I've scraped through to the FA Cup final, but much like England at the World Cup we had a very easy run - Forest Green, Cardiff, Luton, Wolves, Brentford! Luck of the draw (literally). Admittedly this is probably a better season than Spurs in real life but the game doesn't know that!

I just don't know how you get any decent consistency. As I said in random irritations last night, we beat Man City 2-0 and then lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth with pretty much the same side. This sort of thing has happened all season. All my wingers were totally useless every game (honestly what have they done to Son? he was absolutely terrible). So I ended up with a 4-1-2-1-2 / 4-1-2-2-1 with no wingers depending on who is available. Whenever I think I'm getting the hang of it and hitting some form, they lose to Brighton or Norwich or someone. Every single time. The Touch version is meant to be simpler, how hard can it be?

Typical player roles will be something like:
Kane (CF-S)
Alli (SS-A) - Lo Celso (AP-S)
Ndombele (Mez-A) - Sissoko (BB-S)
Dier (BWM-D)
Davies/De Sciglio (WB-S) - Jan/Sanchez(BPD-D) - Toby (CD-D) - Aurier/Foyth (WB-A)
Lloris (SwK-S)​Sometimes instead of Alli there I'll throw Parrott in and push him up as AF-A, or try Son there but he's crap there as well. Sometimes I'll change the right back and Ndombele from Attack to Support if I don't want to be as attacking.


(Just going to quietly tag @Dan2501 as I'm thinking he might be my number 1 hope here.)


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## Cherry13 (Apr 22, 2020)

I feel your pain.  few things you can do, depends how you want to play the game really.  If just want to win loads, get through a few seasons and have a bit of fun you can use some of the 'exploit' (they basically take advantage of percieved weaknesses in the current Match Engine) tactics that can be found on the Sports Interactive Community, they usually revolve around an aggressive style of tactic and all you'll need to do is get the right players to fit that style.  I believe the diamond with wingers is one of those at the moment and two aggressive centre forwards.  (interestingly your current base formation was an exploit two or three years ago).

Or you can keep trying on your own, and make tweaks as you go etc.  I have a few games on the go and generally do a mixture.  Currently got Luton into the Prem using a very similar tactic to yours.  

In terms of your current tactic, your left hand side is very attacking, i'd either drop the the WB(S) to a D, or the Mez to an S.  i'd also look at the fact you have no 'Pivot'.  the BWM even on Defense is a roaming role, he'll leave his position to break up attacks, as will the BBM, and a Mez on attack will do what he likes.  

Front 3 looks good, although i'm assuming they dont all consistently get good ratings, maybe 1 or 2 of them will game, I prefer my playmaker to be deeper than Lo Celso so i'd like change him to an AM S and get him to drift wide.  i'd also put Kane on Attack or change to a Poacher or Adv Forward.  Appreciate that goes against the SS role but it would also stretch the attack in theory.  i'd recomend at least 2 attack roles in the front 3.


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## SteveW86 (Apr 22, 2020)

I haven't played many of the recent, like you I preferred the simplicity of the earlier games as I just wanted a game I could jump in and out of rather than having to get too involved.

My last proper go at this was with FM13 or 14 (the year Southampton had Shaw/Clyne/Lallana) and I went through about 40 seasons turning Southampton into the biggest club in the world. This has reminded me that I saved over that game by accident though and all my hard work was lost forever.


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## Orikoru (Apr 22, 2020)

Cherry13 said:



			I feel your pain.  few things you can do, depends how you want to play the game really.  If just want to win loads, get through a few seasons and have a bit of fun you can use some of the 'exploit' (they basically take advantage of percieved weaknesses in the current Match Engine) tactics that can be found on the Sports Interactive Community, they usually revolve around an aggressive style of tactic and all you'll need to do is get the right players to fit that style.  I believe the diamond with wingers is one of those at the moment and two aggressive centre forwards.  (interestingly your current base formation was an exploit two or three years ago).

Or you can keep trying on your own, and make tweaks as you go etc.  I have a few games on the go and generally do a mixture.  Currently got Luton into the Prem using a very similar tactic to yours. 

In terms of your current tactic, your left hand side is very attacking, i'd either drop the the WB(S) to a D, or the Mez to an S.  i'd also look at the fact you have no 'Pivot'.  the BWM even on Defense is a roaming role, he'll leave his position to break up attacks, as will the BBM, and a Mez on attack will do what he likes. 

Front 3 looks good, although i'm assuming they dont all consistently get good ratings, maybe 1 or 2 of them will game, I prefer my playmaker to be deeper than Lo Celso so i'd like change him to an AM S and get him to drift wide.  i'd also put Kane on Attack or change to a Poacher or Adv Forward.  Appreciate that goes against the SS role but it would also stretch the attack in theory.  i'd recomend at least 2 attack roles in the front 3.
		
Click to expand...

I don't want to just download a tactic someone else has made, as I'd feel like I'm not really playing the game. And let's face it, I shouldn't have to do that really. Creating your tactics is a major part of the game and it shouldn't be _that _difficult really. 

I figured I'd need my full backs / wing backs at least on support because there's no width in the team otherwise, plus in real life it's very rare that a full back will ever just be a defensive role in this day and age. 

Kane is a weird one, if he doesn't score he gets a rubbish rating, but he does score about 60% of the time because it's Kane and he's world class. His favourite role is deep-lying fwd but he didn't score much on that so I changed him to complete forward. The idea being that he plays Dele in as well. Maybe I should have had him on 'attack' though.

Regards to the midfield, I thought a trio of one D one S and one A would work well together, and the BB-S (Sissoko) should be tracking back to help the BWM-D (Dier) I'd have thought? And my understanding of the Mezzala was that it's kind of like another box-to-box but he just drifts out wide a bit more. A lot of tactics people seem to use don't have a DM so I thought Dier's role would have been ok. Thanks for the advice, I imagine that after we lose the Cup Final to Liverpool I'll be sacked and starting the save again from the beginning anyway so I'll try something different then. 




SteveW86 said:



			I haven't played many of the recent, like you I preferred the simplicity of the earlier games as I just wanted a game I could jump in and out of rather than having to get too involved.

My last proper go at this was with FM13 or 14 (the year Southampton had Shaw/Clyne/Lallana) and I went through about 40 seasons turning Southampton into the biggest club in the world. This has reminded me that I saved over that game by accident though and all my hard work was lost forever.
		
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've disliked all the FMs I've had in the last ten years really, but as I say, boredom led me to buying it again. And I figured the Touch version was meant to be a little bit more pick-up-and-play, but it's still vastly more complicated than the full games of 15 years ago. My CM01/02 crashed and burned though so I had no choice. 

That's funny, I'm pretty sure I had FM13 and also played as Southampton! They had a good up-and-coming side as you say. Those three, plus Gaston Ramirez was pretty good I recall. I remember I managed to sign Coutinho and Immobile who did quite well for me. I didn't play it long enough to win anything, had them in about 5th I think after a couple of seasons which wasn't bad.


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## ScienceBoy (Apr 22, 2020)

I made my own league structure and designed it so it was easier for me to win...

https://www.fmscout.com/a-lincs-and-cambs-2020.html


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## SteveW86 (Apr 22, 2020)

[QUOTE="

That's funny, I'm pretty sure I had FM13 and also played as Southampton! They had a good up-and-coming side as you say. Those three, plus Gaston Ramirez was pretty good I recall. I remember I managed to sign Coutinho and Immobile who did quite well for me. I didn't play it long enough to win anything, had them in about 5th I think after a couple of seasons which wasn't bad.[/QUOTE]


Yeah, I've disliked all the FMs I've had in the last ten years really, but as I say, boredom led me to buying it again. And I figured the Touch version was meant to be a little bit more pick-up-and-play, but it's still vastly more complicated than the full games of 15 years ago. My CM01/02 crashed and burned though so I had no choice. 

That's funny, I'm pretty sure I had FM13 and also played as Southampton! They had a good up-and-coming side as you say. Those three, plus Gaston Ramirez was pretty good I recall. I remember I managed to sign Coutinho and Immobile who did quite well for me. I didn't play it long enough to win anything, had them in about 5th I think after a couple of seasons which wasn't bad.[/QUOTE]

They also had Dani Osvaldo upfront who banged in loads of goals, annoyingly if you started a new game later and the game had updated he was on loan at Juventus. This was the first time I had properly set up my scouts and over the years found a lot of awesome players who were very young and developed into world class players. My 2 favourites were Francois Chevalier, a CF who went on to break Shearers premier league scoring record and Lamine N'Guessuan, a CM who won the Ballon D'Or 5 6 seasons in a row.

This is making me want to dig out FM and have another go.


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## Cherry13 (Apr 22, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I don't want to just download a tactic someone else has made, as I'd feel like I'm not really playing the game. And let's face it, I shouldn't have to do that really. Creating your tactics is a major part of the game and it shouldn't be _that _difficult really.

I figured I'd need my full backs / wing backs at least on support because there's no width in the team otherwise, plus in real life it's very rare that a full back will ever just be a defensive role in this day and age.

Kane is a weird one, if he doesn't score he gets a rubbish rating, but he does score about 60% of the time because it's Kane and he's world class. His favourite role is deep-lying fwd but he didn't score much on that so I changed him to complete forward. The idea being that he plays Dele in as well. Maybe I should have had him on 'attack' though.

Regards to the midfield, I thought a trio of one D one S and one A would work well together, and the BB-S (Sissoko) should be tracking back to help the BWM-D (Dier) I'd have thought? And my understanding of the Mezzala was that it's kind of like another box-to-box but he just drifts out wide a bit more. A lot of tactics people seem to use don't have a DM so I thought Dier's role would have been ok. Thanks for the advice, I imagine that after we lose the Cup Final to Liverpool I'll be sacked and starting the save again from the beginning anyway so I'll try something different then. 

Click to expand...

The WB D will still provide with, just wont move into the final third until he has the ball... if you change your team tactic to 'Pass into Space' this may encourage him to get a bit further forward.  Also with an attack duty you'll notice your WB will attack the box rather than stay wide, which i find infuriating as i quite like my  WBs to stay wide.  (its difficult to replicate the TTA role)

As for Kanes rating, thats just the rating system within the game.  An attacker and Midfield will get good ratings through passes (completion) and shots/goals.  As Kane is the tip of the spear he wont be getting that many touches so his only opportunity to improve rating will be goals.  He wont get an improved rating on key movement or opening space for Alli etc. 

The midfield 3 is good attacking wise, and has a good balance.  Its just the defensive and turnover phase that might be a bit problematic with people out of position.  ALso the other consideration is that as a Playmaker your team are instructed to 'look' for passes to Lo Celso therefore they may be bypassing your middle 3... I'm assuming Toby has a lot of passes, and the other CB a lot of missed?  

As for Touch, once you get used to it you'll learn what you can skip, i dont do training or contract renewals, just set my staff to deal with that.  its much better than the full version which can at times have 3 screens per day.  which is frankly ridiculous.


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## Orikoru (Apr 22, 2020)

Cherry13 said:



			The WB D will still provide with, just wont move into the final third until he has the ball... if you change your team tactic to 'Pass into Space' this may encourage him to get a bit further forward.  Also with an attack duty you'll notice your WB will attack the box rather than stay wide, which i find infuriating as i quite like my  WBs to stay wide.  (its difficult to replicate the TTA role)

As for Kanes rating, thats just the rating system within the game.  An attacker and Midfield will get good ratings through passes (completion) and shots/goals.  As Kane is the tip of the spear he wont be getting that many touches so his only opportunity to improve rating will be goals.  He wont get an improved rating on key movement or opening space for Alli etc.

The midfield 3 is good attacking wise, and has a good balance.  Its just the defensive and turnover phase that might be a bit problematic with people out of position.  ALso the other consideration is that as a Playmaker your team are instructed to 'look' for passes to Lo Celso therefore they may be bypassing your middle 3... I'm assuming Toby has a lot of passes, and the other CB a lot of missed? 

As for Touch, once you get used to it you'll learn what you can skip, i dont do training or contract renewals, just set my staff to deal with that.  its much better than the full version which can at times have 3 screens per day.  which is frankly ridiculous.
		
Click to expand...

Pass Into Space is just one of the many things on the tactics board that I have no idea if it'll be good or bad so I just leave it off. I definitely don't look at my centre backs passing stats, too involved for me.  I originally had both centre backs on ball-playing, because EVERY SINGLE ONE of my centre backs prefers that, but then I thought maybe having two BPDs was a Bad Thing and changed one of them to normal central defender. Basically just throwing  at the wall and seeing what sticks though. I've got no idea how you really quantify what works best when you make small changes like that. In the good old days before player roles you'd just make a formation, and if it works you win, and if it didn't work, you don't win. I liked that. 

If you hadn't guessed, I am 100% not doing training or youth team contract renewals etc etc. Forget that noise. 

Can you get wingers to work? I started off with 4-2-3-1 or like a 4-3-3 because I have wingers like Son, Lucas, Bergwijn who I thought would be good, and they were all just terrible every game no matter what. Hence why I sacked them all off and went narrow so I could just use Lo Celso and Alli behind Kane. Since Lo Celso can't play wide at all, but is pretty much my best player other than Kane, so I had to make sure he was somewhere useful.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 22, 2020)

I've had success with winger-based formations this year (on the full game, not a huge fan of Touch personally). I did a "Glory Hunter" where you have to try and win the League and Cup competitions of the 5 main leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France) + the two European comps and the Euros and World Cup. I won 4 titles in 4 countries in 4 seasons starting in season 2 as United, before moving to PSG, RB Leipzig and Real using a 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress style utilising a high press, high tempo, attacking style, was just running through teams but also surprisingly keeping a lot of clean sheets.

I tend to adjust based on the players at my disposal a little but ideal for my system was two BPD's on Defend, two wing backs on support, the CM's set to an AP or a Mezzala on support and a DLP on defend, one winger (typically on the right) and one Inverted Winger, the AMC as an Attacking Midfielder on support and then an Advanced Forward.

I found the Glory Hunter pretty easy, even as Leipzig we totally dominated the league so decided to mix it up and have taken on Leeds and just cannot get anything to work consistently. We'll play great one game and then lose to Millwall or Luton the next, it's frustrating as hell. I find with FM though you have to just stick with a tactic and a style so long as it's not inherently flawed and eventually it'll start to come good. A lot of your success will come once tactical familiarity has increased and then morale plays a huge part, the difference in a team when morale is high compared to low is mental. If you build up the tactical familiarity and then get on a run of wins your team will just take off and it's great when it finally clicks.

Oh and because I can't talk about FM without recommending him, please check out Ludwig Augustinsson. He's been my favourite player on the last 2 FMs. Can pick him up for £8-10m from Werder Bremen and he is the best LB I've used on the game by far. Will get a ton of assists, takes a mean free-kick, superb corner and long free-kick taker, superb defender, he's unreal. I signed him first season for United and he was in the world TOTY the two seasons I had him, took him to PSG and he made the team again, he's superb. If I ever need a wing-back in a top league he's always my go to.


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## Cherry13 (Apr 22, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Pass Into Space is just one of the many things on the tactics board that I have no idea if it'll be good or bad so I just leave it off. I definitely don't look at my centre backs passing stats, too involved for me.  I originally had both centre backs on ball-playing, because EVERY SINGLE ONE of my centre backs prefers that, but then I thought maybe having two BPDs was a Bad Thing and changed one of them to normal central defender. Basically just throwing  at the wall and seeing what sticks though. I've got no idea how you really quantify what works best when you make small changes like that. In the good old days before player roles you'd just make a formation, and if it works you win, and if it didn't work, you don't win. I liked that.

If you hadn't guessed, I am 100% not doing training or youth team contract renewals etc etc. Forget that noise.

Can you get wingers to work? I started off with 4-2-3-1 or like a 4-3-3 because I have wingers like Son, Lucas, Bergwijn who I thought would be good, and they were all just terrible every game no matter what. Hence why I sacked them all off and went narrow so I could just use Lo Celso and Alli behind Kane. Since Lo Celso can't play wide at all, but is pretty much my best player other than Kane, so I had to make sure he was somewhere useful.
		
Click to expand...

its a whole new world now, and much more immersive, especially from a tactical stand point.  There's a whole community dedicated to the game, and they all have varying ways of playing.  Some like the challenges that Dan has mentioned above, others like to try and replicate systems/styles of favourite teams and managers.  I've tried a couple of the challenges, but only play on Touch now so can only have 3 leagues loaded.  Good thing with Touch is that tactic familiarity isnt a thing (i think), so you can play around much quicker with a tactic and in theory it'll work.  

You have the preset tactical style, gegenpressing, tiki taka, counter etc, things like pass into space, play through middle, run with ball or just ways of tweaking your style.  

if you set the pass into space, then your creative players will play balls ahead of the player they are passing too, whereas without it will typically be ball to feet.  this is all then obviously countered by what the players indivudal preference is.  So you can select run less with ball, but i imagine Lucas is going to ignore that and run with the ball. 

As for wingers, i've had mixed results, i've got them to work with no Full backs and a 3 5 2 formation, and i've had medium success on a previous game with newcastle as a 451 and the main threat being ASM, and Almiron as inverted, this meant Joelinton did the job he does now, and was just to mark players out of the game.


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## Orikoru (Apr 22, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			I've had success with winger-based formations this year (on the full game, not a huge fan of Touch personally). I did a "Glory Hunter" where you have to try and win the League and Cup competitions of the 5 main leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France) + the two European comps and the Euros and World Cup. I won 4 titles in 4 countries in 4 seasons starting in season 2 as United, before moving to PSG, RB Leipzig and Real using a 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress style utilising a high press, high tempo, attacking style, was just running through teams but also surprisingly keeping a lot of clean sheets.

I tend to adjust based on the players at my disposal a little but ideal for my system was two BPD's on Defend, two wing backs on support, the CM's set to an AP or a Mezzala on support and a DLP on defend, one winger (typically on the right) and one Inverted Winger, the AMC as an Attacking Midfielder on support and then an Advanced Forward.

I found the Glory Hunter pretty easy, even as Leipzig we totally dominated the league so decided to mix it up and have taken on Leeds and just cannot get anything to work consistently. We'll play great one game and then lose to Millwall or Luton the next, it's frustrating as hell. I find with FM though you have to just stick with a tactic and a style so long as it's not inherently flawed and eventually it'll start to come good. A lot of your success will come once tactical familiarity has increased and then morale plays a huge part, the difference in a team when morale is high compared to low is mental. If you build up the tactical familiarity and then get on a run of wins your team will just take off and it's great when it finally clicks.

Oh and because I can't talk about FM without recommending him, please check out Ludwig Augustinsson. He's been my favourite player on the last 2 FMs. Can pick him up for £8-10m from Werder Bremen and he is the best LB I've used on the game by far. Will get a ton of assists, takes a mean free-kick, superb corner and long free-kick taker, superb defender, he's unreal. I signed him first season for United and he was in the world TOTY the two seasons I had him, took him to PSG and he made the team again, he's superb. If I ever need a wing-back in a top league he's always my go to.
		
Click to expand...

So what you're saying is.. you can only get consistency if you're using the best team in the league?  I jest, but it does feel like that! I've also tried to just use roles that my players prefer in most cases, but it's hit and miss whether it works or not. I started off using a direct style, but my board want us to play possession so I switched that. I found we didn't get enough goals so I recently started trying Vertical Tiki Taka. All are just as hit and miss as each other.

I desperately needed a full back at the beginning as Spurs but as I didn't know what I was doing really I just bought De Sciglio as he was available and just in budget. Spurs don't give you any money though, that entire budget was 15 million. 




Cherry13 said:



			its a whole new world now, and much more immersive, especially from a tactical stand point.  There's a whole community dedicated to the game, and they all have varying ways of playing.  Some like the challenges that Dan has mentioned above, others like to try and replicate systems/styles of favourite teams and managers.  I've tried a couple of the challenges, but only play on Touch now so can only have 3 leagues loaded.  Good thing with Touch is that tactic familiarity isnt a thing (i think), so you can play around much quicker with a tactic and in theory it'll work.

You have the preset tactical style, gegenpressing, tiki taka, counter etc, things like pass into space, play through middle, run with ball or just ways of tweaking your style.

if you set the pass into space, then your creative players will play balls ahead of the player they are passing too, whereas without it will typically be ball to feet.  this is all then obviously countered by what the players indivudal preference is.  So you can select run less with ball, but i imagine Lucas is going to ignore that and run with the ball.

As for wingers, i've had mixed results, i've got them to work with no Full backs and a 3 5 2 formation, and i've had medium success on a previous game with newcastle as a 451 and the main threat being ASM, and Almiron as inverted, this meant Joelinton did the job he does now, and was just to mark players out of the game.
		
Click to expand...

Yeah the full game is not for me in a million years. Even Touch is quite in-depth for me.


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## Beezerk (Apr 22, 2020)

A game so bad it has it's own thread 
Get yourself COD Warzone and I'll show you how to lose in so many different ways, my current favourite is falling down the ladder in the fire station tower


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## Orikoru (Apr 22, 2020)

Beezerk said:



			A game so bad it has it's own thread 
Get yourself COD Warzone and I'll show you how to lose in so many different ways, my current favourite is falling down the ladder in the fire station tower 

Click to expand...

  I used to be alright at Medal of Honour back in the day but not now. Been spending a pretty penny on games, already bought Gran Turismo Sport on PS4 as something the missus can play with me, and thinking about getting Battlegrounds 3 for the same reason while it's only £25.


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## Beezerk (Apr 22, 2020)

COD Warzone is free and cross platform 😉


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## Wolf (Apr 22, 2020)

Beezerk said:



			COD Warzone is free and cross platform 😉
		
Click to expand...

I might have to give that a look.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 22, 2020)

I played the touch version until corona virus kicked in. Now have full version as work is so quiet I’m on it most day’s.

I’ve learned that more pragmatic styles are needed. You need at least one forward set to pressing to set the tone. I’ve got a 442 version that most of my players aren’t actually naturals in their positions, but the roles compliment one another.

Season 7 Already atm. Can do a season every few shifts as I’m less than involved in press relations lol. As with every version. It takes a few years to get Saints secure. Spent first 3 years 13th and below. Then all the cheap youngsters I’d bought start to come through. 

Top 4 for last 3 years. 2nd to Arsenal of all teams last year by goal difference. Transfer money seems a little silly. 1st year in CL I spent £80m on Donnarumma. Then got HaAlan’s for £102m the next season. No way our board would spend that!!


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## Orikoru (Apr 22, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			I played the touch version until corona virus kicked in. Now have full version as work is so quiet I’m on it most day’s.

*I’ve learned that more pragmatic styles are needed. You need at least one forward set to pressing to set the tone. I’ve got a 442* version that most of my players aren’t actually naturals in their positions, but the roles compliment one another.

Season 7 Already atm. Can do a season every few shifts as I’m less than involved in press relations lol. As with every version. It takes a few years to get Saints secure. Spent first 3 years 13th and below. Then all the cheap youngsters I’d bought start to come through.

Top 4 for last 3 years. 2nd to Arsenal of all teams last year by goal difference. Transfer money seems a little silly. 1st year in CL I spent £80m on Donnarumma. Then got HaAlan’s for £102m the next season. No way our board would spend that!!
		
Click to expand...

That's a bit depressing. I had a look online for recommended formations and a few had 'pressing forwards' involved. I never would have considered using that role. What sort of management game is it if you can only make your team into Burnley to succeed?? Was the chief designer Sam Allardyce?


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## Dan2501 (Apr 22, 2020)

You can get any system to work if you train the players properly, have the right players in the right roles and instructions that compliment that style. I had a mental 3-ATB system last year that I used to get AlbinoLeffe from Serie C to Champions League that had an inverted wing-back, a libero, wing-backs and wingers. Found the right players to fit the roles, got lucky with a couple of insane regens and after a bit of a struggle in season 1 we flew through the leagues after that. Persistence, analysing how your team performs in the engine and then fixing any gaps, finding the right players to do the job you want them to and building up tactical familiarity and you're sorted, can be very frustrating when it's not going to plan though.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 22, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			That's a bit depressing. I had a look online for recommended formations and a few had 'pressing forwards' involved. I never would have considered using that role. What sort of management game is it if you can only make your team into Burnley to succeed?? Was the chief designer Sam Allardyce? 

Click to expand...

I dunno. I don't think the pressing forward is expected to simply be a pita. 

In the past I'd have considered the role for someone like Shane long. Work hard but don't score. Nowadays most teams want their strikers to still put the work in. Aguero runs a lot more than when Pep first took over.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 22, 2020)

Pressing forwards are good, I've used them in a few different tactics. Don't really have a forward capable at Leeds, although might try and train Bamford up to become a PF. Think of Firmino's role at Liverpool or Vardy's role for Leicester, a lot of their work is done off the ball, trying to win it back for their team, putting the defence under pressure and then bringing their team-mates into the game. Can be pretty useful in a gegenpress style, which for me, is the most overpowered preset tactic type on this years game and the only type of style where I've been able to consistently beat teams like Liverpool and Manchester City.


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

We lost the FA Cup final 3-0 to Liverpool and finished 6th in the league, but I didn't get sacked so I'm carrying on with Spurs while I try a few things out. Managed to sign Moussa Dembele (the Lyon striker) and Florentino Luis (wonderkid DM). I'm going to try these roles in the new season:

Dembele (AF-A) - Kane (CF-S) 
Alli (AM-A)
Lo Celso (AP-S) - Ndombele (BBM-S)
Luis (DM-D)
Davies/Rose(FB-S) - Toby(BPD-D) - Sanchez(BPD-D) - De Sciglio/Foyth(FB-S)
Lloris (SK-S)​Still haven't really decided on Kane's role. He's kind of mediocre at 'pressing forward' so I haven't put that on. He doesn't uproot trees as a complete forward either though really.

Trying to sell Son and Lucas so I can maybe splash a bit more cash before the deadline. Not sure where is most needed though.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Personally, if I was managing Spurs, I'd go:

-----------------------Lloris (SK-S)---------------------
De Sciglio (WB-S)-Sanchez--Toby----Davies (WB-S)-
------------Luis (DLP-D)----Ndombele (BBM-S)------
--Lucas (W-S)--------Alli (AM-S)------Son (IW-A)---
------------------------Kane (AF-A)----------------------

As for where to improve - I'd be looking at the wing backs, especially in your system. They're going to be providing the bulk of the width and the guys you've got in those positions just aren't going to be good enough for you to win titles. De Sciglio's not great on FM, pretty meh attributes across the board and Foyth is better at CB, and then Davies is decent but could definitely find better. LB is a stacked position on FM. At LB I'd be looking at Augustinsson, Alex Telles or Ait-Nouri and then at RB I'd be looking at Youcef Atal, Serg Dest or if you've got the cash - Max Aarons. I'd also look to bring in another winger - big fan of Federico Chiesa or you could look at David Neres or Javi Ontiveros as cheaper options or if you want to bring in a couple of younger players as backups Filip Stevanovic and Rayan Cherki become excellent.

Started a save as Newcastle with the takeover added last night. Even with £65m starting budget it's not enough, this squad is a mess. Managed to sell Clark, Ritchie, Saivet, Krafth, Muto, Colback, Manquillo and Gayle which bolstered the transfer budget a little and allowed me to bring in Augustinsson, Florentino Luis, Edouard, N'Dicka and then 3 talented youth players - Armini, Unuvar and Amad Traore. Season didn't exactly start well though, lost the first game 3-0 to Bournemouth. Going to take some work to get this team playing some decent football.


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## Cherry13 (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			We lost the FA Cup final 3-0 to Liverpool and finished 6th in the league, but I didn't get sacked so I'm carrying on with Spurs while I try a few things out. Managed to sign Moussa Dembele (the Lyon striker) and Florentino Luis (wonderkid DM). I'm going to try these roles in the new season:

Dembele (AF-A) - Kane (CF-S)
Alli (AM-A)
Lo Celso (AP-S) - Ndombele (BBM-S)
Luis (DM-D)
Davies/Rose(FB-S) - Toby(BPD-D) - Sanchez(BPD-D) - De Sciglio/Foyth(FB-S)
Lloris (SK-S)​Still haven't really decided on Kane's role. He's kind of mediocre at 'pressing forward' so I haven't put that on. He doesn't uproot trees as a complete forward either though really.

Trying to sell Son and Lucas so I can maybe splash a bit more cash before the deadline. Not sure where is most needed though.
		
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looks good, bit more balance.  Are you playing the offside trap?  if not i'd switch a CB to cover, whichever is quickest and has best anticipation.  I'd also maybe swap Dembele and Kane sides around, but keep there roles, Kane will be dropping into the space Ndombele is looking to come into, but before i'd do that i'd check if Kane and Dembele have a preferred side.  (i think its on the page that tells you about the roles they play off top of head).  Only a personal preference but i'd change Dembele to a Poacher as well, i wouldnt want him leaving the box.


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

Well I did the first five games of the season with my tactics above, won none of them and got sacked. I had only saved it up to just before the first game though so I can try again. I just don't understand this game though. I can't see why that line-up wouldn't have worked.  We were the better team in three of the games, but managed two draws and a loss in those. But we were comfortably outplayed by Chelsea and Man Utd. 



Dan2501 said:



			Personally, if I was managing Spurs, I'd go:

-----------------------Lloris (SK-S)---------------------
De Sciglio (WB-S)-Sanchez--Toby----Davies (WB-S)-
------------Luis (DLP-D)----Ndombele (BBM-S)------
--Lucas (W-S)--------Alli (AM-S)------Son (IW-A)---
------------------------Kane (AF-A)----------------------

As for where to improve - I'd be looking at the wing backs, especially in your system. They're going to be providing the bulk of the width and the guys you've got in those positions just aren't going to be good enough for you to win titles. De Sciglio's not great on FM, pretty meh attributes across the board and Foyth is better at CB, and then Davies is decent but could definitely find better. LB is a stacked position on FM. At LB I'd be looking at Augustinsson, Alex Telles or Ait-Nouri and then at RB I'd be looking at Youcef Atal, Serg Dest or if you've got the cash - Max Aarons. I'd also look to bring in another winger - big fan of Federico Chiesa or you could look at David Neres or Javi Ontiveros as cheaper options or if you want to bring in a couple of younger players as backups Filip Stevanovic and Rayan Cherki become excellent.

Started a save as Newcastle with the takeover added last night. Even with £65m starting budget it's not enough, this squad is a mess. Managed to sell Clark, Ritchie, Saivet, Krafth, Muto, Colback, Manquillo and Gayle which bolstered the transfer budget a little and allowed me to bring in Augustinsson, Florentino Luis, Edouard, N'Dicka and then 3 talented youth players - Armini, Unuvar and Amad Traore. Season didn't exactly start well though, lost the first game 3-0 to Bournemouth. Going to take some work to get this team playing some decent football.
		
Click to expand...

As I said though, I started the save with a 4-2-3-1 and all the wingers were absolutely shocking. Start of season two I had Son and Lucas on the transfer list because they were useless. Lo Celso is pretty much my best player so I wouldn't be leaving him out either - but he can't play out wide.

After spending £25m on Moussa Dembele and £35 on Luis I didn't have money left for full backs, since nobody bought Son or Lucas. 

I might try it without any of the preset 'styles' and just use 'clean slate' and put my own instructions in. All the presets seem a bit cluttered.


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## Cherry13 (Apr 23, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Personally, if I was managing Spurs, I'd go:

-----------------------Lloris (SK-S)---------------------
De Sciglio (WB-S)-Sanchez--Toby----Davies (WB-S)-
------------Luis (DLP-D)----Ndombele (BBM-S)------
--Lucas (W-S)--------Alli (AM-S)------Son (IW-A)---
------------------------Kane (AF-A)----------------------

As for where to improve - I'd be looking at the wing backs, especially in your system. They're going to be providing the bulk of the width and the guys you've got in those positions just aren't going to be good enough for you to win titles. De Sciglio's not great on FM, pretty meh attributes across the board and Foyth is better at CB, and then Davies is decent but could definitely find better. LB is a stacked position on FM. At LB I'd be looking at Augustinsson, Alex Telles or Ait-Nouri and then at RB I'd be looking at Youcef Atal, Serg Dest or if you've got the cash - Max Aarons. I'd also look to bring in another winger - big fan of Federico Chiesa or you could look at David Neres or Javi Ontiveros as cheaper options or if you want to bring in a couple of younger players as backups Filip Stevanovic and Rayan Cherki become excellent.

Started a save as Newcastle with the takeover added last night. Even with £65m starting budget it's not enough, this squad is a mess. Managed to sell Clark, Ritchie, Saivet, Krafth, Muto, Colback, Manquillo and Gayle which bolstered the transfer budget a little and allowed me to bring in Augustinsson, Florentino Luis, Edouard, N'Dicka and then 3 talented youth players - Armini, Unuvar and Amad Traore. Season didn't exactly start well though, lost the first game 3-0 to Bournemouth. Going to take some work to get this team playing some decent football.
		
Click to expand...

haha, you are a fan of Augustinsson.  As a Newcastle fan i always have at least one save with them, it does get a bit repetitive (2 seasons consolidate, then champs league then win the league, rinse and repeat every iteration).  But i try and mix it up and play either a Keegan inspired save or Robson save.  I tried to get a keegan entertainers inspired 442 to work with the wingers in the AM stratas.  It was doing ok until i managed to sign Haaland at end of first season (before winter update), and then it just went mental and i won everything going.  Also signed the young dembele from celtic who was superb and as you've mentioned Max Aarons.


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## Cherry13 (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Well I did the first five games of the season with my tactics above, won none of them and got sacked. I had only saved it up to just before the first game though so I can try again. I just don't understand this game though. I can't see why that line-up wouldn't have worked.  We were the better team in three of the games, but managed two draws and a loss in those. But we were comfortably outplayed by Chelsea and Man Utd.


As I said though, I started the save with a 4-2-3-1 and all the wingers were absolutely shocking. Start of season two I had Son and Lucas on the transfer list because they were useless. Lo Celso is pretty much my best player so I wouldn't be leaving him out either - but he can't play out wide.

After spending £25m on Moussa Dembele and £35 on Luis I didn't have money left for full backs, since nobody bought Son or Lucas. 

I might try it without any of the preset 'styles' and just use 'clean slate' and put my own instructions in. All the presets seem a bit cluttered.
		
Click to expand...

I start with the presets and then remove bits i dont want/like.  so with your formation i'd start with Vertical Tiki Taka and remove the underlap command (no one to underlap anyway) and i'd maybe tweak the lines of engagement depending on how quick my CBs are.  The other main consideration is the mentality, with a team set up like yours you can probably set it too attacking and get the team to play quicker (in theory).  too much passing and the opposition will be able to sit back and get a block in place.


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

Cherry13 said:



			I start with the presets and then remove bits i dont want/like.  so with your formation i'd start with Vertical Tiki Taka and remove the underlap command (no one to underlap anyway) and i'd maybe tweak the lines of engagement depending on how quick my CBs are.  The other main consideration is the mentality, with a team set up like yours you can probably set it too attacking and get the team to play quicker (in theory).  too much passing and the opposition will be able to sit back and get a block in place.
		
Click to expand...

Vertical tiki taka is the one I was using!  I gave up on the high line as we routinely get rinsed with that so I went to standard defensive line (and standard engagement to match). I usually had Positive or Attacking with the slightly quicker tempo. Literally none of this works, I'm at a loss what you're meant to do.


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## Hackers76 (Apr 23, 2020)

Beezerk said:



			COD Warzone is free and cross platform 😉
		
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Beezerk said:



			COD Warzone is free and cross platform 😉
		
Click to expand...

after the cost of a big enough hdd 😂


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## Wolf (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Vertical tiki taka is the one I was using!  I gave up on the high line as we routinely get rinsed with that so I went to standard defensive line (and standard engagement to match). I usually had Positive or Attacking with the slightly quicker tempo. Literally none of this works, I'm at a loss what you're meant to do. 

Click to expand...

Sounds like a terrible game 😂


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## Cherry13 (Apr 23, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Sounds like a terrible game 😂
		
Click to expand...

but highly addictive... 

I'd persevere with the high line but switch a CB to cover.  But this is all part of the fun, the infuriating attempts to get a tactic to work, take over Barca, you'll find you still struggle.  

As Dan has mentioed Gegenpress is usually the most overpowered preset.  might be worth giving that a go.


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

One thing I haven't tried is a back three. I might try that although I'd probably need to buy better wing backs.

Dembele - Kane

Lo Celso - Ndombele
Rose - - - Luis - - - Aurier
Vertonghen - Sanchez - Toby


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## TheDiablo (Apr 23, 2020)

I havent played an FM for years, too much time investment for me versus the time I actually have to properly get the value. I would have loved how detailed it is now about 10-15 years ago but life has moved on!

But I did exactly this - got bored and downloaded 2020 Touch on the iPad at the start of lockdown. Similarities end there though - I found it incredibly easy!

Started as Fulham, got promoted in season 1, mid-table season 2. Got hired by Leicester who were awful, came about 14th but expected Euro qual in Year 1. I sold a couple of high value players and rebuilt completely -  was in top 6 all season and had a nightmare finish to come 7th, plus lost a cup final. The idiots sacked me!

Spurs immediately offered me the gig, signed Kimmich and Asensio won Europa Cup 2 and came 4th in first season. 3rd next season. Then won the league, then came 2nd. Have won the next 6 league titles, gone unbeaten in one, 102 points in another, only one season went to last 2 games. 3 Champs Leagues and an FA Cup too. 

Completely net zero spend as well. I find you can sell squad players for massively high values, then I just pick up players that are transfer listed from huge clubs (they hoard players then sell them off) and the odd FT if lucky. Supplement that with a massive signing every couple of years where absolutely necessary (e.g. Kai Havertz to play CAM from year 2, Haaland to replace Kane at 33 etc) and then scout South America for young bargains, loan them out for a few years, some get into first team and others sold for £40m ish to go into the coffers.

I play Gegenpress 4-2-3-1 with Spurs


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

TheDiablo said:



			I havent played an FM for years, too much time investment for me versus the time I actually have to properly get the value. I would have loved how detailed it is now about 10-15 years ago but life has moved on!

But I did exactly this - got bored and downloaded 2020 Touch on the iPad at the start of lockdown. Similarities end there though - I found it incredibly easy!

Started as Fulham, got promoted in season 1, mid-table season 2. Got hired by Leicester who were awful, came about 14th but expected Euro qual in Year 1. I sold a couple of high value players and rebuilt completely -  was in top 6 all season and had a nightmare finish to come 7th, plus lost a cup final. The idiots sacked me!

Spurs immediately offered me the gig, signed Kimmich and Asensio won Europa Cup 2 and came 4th in first season. 3rd next season. Then won the league, then came 2nd. Have won the next 6 league titles, gone unbeaten in one, 102 points in another, only one season went to last 2 games. 3 Champs Leagues and an FA Cup too.

Completely net zero spend as well. I find you can sell squad players for massively high values, then I just pick up players that are transfer listed from huge clubs (they hoard players then sell them off) and the odd FT if lucky. Supplement that with a massive signing every couple of years where absolutely necessary (e.g. Kai Havertz to play CAM from year 2, Haaland to replace Kane at 33 etc) and then scout South America for young bargains, loan them out for a few years, some get into first team and others sold for £40m ish to go into the coffers.

I play Gegenpress 4-2-3-1 with Spurs
		
Click to expand...

I don't think the iPad version is the same game, I have the PC Touch version. iPad one is half the price for a start, so I figure it's a lot simpler version, and therefore easier.


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## TheDiablo (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I don't think the iPad version is the same game, I have the PC Touch version. iPad one is half the price for a start, so I figure it's a lot simpler version, and therefore easier.
		
Click to expand...

It's the same game.


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

Bah. I should probably just start a new save as someone else. Every manager game I pick Spurs and do horribly as them for some reason. On this game they're a particularly bad choice because they have high expectations but give you no money to achieve them.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Yeah, the Touch version is the same across devices. I had FM19 Touch on Switch last year and it's the same as the PC version. FM Mobile is the one that's mega scaled down.

Quite tempted to start a save as Spurs now, might start one at lunch and bin off Newcastle, see if I find them as useless as @Orikoru has


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Yeah, the Touch version is the same across devices. I had FM19 Touch on Switch last year and it's the same as the PC version. FM Mobile is the one that's mega scaled down.

Quite tempted to start a save as Spurs now, might start one at lunch and bin off Newcastle, see if I find them as useless as @Orikoru has 

Click to expand...

My mate who plays did the same as a test after me moaning to him and he didn't have much luck either to be fair. It's almost as if they're programmed to be as bad as we were this season in real life. 

I need to pick someone with more money but lower expectations. Trying to be Spurs was clearly running before I could even crawl.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			My mate who plays did the same as a test after me moaning to him and he didn't have much luck either to be fair. It's almost as if they're programmed to be as bad as we were this season in real life. 

I need to pick someone with more money but lower expectations. Trying to be Spurs was clearly running before I could even crawl.
		
Click to expand...

Haha, I'll give it a go and feed back  

RB Leipzig could be a good shout. Germany's a fun league to manage in, lower expectations, less competitive league, enough cash to spend and a talented young squad to work with. When I took them over in my GloryHunter I had over £100m to spend in Season 4 and they still had Werner (so he's happy to stick around, which is good as he's awesome), so early finances might not be great but by Season 2 you should have plenty to work with.


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## SteveW86 (Apr 23, 2020)

sounds like a forum challenge as to who can be the most successful with Spurs after 3 seasons.


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

SteveW86 said:



			sounds like a forum challenge as to who can be the most successful with Spurs after 3 seasons.
		
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Well I've set a nice low benchmark to beat with being sacked after the 5th game of season two.


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## Wolf (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I don't think the iPad version is the same game, I have the PC Touch version. iPad one is half the price for a start, so I figure it's a lot simpler version, and therefore easier.
		
Click to expand...

Where did you download it from I'm tempted to play to see if i can be as bad or better than you😂


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Where did you download it from I'm tempted to play to see if i can be as bad or better than you😂
		
Click to expand...

I have it on PC and got it from Steam. If you want iPad version I guess it's just from the App Store. 

I take it you wouldn't be playing as Spurs though.


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## Wolf (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I have it on PC and got it from Steam. If you want iPad version I guess it's just from the App Store.

I take it you wouldn't be playing as Spurs though. 

Click to expand...

I'd be using Windows laptop/tablet thing. Spurs probably got similar squad to us so we'd be equally crap.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Started my save with the Jan Transfer updates, and nice easy start. Davies, Aurier, Sessegnon and Foyth all injured for between 6 weeks and 4 months, so basically have no wing backs and only £15m to spend. Great stuff. Guess I'm buying Augustinsson


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## TheDiablo (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Bah. I should probably just start a new save as someone else. Every manager game I pick Spurs and do horribly as them for some reason. On this game they're a particularly bad choice because they have high expectations but give you no money to achieve them.
		
Click to expand...

One of my good mates is a massive Wolves fan and I always crushed him when we both played with Wolves. 

He was playing it as he thinks they should do in real life whereas I played it as the game if that makes sense. Might be something similar with why you struggle as Spurs

Give Leicester a go. Not sure of initial budget but good starting squad and you can sell Tielemans for a fortune if you need to invest.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

No money to improve the squad @Orikoru ? Think you missed a tricking not shifting some of the dead weight early mate. I've made £57m in the first 2 weeks of the window - got £20m for Lamela and then £37m for Sissoko (2 players I was never going to use and have ample backup for) which means I've now got £51m to spend after already bringing in Augustinsson for £7m. Hopefully have Hysaj coming in at RB for £10m, so will have £40-45m left which I'm hoping will be enough to bring in a new backup striker - maybe someone like Edouard or Boadu. Been a productive lunch break


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## Wolf (Apr 23, 2020)

Clearly this game is destined to annoy people like me and Orikoru, for him its the frustration of being rubbish , for me its the frustration it doesn't work at all. Just bought and paid for the Touch version to make sure its compatible with my windows tablet, done the activation process then click install and it tells me that it's not compatible with my device. So now I've had to email Sega to see if they will refund the money or agree to upgrading to full version for use on my laptop  with me paying the difference.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Clearly this game is destined to annoy people like me and Orikoru, for him its the frustration of being rubbish , for me its the frustration it doesn't work at all. Just bought and paid for the Touch version to make sure its compatible with my windows tablet, done the activation process then click install and it tells me that it's not compatible with my device. So now I've had to email Sega to see if they will refund the money or agree to upgrading to full version for use on my laptop  with me paying the difference.
		
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Did you get it through Steam? If so, you should be able to login in your laptop and install Touch on there without paying extra. Touch is available across all devices.


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## Wolf (Apr 23, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Did you get it through Steam? If so, you should be able to login in your laptop and install Touch on there without paying extra. Touch is available across all devices.
		
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Yeah i did and its steam telling me its not compatible which is annoying


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Yeah i did and its steam telling me its not compatible which is annoying
		
Click to expand...

Is it saying it's not compatible on your Laptop as well? Well annoying, hopefully Sega will sort it out for you!


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## Wolf (Apr 23, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Is it saying it's not compatible on your Laptop as well? Well annoying, hopefully Sega will sort it out for you!
		
Click to expand...

If I'd load steam through laptop doesn't even give me the option to install, the install button is completely greyed out bloody thing.


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Started my save with the Jan Transfer updates, and nice easy start. Davies, Aurier, Sessegnon and Foyth all injured for between 6 weeks and 4 months, so basically have no wing backs and only £15m to spend. Great stuff. Guess I'm buying Augustinsson 

Click to expand...

Yeah, exactly that. Hence why I blew my budget on De Sciglio last time. I started a new game at lunchtime, as Spurs again because I'm stubborn like that. This time I'm buying Sessegnon's brother Steven, who plays right back. There's a youngster there called Cirkin or something who can cover left back along with Super Jan until Davies gets fit. 

I'm going with the more traditional 4-3-3 type of thing:
Kane (CF-A)
Son (IW-A) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Lucas (W-S)
Lo Celso (AP-S) - Sissoko (Bbm-S)
Dier (DM-D)
leftback (WB-D) - Jan/Sanchez (BPD-D) - Toby (BPD-C) - rightback (WB-S)​
I'm trying to be a bit more solid with the left back on defensive and one of the centre backs on cover so I can go back to playing the high defence line, high line of engagement, plenty of pressing etc. I started with the vertical tiki taka preset but took a few of the setting off so it isn't as limited to just one method of attack time and time again. Only had time for three friendlies so not much to judge on yet. Son did score a goal which is a minor miracle. Can just about get 7 guys on the bench with all the injuries we start off with. 





Dan2501 said:



			No money to improve the squad @Orikoru ? Think you missed a tricking not shifting some of the dead weight early mate. I've made £57m in the first 2 weeks of the window - got £20m for Lamela and then £37m for Sissoko (2 players I was never going to use and have ample backup for) which means I've now got £51m to spend after already bringing in Augustinsson for £7m. Hopefully have Hysaj coming in at RB for £10m, so will have £40-45m left which I'm hoping will be enough to bring in a new backup striker - maybe someone like Edouard or Boadu. Been a productive lunch break 

Click to expand...

Sissoko is absolute fire in the first season though haha, he was banging in screamers for me. I have no idea what Sissoko they watched when they programmed him into the game. I could let Lamela go I suppose, since Bergwijn can play on either side. Bear in mind Parrott is a wonderkid so I wouldn't buy another striker if it's going to limit his game time at all. He did score quite a few in sub appearances for me.


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

TheDiablo said:



			One of my good mates is a massive Wolves fan and I always crushed him when we both played with Wolves.

He was playing it as he thinks they should do in real life whereas I played it as the game if that makes sense. Might be something similar with why you struggle as Spurs

Give Leicester a go. Not sure of initial budget but good starting squad and you can sell Tielemans for a fortune if you need to invest.
		
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That's definitely a fair comment, you can be a bit unconsciously biased towards someone you like in real life and not notice that they have crap stats in the game. But then I did still play Aurier & Foyth quite frequently and I hate both of them.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Sissoko didn't look terrible, but he's 29, not the best attributes, was on a fairly high wage but worth a ridiculously inflated value so only made sense to bin him off. £37m to China was just too good to turn down.

Hysaj is confirmed now, so that's my wing backs sorted. I like Parrot, but he's only 17, can't see him being good enough for regular PL football if Kane was to get injured for a couple of seasons, so going to bring someone in who can fill in and score goals should Kane get injured. Just not sure who yet, been priced out of Boadu and doesn't seem like I'm going to be able to unsettle him, so Edouard from Celtic is looking like the best option unless I splash the cash on Memphis who was awesome for me at PSG. Decisions


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## Orikoru (Apr 23, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Sissoko didn't look terrible, but he's 29, not the best attributes, was on a fairly high wage but worth a ridiculously inflated value so only made sense to bin him off. £37m to China was just too good to turn down.

Hysaj is confirmed now, so that's my wing backs sorted. I like Parrot, but he's only 17, can't see him being good enough for regular PL football if Kane was to get injured for a couple of seasons, so going to bring someone in who can fill in and score goals should Kane get injured. Just not sure who yet, been priced out of Boadu and doesn't seem like I'm going to be able to unsettle him, so Edouard from Celtic is looking like the best option unless I splash the cash on Memphis who was awesome for me at PSG. Decisions 

Click to expand...

Edouard looks good, I was going to get him in my other game if I couldn't get Dembele, but I did in the end. You might be surprised about Parrott though. Depay is more winger than striker isn't he?


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Edouard looks good, I was going to get him in my other game if I couldn't get Dembele, but I did in the end. You might be surprised about Parrott though. Depay is more winger than striker isn't he?
		
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IRL yeah, but I used him at ST or as a number 10 at PSG and he was great. Probably the most effective number 10 I've had this year, although it was in France  Lyon want £75m for him though, so that isn't going to happen unless I try and do £30m up front and then some more cash in installments to get around the lack of transfer budget this window, but either way I won't be paying £75m.


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## TheDiablo (Apr 23, 2020)

Parrott went off to Real Madrid for a good chunk of money on my save - I couldnt give him enough time as Kane was a machine until 33ish


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Should probably keep Parrott around the first-team and give him some game time then  Also finding it tough finding another striker worth the money, and then £65m for Memphis just doesn't seem worth it at the minute. Might end the transfer window with £40m available to spend


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Transfer window's over - couldn't resist splashing the cash. Picked up Ruben Dias from Benfica for £38m - £20m of it up front. I think he was best described on an FM Podcast I semi-regularly listen to as "the Rolls Royce of CB's", he's fantastic. Didn't really need him, but he's as good as you get in terms of CBs on the game so got in early and he'll be worth a fortune in a couple of years. Alderweireld and Vertonghen are both >30 too so makes sense to get another younger lad in, with Dias, Sanchez and Foyth should be sorted for a while.

Then also picked up Mariano on loan from Real with an option to buy. Only added that option so they'd let me have him, won't be activating it unless he's amazing. Looks a solid enough backup striker option should Kane get a bad injury. Wages a bit worrying (£130k a week) but we're still within the wage budget so all good. Squad's looking pretty strong I think.


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## TheDiablo (Apr 23, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Transfer window's over - couldn't resist splashing the cash. Picked up Ruben Dias from Benfica for £38m - £20m of it up front. I think he was best described on an FM Podcast I semi-regularly listen to as "the Rolls Royce of CB's", he's fantastic. Didn't really need him, but he's as good as you get in terms of CBs on the game so got in early and he'll be worth a fortune in a couple of years. Alderweireld and Vertonghen are both >30 too so makes sense to get another younger lad in, with Dias, Sanchez and Foyth should be sorted for a while.

Then also picked up Mariano on loan from Real with an option to buy. Only added that option so they'd let me have him, won't be activating it unless he's amazing. Looks a solid enough backup striker option should Kane get a bad injury. Wages a bit worrying (£130k a week) but we're still within the wage budget so all good. Squad's looking pretty strong I think.
		
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I picked Dias up from Liverpool for about £60m in 2023, played 8 seasons as main CB and captain once Kane retired. Squad option for the last 2 years and retiring at 35 this season. Awesome player. 

If you need a CM look at Camavinga from Rennes.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

TheDiablo said:



			I picked Dias up from Liverpool for about £60m in 2023, played 8 seasons as main CB and captain once Kane retired. Squad option for the last 2 years and retiring at 35 this season. Awesome player.

If you need a CM look at Camavinga from Rennes.
		
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Camavinga's insane, can cost an absolute fortune but so worth it. Another wonderkid I like is Oumar Solet, a CB from Lyon. Doesn't look too amazing at the start of a save but couple of seasons in and he's ridiculous, moved to Barca in a save I had for >£60m and was far and away the best CB in the world.

Dominik Szoboszlai is another I really like, crazy good all around stats, becomes worth a fortune a couple seasons in. Sandro Tonali as well, so many quality CM's on this years game.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 23, 2020)

Ludwig Augustinsson. 3 games, 1 goal, 3 assists, 1 MOTM award, 7.97 average rating. 

Oh, and we have 9 points from 3 games with wins over Everton, Bournemouth (my FM20 bogey team) and Watford. Pretty happy.


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## Orikoru (Apr 24, 2020)

Update: Pre-season seemed to go well. Opening day we then lost 3-0 to Sheff Utd, all the goals in the first half an hour. Fast forward to October, I have switched to something more akin to the Gegenpressing strategy, and the team usually plays well but fails to score. We are in 19th position having won 1, drawn 2 and lost 3. We've scored 3 goals in 6 games. This is actually worse than my first attempt. Results in Europe have been alright, we only lost 2-1 to PSG which I was happy with. I honestly don't have the foggiest clue what you are supposed to do.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 24, 2020)

Can you share a pic of your Gegenpress tactics screen? What tactic are you using? Must be something going wrong with your tactic somewhere, shouldn't have lost 3 out of 6 as Spurs. 

My start was going well, but then lost my last game last night in the CL against Lokamotiv Moscow away 1-0 from a set piece. We were pants, didn't create anything, hardly had a sniff. Frustrating game.


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## Orikoru (Apr 24, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Can you share a pic of your Gegenpress tactics screen? What tactic are you using? Must be something going wrong with your tactic somewhere, shouldn't have lost 3 out of 6 as Spurs.

My start was going well, but then lost my last game last night in the CL against Lokamotiv Moscow away 1-0 from a set piece. We were pants, didn't create anything, hardly had a sniff. Frustrating game.
		
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I've changed it now but from memory I had it as follows...
CF(A)
IW(A) . . . . . . . . . . . . . W(S)
AP(S) - BBM(S)
DM(D)
WB(D) - BPD(D) - BPD(C) - WB(S)
SWK(S/D)​

Attacking against poor teams, Positive against slightly better teams, or Cautious when I think I'm going to get tanked.
Passing was just on standard because whenever I had it on short they just knock it about with 65% possession and don't actually create any chances.
Attacking width I think was standard. Then I made it slightly narrow for a bit.
I had pass into space on at first, but it made our passing terrible with them passing it to literally no one so I turned it off after a while.
Tempo was at the highest setting.
Be more expressive was on I think.
Transition screen - counter-press and counter were both on. 
Distribute to centre backs was on but we conceded about four goals from one of my idiot defenders being dispossessed so I turned that off in the end.
Out of possession - I had to turn the high defensive line back to standard because we would routinely get rinsed by quick forwards - like Lys Mousset.  Defence width standard.
Higher line of engagement I think. Pressing intensity extremely urgent and prevent short goalie distribution.

Right I think that's all I can think of. Honestly I've tried so many combinations now though and none of it works. With this set-up we seemed to play well in a lot of games but we just couldn't score enough goals even with bloody Kane up top! And we leak goals like a sieve.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 24, 2020)

@Orikoru To help prevent the leaking goals - turn tempo down towards the middle, turn counter-press to regroup and I always distribute to wing backs, CB's aren't reliable on the ball, especially when pressed.

I'd stick Kane on Advanced Forward as well, he's been banging the goals in for me. I'd also switch the wing-backs so the LB is on support. With your right-winger set to a Winger there's less need for your rwb to get forward as there will be less space on the wing, however with your LW drifting infield there will be gaps down the left, so you should encourage your LB to get forward as much as possible. 

I'd also consider moving the AP up to CAM as either an AP (S) or an AM (S) - the BBM into LCM and then move the DM up into RCM set to a DLP (D), you'll get less separation between the striker and the midfield but with the DLP on defend you still get decent defensive cover. Also allows either Alli or Lo Celso get into the game more and be more of a creative influence. 

One final thing, try and stick with a set of instructions for a few weeks before changing it again. You should try and imagine how you would feel as a footballer if every single game your manager was trying to get you to do something completely different from the last game, and that's without the necessary training in-place to work on the things you're trying to change, with a hands off approach to training and staff, you need as much consistency in your tactics and instructions as possible. That's difficult when your team isn't performing, but if you've thought about your tactics and are happy with your approach, you should stick with it for a few weeks at least.


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## Orikoru (Apr 24, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



@Orikoru To help prevent the leaking goals - turn tempo down towards the middle, turn counter-press to regroup and I always distribute to wing backs, CB's aren't reliable on the ball, especially when pressed.

*I'd stick Kane on Advanced Forward as well, he's been banging the goals in for me. *I'd also switch the wing-backs so the LB is on support. With your right-winger set to a Winger there's less need for your rwb to get forward as there will be less space on the wing, however with your LW drifting infield there will be gaps down the left, so you should encourage your LB to get forward as much as possible.
*
I'd also consider moving the AP up to CAM as either an AP (S) or an AM (S) - the BBM into LCM and then move the DM up into RCM set to a DLP (D), you'll get less separation between the striker and the midfield but with the DLP on defend you still get decent defensive cover. Also allows either Alli or Lo Celso get into the game more and be more of a creative influence.*

One final thing, try and stick with a set of instructions for a few weeks before changing it again. You should try and imagine how you would feel as a footballer if every single game your manager was trying to get you to do something completely different from the last game, and that's without the necessary training in-place to work on the things you're trying to change, with a hands off approach to training and staff, you need as much consistency in your tactics and instructions as possible. That's difficult when your team isn't performing, but if you've thought about your tactics and are happy with your approach, you should stick with it for a few weeks at least.
		
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Funnily enough, everything in bold there is what I tried on the last two games. I dropped Dier and brought in Ndombele as the DLP(D) next to Sissoko (BBM). And since I had a number 10 now I made Kane an AF.  Telling the LWB to get forward is all well and good, but it's Ben Davies.  I had the right back going forward because Aurier should be more suited to it really. 

I did have those instructions for the first 4 or 5 games before making very small amendments. 

The thing is, it just shouldn't be this hard to get it right. We're talking about small changes here, to make the difference between being 19th in the league and top four?? It doesn't make sense to me. The tactics I had might not have been perfect but you can't tell me they were bad enough to get Spurs relegated!? This is what's doing my head in about the game. It can't be the case that 4-2-3-1 is the only formation that works - if it does even work. 

I made a separate save file before the first league game so I could start again without having the torture of 7 pre-season friendlies with only 15 fit players again - but I'm torn right now between giving it one final go as Spurs or just accepting the fact that they are cursed and trying again with someone else.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 24, 2020)

Think you and Spurs just aren't going to work  

Also, you can get your assistant to manage the friendlies if you don't want to manage them. It's in Staff > Responsibilities. Can get your staff to do as much or as little as you want them to. I tend to let my staff take control of friendlies, tactical briefings, staff contract renewals and general training (I manage the individual training).


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## Orikoru (Apr 24, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Think you and Spurs just aren't going to work 

Also, you can get your assistant to manage the friendlies if you don't want to manage them. It's in Staff > Responsibilities. Can get your staff to do as much or as little as you want them to. I tend to let my staff take control of friendlies, tactical briefings, staff contract renewals and general training (I manage the individual training).
		
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Yeah but I figured I would use them to try out my tactics. We seemed to play well in them too so the game was just setting me up to fall flat on my face.  I do have them doing most of the other stuff.


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## Wolf (Apr 24, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Yeah but I figured I would use them to try out my tactics. We seemed to play well in them too so the game was just setting me up to fall flat on my face.  I do have them doing most of the other stuff.
		
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Sounds like you need a break from Spurs 
Finally got mine working last night obviously playing as Arsenal, first thing I managed to do was offload Ozil for big money alone with Mustafi and Kolasinac to bolster the transfer kitty.  Then signed Augustinsson at LB plus  youngster Naci Univar, Maarten Vandervoort & Jude Bellingham. Plus I've a deal agreed and signed for Camavinga.

current Line up is

                                      Leno 
                         Luiz                    Mari
        Bellerin                                         Augustinsson

                     Torreira             Xhaka

                                Ceballos
Pepe                                                       Aubamayang
                             LAcazette

5 games in to season Laca is banging in goals, Ceballos is MoM pretty much every game, Augustinsson has 2 goals and 2 assist. Bellingham as a sub is knocking out great stats, Univar has 2 goals from the bench . Mari is outstanding at CB, yet Torriera has 3 own goals . Drew with Newcastle, Destroyed Burnley & norwich, drew with SOuthamton and got destroyed by Chelsea


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## Dan2501 (Apr 24, 2020)

Nice work @Wolf bringing in the main man Augustinsson  He's got 5 assists in 7 for me now, average rating of 7.81. How much did Bellingham set you back? Never bought him myself but have either seen him stay very meh in terms of attributes or become fantastic.

@Orikoru Have you invaded my save and taken over United?  I've just beaten them 1-0 to keep them in 16th place with 2 wins and 5 defeats in 7. Ole might not be at the wheel for much longer. Bloody Liverpool look like they're going to run away with it. Won 6, drawn 1 (we've won 5, drawn 2), they've scored 18 goals in 7 games and they've already beaten City, Chelsea, United and Arsenal. They're winning the league.


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## Wolf (Apr 24, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Nice work @Wolf bringing in the main man Augustinsson  He's got 5 assists in 7 for me now, average rating of 7.81. How much did Bellingham set you back? Never bought him myself but have either seen him stay very meh in terms of attributes or become fantastic.

@Orikoru Have you invaded my save and taken over United?  I've just beaten them 1-0 to keep them in 16th place with 2 wins and 5 defeats in 7. Ole might not be at the wheel for much longer. Bloody Liverpool look like they're going to run away with it. Won 6, drawn 1 (we've won 5, drawn 2), they've scored 18 goals in 7 games and they've already beaten City, Chelsea, United and Arsenal. They're winning the league.
		
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Augustinsson is averaging 7.36 for me so solid every game and after 12 games has 3 goals & 9 assists.

Bellingham cost me £18m but is performing well for a 16 year old at 7.5 average and 3 goals in 8 appearance in league plus 2 in 2 in Europe. Nketiah also doing well playing as a sub has 6 goals. Biggest surprises are Laca with 16 goals and Ceballos with an average performance of 7.92  though Auba is shocking average 6.07 & only 1 goal.

Consistency is a pain in the rear end though as a team. Got smashed by Chelsea & Watford, drew 3-3 with Utd, was 3-0 up against spurs and lost 5-3. Am currently 4th in league only 4 points off top spot but according to board I'm underachieving and in trouble.


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## Orikoru (Apr 24, 2020)

Over my self-awarded lunch break I started a new save as Chelsea. I figured they're a similar level to Spurs so a bit of an experiment. In the game they are more similar than I realised - the board have the exact same expectations, half my squad are injured again, and I can't buy anyone! 

I set it up in a 4-2-3-1 similar to how we discussed earlier:
AF(A)
IW(A) - AM(S) - W(S)
DLP(D) - BBM(S)
WB(S) - CD(D) - BPD(C) - WB(S)​Raced through the friendlies, 'instant resulted' the last three to get to the first league game, where we dominated Everton to win 3-1 (their goal was a consolation). Jorginho and Kante are an incredible midfield pairing, and Mason Mount seems to be awesome as well. That settles it anyway, Spurs are bloody cursed. (Incidentally Spurs won their first game of the season 5-0 against Villa, playing 4-2-3-1. So it looks like 4-2-3-1 is literally the only formation that works at the moment.)

Main dilemma is who to play up front, Abraham and Batshuayi both seem to be on a very similar level. Giroud is not in the picture, he can only play as targetman on support - pretty inflexible really.


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## Orikoru (Apr 24, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Augustinsson is averaging 7.36 for me so solid every game and after 12 games has 3 goals & 9 assists.

Bellingham cost me £18m but is performing well for a 16 year old at 7.5 average and 3 goals in 8 appearance in league plus 2 in 2 in Europe. Nketiah also doing well playing as a sub has 6 goals. Biggest surprises are Laca with 16 goals and Ceballos with an average performance of 7.92  though Auba is shocking average 6.07 & only 1 goal.

Consistency is a pain in the rear end though as a team. Got smashed by Chelsea & Watford, drew 3-3 with Utd, was 3-0 up against spurs and lost 5-3. Am currently 4th in league only 4 points off top spot but according to board I'm underachieving and in trouble.
		
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This Augustinsson must be some sort of cheat player, I scouted him in one save and I'm sure they only rated him as a bog standard 3* left back with no improvement on the horizon, lol.

I think the expectations are daft in this game really. In real life the Arsenal board wouldn't be unhappy with 4th. In my first Spurs save I was expected to get to the Champs League quarters, I managed it, then got knocked out narrowly by Real Madrid, and the board were still in a mood about it! In this Chelsea save one of their expectations was to reach the FA Cup final - minimum requirement. As well as balancing top four and Champs League quarter finals? On your bike lads.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 24, 2020)

Augustinsson just has really solid attributes in all the areas you need for a decent attacking LB. Great crossing, decent passing, can tackle, really good mentals, gets assists from set pieces, scores free-kicks and is solid defensively. He's never going to be rated mega high by scouts (Also the scout ratings are a comparison with your current squad - 3* will be about on par with what you already have, so PL level if you have reasonable LB's already) as his Current Ability in the DB is only between 130-140 but he performs in-game better than any LB I've used, Ait-Nouri's the only one that comes close.

Jorginho is fantastic on FM. Has all the attributes to be the best DLP on the game, I've had scouts at big clubs come back and recommend him with a 100 rating, one of few players I've seen rated consistently that highly by scouts. Every single attribute you need to be a DLP he excels in, he's so good.

Just realised Spurs have £243m in the bank. Come on Daniel lad, loosen them purse strings.


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## Orikoru (Apr 24, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Augustinsson just has really solid attributes in all the areas you need for a decent attacking LB. Great crossing, decent passing, can tackle, really good mentals, gets assists from set pieces, scores free-kicks and is solid defensively. He's never going to be rated mega high by scouts (Also the scout ratings are a comparison with your current squad -* 3* will be about on par with what you already have*, so PL level if you have reasonable LB's already) as his Current Ability in the DB is only between 130-140 but he performs in-game better than any LB I've used, Ait-Nouri's the only one that comes close.

Jorginho is fantastic on FM. Has all the attributes to be the best DLP on the game, I've had scouts at big clubs come back and recommend him with a 100 rating, one of few players I've seen rated consistently that highly by scouts. Every single attribute you need to be a DLP he excels in, he's so good.
		
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That only makes him as good as Ben Davies! Haha. That's in the past now anyway.

Yeah Jorginho seems pretty key to the whole set-up at the moment, and with Kante as well, pretty strong. Kovacic is a pretty good back-up as well. It's a shame that almost all of my wingers are injured and my strikers and defenders are mediocre.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 24, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			That only makes him as good as Ben Davies! Haha. That's in the past now anyway.

Yeah Jorginho seems pretty key to the whole set-up at the moment, and with Kante as well, pretty strong. Kovacic is a pretty good back-up as well. It's a shame that almost all of my wingers are injured and my strikers and defenders are mediocre.
		
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To be fair, he probably has a very similar Current and Potential ability to Davies, it's just his stats are in better places for him to perform well in the match engine. Davies isn't horrendous on FM either, could be re-trained into a pretty handy centre half I reckon - I might try that  His lowest stat currently that relates to a BPD is 11 (concentration) other than that he looks decent - 15 tackling, 13 marking, 14 for heading, decisions, anticipation, passing, positioning and strength. He then has 18 bravery and a really strong work rate so he'll work hard to re-train, this is becoming a thing, lets make Ben Davies a top centre back 

Yeah, Chelsea have a pretty strong side on FM. Reece James becomes a superb RB, Tomori has a ton of potential, I've had success with Mount at Leipzig, you've got Billy Gilmour coming through, and Hudson-Odoi is unreal. Had him when I managed England and he was brilliant, kept Sterling out of the side.


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## Orikoru (Apr 24, 2020)

My great start didn't last long, after the first game we had the Super Cup against Liverpool. I told the press it was a pointless game, and my players responded in kind, losing 5-0. Next game City away in the league. Thought we played well but they just walk through us and score whenever they like - another 5-0 loss. Ten goals in two games, pretty impressive really.


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## Orikoru (Apr 25, 2020)

This game is stupid. I was doing well with Chelsea, won three games in a row all with clean sheets, had crept into the top 4. Then we lose 4-0 to Sheffield. WTF? What is it with them? God this drives me mad.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 25, 2020)

It is dumb, you get some weird results. I was on a good run, then randomly lost 5-0 to Villa. They went 2-0 up so I went mega attacking and conceded the last 3 in the last 10 mins 

Doing alright still though. 2nd in the league after 12 games, 8 wins, 3 draws, one defeat. 7 points behind Liverpool though, so it's a battle for 2nd place between us, City and Arsenal at the minute. CL not going great, 2 draws from 4 games, only 1 win, need to win our last 2 games and hope either Bayern or Galatasaray slip up.


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## Wolf (Apr 25, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			This game is stupid. I was doing well with Chelsea, won three games in a row all with clean sheets, had crept into the top 4. Then we lose 4-0 to Sheffield. WTF? What is it with them? God this drives me mad.
		
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I agree bloody stupid game, I'm 2/3 through the season 4th in league still only 2pts off 2nd spot, scored more goals than anyone else in my last 6 games I've beaten City, Utd, Everton, Liverpool drew with Spurs then got hammered 4-0 by Palace🙄. Have a 100% win record in Europa League so far yet the board are unhappy and are considering my position as they're not sure im suitable and up to the job. 🤷🏻‍♂️


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## Orikoru (Apr 25, 2020)

I absolutely can't wait for the transfer window. Tammy Abraham is awful! We're in 6th after 15 games, I'm quite happy with that, but we've only scored 17 goals and our goal difference is -1! If we don't win it's often because we had 20 shots and only managed one goal from a corner or a penalty. Tammy does have 4 league goals now, but for a long time he only had 1, he's only just hit a small patch of form recently. Batshuayi is just as bad and wasn't able to displace him for long. I have £130m budget waiting for me!  I'm thinking Haaland or Lautaro Martinez.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 25, 2020)

Just got to the 1st of Jan here. 2nd in the league, 8 points behind Liverpool but playing them now so could do with a result. Topped the CL group with wins over Lokomotiv and Bayern to finish the campaign. Us beating Bayern knocked them out as well, with Galatasaray going through in 2nd. Into the Semi's of the Carabao as well, although we've got City so not feeling thankful.

Levy surprised me and out of the blue provided a boost to the transfer funds, so have £65m to spend in Jan + Vertonghen's on his way out so should have £80m to spend. Looking at Cengiz Under to provide a bit more cover at RW as apart from 4 goals in 1 match in the CL, Moura's been rubbish. Either gonna bring Under in or maybe Gnabry or Chiesa if they're not crazy expensive.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 26, 2020)

Jan done, transfer window done. A very realistic Spurs transfer window with £124m spent  Ended up bringing in Gnabry for £58m and then did a deal with Bournemouth to bring Lewis Cook in - £20m up front with £40m in instalments. Seems a lot of money but he becomes probably the best English DLP so will end up being a good deal I think, I've seen his value go north of £60m on a couple of saves. Couple of guys were sold as well - Vertonghen went to Everton for £16m and Dier (as he was replaced by Cook) went to Ajax for £27m. Net spend for the window of £81m, so quite a bit but couple of quality players in, Gnabry's already been excellent and a big improvement on Lucas. Still have £172m in the bank too, so finances still in a very healthy position.

Still 2nd in the league. Pretty securely in the top 4 - 5 points clear of City but Chelsea and Arsenal are fairly close behind me in 3rd and 4th. Play all 4 of the other top 5 in our last 14 games, so those matches will decide our league position. Not catching Liverpool though unless they have a major slip-up. They've only lost once, 20 wins from 25, 11 points clear but I've got a game in hand. Title very much theirs to lose.


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## Orikoru (Apr 26, 2020)

I've actually hit form on my game. We've won 8 of our last 9 games and kept 7 clean sheets. Weirdly the clean sheets have coincided with my bringing Christensen in for Tomori, I thought they were a similar level, but obviously Christensen just works better with the rest of the back four I guess. Our last game was a 2-0 win at Old Trafford that takes us up to 3rd. City and Liverpool are a good 12 points ahead in the top two positions though so I can't see us catching them, just need to hold onto the top four. Most excitingly the Jan window is about to open and I have big plans. 

Finally enjoying the game though anyway. It turns out Spurs are just crap.


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## Wolf (Apr 26, 2020)

Who set the board expectations on this poxy game. Pre season expectations qualify for champions league, so with 5 games left of season im in 4th spot 7pts ahead of 5th with a game in hand im in the semi of the Europa league, basically in final as I won 1st leg away from home 3-0. Club has bundles in the bank where I've saved a fortune and we're top scorers in league. So what happens after I just drew 1-1  with Liverpool who have basically won the league,  I get the sack because the board think I'm underachieving 😒


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## Dan2501 (Apr 26, 2020)

Not surprised you decided against playing with wingers @Orikoru. I have no idea why, but Son and Moura are dreadful on this game. Son is the bigger surprise for me, he's been awesome IRL for a couple of seasons but on FM he's dreadful. Attributes look alright, decent in all the right areas, should be one of the best LW's in the league but he's shocking. Guessing 13 and 12 crossing for the two of them is the issue. Moura has 0 goals, 2 assists in 22 PL appearances, Son has 3 goals, 2 assists in 28. Gnabry has played 10 and already has 3 assists and 2 goals. So he's going to end up playing half a season and getting more goals and assists than the pair of them combined. Ludwig Augustinsson has 3 goals and 9 PL assists, so miles ahead of the pair of them combined. Shocking. They're both going in the summer and gonna bring in new wingers, move Gnabry to the left and bring in Sancho is the plan.


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## Orikoru (Apr 26, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Who set the board expectations on this poxy game. Pre season expectations qualify for champions league, so with 5 games left of season im in 4th spot 7pts ahead of 5th with a game in hand im in the semi of the Europa league, basically in final as I won 1st leg away from home 3-0. Club has bundles in the bank where I've saved a fortune and we're top scorers in league. So what happens after I just drew 1-1  with Liverpool who have basically won the league,  I get the sack because the board think I'm underachieving 😒
		
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That is completely ridiculous. I'd be using the old trick of adding a new manager as the same club to carry on. 



Dan2501 said:



			Not surprised you decided against playing with wingers @Orikoru. I have no idea why, but Son and Moura are dreadful on this game. Son is the bigger surprise for me, he's been awesome IRL for a couple of seasons but on FM he's dreadful. Attributes look alright, decent in all the right areas, should be one of the best LW's in the league but he's shocking. Guessing 13 and 12 crossing for the two of them is the issue. Moura has 0 goals, 2 assists in 22 PL appearances, Son has 3 goals, 2 assists in 28. Gnabry has played 10 and already has 3 assists and 2 goals. So he's going to end up playing half a season and getting more goals and assists than the pair of them combined. Ludwig Augustinsson has 3 goals and 9 PL assists, so miles ahead of the pair of them combined. Shocking. They're both going in the summer and gonna bring in new wingers, move Gnabry to the left and bring in Sancho is the plan.
		
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Yeah, honestly, Son and Lucas were like a couple of Lord Lucans. Like playing with nine men! I thought Son would be immense but no. In my current game Willian has just banged a hat-trick against Sheff Utd, if Willian can perform but Son and Lucas can't then something's up. 

This is amazingly cathartic actually, Sheff have been my bogey team as mentioned in here a couple of times, but we're smashing them 5-1 by half time now! I've signed Lautaro Martinez and Memphis Depay to add to my attacking options (although Lautaro is off on international duty for this game). I've got Luca Pellegrini arriving next year to take over at left back, and I'm about to sign the wonderkid keeper Vandevoordt, because Caballero is old and leaving anyway. Oh and Ziyech is arriving next year as well as per real life (I didn't sign him, it was already set to happen). Lovely stuff.


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## Stuart_C (Apr 26, 2020)

jobr1850 said:



			If anyone has some serious feedback ideas for Football manager, look up Miles from sports interactive on twitter.
he is the main man at SI.

He is a friend, and a great guy, will always take constructive feedback on the game.
		
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can I name drop??


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## Orikoru (Apr 26, 2020)

jobr1850 said:



			If anyone has some serious feedback ideas for Football manager, look up Miles from sports interactive on twitter.
he is the main man at SI.

He is a friend, and a great guy, will always take constructive feedback on the game.
		
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Can you ask him why he made Heung-Min Son total crap on the game?


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Think I might be joining you in the sacked club  Went to Juve with a 2-0 advantage after the home leg, lost 6-0 - was the Ronaldo show, he scored 4. Then in the league we're down to 4th, 6 points behind Chelsea who we play next. Arsenal are 4 points behind us in 5th but have a game in hand, so lose to Chelsea and we could drop to 5th. This has turned into an utter shitshow, proper bottled the season after a promising start. Chelsea and Arsenal still to play, so chance to turn it around, we have to finish in the top 4 or I'm done for. Spurs are cursed on FM


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Think I might be joining you in the sacked club  Went to Juve with a 2-0 advantage after the home leg, lost 6-0 - was the Ronaldo show, he scored 4. Then in the league we're down to 4th, 6 points behind Chelsea who we play next. Arsenal are 4 points behind us in 5th but have a game in hand, so lose to Chelsea and we could drop to 5th. This has turned into an utter shitshow, proper bottled the season after a promising start. Chelsea and Arsenal still to play, so chance to turn it around, we have to finish in the top 4 or I'm done for. Spurs are cursed on FM 

Click to expand...

No I think that's just the game. My game went full retard last night as well. Everything was going great, we beat PSG 2-0 in the away leg of the last 16 and beat Wolves in the FA Cup 5th round. We were comfortable in the top four. Then suddenly I didn't win for 9 games. Lost the home leg 2-0 against PSG and out on pens. Drew against Southampton, Norwich, Villa & Bournemouth(who had ten men) - couldn't buy a win. That put us down to about 7th so I was on the verge of the sack. I just didn't bother saving it though because it was so stupid. I know in the full game other teams learn your tactics or whatever, but this is the Touch version I'm playing, surely they shouldn't suss you out before the end of the first season?? And I do change the mentality, and tweak the passing/tempo etc depending on who we're playing, it's just the shape and most of the roles that stay the same. There's just no reason why a good-performing team should suddenly turn to piss overnight.

Anyway like I said, I only save the game after a win just to guard against anything stupid like this ruining my game.  So I'll be going back to the point where we'd just beaten Wolves in the cup - I'll probably not do much different the second time around so we'll see if it is just random or not. I think I need to sign up to an FM forum to find out what's really going on with this daft game.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

My game has turned around after the Juve hammering. Beat Chelsea 3-0 after totally dominating the game, didn't give them a sniff, then smashed Palace 5-0 (Kane scored 4) and then beat Watford away. While I've done that, Arsenal lost to Villa, City dropped points against United and Chelsea lost to Liverpool so after feeling like I could finish outside top 4 I'm now level with Chelsea in 2nd again. These are the fixtures remaining:

Chelsea (79pts): Sheff Utd (H), Arsenal (A)
Spurs (79pts): Arsenal (H), Sheff Utd (A)
City (78pts): Liverpool (H), Wolves (A) + they have a CL Semi 2nd leg to play
Arsenal (69pts): Southampton (H), United (A), Spurs (A), Chelsea (H)

Pretty exciting finish, and quite cool that the two teams tied for 2nd have identical finishing fixtures


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

We did it! Beat Arsenal 2-1, Sheffield United 2-0. City and Chelsea both dropped points so we secured 2nd place which should keep me in a job. Top 4 was filled out with City and Chelsea. Liverpool won the league by 12 points   Initial budget of next season set for £65m. Will be more when I sell Son and Moura, and need more so I can bring in some actual quality on the wings. Not the best first season, no trophies (although Spurs are used to that) but happy with 2nd in the league.

Also Augustinsson, Dias and Ndombele made the PL Team of the Year. Augustinsson also won Fans Player of the Year and Signing of the Season. What a man.


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

My signings have mostly been pants. Depay was so poor he lost his place to Hudson-Odoi. Lautaro only managed about 4 goals in 15 games and 2 of them were penalties. I did manage to get Kai Havertz on deadline day, and he was decent, but given how highly rated he was I expected him to be world class, but he was no more than decent really.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Unsurprisingly no-one is interested in signing Lucas. Got a couple of clubs interested in Son but doubt they'll be offering £50m for him, which is his asking price. 

Sancho's just joined. £45m up front, £45m over instalments. Love using instalments to get big players  Just leaves me with basically no money to improve elsewhere until I sell some guys. Annoyingly had a £22m offer for Skipp which I accepted but he rejected a move to Norwich . That would have been a nice little boost in funds.


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Unsurprisingly no-one is interested in signing Lucas. Got a couple of clubs interested in Son but doubt they'll be offering £50m for him, which is his asking price.

Sancho's just joined. £45m up front, £45m over instalments. Love using instalments to get big players  Just leaves me with basically no money to improve elsewhere until I sell some guys. Annoyingly had a £22m offer for Skipp which I accepted but he rejected a move to Norwich . That would have been a nice little boost in funds.
		
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I believe Skipp is classed as a wonderkid if you can find any minutes for him. Probably takes too long to improve though. Problem is you can't afford them too many minutes when you're competing for top four.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I believe Skipp is classed as a wonderkid if you can find any minutes for him. Probably takes too long to improve though. Problem is you can't afford them too many minutes when you're competing for top four.
		
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Must have a random PA - not a wonderkid for me, looks pretty pants tbh. Have offered him out and had an offer from Leicester worth £15m, so will take that and hope he leaves this time  Trying to also get rid of Rose, Walker-Pieters and Carter-Vickers to try and free up some wage bill and boost the funds. Never going to use any of them. Might try and bin off Aurier as well, but imagine he'll have a right paddy 

Picked up Everton Soares for £25.5m, so my wingers are sorted now - have Gnabry, Sancho, Everton and Bergwijn, should be a very tidy improvement on last season. Squad's looking pretty good:

Keepers - Lloris and Gazzaniga
RBs - Hysaj and Aurier
CBs - Dias, Sanchez, Alderweireld and Davies
LBs - Augustinsson and Davies
CMs - Ndombele, Cook, Winks, Lo Celso
RWs - Sancho, Gnabry, Everton
LWs - Gnabry, Everton, Bergwijn
CAMs - Alli, Lo Celso
ST - Kane, Parrott

Will need a new RB if Aurier ends up leaving but other than that I'm pretty happy, could maybe do with another CM, maybe a wonderkid, will see who I can find.


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

I suspect with Skipp he's at that age where you have to play him a lot straight away for him to hit the potential. But no one's really going to do that as Spurs, it'll be if you're lower down the league and you can buy him off them.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

United just bid £75m for Lo Celso after selling Pogba to PSG. I rejected and now he wants to double his wages. Great. Thanks Solskjaer.

Huh, nice, just realised Gedson's in on a 2 year loan. Don't need to buy another CM after all. Result.


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## Wolf (Apr 27, 2020)

I took being sacked by Arsenal on the chin after my sacking they somehow got knocked out of  Europa league semi depsite a 3-0 away goal advantage and they did finish 4th. However i couldn't get another Prem Job so dropped division and joined Southampton who had been relegated. Just coming upto Christmas and sitting top of the league but have got a woeful defence so despite having probably the best front 3 in division I can only really play Ings because i have to back load my defence and midfield. 

Only got a 2.9m budget for upcoming window so some wheeler dealing is going to be needed.


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

On my reloaded second attempt at our second leg with PSG, we scored twice in the first 5 minutes and went through comfortably 4-0 on aggregate. Am now totally convinced the game is pretty much random, and it's going to be better for my sanity to think of it that way anyway.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

Did you guys manage any free transfers first season?

i always sign Sergio Reguilon From Seville. I’m guessing if you always sign Augustinsson then probably not, but he’s a great option. Valued about 30m so even if it’s just to sell second season it’s a good bit of business.


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			Did you guys manage any free transfers first season?

i always sign Sergio Reguilon From Seville. I’m guessing if you always sign Augustinsson then probably not, but he’s a great option. Valued about 30m so even if it’s just to sell second season it’s a good bit of business.
		
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I did a search and couldn't see any worthwhile ones. I considered Kurzawa and James Rodriguez, but both wanted absolutely enormous wages and I didn't think either would be first choice so it wasn't worth it.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I did a search and couldn't see any worthwhile ones. I considered Kurzawa and James Rodriguez, but both wanted absolutely enormous wages and I didn't think either would be first choice so it wasn't worth it.
		
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At the start of a season I always check those expiring in a year and then put em on wanted list. Some values drop massively on 6months. So don't necessarily know who's the best profit makers if only looking in Jan.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			Did you guys manage any free transfers first season?

i always sign Sergio Reguilon From Seville. I’m guessing if you always sign Augustinsson then probably not, but he’s a great option. Valued about 30m so even if it’s just to sell second season it’s a good bit of business.
		
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Reguilon's only on loan at Sevilla isn't he? Never seen him available on a free in my game - signed a new deal with Real in May of 2018 until 2023 in my save  

I always have a look, never much that takes my fancy in the 1st season except signing Matuidi on occasion, was really good for my United team for the 2 seasons I was there. Always keep an eye on it though in-case someone decent becomes available.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

I’ve signed him every season lol

may we’ll be that he’s on loan at Seville with contract expiring. Not sure. But I’ve been planning the latest update


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

That's so weird, he signed a contract extension with Real IRL before moving to Sevilla on loan. What update are you using?


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			That's so weird, he signed a contract extension with Real IRL before moving to Sevilla on loan. What update are you using?
		
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Latest patch. Signed him on both handheld and full version....


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Huh, yeah, on the FM Scout DB they have his contract expiring at the end of the season, no idea why I've never seen him go on a free. I'm gutted I've never been able to sign him on a free, he looks bloody handy for free  

Sales have started to come in now. Walker-Pieters gone, Rose gone, Carter-Vickers gone, Son gone, Aurier gone, Skipp gone. Transfer budget is back up to £65m and wage bill back looking healthy. Need to find a wonderkid RB now.


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Huh, yeah, on the FM Scout DB they have his contract expiring at the end of the season, no idea why I've never seen him go on a free. I'm gutted I've never been able to sign him on a free, he looks bloody handy for free 

Sales have started to come in now. Walker-Pieters gone, Rose gone, Carter-Vickers gone, Son gone, Aurier gone, Skipp gone. Transfer budget is back up to £65m and wage bill back looking healthy. Need to find a wonderkid RB now.
		
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Max Aarons?


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

think I’m gonna give the spurs season a bash. 

you’re both still just in touch right?


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			think I’m gonna give the spurs season a bash.

you’re both still just in touch right?
		
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Yeah there's no way in hell I'd buy the full game. Think Dan has full game though. 

I'm kind of tempted to revisit Spurs at some point but again that's just my niggly stubbornness I think. Really I'd be better with a side that has no expectations at all.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

£20m

Levy you tight git!


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			£20m

Levy you tight git!
		
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At the start?? I only got 15 or 16, are you sure you're playing the right game??


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			At the start?? I only got 15 or 16, are you sure you're playing the right game??
		
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Adjusted the wage budget. Its maxed at 20m but pennies for wages. 

So sure its the same.


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			Adjusted the wage budget. Its maxed at 20m but pennies for wages.

So sure its the same.
		
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Oh yeah good shout, forgot about that. So I guess you're looking at right backs like the rest of us had to?


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Oh yeah good shout, forgot about that. So I guess you're looking at right backs like the rest of us had to? 

Click to expand...

Not yet. 

My formation uses defensive inverted fullbacks. Aren't many descend in the game. But it's about functionality. So a decent cb can do it to


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			Not yet.

My formation uses defensive inverted fullbacks. Aren't many descend in the game. But it's about functionality. So a decent cb can do it to
		
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Inverted full backs eh? Settle down, Pep.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Inverted full backs eh? Settle down, Pep. 

Click to expand...

First game agaisnt Saints and I'm putting a right mix of players together. How many injuries can one squad get 😂😂


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## Orikoru (Apr 27, 2020)

Yeah the injuries are a proper ball-ache. I was talking to my mate about it actually, I think it's stupid that they update it to real life injuries, but give you them all at the beginning of the season instead. And give you the players signed in January at the beginning of the season. It doesn't really make sense to me. That's not realistic either way so you might as well keep the injuries random rather than replicate the real ones but at the wrong time. And another thing while I'm ranting, why not let you recall the loans at the beginning?? Rose and Walker-Peters would have been handy back-up to start with.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			think I’m gonna give the spurs season a bash.

you’re both still just in touch right?
		
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I'm full game, I've put 500+ hours into every FM since FM13, definitely prefer the full version  Wolf and Orikoru are on Touch.

Thrown a few bids out for RBs. Max Aarons, Reece James, Nordi Mukiele and then Dalot on loan as a last resort. Would like Aarons but if he's £50+ I'll go Mukiele who was superb for my RB Leipzig team and is more than capable at playing CB.

Levy's tight at the start of the game, but I just sold Lamela and Sissoko to boost the funds. Then he's given me two £60m fund boosts since then, so he gets better. Spurs have some of the healthiest finances in the game. SO much money in the bank.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 27, 2020)

Mukiele is an awesome signing. Dalot works well for me as he can play in all 4 positions on the sides as inverted wingback of defensive wingers.

I'm doing spurs on touch as too deep into my Saints save to wanna get a spurs one going.

Think my record was 1100 hours one year. Played it almost every shift for about 10 hours. Only time I've managed 30 seasons and had stadium built and named after me lol


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Norwich want £82m for Aarons. Jog on lads. Mukiele it is.

English clubs going big this summer. Dybala's gone to City for £95m, Milinkovic-Savic has joined Chelsea for £87m, we've signed Sancho for £90m, Arsenal signed Tah for £65m, United have signed Bailey and de Vrij for £133m, only Liverpool who are yet to make a big signing. PSG have also spent £252m on Pogba, Icardi, Dest and Grimaldo :O


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Couldn't get Aarons, or James, or Mukiele, or Odriozola, so I got Daniel's cheque book out and went big, I went and got Kimmich  Figured we had a ton of money to spend and wage budget free, and if we're going to compete for the title we need players like Kimmich. Incredible all around stats, can play RB or at DM/CM if needed, going to be a real boost I reckon.


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## TheDiablo (Apr 27, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Couldn't get Aarons, or James, or Mukiele, or Odriozola, so I got Daniel's cheque book out and went big, I went and got Kimmich  Figured we had a ton of money to spend and wage budget free, and if we're going to compete for the title we need players like Kimmich. Incredible all around stats, can play RB or at DM/CM if needed, going to be a real boost I reckon.
		
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I took over Spurs when 3 seasons in and Kimmich was my first signing. Played him as a hugely attacking full back. Immense!


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## Dan2501 (Apr 27, 2020)

Levy, what a great guy. Realised De Gea was on the transfer list so interacted with the board asked them to hook me up and to my surprise, they did. So we now have De Gea as well 

Strongest XI now looking very strong indeed:

De Gea

Kimmich
Sanchez
Dias
Augustinsson

Cook
Ndombele

Sancho
Dele
Gnabry

Kane

Started strong too. 5-1 win over Villa followed by a 4-1 win over Bournemouth. Only concern is conceding early goals. Conceded in the first 10 mins in both games, both real sloppy goals to concede. Hope that doesn't continue. Going forward we look deadly though. Already goals for Gnabry, Sancho, Dele and Kane, early signs are very promising, but they should be, we've spent a fortune.


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## Wolf (Apr 27, 2020)

Well just won the Championship with Southampton with a make shift team and load of loan signings thanks to being given a pre season budget of 2.9m. Star signing was Bukayo Saka from Arsenal on loan only had him since start of January but he won young player of season, 12 assists and 7 goals.  Other loan signings that have played a blinder are Eddie Woan (Chelsea), Gaston Castro (Lazio).. 

Still had to back load Defence & Midfield playing a single striker because just couldn't keep a clean sheet. We lined up like this:

Forster

O'Connor
Vestegaard
Bednarek
Cedric

Saka
Ward-Prowse
Romeu
Reed
Didavi

Ings. 

Now we've been promoted I've been given the money from the sale of Redmond  and not a lot else been targeted with top half finish andna Cup run on a budget of 35m but also told to cut wage bill.


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## Orikoru (Apr 28, 2020)

Just finished the first season as Chelsea. On the last day, us Spurs & Utd all had 70 points but their goal difference was better - Arsenal were in 3rd on 72. We won but sadly so did Utd so we've finished 5th. I'm happy with that, but the board aren't particularly. They've not sacked me though. I've just gone through the reserves and transfer listed about 12 wastes of space who are about to come back off loan. We were paying Drinkwater 120 grand for God's sake! There's going to be a big shake-up around here.

Somehow Willian was second top scorer in the league! He only got 16. Haha.

Edit: 183 mil to spend... hmmmm who's next I wonder.


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## Orikoru (Apr 28, 2020)

Had a productive window already and it's only July still. I decided to go big on defence and bought Zagadou and Upamecano! Signed Zaniolo to take Willian's place on the right - although Wils was by best player last season, he's also 31 now and this is FM-land so that makes him at death's door. I've loaned out my wonderkid keeper Vandevoordt to Watford where he'll be first choice for the season, and loaned in a different wonderkid keeper in Lunin from Real Madrid as back-up to Kepa. I also had Pellegrini (left back) arriving from a deal conducted in January, and Ziyech arrives as another midfield option. Happy days. I'm desperately trying to offload all that dead wood (Drinkwater, Barkley, Bakayoko, Rahman, Miazga, the list is endless). If I make any decent money I may consider getting another striker to switch with Lautaro, as Tammy did ok in the end but I'm sick of watching pathetically tap good chances to the goalkeeper.


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## Dan2501 (Apr 28, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Had a productive window already and it's only July still. I decided to go big on defence and bought Zagadou and Upamecano! Signed Zaniolo to take Willian's place on the right - although Wils was by best player last season, he's also 31 now and this is FM-land so that makes him at death's door. I've loaned out my wonderkid keeper Vandevoordt to Watford where he'll be first choice for the season, and loaned in a different wonderkid keeper in Lunin from Real Madrid as back-up to Kepa. I also had Pellegrini (left back) arriving from a deal conducted in January, and Ziyech arrives as another midfield option. Happy days. I'm desperately trying to offload all that dead wood (Drinkwater, Barkley, Bakayoko, Rahman, Miazga, the list is endless). If I make any decent money I may consider getting another striker to switch with Lautaro, as Tammy did ok in the end but I'm sick of watching pathetically tap good chances to the goalkeeper.
		
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Upamecano's a great signing, really good CB, one of the best on the game this year. Does Zaniolo have the attributes to be a quality RW? I've always seen him as more of an attacking CM or CAM  Pellegrini's a good signing as well, really good LB. Zagadou was fantastic last year but doesn't seem to develop as well on this years game, reliant on a lot of first-team experience to really develop but his starting attributes aren't really good enough for a top team.

As for strikers - loads of guys you could look at - Boadu, Esposito, Gouiri, Pellegri, Guebbels, Lazaro, Abel Ruiz, Koita, Brobbey, Fabio Silva and Arp are all high potential wonderkids you could look at, all would be really good backup options to Lautaro.


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## Orikoru (Apr 28, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Upamecano's a great signing, really good CB, one of the best on the game this year. Does Zaniolo have the attributes to be a quality RW? I've always seen him as more of an attacking CM or CAM  Pellegrini's a good signing as well, really good LB. Zagadou was fantastic last year but doesn't seem to develop as well on this years game, reliant on a lot of first-team experience to really develop but his starting attributes aren't really good enough for a top team.

As for strikers - loads of guys you could look at - Boadu, Esposito, Gouiri, Pellegri, Guebbels, Lazaro, Abel Ruiz, Koita, Brobbey, Fabio Silva and Arp are all high potential wonderkids you could look at, all would be really good backup options to Lautaro.
		
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I have my right winger on 'support' so I think Zaniolo should do a job there. If not I have plenty of rotation options. Still have Pulisic kicking around the place. Ziyech can play on the right apparently also. Both Upa and Zag had the same 4-5 potential so I'll be playing them together I think, we'll see who becomes the better one. Bit harsh on Christensen who was excellent last season but needs must! Rudiger was alright but he didn't really kick on at all. Decent back-ups anyway.

My wage bill is in dire straits at the minute, had about 20 people come back off loan obviously, who were all being at least partially paid by the loan clubs. Have so much dead wood to shift it's unreal. At this point I'd be willing to let Drinkwater go for free just to get his 120 grand off the books! Unfortunately Kante picked up a 4-month injury right before I turned it off last night, so I'll have to make sure I'm covered there - I think Mount can do a job though as box-to-box.


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## Wolf (Apr 28, 2020)

4 games into First season after promotion with Southampton WDDDW. Got offered the Leicester job as they were bottom 2, took it as better budget and squad than Saints. Leagye form Played 5 won 4 and lost 1 to Chelsea in 94th minute, am currently sat in 9th place but only 3 pts off 5th spot, its a tight league. Player 2 European games, won both convincingly, same goes for Carabao Cup games. Good thing is just before I joined they'd signed Boadu and at 19 years old he's already banging in loadd of goals. 

Going to need another striker though as the rest of my strike options are a 34 year old Vardy, 33 yr old Slimani and Inacheo who is doing ok.


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## Orikoru (Apr 28, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			As for strikers - loads of guys you could look at - Boadu, Esposito, Gouiri, Pellegri, Guebbels, Lazaro, Abel Ruiz, Koita, Brobbey, Fabio Silva and Arp are all high potential wonderkids you could look at, all would be really good backup options to Lautaro.
		
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Revisiting this, having cleared some deadwood out I had a look at some of these - Bayern only wanted 8 million for Arp! I know they have wonderkids coming out of their arsehole but that still seems ridiculous. He'll be joining to rotate with Lautaro, and Tammy is relegated to emergencies only!


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## Stuart_C (Apr 28, 2020)

I’ve played this for years since it CM. 

I’ve been playing FM Mobile on the iPad and I’ve enjoyed how quick you can get through games.

After reading about Spurs I decided to start a new game as spurs, 1st season I got 59m budget. Sold Erikssen for £102m, Sanchez, Sissoko,Lamela, Rose,Lloris,Son, vertonghen iirc and a few others so bought the following.

Fernandes. A/CM £43m
Ward-Prowse CM £28m
Dias CB£33m
Haland ST£22m 
ziyech AMC£30m
Onana Gk£26m
Henderson GK £20m
Robertson £29m
Gnabry£40m 
Sancho £60m

into my 2nd season and currently 3rd a few points off top.


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## Papas1982 (Apr 28, 2020)

Well I’m out of CL at group stages and barely 5th....
Forgot just how much i don’t like the handheld game. List count already of the number of games of lost when having the upper hand the whole game....

did get a £60m boost in January, so let’s see if I survive.


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## Stuart_C (Apr 28, 2020)

Here’s my squad


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## Orikoru (Apr 28, 2020)

I'm guessing that's FM19 Stuart since the squads were well out of date. Or maybe they just never updated that version since early August '19.


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## Stuart_C (Apr 28, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I'm guessing that's FM19 Stuart since the squads were well out of date. Or maybe they just never updated that version since early August '19.
		
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sorry mate yes it’s FM19, not worth upgrading when the new one will be out in a couple of months


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## Orikoru (Apr 28, 2020)

Stuart_C said:



			sorry mate yes it’s FM19, not worth upgrading when the new one will be out in a couple of months
		
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It was only because I saw Nkoudou and thought we sacked him ages ago, turns out it was only August we got rid of him anyway.


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## Stuart_C (Apr 28, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			It was only because I saw Nkoudou and thought we sacked him ages ago, turns out it was only August we got rid of him anyway. 

Click to expand...

He was out on loan last year iirc, like the Mother in Law, can’t get rid of him 😀


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## Orikoru (Apr 28, 2020)

What are the chances of this?  Journalist name is my actual name!    Nearly fell off my chair.


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## Orikoru (Apr 29, 2020)

Does it matter if you have two playmakers in the team? I noticed my AM very often seems to have a mediocre game, no matter who I play there, so I changed him from Attacking Midfielder (S) to Advanced Playmaker (S) - even though I have a Deep-Lying Playmaker (D) at MC. It seemed to work in the short-term, Havertz had a couple of better performances. But yeah, I'm wondering if it messes it up to have two playmakers? Might be fine as they are in different parts of the pitch. 

With the new players and new season my tactics have evolved slightly to this:
AF(A) or PF(A)
IW(A) - AP(S) - IW(S)
DLP(D) - BBM(S)
WB(S) - BPD(D) - BPD(C) - WB(S)or(A)​The 'or' depends on who I'm playing. Against poor teams I'll use advanced forward, so he only needs to focus on scoring goals, and an attacking right wing back as another attacking option. Against good teams I make my striker a pressing forward to win the ball back high for us, and the wing back to support so he isn't bombing forward as much.

We are unbeaten after 11 leagues - but unfortunately we've won 6 and drawn 5 so we're only 5th.  Liverpool have won all 11 of theirs, I think I have to wait for Salah and Mane to retire before I get a crack at the league. In the Europa League we got an easy group so my second-string XI has won 4-0, 3-0 and 3-0 so far.


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## Wolf (Apr 30, 2020)

Orikoru said:



*Does it matter if you have two playmakers in the team? I noticed my AM very often seems to have a mediocre game, no matter who I play there, so I changed him from Attacking Midfielder (S) to Advanced Playmaker (S) - even though I have a Deep-Lying Playmaker (D) at MC*. It seemed to work in the short-term, Havertz had a couple of better performances. But yeah, I'm wondering if it messes it up to have two playmakers? Might be fine as they are in different parts of the pitch.

With the new players and new season my tactics have evolved slightly to this:
AF(A) or PF(A)
IW(A) - AP(S) - IW(S)
DLP(D) - BBM(S)
WB(S) - BPD(D) - BPD(C) - WB(S)or(A)​The 'or' depends on who I'm playing. Against poor teams I'll use advanced forward, so he only needs to focus on scoring goals, and an attacking right wing back as another attacking option. Against good teams I make my striker a pressing forward to win the ball back high for us, and the wing back to support so he isn't bombing forward as much.

We are unbeaten after 11 leagues - but unfortunately we've won 6 and drawn 5 so we're only 5th.  Liverpool have won all 11 of theirs, I think I have to wait for Salah and Mane to retire before I get a crack at the league. In the Europa League we got an easy group so my second-string XI has won 4-0, 3-0 and 3-0 so far.
		
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I've noticed the exact same thing with midfielders play as an attacking mid and get mediocre stats and performance, set them as AP get a huge improvement in performance and a few goals thrown in. I've played both DLP and AP with no issues. 

I've since moved on from Leicester as got frustrated at expectations, played a full half season was in 6th spot with a game in hand over Chelsea in 5th and only trailing them on goal difference, won Europa league group, decent cup run but after going unbeaten for 9 games we got beat heavily by Liverpool and fans were calling for the sack & board were unconvinced by my style or a abilities.  So I flounced put of the club 😂

Got offered Valladolid who were in bottom 2 in Spain, made a few changes to their style and finished 10th. Now in my 2nd season with them and am 3rd in League behind Real & Barca. Seems I do better with average teams on a low budget 😂


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## Dan2501 (Apr 30, 2020)

I play a DLP (D) and an AP in a CAM position pretty often and had no issues. 

Top of the league after 7 games in Season 2 but tied on points with Liverpool with City, United and Chelsea only a point behind. Going to be a tough season I think. Might just do 2 seasons as Spurs and then start a bit more of a challenging save, a lower league one or something.


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## Orikoru (Apr 30, 2020)

Liverpool are just annihilating the league in mine, we're right in the mix for top four along with Arsenal, City & Utd, with Wolves not too far behind. Got to January and I signed Leon Bailey from Leverkusen as he seems to be absolutely lethal and can play on either wing comfortably. I've loaned Tammy out to Milan, Arp has done bugger all so I'm tempted to try and pick up another forward, but I don't really need one. Just being greedy.

Once this season is finished I'm going to start a new game, now I've hopefully got a better grasp on the tactics and so on. I think with Spurs I never had a deep-lying playmaker of any kind which seems to be pretty key. Next up I fancy picking someone with lower expectations, like Newcastle, where all I really need to do is keep them up, but then it shouldn't be too hard to build on that as well. Or maybe Sheffield Utd, they always play with wing backs in my other saves so will be interesting ripping that up and getting them back to a good old-fashioned flat back four.


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## Wolf (Apr 30, 2020)

Got to admit I've found I enjoy the game more using lower quality sides as there is more emphasis on what you actually do tactically rather than what you can spend and finding a diamond in the rough and wheeler dealing with loan signings. 12 games into my 2nd season with Valladolid now and in 6th spot having only lost to Real, Barca & San Sebastian. Much more fun figuring out how to keep them punching above their weight than relying on the cheque book. 

That being said id like to know who sets the post match analysis on this game, I just won a cup game 5-0, but got told my keeper was poor and not enough goal threat from midfield. Yet keeper had a clean sheet and 3 of the 5 goals were from 3 different midfielders 😂


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## Orikoru (Apr 30, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Got to admit I've found I enjoy the game more using lower quality sides as there is more emphasis on what you actually do tactically rather than what you can spend and finding a diamond in the rough and wheeler dealing with loan signings. 12 games into my 2nd season with Valladolid now and in 6th spot having only lost to Real, Barca & San Sebastian. Much more fun figuring out how to keep them punching above their weight than relying on the cheque book.

That being said id like to know who sets the post match analysis on this game, I just won a cup game 5-0, but got told my keeper was poor and not enough goal threat from midfield. Yet keeper had a clean sheet and 3 of the 5 goals were from 3 different midfielders 😂
		
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Traditionally I used to like picking a lower division team and taking them all the way up to the Prem, but that was on the old much easier games, haha. On Champ Manager 01/02 it was so easy I used to pick teams in the most debt so I could only sign free transfers.  I can't see myself ever find FM20 easy enough to do that, but I won't pick any of the real big clubs again - I get bored of the saves quicker with them.

A lot of the writing in the game is balls to be fair. I hate the guy after the game who's always like "I had this one down as a draw.." etc. And the assistant manager is just playing devil's advocate all game for me. "I think we should try short passing." *switches to short passing* ... "I think we should try some more direct passing." Oh do you now?


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## Wolf (Apr 30, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Traditionally I used to like picking a lower division team and taking them all the way up to the Prem, but that was on the old much easier games, haha. On Champ Manager 01/02 it was so easy I used to pick teams in the most debt so I could only sign free transfers.  I can't see myself ever find FM20 easy enough to do that, but I won't pick any of the real big clubs again - I get bored of the saves quicker with them.

*A lot of the writing in the game is balls to be fair. I hate the guy after the game who's always like "I had this one down as a draw.." etc. And the assistant manager is just playing devil's advocate all game for me. "I think we should try short passing." *switches to short passing* ... "I think we should try some more direct passing." Oh do you now?*

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Absolute balls indeed, get so many post match write ups that totally contradict the results. As for assistant manager his only use is reserves and running friendlies other than that I don't bother 😂


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## Dan2501 (Apr 30, 2020)

The write-ups aren't great, but the Social Media tab within news can throw up some gems. 

I think I just want a save outside England more than anything. I had a decent one in Poland where I got a team from the 3rd tier to the PL in 3 seasons but was a bit easy so got bored. Not sure where to go tbh. Looking at a few leagues and Sociedad could be an option - try and break Real and Barca's dominance. Other options I've looked at are AZ - finally get to manage Boadu on this years game, loads of youth should be a reasonable challenge; Anderlecht - been dreadful IRL but in FM get to use Kompany and will get plenty of gun youth players. I want a bit of transfer cash to spend and be reasonably decent but just a bit bored of the PL. You guys have any suggestions?


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## Orikoru (Apr 30, 2020)

No idea Dan, I tend to stick to England for my first few saves with a new game! Stick with what you know and all that. My mate plays as Andorra FC and has dragged them into the top four of Spain. I think he's won the league with them, not sure. He likes saves like that where the youth products are all Andorran and so on. I think he intended to take over the Andorra national team as well, but then found out International management was an unlockable that he didn't yet have. 

Dunno if this sprouts any ideas: https://www.squawka.com/en/football-manager-2020-the-best-and-most-fun-teams-to-manage/


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## Wolf (Apr 30, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			The write-ups aren't great, but the Social Media tab within news can throw up some gems.

I think I just want a save outside England more than anything. I had a decent one in Poland where I got a team from the 3rd tier to the PL in 3 seasons but was a bit easy so got bored. Not sure where to go tbh. Looking at a few leagues and Sociedad could be an option - try and break Real and Barca's dominance. Other options I've looked at are AZ - finally get to manage Boadu on this years game, loads of youth should be a reasonable challenge; Anderlecht - been dreadful IRL but in FM get to use Kompany and will get plenty of gun youth players. I want a bit of transfer cash to spend and be reasonably decent but just a bit bored of the PL. You guys have any suggestions?
		
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I think that's summed up my frustration with it. So far since I've been at Valladolid I've enjoyed it so much more. First season I took over midway through and had about 5m to spend and was only 3days left in the window so made 3 loan signings ans bought Wiemann from Bristol City for 3.1m. When I took over they were 2nd bottom and well adrif, however strung results together and Managed to finish 10th. 

In my 2nd season with them now our record is P19, W10, D5, L4 and we're currently sat in 4th spot. Club gave me 40m to spend as a result of a good end to last season and start of this one. Have just signed N'Dicka for a bargain 12m, Malinovksi for 20m,  Clarke-Salter 5m plus the Ox on a free. 

Much more enjoyment building them up and moving toward the big 2. Hopefully will break through and sneak a champion league spot.


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## Orikoru (May 1, 2020)

Sacked off Chelsea and started a new game as Newcastle. Didn't get much money to start with, but I managed to sign Domingos Quina from Watford (AMC with good potential), Dragovic (reasonably solid CB from Leverkusen), and with a lot of future fees involved, brought Mitrovic back from Fulham! Our attackers are still so thin on the ground but I couldn't afford to do anymore than that. Our front four is pretty decent, but if any of them is out then there's just nothing in reserve at all. Bentaleb and Rose who are both on loan are both excellent. I've got two Longstaffs with near identical stats to rotate for the box-to-box role - I've had to nickname them Longstaff and Shortstaff so stop myself mixing up which is which. 

Nine games into the league, we've won 4 lost 4 and drawn the other one, which puts us 7th. Mitrovic has banged 5 goals in 7 games, including a hat-trick of headers against Palace - but he's got injured and I had to chuck Big Andy Carroll in - he's managed 2 in 3! You can probably guess with these forwards my plan is overlap out wide and float crosses in - I even have Saint-Maximin and Almiron playing as traditional wingers rather than inverted. Maximin has been superb at skinning the full back and teeing up Mitrovic.

Just had a takeover occur so Fat Mike is out. The new guy hasn't given me a sackload of cash yet though.


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## Dan2501 (May 1, 2020)

I started a save as Newcastle with the IRL takeover added and couldn't do it, the squad is an absolute mess. SO many crap players on ludicrous contracts, way too many players, too many loans of players I was never going to use but couldn't terminate. Sacked it off quickly and started the Spurs save.

Holidayed a season last night and took over Sociedad in June 2020, mainly did it so I could start my save with Rulli in goal. Got a reasonably decent team. Not particularly well balanced, but not terrible. Managed to bring a few guys in - signed Hysaj from Napoli as he was transfer listed and needed a RB, picked up Lazaro who's a very talented young Brazilian forward, Ait-Nouri's come in on loan with an option to buy and then the biggest signing money wise was Ontiveros for £13m. Some really talented lads in the squad - Merino looks really good and has had interest from some big sides, Oyarzabal is probably the best player at the club and only 23, Willian Jose is more than decent striker who will likely end up leaving for big money at some point, Januzaj looks very good in this years game, then have Odegaard on a 2 year loan who's a very good backup to Oyarzabal.

Season started with a dreadful performance at Villarreal losing 2-0 but bounced back and hammered Leganes 3-0 at home. Granada next and then we have a nice run of Barca (A), Sampdoria in the EL and Real Madrid (H), rough. Barca incidentally just signed De Bruyne for £205m from City  But then because they've sold Coutinho for £74m, Dembele for £116m they've also been able to sign Rafa from Benfica for £58m. Gonna be tough to compete with them. Real have been pretty quiet. Azpilicueta their only signing but have sold Casemiro, Benzema and Marcelo. Barca are going to run the league for a couple of seasons at least I think.


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## Orikoru (May 1, 2020)

Yeah as I say with Newcastle Dan, some of the first team is alright now, especially now I've added Mitrovic - Saint-Maximin and Almiron are decent, the Longstaffs are both ok. Bentaleb is really good but he's only on loan for the season. There were zero number 10s though hence why I had to bring in Quina, and the defenders were all rubbish apart from Schar. Dubravka is awful as well but I'm stuck with him for now. I've got them performing ok though as long as no one gets injured. I rested the first team and played the second string in the Carabao - thrashed 3-0 by Brentford.   There are quite a few in the reserves squad to ship out too, like Atsu, Colback, etc. Dwight Gayle is still hanging about.


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## Dan2501 (May 1, 2020)

Started another new save  Fancied trying to replicate Pep's tiki-taka tactic as City. Have used primarily gegepress this year and a bit bored of it, so thought I'd give this a go as a little mini-challenge save. Turned first-window transfers off so got to make do with the starting squad and see how we get on. It's going to be a baptism of fire in the league as we play Liverpool in the Community Shield then Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal and United in our first 7 league games, so that should give a good indication if it's going to work or not. Outside of that I've bought in a couple of staff members - a new Technical Director to look after my staff contracts and identify staff targets, and bolstered the scouting and coaching with a couple of new staff members.

This is what I've come up with tactic wise:

https://i.ibb.co/yWTf8wS/Screenshot-2020-05-01-at-14-29-45.png

So it's a tiki-taka using short passing, working the ball into the box but at good tempo. Fernandinho in a half-back role which should mean he drops into defence to effectively form a back 5 when we're defending like City do IRL. In attack our wing-backs push forward, we've got two attacking central midfield players with De Bruyne given freedom to push on into attack, Sterling and Mahrez both cutting inside on attacking inside forward roles. Looks pretty Pep-like to me, or as close as I think I'm going to get. Just have to see how it goes in-game now. Early signs are promising, last pre-season game we smashed Olympiakos 6-1. We had 57% possession which is fairly unheard of for my teams in FM. My tactics tend to either be 50:50 or slightly lower on possession focusing on counter attacking, but this style is totally different, looking to overwhelm and work our way into the box.

Shouldn't have turned first window off though, forgot how bad City's central defence is  In January we'll be going big for a partner for Laporte.


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## Dan2501 (May 1, 2020)

Just beat Liverpool in the Community Shield 2-1, absolutely dominated the game. Their goal came from a corner but other than that they barely had a chance. That was with a defence of Walker, Stones, Otamendi and a 16 year old LB Tarensi. I had injuries to Laporte, Cancelo, Mendy, Zinchenko and Fernandinho coming in, then Walker got injured during the game so switched Stones to RB and had Eric Garcia come in at centre half, and still dominated Liverpool. This could be a fun save. The 16 year old LB, even though the coaches rate him a 1* current ability player kept Salah in his pocket the whole game, didn't give him a sniff. 

Was nice to see the tactic in-game as well. De Bruyne as a Mezzala drifting wide like he does IRL, the half-back dropping into defence when required and then being there to pick up the ball from the keeper to start our attacks, intricate passing plays around the box to set up chances. Lovely stuff.


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## Orikoru (May 1, 2020)

I'm no expert clearly, but everything I've read suggests not to have that many attack duties with only one player on support. Maybe with the players City have, almost anything would work though. Not sure. I like the Mezzala role though, Ndombele did ok as that in my failed Spurs games.


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## Dan2501 (May 1, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I'm no expert clearly, but everything I've read suggests not to have that many attack duties with only one player on support. Maybe with the players City have, almost anything would work though. Not sure. I like the Mezzala role though, Ndombele did ok as that in my failed Spurs games.
		
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Not sure, the attack duties seem to be working. We're dominating games, creating so many chances and still defending really well, but first 2 games we just couldn't score. Lost 1-0 to Spurs despite having 11 shots on target to 2, Aguero missed a penalty and Sterling missed 2 chances inside the 6 yard box. We've also had SO many injuries. My defence got wiped out early season and now it's my attack. No Sane as he's out long-term on every save, but add to that Aguero out for 2 months and now Jesus out for 5 weeks. I've got Sterling up front and Foden on the left. It's so frustrating. Never had injuries this bad in a save. So a 1-0 loss to Spurs and a 0-0 with Chelsea, but now beating Southampton 5-0, so hopefully this'll be the turning point, although not feeling optimistic without a striker for 5 weeks.


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## Papas1982 (May 2, 2020)

Damn my laptop. 
Finished 2nd to Liverpool 20 points adrift and had the board, players and fans on my back after promises of a title tilt. One game left. CL final against UTD. Spank em 5-0.
All is good In the world. 
load laptop this afternoon and file is corrupt!


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## Orikoru (May 3, 2020)

I'm on the verge of deleting this game to be honest. My good start with Newcastle is totally wiped out. We got Spurs, Man Utd, Liverpool all in a row in the fixture in November, lost them all and the 'media' started talking up some kind of crisis. Then we battered Brighton and Villa, 3-1 and 4-0. Then we lost the next five games in a row. What the hell? Why? This is game is stupid, it doesn't make any sense. Since then, draw, win(FA cup though), loss, draw, draw. So only goal difference away from the relegation zone now. And I managed to buy Cengiz Under in January, he's done nothing yet. Kept getting these media jibes about never changing my tactics, so now I've gone to wing backs in a kind of 5-4-1 I suppose, but more attacking than that sounds. We only had one number 10 in the squad anyway and he's done bugger all. But honestly if it doesn't let me win a few games I can't even see the point in playing. I got p*ssed off and reloaded the same game with Norwich about 7 times, lost every single time. I feel like every new save is just a ticking time bomb waiting for it to go tits up.


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## Dan2501 (May 3, 2020)

At the back end of January in my City save. Playing some of the best football I've ever had a team play in FM. The goal was to replicate Pep's style and have pretty much nailed it, and boy does it work in-game. We're so dominant in terms of attacks. The most dominant performance was a 4-0 win over Watford where we had 30 shots to their 0. We not only totally ran through them from an attacking stand-point but totally neutralised them defensively as well, the best proof of this was the performance of Roberto Pereyra. He ended the game with a 4.5 rating, he did get sent off, but prior to the sending off he was at a 4.8. He's a player I've had issues containing in past saves, so to neutralise him that well was pretty pleasing. 

We're 2 points clear of Chelsea at the top of the table at the minute. Liverpool in 3rd have 2 games in hand, but can only get to 4 points behind me, so going along pretty nicely. Only defeat was to Spurs on the opening day of the season where we had 11 shots on target to 2, missed a penalty and lost 1-0. People say FM's not realistic, but they've nailed City's ineptitude from the penalty spot. We've had 10 pens this season and scored 5 of them. Aguero's scored 4 from 7 and has been our most reliable, but when he was out injured I dreaded getting a penalty as I knew we'd miss. We had a 5 week period where we had to play without a striker which was fun, I was playing Foden (who is absolutely awesome on FM btw) as a CAM as my furthest forward central player and we smashed it, went unbeaten and still scored plenty of goals. 

In Jan we've done a little bit of business. Ruben Dias has come in for £52m and then I managed to shift Claudio Bravo off the wage bill and terminated Scott Carson's loan so needed a keeper and went and picked up Mile Svilar from Benfica for £8.5m, only wanted £15k a week, which compared to Bravo's £110k a week, it's quite the bargain. That's all the transfer dealings we'll do though, no money left and no real desperate need for a signing in any other position. Liverpool have made the weirdest Jan dealings. Probably have the strongest wing-backs in the league in TAA and Robertson yet have spent £100.5m bringing in Semedo from Barcelona and Guerreiro from Dortmund, both decent wing-backs but not as good as the blokes they already had. Weird.


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## Orikoru (May 3, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			At the back end of January in my City save. Playing some of the best football I've ever had a team play in FM. The goal was to replicate Pep's style and have pretty much nailed it, and boy does it work in-game. We're so dominant in terms of attacks. The most dominant performance was a 4-0 win over Watford where we had 30 shots to their 0. We not only totally ran through them from an attacking stand-point but totally neutralised them defensively as well, the best proof of this was the performance of Roberto Pereyra. He ended the game with a 4.5 rating, he did get sent off, but prior to the sending off he was at a 4.8. He's a player I've had issues containing in past saves, so to neutralise him that well was pretty pleasing.

We're 2 points clear of Chelsea at the top of the table at the minute. Liverpool in 3rd have 2 games in hand, but can only get to 4 points behind me, so going along pretty nicely. Only defeat was to Spurs on the opening day of the season where we had 11 shots on target to 2, missed a penalty and lost 1-0. People say FM's not realistic, but they've nailed City's ineptitude from the penalty spot. We've had 10 pens this season and scored 5 of them. Aguero's scored 4 from 7 and has been our most reliable, but when he was out injured I dreaded getting a penalty as I knew we'd miss. We had a 5 week period where we had to play without a striker which was fun, I was playing Foden (who is absolutely awesome on FM btw) as a CAM as my furthest forward central player and we smashed it, went unbeaten and still scored plenty of goals.

In Jan we've done a little bit of business. Ruben Dias has come in for £52m and then I managed to shift Claudio Bravo off the wage bill and terminated Scott Carson's loan so needed a keeper and went and picked up Mile Svilar from Benfica for £8.5m, only wanted £15k a week, which compared to Bravo's £110k a week, it's quite the bargain. That's all the transfer dealings we'll do though, no money left and no real desperate need for a signing in any other position. Liverpool have made the weirdest Jan dealings. Probably have the strongest wing-backs in the league in TAA and Robertson yet have spent £100.5m bringing in Semedo from Barcelona and Guerreiro from Dortmund, both decent wing-backs but not as good as the blokes they already had. Weird.
		
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Liverpool do that in every save. I think computer controlled teams with money are obsessed with squad depth and having two strong players in every position. I can recall them buying Ricardo Pereira off Leicester in one of my games. They also always seem to buy a top striker, they had Milik banging a goal a game in one of my saves. And they always seem to buy Milenkovic-Savic in midfield.

I got sacked as Newcastle when we lost 6-0 to Bournemouth after Rose was sent off in the first half. Having lost 6-1 to Everton a few games before. It's like if you lose three or more games on the bounce you're - to borrow a famous Paul Merson phrase - on a glass mountain with moccasin slippers on and you've got no chance of getting out of it. Don't know whether to even bother starting a new save at this point. More hard work than it's worth. I did make a topic on Sports Interactive forum begging for help though, so I may try some of their ideas on one last stab.


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## Beezerk (May 3, 2020)

Sounds like time to get into Warzone mate , was up until 3am last night playing online with a mate


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## Orikoru (May 3, 2020)

Beezerk said:



			Sounds like time to get into Warzone mate , was up until 3am last night playing online with a mate 

Click to expand...

I'm bloody awful at those games these days, but a couple of my mates were talking about it and I'll probably give it a go this week.


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## Beezerk (May 3, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I'm bloody awful at those games these days, but a couple of my mates were talking about it and I'll probably give it a go this week.
		
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Just hide and be a complete coward like me 🤣


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## Orikoru (May 4, 2020)

So the advice I got from SI forum was basically that I was using too many team instructions. Those presets they offer you are really counter-intuitive for someone like me who's not a regular FM player, because they are all heavily laden with about 20 instructions, but the advice I got was not to use anywhere near that many! My player roles were not too bad but it was instruction overkill I think. I've started again - and call me a glutton for punishment but I've gone back to Spurs. I don't just don't care enough when I'm another Prem team, but I didn't want to go abroad because I don't know the leagues as well.

This time I sold Vertonghen and Lucas straight away so I could actually strengthen the team properly. Used the funds to bring in Vagnoman (or Vaginaman as I've re-christened him), who's an 18-year old DR/L; Florentino Luis to play as a defensive CM, and Cengiz Under to play off the right hand side. Tactic is 4-2-3-1 with pretty typical roles I guess. FB(s)-BPD(d)-CD(c)-FB(s/a) across the back; BBM(s)-CM(d) in mid; IW(a)-AP(s)-IW(s) and my striker role varies a bit as I try a few out, but CF(a) at the moment. Crucially there's only a handful of instructions, such as play out of defence, sometimes use shorter passing or higher tempo depending on the game; and higher defensive line with more urgent pressing.

Results much better than my other attempts with Spurs. Started out with three draws but two were against Arsenal and Chelsea (and Lloris cost me the win at Arsenal with a blunder!). We went on a little run of six wins, including beating Liverpool which I've not done on any other save with any team. We still found time to lose to Norwich and Villa though of course - our only two league defeats. No tactic is completely FM-proof. We're 7th after 11 games but only 2 points behind third, plus Norwich are randomly 5th so I'd expect them to crash and burn soon.

Kane has only managed 4 goals in 12(2). Parrott has managed 3 in 5(1). I'm very much contemplating who's first choice and whether I wouldn't be better off selling Kane and bringing in a new striker plus two other good players as well.


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## Dan2501 (May 4, 2020)

Have you tried Kane as an AF? I've used him in a few saves with a few different clubs and as England, always as an AF and he always bags a ton of goals. 

Nice signings too. How much did Vagnoman cost you? If he gets plenty of game time he can become very handy! There's a fairly limited supply of wonderkid wing backs and he's certainly one of the few worth buying.


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## Orikoru (May 4, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Have you tried Kane as an AF? I've used him in a few saves with a few different clubs and as England, always as an AF and he always bags a ton of goals.

Nice signings too. How much did Vagnoman cost you? If he gets plenty of game time he can become very handy! There's a fairly limited supply of wonderkid wing backs and he's certainly one of the few worth buying.
		
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I figure he should offer more though give his skillset and the fact he's a loan striker in the formation. I was using him as a Pressing Forward, but he didn't offer much so I'm trialling Complete Forward at the moment. The thing is it's the same role when I bring Parrott in, so the comparison stands up whichever role I'm using.

Can't remember right now but he didn't break the bank. It was £15m up front plus a few extras I normally chuck in like 40-50% of profit from sale and so on. There was one game against Bayern in the CL where we lost 1-0, every player got lower than 7.0 rating except Vagnoman who randomly got a 9.0 from left back! It was mad. He must have kept Gnabry quiet over there. I've never had another match where someone was so far and away the best player - in a defeat as well. So handy that he can play either side as well, primarily I use him at RB in rotation with Aurier, but obviously Spurs start with a bucketload of injuries so he's played left back a few times too. 

Cengiz took a while to settle, then he scored two screamers in two games, then he got injured and was out for like two months. Just standard Spurs things.


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## Wolf (May 4, 2020)

So 2nd season at Valladolid comes to a close REAL runaway league winners on 97pts. We finished in 2nd on a more than credible 75pts and punched way above our weight, only lost 5 games all season. What has the board rewarded me with a meagre 20m and the expectation of another Top 4 season and a European cup run 😂. 

Plus 3 of my best players have all decided they want to leave for teams competing for trophies, and because they had clauses in their contracts from before I took over I've had to let them go for pitiful amounts which means the board have lost faith in my transfer abilities, You couldn't make up the expectations on this game.


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## Orikoru (May 4, 2020)

Wolf said:



			So 2nd season at Valladolid comes to a close REAL runaway league winners on 97pts. We finished in 2nd on a more than credible 75pts and punched way above our weight, only lost 5 games all season. What has the board rewarded me with a meagre 20m and the expectation of another Top 4 season and a European cup run 😂.

Plus 3 of my best players have all decided they want to leave for teams competing for trophies, and because they had clauses in their contracts from before I took over I've had to let them go for pitiful amounts which means the board have lost faith in my transfer abilities, You couldn't make up the expectations on this game.
		
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Yeah there are a lot of flaws in the game where nobody has any common sense to take things into account. Like you get hammered for being in 'poor form' when you've lost to teams like Man City and Bayern for example. My board are always 'concerned about the finances' around some reserve team player I let go for a lower fee to get his massive wages off the books! Expectations are often unreasonable. Expecting you to get to a cup final at the minimum always seems a bit strong to me.


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## TheDiablo (May 4, 2020)

Finally got bored on my Spurs save, had won 8 on the trot so set mysel the target of 10 and 1 more CL, managed to win the league on the final day of the season and the CL so mission accomplished. 

Started lower this time, @ Colchester. Media prediction 4th, got a decent stadium for their size so room for growth hopefully. Planning to take them as far as possible. My problem is that when I am stuck in a division I always end up accepting a better job offer, then suddenly in a few years I'm at a top club and winning everything again. Got to try resist that this time!

Won title in first season, 109 points total! Just a couple of simple formations depending on strength of opposition. Fairly reliant on loan signings - always a good tactic I find, whilst slowly building up youth prospects and the odd FT for a few seasons until you can just bring in the odd one. Next season media prediction 11th, board expectation to avoid relegation but so far top of League 1 now after 18 games, but very tight. Budget is a struggle, most clubs have a player on £8k+ with the odd club paying £10k while my top wage is £4.5k so cant really attract from higher leagues. Wouldn't mind too much if form dips as we are definitely nowhere near ready for Championship. 

Here's where my lack of patience comes in though, in last couple of weeks both Villa and Derby have offered me their job out of the blue, both with big wage budgets and £20m+ transfer kitties. Said no to both, but I think what I might do is accept the next biggish one and then run them as different saves.


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## Orikoru (May 6, 2020)

My game is still giving me random crap results so we've no chance of getting top four now. I think I was 6th last night, in February. Gap has opened up to 4th though, I think it was 8 or 9 points, can't see us closing it. Bought Upamecano in Jan, wanted to sell Dier to strengthen elsewhere, but no offers came in. Still getting absolutely humped away to the big teams. We're talking 25-30 shots to them and about 3 to us. I have scraped into the League Cup final, almost by accident. It was easy games which my back-up players were winning until I suddenly realised I was in the semi-final against Watford, and beat them too. Liverpool in the final though so that's over and done with. 

When you get to mid-Feb my staff always arrange me a friendly, I think because it's meant to be the winter break they brought in, but the game is engineered to fill any gaps with friendlies. But I cancelled the one against Roma they gave me and arranged one against a total non-entity instead for a morale-boosting win. We won 14-0 and Kane scored 5 in the first half before I took him off. Hopefully it does the job!


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## Dan2501 (May 6, 2020)

Doesn't sound like you've quite nailed the tactics again mate. Should be able to change things enough to prevent being dominated in that fashion by the big sides. Have you considered looking at downloading a tactic and seeing if that works? There are creators like The Reckonist who put out fantastic tactics that you can implement for a while, see how they work, what instructions work and begin to implement that into your play style. At the very least it should help turn the results around in the short-term. This one looks like it would suit Spurs okay:

https://www.passion4fm.com/football-manager-tactic-scholes-cant-tackle/

Not tried it myself, but Reck is one of the more prolific FM tactic creators out there and every year seems to absolutely dominate in pretty much every save he does.


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## Orikoru (May 6, 2020)

I don't want to download tactics, it's pointless, then it's not me playing the game. Also that tactic has about a thousand instructions, which is the polar opposite of what I was advised to do on SI forum. And he's got three playmakers in the middle there - why would that work? Just seems daft. My tactics seem ok, when we lose against someone like Villa we've often had 25 shots and 1 goal, and they've scored 2 rubbish goals from 4 attempts. I have beaten Liverpool and City this season, but the rest of the time they absolutely turn us over - no logic in it it's just random. This season started off pretty well but then around Christmas in every save FM just decides you're going to get some horror results and there's nothing you can do about it. Case in point - I reloaded a couple of matches because I was getting annoyed with it, we'd lost to two late goals against Southampton from being a goal up, reloaded that and won without facing a single shot. Next game we lost to Leicester to two late goals having been a goal up, reloaded that and got the win. Next game we were 2-0 up against Villa and it gave us a 3-2 loss. It is literally programmed to annoy you, you can delay it but it's inevitable when the game decides it's going to give you a stinking result sooner or later.


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## Orikoru (May 7, 2020)

Finished 7th. As usual we just randomly started losing. I changed to a kind of 4-4-2, which was going well, we even beat Barca 2-1. Then that went tits up as well, lost to Everton, smashed 6-1 by Barca in the return leg, smashed by Man Utd in the league. Eventually turned Norwich over on the last day but we only finished 7th. Not sacked somehow. I want to buy Onana in summer because Lloris is rubbish, and I'll need another striker if I carry on with this 4-4-2 which I might as well. Kane managed 20 goals in 49(6) which doesn't seem great to me. Parrott got 9 in 22(4), big fan of the young lad. Cengiz Under was our player of the season as he managed 16 goals and 7 assists off right wing - impressive!

Tactic looking like this:

DLF(S) - AF(A)
W(A) - - - - - - - - - - IW(S)
BBM(S) - DLP(D)

FB(S) - BPD(C) - BPD(D) - FB(A)​I only just changed up the CMs for the last game, it was a DLP(S) and a CM(D) before, but Florentino Luis who played CM(D) was pretty poor really. I think the box-to-box guy is quite a key component. Brought Sessegnon in at left wing in the end and he did well so he can stay there.


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## Dan2501 (May 7, 2020)

Started another new save  I will finish a season of a save at some point, and will go back to Man City I'm sure but fancied a bit of a different challenge so have decided to take on PSV Eindhoven. Have implemented the same tactic we were using at City to see how it adapts in a totally different league. The plan for the save is to try and identify young talents early or players who we can mould and improve, bring them in for cheap, use them for a couple of seasons before ultimately cashing in and then rinse and repeat. Didn't have a huge amount to spend in the first window but managed to bring in the following:

- Oumar Solet. £3.4m from Lyon. Have seen him become an absolute tank of a CB and seen him move to Barcelona from Lyon for >£60m so got in early and am hoping that plenty of game time over seasons 1 and 2 will help him develop into an absolute beast. 
- Ludwig Augustinsson. £7m from Werder. Not a save on FM if I don't try and bring in Ludwig. Only on £30k a week, is already valued at £14m, thinking if I can use him for a couple of seasons, get some good performances out of him I can then sell him to one of the big boys for big money.
- Hernan De La Fuente. £3.7m. In true FM fashion I got a horrific long-term injury in the first competitive game of the save, Denzel Dumfries, probably the best RB in the league breaks his lower leg leaving him out for 6 months so needed a new RB. De La Fuente seems to fit the bill nicely. He's 22, has decent all around defensive attributes, he's fast, agile, good stamina. Doesn't have particularly strong technical stats on the offensive side but can work on that, should definitely be capable of filling the gap left by Dumfries though and is definitely another we should be able to make some cash on.

The Dutch league is a little bit of a shorter league, only 18 teams so seasons should go by a little quicker, the only annoyance is the hoops you have to jump through to get into the CL. PSV came 2nd last season which means a run in the qualifiers is required. We beat Basel in the Best Placed 2nd round and lead Club Brugge in the Best Placed 3rd round with the prospect of facing Dynamo Kyiv or Basaksehir in the Playoff to ultimately make it into the group stage. 

PSV have a really talented young squad too. Mohammed Ihatteren is one I've used before and has a ton of potential. Elsewhere Donyell Malan will lead the line despite being just 20, he again has bags of potential. Jorrit Hendrix is our man to play the "Fernandinho" role of half back and again looks very, very good and at 24 still has room to improve. The defence isn't particularly strong - hence why all of our transfer activity was focused there but hopefully with Dumfries, Solet, Schwaab/Baumgartl and Augustinsson we'll be good enough defensively to compete with Ajax. Another talent we've got is Bruma who has probably been our most impressive player so far. Electric pace, can beat defenders, and has already contributed a few goals. Expect him to be a bit hit and miss but when he's on form he's deadly. Promising little squad that with a season of work and another couple of transfer windows could really compete with Ajax.


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## Dan2501 (May 7, 2020)

We beat Brugge, so through to the final CL qualification stage before the Groups. But then lost 3-1 away to AZ in the league. Them using a 3 striker system, with one of those 3 being Boadu didn't feel fair, Boadu is so damn good. Luckily Ajax lost to Heracles though, so not all bad news, didn't lose ground on them.

The defence and keeper really needs some work though, not been up to scratch so far.


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## Wolf (May 7, 2020)

3rd Season with Valladolid and already the frustration ia setting in, depsite finishing 2nd in division last year thanks to signing out of contract players, a couple of loan signings and taking a gamble on some youngsters. The ultimate reward was a meagre 20m budget followed with my best players on a mass exodus to bigger clubs thanks to ridiculously low buy out clauses set in their contracts prior to my taking over. As a result my players have gone on to improve the teams I was competing against and I've had to wheel & deal to maintain a squad of at least similar strength to when I took over in season 1 & not as strong as my season 2 squad. 

We're currently 6th in league punching above our weight yet again but board are unhappy, plus our CL group contains Bayern, Chelsea & Napoli all with bigger budgets & better players yet board can't understand why we're 3rd in group. 

I really want to have a prolonged career & build a legacy at a club but when you're constantly getting under funded & threatened with sack depsite being well ahead of where a team would expect in real life it makes the game far from enjoyable.


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## Orikoru (May 7, 2020)

Wolf said:



			3rd Season with Valladolid and already the frustration ia setting in, depsite finishing 2nd in division last year thanks to signing out of contract players, a couple of loan signings and taking a gamble on some youngsters. The ultimate reward was a meagre 20m budget followed with my best players on a mass exodus to bigger clubs thanks to ridiculously low buy out clauses set in their contracts prior to my taking over. As a result my players have gone on to improve the teams I was competing against and I've had to wheel & deal to maintain a squad of at least similar strength to when I took over in season 1 & not as strong as my season 2 squad.

We're currently 6th in league punching above our weight yet again but board are unhappy, plus our CL group contains Bayern, Chelsea & Napoli all with bigger budgets & better players yet board can't understand why we're 3rd in group.

I really want to have a prolonged career & build a legacy at a club but when you're constantly getting under funded & threatened with sack depsite being well ahead of where a team would expect in real life it makes the game far from enjoyable.
		
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Yeah, there are so many problems with this game. I hate the fact that I'm still playing it for hours a day, ha. In fairness if it was easier I probably wouldn't play it as much, but I'm stubborn enough to keep banging my head against the wall. 

In relation to @Dan2501 's point about Champs Lg qualifying, I played a bit of pre-season on my lunch and realised that in coming 7th we've got the early qualifying rounds for Europa League. And I can't really sack it off because my board are expecting me to get to the final _at the minimum_. Right-o. I have managed to sign Haaland up top though and Onana in goal, so that's some good strengthening at both ends. Trying to let Son and Sissoko go for decent fees so I can buy another left winger and a left back.


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## Dan2501 (May 7, 2020)

I feel like the AI must be scaled down or something in the touch version, I've not really felt any of this crazy board pressure or unrealistic expectations in the full game. There are issues with the game but most of my annoyances come with the match engine, rest of the game works basically how I'd expect it to. You guys should upgrade  

Looking forward to smashing through some PSV over the bank holiday weekend, has been the one bonuses of lockdown, been able to play a ton of FM, gonna miss that


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## Papas1982 (May 7, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			I feel like the AI must be scaled down or something in the touch version, *I've not really felt any of this crazy board pressure or unrealistic expectations in the full game*. There are issues with the game but most of my annoyances come with the match engine, rest of the game works basically how I'd expect it to. You guys should upgrade 

Looking forward to smashing through some PSV over the bank holiday weekend, has been the one bonuses of lockdown, been able to play a ton of FM, gonna miss that 

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5th season at Saints, finished 5th and board were ready to drop me. Won Europa and kept the job. 
two years later having won the league. They expect the same every season whilst refusing to let take the philosophy of home grown off the table.

Imo still a little bit of fine tuning to do.


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## Orikoru (May 7, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			I feel like the AI must be scaled down or something in the touch version, I've not really felt any of this crazy board pressure or unrealistic expectations in the full game. There are issues with the game but most of my annoyances come with the match engine, rest of the game works basically how I'd expect it to. You guys should upgrade 

Looking forward to smashing through some PSV over the bank holiday weekend, has been the one bonuses of lockdown, been able to play a ton of FM, gonna miss that 

Click to expand...

Mate I struggle with the complexity in Touch, if I tried to play the full game I'd probably have a brain haemorrhage. Yeah my main issue is how to get any tactic to work consistently, but the board expectations and the way the media go on at you need a lot of work too. You could lose 1-0 away on the bounce to Liverpool then Barcelona, and they'll be going on saying you're in shocking form and due for the sack.


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## Wolf (May 7, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Mate I struggle with the complexity in Touch, if I tried to play the full game I'd probably have a brain haemorrhage. Yeah my main issue is how to get any tactic to work consistently, but *the board expectations and the way the media go on at you need a lot of work too. You could lose 1-0 away on the bounce to Liverpool then Barcelona, and they'll be going on saying you're in shocking form and due for the sack*.
		
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Exactly this for me today just had 4 games on the bounce of REAL, Bayern, Barca, Chelsea. Lost 3 of them 1-0 amd drew the 4th 1-1, fans are revolting, board complaining and put me under pressure of being sacked if I don't get a result soon, next 3 games are Athletico, Napoli & Barca again 😳

Leicester just offerered me my old job back with 89m budget but an expectation of CL football as a minimum yet they're currently sat at foot of the table turned it down and what happens board announce unhappiness at me for apparently looking for another job which I didn't apply for or taje.. So just been offered Amiens in French league and tempted to take it.


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## Dan2501 (May 8, 2020)

Into December now as PSV and having an amazing season. Ajax have slipped up in a big way, losing 3 and drawing 2 of their 16 games so far. We've lost just once to AZ on the 2nd week of the season and currently lead by 7 points after 17 games, and 9 ahead of Ajax, so looking good at the half way stage. Had a few big results in November - beat Ajax away in the league 1-0, a game which followed our best game of the season, a 4-0 hammering of Tottenham in the CL at home. We had 17 shots to 6, 7 on target vs 2, more possession and looked absolutely deadly. It's put us in a pretty strong position in the CL group. As we go into the last game we play Slavia Prague with Spurs taking on PSG. If we win and Spurs fail to beat PSG in Paris we're into the CL knockouts. Considering the expectation was just to make the group stages, it'd be a huge boost for reputation, board confidence but more importantly - financially. We've already got £70m in the bank, so a CL KO run and an Eredivisie win and we should be looking very good financially going into Season 2.

Managed to wrap up some contracts for the better players in the squad, tagging on some nice big release clauses for the likes of Ihatteren (£88m), Hendrix (£40m), Teze (£20m) and Rosario (£25m). Did have a bit of a sad injury though - Ibrahim Afellay tore his cruciate ligament, and so at 33 decided to retire in October. Hadn't used a huge amount of him up to that point, but he was a more than handy back-up youth player, and a club legend, so was sad to see him go. Ritsu Doan has stepped up in his absence though and proven himself to be a real asset. Not many quality Japanese players around anymore, but if you can find one they're worth keeping hold of as they offer some real benefits commercially. An FM blogger I follow is doing a PSV save and in the first season Doan was his most popular player in terms of shirt sales, so need to make sure I keep him and then possibly look into Asia to bring in some more potential stars to boost the commercials.


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## Orikoru (May 8, 2020)

Don't want to speak too soon because it will obviously go tits up, but my 4-4-2 tactic is actually working early doors. We've won 5 drawn 1 in the league. Sessegnon has been class at left wing, popping up with back post goals. Kane is playing much better as a DLF(S) than he ever did as a lone striker - he's got about 6 assists in all comps already. I managed to get Wijndal in at left back just before the deadline. Had some cracking games - in the last round of Europa qualifying we lost the away leg to Sassuolo 2-0 as I rested my first team (oops), but in the home leg I went pretty attacking and scored three goals by half time! Ended up winning 3-2 agg. And my last league game before I turned it off last night was against Burnley, we were 2-0 down at half time, Kane penalty on the hour got us one back, had to go full attacking again and we scored three goals between the 92nd and 97th minute to win 4-2! Crazy, talk about Fergie time. Normally that happens to me, not for me. We lost a game to Southampton, I was fuming but then later on I realised it was League Cup when I thought it had been a league game, so I was relieved, haha.

It does help having Haaland to be fair. He doesn't miss too many chances. Cengiz Under has been brilliant as well though. The fixtures have been fairly kind so the real tests are still to come.


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## Dan2501 (May 8, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Don't want to speak too soon because it will obviously go tits up, but my 4-4-2 tactic is actually working early doors. We've won 5 drawn 1 in the league. Sessegnon has been class at left wing, popping up with back post goals. Kane is playing much better as a DLF(S) than he ever did as a lone striker - he's got about 6 assists in all comps already. I managed to get Wijndal in at left back just before the deadline. Had some cracking games - in the last round of Europa qualifying we lost the away leg to Sassuolo 2-0 as I rested my first team (oops), but in the home leg I went pretty attacking and scored three goals by half time! Ended up winning 3-2 agg. And my last league game before I turned it off last night was against Burnley, we were 2-0 down at half time, Kane penalty on the hour got us one back, had to go full attacking again and we scored three goals between the 92nd and 97th minute to win 4-2! Crazy, talk about Fergie time. Normally that happens to me, not for me. We lost a game to Southampton, I was fuming but then later on I realised it was League Cup when I thought it had been a league game, so I was relieved, haha.

It does help having Haaland to be fair. He doesn't miss too many chances. Cengiz Under has been brilliant as well though. The fixtures have been fairly kind so the real tests are still to come.
		
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Haha nice! What's Haaland's goal record so far?

Had a very productive end to December and beginning of January. I beat Slavia Prague and PSG beat Spurs so qualified for the CL knockouts which should be a tidy boost to the finances, but as we've drawn Barcelona, I think the 1st Knockout round is as far as we're going to make it  I go into the January fixtures 7 points clear of AZ and 14 clear of Ajax although they do have 2 games in hand, so in a very strong position.

Our best striker picked up a bad 3 month injury though, so that's a real blow as we're left with some pretty poor backups. Decided then it was a good time to find some decent backup so went to Brazil and picked up 17 year old Kaio Jorge from Santos for £3m up front, £8m in installments. I then also picked up Takumi Minamino on an initial 6 month loan with a £9.5m option to buy as my replacement for Afellay, and noticed Watford were after Wuilker Fariñez so had to move quickly and picked him up for £3m, so he'll be my keeper now for a good few years. Pleased with the Jan business, strengthened in the areas we needed to without breaking the bank, and also managed to get £7.75m for Nick Viergever who was unhappy, over 30 and on >£20k a week, so that was a good deal all around. Building a nice little team here, excited to see what Kaio Jorge can do.


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## Orikoru (May 8, 2020)

Haaland's on about a goal per game at the minute. But as I say, not played against any real top teams yet. Partnership with Kane seems to be working well, with EH as a AF(A) and HK as a DLF(S).


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## Dan2501 (May 8, 2020)

I just beat Barcelona 5-1 in the 1st leg of the 1st KO Round of the CL. What is happening? That is by far the best performance I have ever managed on FM, not only as a team but individually, Bruma was absolutely exceptional. What a win.


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## Orikoru (May 9, 2020)

That settles it, Touch is clearly much harder than the full version.


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## Dan2501 (May 9, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			That settles it, Touch is clearly much harder than the full version. 

Click to expand...

Not quite sure about that, lost our next game 2-0 to Heerenveen, classic FM  Blatantly going to lose the away leg 4-0 and get knocked out, but what a win. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, Bruma made Sergi Roberto look like Jan Kromkamp, never seen anything like it. We could have scored 7 or 8, missed a few golden opportunities.

January signings have been fantastic. Farinez is a massive upgrade on Unnerstall, Minamino has made it look easy in the Eredivisie - just ghosts past defenders like they're not there and has 3 goals in 5 as a result and then Kaio Jorge has led the line fantastically given he's only 18, 6 goals in 7. The board weren't happy with the finances of the deal but I'm sure he's going to prove them wrong, has been great so far.


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## Papas1982 (May 9, 2020)

Whats the longest shout out you guys have encountered?

Just drawn the League Cup 3-3 with Chelsea (having been 3 down). 

Sealed the victory 23-22


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## Dan2501 (May 9, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			Whats the longest shout out you guys have encountered?

Just drawn the League Cup 3-3 with Chelsea (having been 3 down).

Sealed the victory 23-22
		
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Wow, that must have been intense. I've had a 12-11 where nobody missed until the last pen, that was a fun one.

Lost 1-0 at the Nou Camp so knocked Barca out 5-2 on aggregate, pretty proud of that. Ended up going out in the Quarters to Real Madrid but put up a good fight again, went down 2-1 in the end. Won the league as well at the first attempt. Ended up 8 points clear of Ajax and AZ. Finished the season 6-2, 3-0 and 7-0 as well which was a nice way to finish. Gakpo ended the season with 3 goals and 3 assists in the 7-0 win. Now have the fun of sitting through the end of season Dutch playoffs that they seem to love. One 4 team playoff for the final European place and one to decide who stays/joins the Eredivisie, and then I'll find out how much I've got to spend next season. With £84m in the bank, I'm optimistic for a decent budget.


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## Orikoru (May 10, 2020)

For the first time on this game, my season is going really well! We're top of the league after 10 games. Only by a point though. Just had a mad game with Liverpool, where we were 2-1 down, scored in the 84th and 88th minute to lead, but conceded in the 92nd for 3-3. Had an awesome comeback victory over Chelsea as well, 3-1 down at half time and won 4-3. Dele Alli is weirdly smashing it from left wing where he doesn't even really like playing that much, apparently - 10 goals in 13(5)! Sessegnon was doing well there too but Dele has nicked his place. The attacking right full back Vagnoman has 10 assists in 15(1) games! Mental. His stats are still poor as well, he hasn't even developed that much yet.


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## Dan2501 (May 10, 2020)

Just started season 2 here. Had a really good transfer window, finished up £5m up in net spend but managed to improve in all the areas we needed to. Also managed to keep hold of all of my key players, had offers for a few but managed to keep hold of them. Ihattaren was the main one I wanted to keep, and we had a £50m bid from Arsenal but rejected as didn't hit his released and signed him to a new deal. I then bought in the following:

Gian-Luca Itter - £350k. Wonderkid attacking LB that was transfer listed for £350k, had to pick him up.
Sergio Gomez - £11m. Was one of my main targets, he's the guy I want to fill in for Ihattaren when he eventually leaves and is an absolute class attacking CM.
Takumi Minamino - Loan. Couldn't secure a permanent deal for Minamino so brought him back on a season long loan.
Marco Kana - £20m. Young back-up to Jorritt Hendrix, should be a real money maker, he develops into a hell of a player and can fill in at CB.
Sekou Koita - £4m. Another young talented striker, stacked in that area now with Malen, Kaio Jorge and Koita.
Marco Varnier - Loan. Needed a backup CB after my Omeragic deal messed up so picked up Varnier.
Klebinho - £1.1m. Young, talented, fast Brazilian RB, will be the perfect fill-in when Dumfries inevitably leaves.

Got everything we wanted to do done, the only deal that went slightly wrong was a £9m for Becir Omeragic. He was my top target for the summer window and the guy I wanted to partner Solet. There was a bit of back and forth negotiation but we managed to get a £9m deal done which I was happy with. Signed him to a contract, confirmed everything but then wondered why he didn't sign straight away, then realised Zurich must have snuck in a transfer date of end of next season which I didn't notice, so annoying. So we've got a deal sorted for him, but he won't join us until the start of Season 3.

Another good thing about the window is the other top sides losing big players. Ajax lost Dest, Ziyech, Neres, Magallan and Veltman and did some decent deals but aside from Antony lost quite a bit of quality. AZ also lost their best players - Boadu went to City for £47m, and then Koopmeiners (looks great if you want a DM), Idrissi and Ouwejan also left, so they lost their 3 best players and didn't remotely replace them. Boadu went on deadline day and they just didn't have time to replace. So all in all, a great window for us.


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## Orikoru (May 12, 2020)

My season has been up and down. Just like every save I've done so far, we were terrible in November and December. Don't know why that happens but anyway. Bought Van de Beek in January to play the box-to-box role. At the time my scouts reckoned he was better than everyone we had, but a couple of months later he's been reassessed and he's now rated 3* just like all the others are. He still seems to play decent though. I'm learning that the star ratings are not something to go by religiously - Lo Celso is only 0.5* at right wing for example, but I've played him there as a IW(S) in the Europa League and he performs well because he has good numbers in all of the relevant stats. 

Kane went through a shocking run of form where he didn't score for over 12 hours. Dele Alli has been unbelievable, at one point he actually overtook Haaland in goals, he has like 21 for the season now - and he's played in about 4 different positions! I dropped Kane and played Dele as the DLF for a bit, but then Kane came back into form so Dele is back on the left wing. Haaland reclaimed top scorer as I think he has 22 or 23 now. Our dodgy form before Christmas dropped us to 4th for a long time, but with around eight games to go we've just clawed back 2nd place after beating City. Annoyingly, Arsenal are somehow about 12 points clear at the top - really not sure how they've run away with it but there you go. They also thrashed us 5-0 in the FA Cup 5th round, after we got a first half red card to Vagnoman, plus Kane gave away a penalty. Just one of those games. 

I think I'm going to the Bundesliga for my next save. I'd like someone lower half of the table where the challenge will be to first keep them top half, then after a year or two become 'best of the rest' behind Bayern. Reckon Hertha Berlin might be a good one as they are pretty mediocre but have a 74k capacity stadium.


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## Dan2501 (May 12, 2020)

Star ratings are a relative comparison to your current squad, but also reliant on competency/comfort in playing a position and then the quality of the person assessing them at judging ability/potential ability. I tend to ignore them for the most part and look at attributes for roles as opposed to the ratings. 

Still loving it in the Eredivisie, such a fun league. Into Jan of Season 2 - tight at the top with Ajax and won our CL group after a dodgy start - we got drawn with Milan, Dortmund and PSG so to win the group was a hell of an effort. Bids have started to come in for some of my big players. Arsenal came in for Ihattaren but wouldn't match his release, and then Liverpool matched Jorrit Hendrix's £40m release clause only for him to reject their contract offer  Already sorted a replacement for him for when he eventually leaves, found a superb Brazilian regen with some fantastic stats who looks perfect to share the role with Marco Kana next season. Should make a fortune on him. 

Oumar Solet has developed amazingly in season 2. Have seen him become a monster a few seasons in but never this quick, shows how much regular first team football in a decent league can do for a player. He's been fantastic for me. Him and Omeragic are going to be one hell of a partnership.


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## Orikoru (May 12, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Star ratings are a relative comparison to your current squad, but also reliant on competency/comfort in playing a position and then the quality of the person assessing them at judging ability/potential ability. I tend to ignore them for the most part and look at attributes for roles as opposed to the ratings.

Still loving it in the Eredivisie, such a fun league. Into Jan of Season 2 - tight at the top with Ajax and won our CL group after a dodgy start - we got drawn with Milan, Dortmund and PSG so to win the group was a hell of an effort. Bids have started to come in for some of my big players. Arsenal came in for Ihattaren but wouldn't match his release, and then Liverpool matched Jorrit Hendrix's £40m release clause only for him to reject their contract offer  Already sorted a replacement for him for when he eventually leaves, found a superb Brazilian regen with some fantastic stats who looks perfect to share the role with Marco Kana next season. Should make a fortune on him.

Oumar Solet has developed amazingly in season 2. Have seen him become a monster a few seasons in but never this quick, shows how much regular first team football in a decent league can do for a player. He's been fantastic for me. Him and Omeragic are going to be one hell of a partnership.
		
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Yeah I knew the explanation behind the stars, I'm just saying I was relying far too heavily on them as a way of deciding which player was better. I'm learning to be more flexible and not take it at face value. I think it's easy to rely on that when you first place as it's a simple visual indicator that sort of precludes you looking in any greater depth.

I do find that's an issue with playing as too big a club, even Spurs - you could have some great young talent, but unless they're a full back I'm not really able to play them week in week out. Troy Parrott is a top wonderkid for example, but I can't play him every week in the Premier League as I don't think he'll quite score enough goals. He's playing Europa and cup games, but he's less likely to reach full potential then. I have another lad called Jack Clarke, a winger with good potential, but I've find it hard to give him enough games also.


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## Dan2501 (May 12, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I do find that's an issue with playing as too big a club, even Spurs - you could have some great young talent, but unless they're a full back I'm not really able to play them week in week out. Troy Parrott is a top wonderkid for example, but I can't play him every week in the Premier League as I don't think he'll quite score enough goals. He's playing Europa and cup games, but he's less likely to reach full potential then. I have another lad called Jack Clarke, a winger with good potential, but I've find it hard to give him enough games also.
		
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100%, it's probably the main reason I've enjoyed this PSV save so much. I've tended to buy the same players on basically every save but as PSV I'm forced to look for different, cheaper, younger options and then see them develop but then I also have the balance of being a CL club so have reasonable reputation so they're generally interested in joining. It's been great fun, especially in Holland where there are basically zero registration restrictions or work permit worries, I can literally sign or use anyone I want.


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## Orikoru (May 13, 2020)

Finished the Spurs season in 3rd with 83 points. Quite happy with that. Only annoying thing is that Arsenal smashed it with 100 points. How the hell? Anyway, I left it there for the time being and created a new save as Hertha Berlin. A nice acceptable board expectation for once, and not too bad on the progression - first season, avoid relegation battle, then the following seasons in order: qualify for Euro Cup, qualify for Champs Cup, become recognised as 'best of the rest'. Quick progression maybe but not impossible.

They've actually got some good young players, like Lukebakio, Dilrosun and Maier - unfortunately the latter two are injured for months! We have some good centre backs though and Piatek up top who should be worth a few goals. £0 budget so it'll have to do anyway.

I've set us up in a flat 4-4-2:
. . . . . . DLF(s) - P(a)
W(a) - BBM(s) - DLP(d) - IW(s)
FB(s) - BPD(d) - CD(c) - FB(a)

Only instructions really are to play out of defence and higher line of defence at the moment. Only had friendlies against awful sides so far, but we won the last one 12-0. Lukebakio scored a hat-trick in the first 8 minutes, and Piatek ended the game with 5.


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## Dan2501 (May 13, 2020)

Hertha have a decent little squad. How's Cunha? Was a pretty big signing for them and has been a decent prospect on previous FM games. I've always liked Ascacibar on FM as well, really solid defensive midfielder. You get Lucas Tousart back from his loan after season 1 as well, who has been my favourite ball-winning DM on FM for a couple of years now.

Managed to keep hold of my squad in January. Had a few outgoings with Unnerstall, Doan and Boscagli leaving, but they had to go to free up space in the squad for the two guys joining in the summer and so I could make my only January signing - Emanuel Vignato who I picked up for £9m. Another very talented wonderkid who will step into the RW spot when Minamino's season long loan comes to an end.


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## Orikoru (May 13, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Hertha have a decent little squad. How's Cunha? Was a pretty big signing for them and has been a decent prospect on previous FM games. I've always liked Ascacibar on FM as well, really solid defensive midfielder. You get Lucas Tousart back from his loan after season 1 as well, who has been my favourite ball-winning DM on FM for a couple of years now.

Managed to keep hold of my squad in January. Had a few outgoings with Unnerstall, Doan and Boscagli leaving, but they had to go to free up space in the squad for the two guys joining in the summer and so I could make my only January signing - Emanuel Vignato who I picked up for £9m. Another very talented wonderkid who will step into the RW spot when Minamino's season long loan comes to an end.
		
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Cunha potential is alright, but not massively high. Playing him as the DLF at the moment, but I'm trying to bring Arp in on loan there as well. Board are hampering my effort by not even letting me pay the wages of loaned players though so I'll probably end up with nobody coming in. Ascacibar will get plenty of games but we have Grujic on loan from Liverpool as well. We have a couple of ball-winning midfielders but it's not a role I really use now as they run around like headless chickens.


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## Dan2501 (May 13, 2020)

https://fmdataba.com/20/p/149396/matheus-cunha/ Check out screenshot 3 here - Cunha's at RM aged 26 with very tidy stats and a value up at 70m, give him some game time and you should be able to cash in big time!

The half-back role has been a revelation for me after not really using defensive midfielders at all this year. It's a role I've only used on very rare occasion in past saves but since building the City tactic it's become one of my favourite roles. When teams attack us the DM just drops back and effectively forms a back 5, but then as I've got lads in there who can pass, the keeper will roll the ball out to them and they'll then start all of our counters. It's fantastic. This set-up is now my go-to:

----------------SK(S)-----------------
WB(S)---BPD(D)--BPD(D)--WB(S)--
----------------HB(D)------------------
------------AP(A)---MEZ(S)------------
--IF(S)--------------------------IF(S)-----
----------------AF(A)----------------------

Only thing that frustrates me is that there's no option to turn on "Shoot More" for the AP(A) as a CM, so might need to experiment a bit more with CM(A) or other roles that allow me to turn on shoot more so I can get a few more goals from Ihattaren/Gomez. Other than that I'm loving it, by far the most effective system I've built on this years' game.


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## Orikoru (May 13, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



https://fmdataba.com/20/p/149396/matheus-cunha/ Check out screenshot 3 here - Cunha's at RM aged 26 with very tidy stats and a value up at 70m, give him some game time and you should be able to cash in big time!

The half-back role has been a revelation for me after not really using defensive midfielders at all this year. It's a role I've only used on very rare occasion in past saves but since building the City tactic it's become one of my favourite roles. When teams attack us the DM just drops back and effectively forms a back 5, but then as I've got lads in there who can pass, the keeper will roll the ball out to them and they'll then start all of our counters. It's fantastic. This set-up is now my go-to:

----------------SK(S)-----------------
WB(S)---BPD(D)--BPD(D)--WB(S)--
----------------HB(D)------------------
------------AP(A)---MEZ(S)------------
--IF(S)--------------------------IF(S)-----
----------------AF(A)----------------------

Only thing that frustrates me is that there's no option to turn on "Shoot More" for the AP(A) as a CM, so might need to experiment a bit more with CM(A) or other roles that allow me to turn on shoot more so I can get a few more goals from Ihattaren/Gomez. Other than that I'm loving it, by far the most effective system I've built on this years' game.
		
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Cunha will definitely be playing plenty of games, it's not like I have anyone else. That suggests he'll do well though, ta.

Decent system, I think I'll be sticking with two strikers for now though. I seem to have done better generally with two strikers. In my one striker systems we never score enough goals for the chances & possession we have. I am also liking the W(a)-FB(s) down one side and IW(s)-FB(a) down the other side approach, it seems to balance well for me and they link up well, plus the attacking full back links with the opposite attacking winger with long diagonal crosses.


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## Dan2501 (May 13, 2020)

https://www.youtube.com/user/FMBaseOfficial/videos

This guys videos kept appearing in my Youtube recommended so decided to give some of his content a watch and honestly, it's great. He's pretty new to youtube but his videos on finances, negotiation, set pieces, building tactics are all great, and even as someone who has played FM for years I picked up a few really handy little tips. Worth a watch if you're bored and want some decent FM content to listen to/watch.


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## Orikoru (May 13, 2020)

Cheers, I'll have a watch.

Did a little bit at lunch. First game of the league season, away at Bayern. Christ alive, cheers for that. We scored first but lost 5-1, ha. However we won our next game 2-0 against Wolfsburg so it's all good.


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## Dan2501 (May 13, 2020)

I'm unbeaten in the league in March. Unbeaten and only drawn 4 and Ajax can still get to within a point of me if they win their 2 games in hand. How have they done that? Well, they've conceded 7 goals in 26 games. That's an impressive record, even more impressive when you realise I beat them 4-0, so they've conceded 3 goals in their other 25 games :O Insane defensive record. Not been as good going forward, 3 of their 4 draws have been 0-0s, but what a record. The Eredivisie is competitive. Just a shame AZ aren't really competitive after losing Boadu and Idrissi, they've dropped from level with Ajax and finishing 3rd last year to down in 7th this year. They've spent £11m buying 5 of my trash reserve youth players though, so got to appreciate them for that


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## Orikoru (May 13, 2020)

We won a couple of games in October, got up to 10th place, all was going fine. Suddenly, exactly the same as every other save I've done, we're total crap in November and December. Lost six games in a row and got sacked. Why is this game so crap? I've just added a new manager as the same team and I'm carrying on. It's a joke though.


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## Stuart_C (May 13, 2020)

2nd season with Spurs and I won the league beating Liverpool by a point.  Sold loads and brought in a completely new side, think i've only got Kane left with  Aurier and Davies though they're my backup full backs.


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## Dan2501 (May 14, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			We won a couple of games in October, got up to 10th place, all was going fine. Suddenly, exactly the same as every other save I've done, we're total crap in November and December. Lost six games in a row and got sacked. Why is this game so crap? I've just added a new manager as the same team and I'm carrying on. It's a joke though.
		
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 Wow. I've not really gone through that on this years' game other than when I first took over West Ham in Jan who were bottom of the league and until we built morale we were utter pants. Other than that, the only other reason I've done poorly in saves is a failing tactic that just gets found out by better teams. I've never been doing great and then all of a sudden had my form fall off a cliff like that.

Won the Dutch cup last night for the first time. We had back to back games against Ajax - lost 4-1 in the league to get them back to 3 points behind but then dominated the cup final winning it 2-0. 3 games left to go in the league, we play AZ, Groningen and Vitesse so on paper we should win all 3. Do that and we're guaranteed the title, same if we win 2 and draw 1, if we lose a game it's still likely we'll win the league as we have the far better goal difference, but it won't be completely in our hands. Should be an exciting finish, and fair play to Ajax, they've had a great season. 

Had an epic in the CL as well. 1st KO round got drawn against Benfica. First leg away we got hammered 3-0. I forgot to change my team after the Cup game and the XI was just a mess and we never got going. 2nd leg we were fantastic. Won 3-0 after 90 minutes which took us to extra time and then cruelly lost it as they scored in the 102nd minute from a corner. We managed to get 1 before half-time in ET but couldn't get a 5th. We could have scored 7 or 8 but Mile Svilar in the Benfica goal was in inspired form, made some ridiculous saves. They went through 4-4 on away goals, cruel, but an epic game and a fantastic performance to almost pull it back.


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## Orikoru (May 14, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



 Wow. I've not really gone through that on this years' game other than when I first took over West Ham in Jan who were bottom of the league and until we built morale we were utter pants. Other than that, the only other reason I've done poorly in saves is a failing tactic that just gets found out by better teams. I've never been doing great and then all of a sudden had my form fall off a cliff like that.
		
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It happens regular as clockwork. Basically I see it as a borderline glitch that the effect of morale is too strong in FM Touch. I'm using a lower-half team, obviously there are going to be times when we lose a few games against better sides, if we have a tough run of fixtures. But I'm finding that as soon as you lose, say, 3 games in a row, the morale on all of your players is at an all time low, and suddenly it's impossible to beat anyone and get yourself out of it. I've even researched this, and since you don't have manual team meetings and player interactions in Touch, the only advice I've seen is to arrange a couple of friendlies against nobodies so you can smash them and that apparently gets morale back up. But that's a bit stupid, that wouldn't happen in real life. Of those six defeats in a row, RBL and Dortmund came in the first three - games I'd probably not expect to get a result from anyway. I don't think it's fair for that to then snowball into save-death.

After adding a new manager to rejoin Hertha, I set up a 4-1-4-1 formation, so a little more defensive. We drew the first game, then we had Bayern Munich and beat them 1-0! Won the next game as well 1-0... then we lost the next 5 in a row again. I changed back to my old 4-4-2 (with one slight change, a BWM in for the BBM) and smashed Werder 3-0. So on this occasion changing the formation somehow broke the spell of morale I guess? Or maybe it was just pure luck that my opponents were on an equally bad run of form, I don't know.

I've posted most of my tactics in this topic, and I don't think they are terrible to be honest, and if they are then it's just too hard to make a decent tactic. I'm just going to keep ploughing through this save for now, every time I get sacked I'll just add a new manager, and if we get relegated then maybe I'll actually enjoy a season in the 2nd tier.


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## Dan2501 (May 14, 2020)

@Orikoru Could you screenshot your tactic and share it here? Would be curious to see your full tactical set-up as can only learn so much from knowing the formation and roles.


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## Orikoru (May 14, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



@Orikoru Could you screenshot your tactic and share it here? Would be curious to see your full tactical set-up as can only learn so much from knowing the formation and roles.
		
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As per this post I wasn't using many instructions, just one or two and changing them depending on opposition. Now that I've gone back to it I've sacked off the Poacher for an AF, and the BBM is now a BWM because that Argie guy whose name begins with A is good at that. Piatek was terrible so Cunha took over and he started scoring a few goals even if we weren't winning.


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## Dan2501 (May 14, 2020)

Orikoru said:



As per this post I wasn't using many instructions, just one or two and changing them depending on opposition. Now that I've gone back to it I've sacked off the Poacher for an AF, and the BBM is now a BWM because that Argie guy whose name begins with A is good at that. Piatek was terrible so Cunha took over and he started scoring a few goals even if we weren't winning.
		
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I mean, sure, but hard to give any real applicable advice based on that post, it shows your formation, and you mention "only instructions really" so is that all of them? Be nice to see it from the tactic screen, with the analysis turned on so can see any areas of weakness tactically. Also (and hopefully this is on Touch) it will show your recent match analysis at the bottom which should help pinpoint any potential issues.


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## Orikoru (May 14, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			I mean, sure, but hard to give any real applicable advice based on that post, it shows your formation, and you mention "only instructions really" so is that all of them? Be nice to see it from the tactic screen, with the analysis turned on so can see any areas of weakness tactically. Also (and hopefully this is on Touch) it will show your recent match analysis at the bottom which should help pinpoint any potential issues.
		
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Yeah it was all of them, haha. With Positive mentality. Other than that I was only adding instructions during the games based on whether we were winning/losing etc so I can't screenshot any of that. I'll get a few screenshots at lunch though anyway, I'm on the work laptop at the moment.

I don't think we have recent match analysis, unless I've just not seen it.


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## Dan2501 (May 14, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Yeah it was all of them, haha. With Positive mentality. Other than that I was only adding instructions during the games based on whether we were winning/losing etc so I can't screenshot any of that. I'll get a few screenshots at lunch though anyway, I'm on the work laptop at the moment.

I don't think we have recent match analysis, unless I've just not seen it.
		
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Fair play. I just have a work profile on my personal Mac for working from home, which is good, but makes it way too easy to switch back and forth and sneak in some FM in the quiet periods of the day


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## Orikoru (May 14, 2020)

Ok, this was the original 4-4-2 that had us in 10th place before it all went wrong and we lost 6 in a row:





After I got sacked and re-added myself I made this:


Cunha wasn't the Mez though obviously it was someone else. Those instructions changed a lot though, for example I didn't play a high line against Bayern, I think I played lower line of engagement, standard defence and had Counter on in transition.

Finally, this is the system I've put on now:


This got me the 3-0 win against Werder which ended the run of 5 defeats.

I think I will continue to use this for winnable games, and maybe for ones where we're the underdog I change to the 4-1-4-1, defence line back to standard, with a bit of counter attack and whatnot. Although not with the Mez, that didn't work because I just don't think I have anyone who can play it.


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## Orikoru (May 14, 2020)

Played for a bit longer, and I can confirm relegation has been achieved.


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## Dan2501 (May 14, 2020)

I know you'd read on the SI forums that you don't need many instructions, but personally, I don't agree with having that few, you're leaving the AI and the players to decide too much about what they do and how they play. I don't think you need to add many in, but things like...

*In Possession:*
Play out of Defence, work ball into the box or hit early crosses
- Something to help encourage the style of attacking play you want, at the minute the players are just doing what they want which could change game by game
*In Transition:*
Distribute Quickly, Counter or Hold Shape, Regroup
- Regroup encourages your team to get back into their defensive positions when you lose the ball, and then depending on if you want to be a possession or fast-counter team then I'd select either *Counter* or *Hold Shape
Out of Possession:*
More urgent pressing, get stuck in
- Don't have to use these, but I like to. I like my defenders to pressure opposing attackers, and put in tackles if they need to. 

I'd also think about distributing to your wing backs or your centre backs. If you start your attacks by going straight to the wingers they have to wait for other players to join them in attack to really get the attack moving, whereas if you start with the ball with your defenders, your wingers can start to move forward and begin offering options offensively, though I appreciate this could be worrying if your defenders aren't particularly good on the ball, if your centre backs have poor passing use your wing backs - or turn it off all together and trust your keeper to decide how best to start the attack.

I think I've mentioned it before, but the key to building tactics is identifying a style of play you wish to adopt and then putting into place all the necessary instructions to encourage your players to play in that way. If you let the AI decide how they're going to play you're going to get wildly differing results week on week whereas if you've got a style that fits your team, and players in defined roles they're going to know what they should be doing and if you've got the right players, they'll fulfil those roles consistently.


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## Orikoru (May 14, 2020)

Before I saw your post I've started a new save as Norwich (I figure go for the lowest expectations possible). I built this below:





Now in response to what you've said - I don't think playing out of defence or work into box are worthwhile as we probably won't see much of the ball. Then again Pukki is not exactly an aerial beast so maybe I do want to work it into the box. I might raise the pressing intensity as well slightly. I had distribute to wingers on because they were decent fast dribblers, and I've got it on again here because Buendia is pretty clearly our best player.


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## Dan2501 (May 15, 2020)

Play out of defence just stops your defenders from lumping it up field to no-one and losing the ball, especially if they don't have great passing or decisions. When you're a smaller team like Norwich it's probably a good idea to try and keep as much of the ball as possible. Then, if Buendia's your best player you want him on the ball in as advanced a position as possible. Giving it straight to him from the keeper isn't going to encourage that, he's not going to do his best work from the half-way line, you should try and build your attacks and then get it into Buendia.

Also, you're leaving a lot up to the AI to decide in-game. I can't tell from that what style of football you're trying to play other than boot it to the wings and hope for the best, so you're going to get wildly inconsistent results again as the AI just decide what they want to do on a game-by-game basis. Your players at Norwich aren't good enough to do that in the Premier League, you need to instruct them how you want them to play.

Had a bit of a frustrating summer window so far going into season 3 as PSV. Donyell Malen left for United after they activated his £60m release clause, but annoyingly Arsenal had a 35% of profit clause so took £20m of it  Struggled to replace him since - Fabio Silva turned us down, Esposito turned us down, couldn't agree a deal for Arp so ended up bringing in Amine Gouiri for £5m, he's good but he's no Malen. I then had a bid accepted of £16m for Alphonso Davies who would have been an awesome signing but he joined Schalke instead. Then had bids accepted for Odriozola and Tomiyasu to boost us at RB but they went to PSG and Atletico respectively so ended up with Jonjoe Kenny, not quite the same level 

Have managed some good deals though. Ryan Gravenberch joined from Ajax for £11.5m and then scored the winner against them in the pre-season Johan Cruijff Schaal. I then picked up Filip Stevanovic, Becir Omeragic, Arijanet Muric, Adonias (Brazilian regen defensive midfielder) and Henrik Pedersen (Danish Regen who looks decent) + Jonjoe and Gouiri. It's been decent but could have been way better if we'd signed Silva, Davies and Odriozola, still not got a team capable of competing in the CL!


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## Dan2501 (May 15, 2020)

Oh god, I made a dumb offer for Eder Militao that allowed Real to try and sign a replacement first. The deal got to the confirmation stage but got delayed because they hadn't replaced him yet so I allowed the delay thinking I'd get to confirm before anything was made official. Yeah, turns out you don't, so I've signed Eder Militao and I've just spent £103m on him. Jesus christ.  That's the £40m I made selling Dumfries for his release gone.


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## Orikoru (May 16, 2020)

Against all the odds, this Norwich save is my most enjoyable one so far! The above tactic I posted was too defensive against teams we should actually beat and we couldn't score any goals, so I tailored it to this:




Normally Pukki is up front with Cantwell or someone on the left. We've just reached the half-way point, 19 games played and we're 13th in the league! 22 points to our name. We've only scored 12 goals, but three of our six wins have one nillers. One of our wins, somehow, was 2-1 against Man City with the earlier defensive 4-1-4-1 - we just hit them on the break and scored through Bendia twice and that was it. We did just lose a game to Arsenal 8-0 which was stupid, Onel Hernandez (playing on the left.. for the last time) got himself two yellows in the first 25 minutes, and we also gave away two penalties in the game. But we've bounced back to beat Southampton so it's all forgotten now. 

Of our 12 league goals, 0 of them have come from Pukki, who's played almost every game up front. Drmic is our back-up forward but on paper he's just not as good - plus it's hard to say whether it's Pukki or the tactic at fault here. Largely I'm inclined not to change it when we're getting enough points anyway. He might be doing good work for the team which is not reflecting in his match ratings. Might try and bring in someone in January, although we basically don't have any funds, and I won't be selling Buendia or Aarons, they're too good.


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## Dan2501 (May 17, 2020)

Spending £100m+ on Eder Militao when I didn't really want to has soured the PSV save for me a little and not played it since then. I have started a new save though. Wanted to start in a league I'd not managed in before so loaded up a new save with Austria, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine selected and then hit auto-pick a team for me and the AI picked out the Swiss league and Neuchatel Xamax, so here we are.

The Swiss league is proper weird. Only 10 teams, play each team 4 times. Top 4 get into Europe. Team finishing bottom automatically relegated, 2nd from bottom go into a playoff. Xamax finished 9th last season so survived the playoff to stay in the division and we're helpfully predicted to come bottom with the same odds as Thun, so should be a fun season.

So far so good though. We managed to bring in a couple of players - got Leandrinho on loan from Napoli, a 19 year old Brazilian LB called Cesar on a free, Theofanis Tzandaris who looks to be perfect for my half back role, Alexandre Fressange who's a young back-up winger from PSG and then basically all my budget went on a new centre half - Srdjan Babic who I picked up from Red Star for £450k. Utilising a similar system as I was using at PSV, similar philosophy but less attacking. We've had a good start, wins over Thun, Luzern and Suvette, couple of draws against St Gallen and Zurich and our only defeat was a narrow 2-1 loss to Lugano. The board have basically no expectations either which is nice. They want me to "fight bravely against relegation" and get to the quarters (4th round) of the cup. Should be nicely achievable unless I draw Basel or Young Boys in the next round of the cup.


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## Orikoru (May 17, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Spending £100m+ on Eder Militao when I didn't really want to has soured the PSV save for me a little and not played it since then. I have started a new save though. Wanted to start in a league I'd not managed in before so loaded up a new save with Austria, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine selected and then hit auto-pick a team for me and the AI picked out the Swiss league and Neuchatel Xamax, so here we are.

The Swiss league is proper weird. Only 10 teams, play each team 4 times. Top 4 get into Europe. Team finishing bottom automatically relegated, 2nd from bottom go into a playoff. Xamax finished 9th last season so survived the playoff to stay in the division and we're helpfully predicted to come bottom with the same odds as Thun, so should be a fun season.

So far so good though. We managed to bring in a couple of players - got Leandrinho on loan from Napoli, a 19 year old Brazilian LB called Cesar on a free, Theofanis Tzandaris who looks to be perfect for my half back role, Alexandre Fressange who's a young back-up winger from PSG and then basically all my budget went on a new centre half - Srdjan Babic who I picked up from Red Star for £450k. Utilising a similar system as I was using at PSV, similar philosophy but less attacking. We've had a good start, wins over Thun, Luzern and Suvette, couple of draws against St Gallen and Zurich and our only defeat was a narrow 2-1 loss to Lugano. The board have basically no expectations either which is nice. They want me to "fight bravely against relegation" and get to the quarters (4th round) of the cup. Should be nicely achievable unless I draw Basel or Young Boys in the next round of the cup.
		
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On one of the FMs years ago I played as Vaduz, a Lichtensteiner team that plays in Switzerland. Plan was to bring through Lichtensteiner youth players, make the national team decent, etc, but I just got relegated and sacked. The usual, lol.

My Norwich team stayed up comfortably, we achieved 40 points with three games to go, then lost those last three because they were all against decent teams, but the objective was already achieved. 16th place. We got £48m budget which was unexpected, I've already signed Nick Pope in goal, who has surprisingly excellent looking stats, and Sarr, the Watford winger to play on the left, since Cantwell was absolutely useless all season. Also signed some centre back on a free, Kevin something from Burnley. Not sure why I bothered really, he'll be ok back-up I suppose. Van Ginkel and Lallana shot us down!   Whatever money we've got left we could use a striker. Pukki didn't score for me in the league until his 25th appearance, and managed only 6 league goals in total.


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## Dan2501 (May 17, 2020)

Played every team once now in the league and sitting 2nd in the table level on points but trailing leaders Sion on goal difference. Got a 1-1 draw against Basel before somehow beating Young Boys 1-0 at home. Going surprisingly well.

@Orikoru You had £48m to spend and didn't spend any of it on cheap wonderkids?  For that you could have got Omeragic, Sergio Gomez (check him out btw, he'll be transfer listed, Dortmund always transfer list him after his loan finishes), Marco Kana and Rayan Cherki and set yourself up to get into Europe  But seriously, if you're looking for a striker - try Amine Gouiri or Fabio Silva, both very good and shouldn't be super expensive.


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## Orikoru (May 17, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Played every team once now in the league and sitting 2nd in the table level on points but trailing leaders Sion on goal difference. Got a 1-1 draw against Basel before somehow beating Young Boys 1-0 at home. Going surprisingly well.

@Orikoru You had £48m to spend and didn't spend any of it on cheap wonderkids?  For that you could have got Omeragic, Sergio Gomez (check him out btw, he'll be transfer listed, Dortmund always transfer list him after his loan finishes), Marco Kana and Rayan Cherki and set yourself up to get into Europe  But seriously, if you're looking for a striker - try Amine Gouiri or Fabio Silva, both very good and shouldn't be super expensive.
		
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I kinda need players who are good already, I haven't got time to wait two years or we'll get relegated, ha. Also a lot of them are not in my games because it's FM Touch and I only load the league I'm playing in because I want to breeze quickly through seasons. Typing in names from a list until one appears doesn't feel like proper scouting to me. 

Edit: Ok I took your advice... signing someone you'll know well, Donyell Malen. He's already as good as Pukki apparently with the potential to get a lot better of course. He's not worked out too expensive either.


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## Dan2501 (May 17, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I kinda need players who are good already, I haven't got time to wait two years or we'll get relegated, ha. Also a lot of them are not in my games because it's FM Touch and I only load the league I'm playing in because I want to breeze quickly through seasons. Typing in names from a list until one appears doesn't feel like proper scouting to me. 

Edit: Ok I took your advice... signing someone you'll know well, Donyell Malen. He's already as good as Pukki apparently with the potential to get a lot better of course. He's not worked out too expensive either.
		
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Ooof, good signing sir. How much did you pay for him? Malen's a stud and you'll make an absolute ton of cash on him too. He's very good at LW as well, he was as productive for me there as he was from striker. In season 2 I often used him at LW as an IW A so I could get Koita game time and he was fantastic there. Bagged 30 goals in my 2nd season in Holland, class player.

Achieved first board objective. Got to the cup quarters and drawn against Zurich who we've drawn both games with so far. Some small teams still in the competition - Vevey United are in the 6th tier, and then Winterthur, Will and Aarau are all 2nd tier teams. Winterthur and Vevey were drawn against each other so guaranteed to be at least 1 lower tier team in the semi's, and Young Boys have gone out so it's wide open. Fun little save so far, enjoying Switzerland.


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## Orikoru (May 17, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Ooof, good signing sir. How much did you pay for him? Malen's a stud and you'll make an absolute ton of cash on him too. He's very good at LW as well, he was as productive for me there as he was from striker. In season 2 I often used him at LW as an IW A so I could get Koita game time and he was fantastic there. Bagged 30 goals in my 2nd season in Holland, class player.

Achieved first board objective. Got to the cup quarters and drawn against Zurich who we've drawn both games with so far. Some small teams still in the competition - Vevey United are in the 6th tier, and then Winterthur, Will and Aarau are all 2nd tier teams. Winterthur and Vevey were drawn against each other so guaranteed to be at least 1 lower tier team in the semi's, and Young Boys have gone out so it's wide open. Fun little save so far, enjoying Switzerland.
		
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Malen is flipping useless, no goals in his first 12 appearances, he's getting dropped for Pukki now. He cost me £18m or something, but it was only 11 up front and the rest later.

My whole team has turned to piss actually just like all my other saves now so I might sack it off. 13 games, 1 win 7 draws. The win was against Arsenal, bizarrely. Immediately after it we didn't score for four games, then we were 2-0 up against Everton and lost 4-2. Pathetic, getting bored again now.


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## Orikoru (May 18, 2020)

Things picked up again a little bit. We finally won a couple of games. Even this formation wasn't getting us many goals so I changed the DLP to an AP (and swapped the sides with BBM so the playmaker isn't bumping into the IW) and got slightly better results. We've still not scored very many goals, can't remember what we were on but was probably only about 16 strikes in 22 or 23 games, but Pope has been a mountain in goal and earned us a few points with 0-0s and narrow wins. The league is so tight that we just beat Newcastle after five games without a win, and it pushed us up to 13th, whereas defeat would have left us 17th and only a point from the drop zone. Malen finally netted his first goal to win that one, having come off the bench at left wing.

Max Aarons was moaning that he needs to go to a bigger club, consequently he's played so rubbish that I drop him for Sam Byram half the time. The January transfer window came, if anyone had bid for Aarons I would have happily negotiated a hefty fee and spent it on two or maybe three improvements, but nobody was even interested in him. In all my other saves I've wanted to buy him but Norwich demanded stupid money, now I finally get to use him and he's rubbish. Typical!


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## Orikoru (May 19, 2020)

My Norwich team has hit unbelievable form in the latter part of the season. In February, March & April it's been 6 wins, 2 draws and 2 defeats; only 6 goals conceded as well. With three games left in the season we've shot up to 9th place on 46 points! 16 points clear of the drop zone. It's a shame we took so long to get going, having only one once in our first 14 games. Still, if we finish top half that would be an amazing result. Unfortunately we do have Liverpool and Arsenal in our last three so it's not really on the cards, but anything we get now will be a success. Even Aarons changed his mind about leaving and said he's happy to stay. It's all coming up Milhouse!


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## Orikoru (May 19, 2020)

Well we finished 11th with 49 points, a fantastic result. Given 54mil budget and I've already made some great purchases.
Gedson Fernandes to play box-to-box. His Spurs loan was coming to and end and Benfica were happy to let him go for only 14mil! 
Jude Bellingham, 17-year-old wonderkid playmaker, his contract at Birmingham was about to expire so I snapped him up for 1.6m compensation fee.
Tosin Adarabioyo, the City centre back, his contract was also expiring so I thought he'd be useful.
Had an 18m offer accepted for Marco Kana, the beast 18-year-old defensive midfielder at Anderlecht. His demands were a bit steep but hopefully got it over the line. Should be an upgrade on Jack Colback...
Might still have more to play with, just not sure where is the next most pressing area to strengthen.


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## Dan2501 (May 20, 2020)

Decent signings there - a midfield 3 of Gedson, Bellingham and Kana is very tidy indeed.

Not had the motivation to play much FM but decided to go back to the Man City save and finish off season 1. Won the league but got knocked out of the CL by Liverpool, and knocked out of the FA Cup by Liverpool, both before the finals so the board weren't happy with that. They weren't too annoyed though given we won the league, so that was good. 

Gone a bit mental in the summer window. Not even in July yet and already signed:

David Alaba - £80m
Sandro Tonali - £12.75m
Erling Haaland - £76m
Becir Omeragic - £10.5m
Sergej Milinkovic-Savic - £85m

John Stones (£56m) and Gabriel Jesus (£76m) have departed so far (both to Arsenal), but expecting a couple more to leave as well - one of Zinchenko or Mendy will be leaving and Gundogan will probably go as well. No-one else lined up yet, but with £156m burning a hole in my pocket I'm sure there will be further activity.


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## Orikoru (May 20, 2020)

Just before turning it off last night I think I managed to secure Angus Gunn on back-up terms, he was transfer listed for only 350k! So that would be a touch, I usually struggle to find a half decent keeper willing to be back-up and end up just loaning one in.

Solid signings there for you, Tonali is clearly a beast, and the two games I signed Haaland on he was pretty unreal. Milinkovic-Savic always goes to Liverpool in my games, has incredible stats. 

I stupidly told my staff member to handle contract renewals and he buggered them all up by offering them much lower squad roles so they declined. Idiot. Also it's getting annoying now because you have to wait for work permit confirmation for every foreigner, even the ones you already had and are just renewing their contract. It usually gets declined and you have to appeal, it's ridiculous. If I knew that was going to happen I'd have had them all on eight year contracts beforehand or something! I'm Norwich for God's sake, my handful of German squad players are not going to be seasoned internationals are they? When this Norwich save has run it's course I won't play in England again, the work permit crap is painful.


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## Dan2501 (May 20, 2020)

Yeah, backup keepers aren't too easy to find. I've managed to get Mile Svilar at City though, hell of a backup 

Tonali's my long-term Fernandinho replacement. Was going to go for Bentacur from Juve but he wanted £320k a week which is just mental, so will stick with Rodri and Tonali once Fernandinho departs. SMS is an absolute beast, him at Mezzala with De Bruyne or Bernardo Silva at AP (A), yes please. I really wanted Trent Alexander-Arnold but Liverpool wouldn't accept any offer for him so he's one I'll have to try for next summer, same with Mbappe. I activated Ousmane Dembele's release as well but he decided to stay at Barca  Fun having this much cash to spend but don't imagine the novelty will last long, probably do one more season and then decide what save to go back to next.

Brexit goes one of two ways on FM, it's either amazing and you can sign players from anywhere in the world or it's miserable and doesn't let you sign anyone. More fun to be had in saves outside England I think - I need to go back to PSV, that's such a fun league.


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## Orikoru (May 20, 2020)

Think that's a bit of a silly way of doing it. 50% chance your game is screwed or not? Bizarre. I think they should have just made the effects as minimal as possible, I mean it's only a game, you still want to be able to sign players. My Bundesliga game crashed and burned, and I'm not sure I'd find longevity in Holland since it's not really a top league. I'd probably go for Italy next. Go for Roma or Atalanta or someone. Still, definitely going to play on with Norwich for now, it's the first save I've done that's actually gone properly well.


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## Papas1982 (May 20, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Yeah, backup keepers aren't too easy to find. I've managed to get Mile Svilar at City though, hell of a backup 

Tonali's my long-term Fernandinho replacement. Was going to go for Bentacur from Juve but he wanted £320k a week which is just mental, so will stick with Rodri and Tonali once Fernandinho departs. SMS is an absolute beast, him at Mezzala with De Bruyne or Bernardo Silva at AP (A), yes please. I really wanted Trent Alexander-Arnold but Liverpool wouldn't accept any offer for him so he's one I'll have to try for next summer, same with Mbappe. I activated Ousmane Dembele's release as well but he decided to stay at Barca  Fun having this much cash to spend but don't imagine the novelty will last long, probably do one more season and then decide what save to go back to next.

Brexit goes one of two ways on FM, it's either amazing and you can sign players from anywhere in the world or it's miserable and doesn't let you sign anyone. More fun to be had in saves outside England I think - I need to go back to PSV, that's such a fun league.
		
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I've never managed to get TAA but have got Mbappe for £200m a fair few times. 

I'm 11 seasons in now with with Saints save and have been lumbered with the dodgy brexit save. 

After an Argentinian keeper but he hasn't played enough even though scouted at 99! To be fair he cost 6m and 280k a week which is laughable but there seems to have been a real slump in keeper regeneration in my save.


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## Orikoru (May 20, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			I've never managed to get TAA but have got Mbappe for £200m a fair few times.

I'm 11 seasons in now with with Saints save and have been lumbered with the dodgy brexit save.

After an Argentinian keeper but he hasn't played enough even though scouted at 99! To be fair he cost 6m and 280k a week which is laughable but there seems to have been a real slump in keeper regeneration in my save.
		
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I haven't played many seasons into a save on this yet, but I find regens tend to be a bit more varied stats-wise, which isn't helpful on a keeper who you want to be well-balanced. Like you'll find one with 16 handling and reflexes and think great, but he'll have 4 aerial reach and 19 eccentricity or something. Or rubbish mental stats.


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## Dan2501 (May 20, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			I've never managed to get TAA.
		
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It's frustrating, he seems to stagnate at Liverpool because the AI Liverpool are obsessed with buying wing-backs/playing Fabinho at RB that he never plays enough but still doesn't want to leave and never becomes _that _good. I just want to manage him but there's no way I'm taking over Liverpool  Tried everything to unsettle him but he's just not bothered at all about leaving.


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## Dan2501 (May 20, 2020)

Now Jadon Sancho's turning me down, didn't even want to consider a contract offer. I thought money could buy you everything?  Tough gig managing City


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## Orikoru (May 20, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Now Jadon Sancho's turning me down, didn't even want to consider a contract offer. I thought money could buy you everything?  Tough gig managing City 

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It's not though is it? Haha. I half fancied taking over Dortmund to take on Bayern with Sancho and Haaland there, but I figure if you finish any lower than 2nd you're getting the sack.


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## Dan2501 (May 20, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			It's not though is it? Haha. I half fancied taking over Dortmund to take on Bayern with Sancho and Haaland there, but I figure if you finish any lower than 2nd you're getting the sack.
		
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You could just manage them well, win the league and not get sacked


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## Dan2501 (May 20, 2020)

Transfer window done (I think  - still a few days left) and this is the starting XI. Net spend £31m. Sold an absolute ton of under-23 players for a load of money and then Otamendi, Gundogan, Stones and Jesus have also left. Squad looking insane. Randomly decided to buy Umtiti so have Umtiti, Laporte, Dias and Omeragic at CB  

Liverpool in the Community Shield up first - lost our last 2 games against them, so this should be a good test as to how much we've improved the squad.


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## Beezerk (May 20, 2020)

Has anyone won the league yet?


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## Orikoru (May 20, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			You could just manage them well, win the league and not get sacked 

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Don't be silly, this game has only allowed me to succeed with one club, and weirdly that club is Norwich.


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## Dan2501 (May 22, 2020)

Started another new save  Started up as Brentford last night. Really talented young squad and not managed a full season in the English lower leagues this year so thought I'd look to get Brentford promoted and go from there. The first-team looks pretty strong in all honesty, and with just £5m to spend I decided to bring in a couple of players for the future instead of trying to improve the first team. I got in early and managed to pick up Amad Traore and Nicolo Armini on compensation only deals. Traore set me back £825k and Armini £750k, so just over £1.5m spent and we've gained two excellent young players. Armini's an 18 year old CB who has decent starting attributes and a lot of potential and Traore is a 16 year old right winger with pace, agility, dribbling, technique, and with high determination should improve pretty quickly.

That's about all we've done so far apart from bringing in a few new coaches, a new physio and a new HOYD to bolster our staff. Early signs look promising in pre-season, only narrowly lost to Zenit in our first game before winning our next two pre-season games 5-0 and 6-0. Excited to see how Benrahma and Watkins do, Benrahma looks excellent. Rico Henry is a guy I've had in previous FMs as well and always develops into a decent LB, so some decent potential in this squad for sure!


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## Wolf (May 22, 2020)

Beezerk said:



			Has anyone won the league yet?
		
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Nope... Well not those of us using touch it seems, best I've done is 2nd in the Spanish league with Valladolid. Yet give me a big team to manage and the game craps itself 🙄.. 

I won the Championship with Southampton does that count as winning the league though, or do say Premier league only 🤔


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## Dan2501 (May 22, 2020)

Beezerk said:



			Has anyone won the league yet?
		
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I've won a few (but as Wolf says, not on Touch). Won the league in England, France, Germany and Spain in one save in 5 seasons as well as a Champions League, Europa League and a Euros as England, won the league as City 1st season, won 2 Eredivisies in 2 seasons. Doing alright in this years' game.


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## TheDiablo (May 22, 2020)

Beezerk said:



			Has anyone won the league yet?
		
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I’m on Touch version and won a fair bit. Below is my Spurs save where I took them over when they came 6th after a few seasons after getting Fulham promoted and Leicester from 14th to 7th in a year

Also running a Colchester game, promoted both seasons with a record point total so in Champ now. Haven’t played for a few weeks, might give it a go this weekend - just think we’re going to get pumped!

Not really sure what all the fuss is about tbh 🤷🏻


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## Dan2501 (May 22, 2020)

608 appearances for Camavinga   Tidy save that. I've never been able to do mammoth saves that get that far, I just get bored once I win the major trophies. I did 7 seasons as Everton on last years game and got bored once we'd won the League and Champions League.


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## Orikoru (May 22, 2020)

TheDiablo said:



			I’m on Touch version and won a fair bit. Below is my Spurs save where I took them over when they came 6th after a few seasons after getting Fulham promoted and Leicester from 14th to 7th in a year

Also running a Colchester game, promoted both seasons with a record point total so in Champ now. Haven’t played for a few weeks, might give it a go this weekend - just think we’re going to get pumped!

Not really sure what all the fuss is about tbh 🤷🏻

_*removed pic*_

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What sort of tactics are you using? Got any screenshots etc?

My third season as Norwich, we're firmly established in mid-table and pushing for Europa places at the minute. We're in 8th at the start of December. I made a couple of tweaks to my player roles which seem to have worked straight away on the short-term evidence. Jude Bellingham was ticking along as an AP(S), I changed it simply to AP(A) and he suddenly clocked a 9.0 performance with a stunning goal and an assist! Donyell Malen up front too had never scored that many goals for me, he had about 5 from 40 appearances (quite a few of them left wing as well but still) - I changed the striker from DLF(A) to AF(A) and he bagged a hat-trick!


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## TheDiablo (May 22, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			608 appearances for Camavinga   Tidy save that. I've never been able to do mammoth saves that get that far, I just get bored once I win the major trophies. I did 7 seasons as Everton on last years game and got bored once we'd won the League and Champions League.
		
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I was lucky they had him when I joined! Signed Kimmich and Havertz and built the team with those 3 plus Kane

I'm the opposite to you, I struggle starting new saves as just go looking for same players etc. That's why I tried something completely different with Colchester. 

Tend to get bored every few seasons, give it a break then come back


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## Orikoru (May 22, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			608 appearances for Camavinga   Tidy save that. I've never been able to do mammoth saves that get that far, I just get bored once I win the major trophies. I did 7 seasons as Everton on last years game and got bored once we'd won the League and Champions League.
		
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I'm the same on all the manager games through the years. Once you've won a few things it feels like you've completed the save and it's time for a new one. Luckily it looks like I'll never win anything in this game.


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## Dan2501 (May 22, 2020)

TheDiablo said:



			I was lucky they had him when I joined! Signed Kimmich and Havertz and built the team with those 3 plus Kane

I'm the opposite to you, I struggle starting new saves as just go looking for same players etc. That's why I tried something completely different with Colchester.

Tend to get bored every few seasons, give it a break then come back
		
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Fair enough, I guess that's what makes the game so great, you can play it in so many different ways and play all sorts of different saves. One of my mates is like you, loves a long save, he's in 2057 or something in FM19 as Arsenal and is so invested in the save he's stuck with it instead of moving to FM20 whereas I've played 4 different saves this week


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## TheDiablo (May 22, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			What sort of tactics are you using? Got any screenshots etc?

My third season as Norwich, we're firmly established in mid-table and pushing for Europa places at the minute. We're in 8th at the start of December. I made a couple of tweaks to my player roles which seem to have worked straight away on the short-term evidence. Jude Bellingham was ticking along as an AP(S), I changed it simply to AP(A) and he suddenly clocked a 9.0 performance with a stunning goal and an assist! Donyell Malen up front too had never scored that many goals for me, he had about 5 from 40 appearances (quite a few of them left wing as well but still) - I changed the striker from DLF(A) to AF(A) and he bagged a hat-trick!
		
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This is from an earlier version of the save just before the mental dominant era so with players you’ll mostly recognise , not much difference to a standard gegenpress. What I will do is tweak it where I have an absolute star player to make sure they’re playing a preferred role, mostly this is changing the fwd role from PF to AF


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## Dan2501 (May 22, 2020)

Is that Fabian from Napoli? If so, he was superb in my save as Napoli, had a lot of big clubs after him after season 1!

Nice tactic. How does "fairly narrow" in possession work in the match engine? Do you still get plenty of attacking width from your wing-backs? Feels like it could get quite compact and tight in the final third with 2 inside forwards, the AMC and ST moving into similarish positions at pace.


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## Orikoru (May 22, 2020)

TheDiablo said:



			This is from an earlier version of the save just before the mental dominant era so with players you’ll mostly recognise , not much difference to a standard gegenpress. What I will do is tweak it where I have an absolute star player to make sure they’re playing a preferred role, mostly this is changing the fwd role from PF to AF
		
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Thanks mate. See this is interesting to me, because when I was struggling I read a lot about tactics online, and something they always say is about balancing the attack duties with some support duties in your forwards and so on - but you have all your front four on attack which directly opposes that advice yet it clearly hasn't held you back at all. I've tended to have some success with one W(A) and one IW(S) but you just have both wingers doing the same thing. Food for thought.


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## Orikoru (May 22, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Is that Fabian from Napoli? If so, he was superb in my save as Napoli, had a lot of big clubs after him after season 1!

Nice tactic. How does "fairly narrow" in possession work in the match engine? Do you still get plenty of attacking width from your wing-backs? Feels like it could get quite compact and tight in the final third with 2 inside forwards, the AMC and ST moving into similarish positions at pace.
		
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Maybe narrow is better? Out of curiosity I went to FM Base, looked at the best rated tactics for download. I wasn't intending to download any, but I just wanted to see what sort of set-ups people had. Most of them seemed to use Inverted Wing Backs in the back four for example, so perhaps that width from them isn't necessary at all. Although the ones that had that tended to have W(A) on both sides. A lot of them had two strikers on the exact same role & duty, rather than trying to create a 'partnership' as such - but I'm aware that a lot of these just exploit holes in the match engine rather than working because they should do.


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## Dan2501 (May 22, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Maybe narrow is better? Out of curiosity I went to FM Base, looked at the best rated tactics for download. I wasn't intending to download any, but I just wanted to see what sort of set-ups people had. Most of them seemed to use* Inverted Wing Backs in the back four for example, so perhaps that width from them isn't necessary at all. Although the ones that had that tended to have W(A) on both sides.* A lot of them had two strikers on the exact same role & duty, rather than trying to create a 'partnership' as such - but I'm aware that a lot of these just exploit holes in the match engine rather than working because they should do.
		
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Well yeah, otherwise the inside channel would be far too crowded, you couldn't have an inverted wing back and an inside forward/inverted winger working together, they'd end up occupying the same space, which is why I was curious about playing narrow with inside forwards and an AP, thought it could all get a bit crowded in there. IWBs and W's seems like a pretty well balanced and logical set-up to me, not one I'd use personally, as I like my wingers to get inside and try and get goals, and get my width from attacking wing backs, but no reason why it wouldn't work if you had the right players.


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## Orikoru (May 22, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Well yeah, otherwise the inside channel would be far too crowded, you couldn't have an inverted wing back and an inside forward/inverted winger working together, they'd end up occupying the same space, *which is why I was curious about playing narrow with inside forwards and an AP, thought it could all get a bit crowded in there. *IWBs and W's seems like a pretty well balanced and logical set-up to me, not one I'd use personally, as I like my wingers to get inside and try and get goals, and get my width from attacking wing backs, but no reason why it wouldn't work if you had the right players.
		
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Agree with you there. One of my main curiosities with this game is how hard I found it to make a tactic that worked, and everyone I asked would give advice about which bits of the system contradict each other and might be ruining etc. But all the time you see people using tactics that fly in the face of the advice and seem to work fine, lol.

As I said I tend to have one Winger and one Inverted Winger - at the moment I have my Winger on the right (usually Buendia), and Max Aarons behind him in a WB(s) role. But maybe I should try him as an IWB and see how that goes. Third season he should be good enough to contribute quite well to the deeper midfield area I should think.


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## TheDiablo (May 22, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Is that Fabian from Napoli? If so, he was superb in my save as Napoli, had a lot of big clubs after him after season 1!

Nice tactic. How does "fairly narrow" in possession work in the match engine? Do you still get plenty of attacking width from your wing-backs? Feels like it could get quite compact and tight in the final third with 2 inside forwards, the AMC and ST moving into similarish positions at pace.
		
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Yeah the wingbacks basically play as wingers and provide the width, easily 5 goals and 10 on average from each of them a year

The IF would often outscore the STR, especially post-Kane. I signed Ansu Fati on a free and he played IF-L scoring 25+ for years with Asensio and latterly Diego Lainez IF-R (absolute beast) doing the same the other side

I bought Fabian for about £50m, was very good for a number of years and still sold him for a load to United after I'd replaced him with some regens


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## Papas1982 (May 22, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			608 appearances for Camavinga   Tidy save that. I've never been able to do mammoth saves that get that far, I just get bored once I win the major trophies. I did 7 seasons as Everton on last years game and got bored once we'd won the League and Champions League.
		
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If you never do li g sti ts, do you not find it boring effectively signing the a certain amount of the same batch of players each time?


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## Orikoru (May 22, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			If you never do li g sti ts, do you not find it boring effectively signing the a certain amount of the same batch of players each time?
		
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Haven't you seen him sign Augustinsson at left back nine times via this thread?   I actually think there's enough good young players on the game that you don't _need_ to sign the same ones each time. Even if I know someone is a wonderkid I'll still scout them and several others just to see who my scouts reckon is the best signing, so it could vary. Depending on the role you want to use in your team as well.


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## Dan2501 (May 22, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Haven't you seen him sign Augustinsson at left back nine times via this thread?   I actually think there's enough good young players on the game that you don't _need_ to sign the same ones each time. Even if I know someone is a wonderkid I'll still scout them and several others just to see who my scouts reckon is the best signing, so it could vary. Depending on the role you want to use in your team as well.
		
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Haha. Augustinsson's probably the only player I'll try and actively sign in most saves where I can afford him. I generally try and see each save as an opportunity to try and sign players I've not used before in the game, but there are occasions where I'll end up buying the same player for multiple teams - guys like Sandro Tonali, Ruben Dias and Sergio Gomez for example I've bought multiple times, but don't think that makes it boring as every save is different and the circumstances and the way you use players is different every time. Also the younger wonderkids tend to have random potentials as well, so blindly buying them in every save wouldn't be wise as you're going to get a different player save-to-save.


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## TheDiablo (May 22, 2020)

Went back to the Colchester save today. Total wage bill is 115k, 22nd biggest in the league and 10% of Burnley who are paying Drinkwater £57k!

Pretty unreal first season in champ, slightly lucky I offloaded a young kid for 7.5m to at least get me some kind of budget to use. I have about 14 players to use.

Would ideally like one more season to build a squad before a serious challenge but on the other hand we’re completely skint haha

Turned down Saints and Leicester so going to stick out for a while


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## Orikoru (May 23, 2020)

My Norwich side finished 7th in the end with 54 points. Missed out on Europe because 9th placed Brighton and 11th placed Spurs have got Europa somehow (must have got to the cup finals I guess). 

Most remarkably we did it with only 37 goals scored. Only two teams in the league scored less than that. We only conceded 42, but that does mean a negative goal difference of -5. 

It's probably down to the tactic, but just in case it isn't, I've just bought Josh Zirkzee for £40mil (30 up front).   That's pretty much all the budget gone so I hope it works.


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## Dan2501 (May 23, 2020)

@Orikoru Malen on the left, Zirkzee up top 

11 games played as Brentford, 7 wins, 3 draws and a single defeat leaves us 3rd, 2 points behind Reading and 1 behind Blackburn. A 2-1 win over Leeds at Elland Road the highlight so far. Were plagued with injuries early on, especially to the defence, almost mirroring the start to our Manchester City save. Our starting RB is out with a hip injury for 4-6 months but luckily not had any other long term knocks. The loss, away to Forest, was annoying, we dominated the game but went down early to a set piece, got back in it and dominated the 2nd half and should have scored a couple only for them to steal it with a 91st minute corner. Frustrating.

Also just noticed that Bielsa could be on his way out of Leeds already, looks like he's moving to Dortmund who have sacked Lucien Favre after 7 Bundesliga games as they sit 17th, level on points with bottom placed Mainz. They started the season with 3 defeats and a draw, rough.


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## Dan2501 (May 25, 2020)

Season 1 as Brentford complete. Won the league with 2 games to spare, finishing with 97pts, and joined in the PL by Fulham who secured their spot on the last day of the season ahead of Reading, pretty exciting finish as they went into the last day of the season on the same points and identical goal difference. Was a solid campaign, wasn't as free-scoring as I'd hoped, Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma really flattered to deceive. Watkins managed 15 league goals, and Benrahma got 8 with 5 assists, so not a great return, so probably need to look to improve our attack before we take on the PL. The season also wasn't perfect from an injury perspective. We had what was a really good result in the FA Cup 5th round beating Watford 1-0 but that win was overshadowed by Rico Henry breaking his leg  So depending on how he recovers from that I could be looking for a new LB for next season - LUDWIG ASSEMBLE!

Been given £38m to build for next season but aiming to have a bit of a clear-out before we start buying, quite a bit of deadwood in the squad that needs thinning out, quite a few guys that just won't be good enough for the PL, so they'll have to move on. So if we can shift a few guys we should be looking at upwards of £50m to spend in the summer to set us up for the PL. Let the wonderkid hunt begin!


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## TheDiablo (May 25, 2020)

My Colchester save continues as a great one. 1st season in Champ I came 4th, lost in playoff semis. Got bought in summer and with that a £7m kitty but still the 3rd smallest wage budget in the league. Next season 4th again, but won the playoff final Vs West Brom after being 1 down at HT. League 2 to Prem in 4 seasons! 

Prem is laughable though, our stadium had to be expanded, they gave me £30m but my wage budget os £250k pw, every other club has £1m+. Ive got nobody on £30k, and a squad seriously short on quality

About half way through, has some enormous tonkings and beginning to get cut adrift, need a run of results very soon. If not, hopefully they won't sack me and I can rebuild with parachute payments next year.


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## Dan2501 (May 25, 2020)

Brentford's contracts are a joke. As soon as contract renewal date hit half the squad got a 50% promotion pay rise which has put us 30k over the wage budget and we've only signed 1 player - Dennis Man. Trying to sell off Mbuemo and Valencia but no-one seems to be interested, eugh, this is going to be a rough season, can see it coming already.

Ancelotti has gone to Real Madrid though, so the Everton job has become available. I've applied and somehow got an interview, so we'll see how that pans out. If I get offered it then I'll move on and see how we do as Everton, not played as them since the Beta on FM20, so would be fun to go back.


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## Dan2501 (May 25, 2020)

Somehow Everton actually wanted me to take over, so have left Brentford after 1 successful season and moved to Everton, I'm all about the Steam achievements  Early impressions aren't great. In the Summer window £35m has already been spent on:

Sidibe - paying him £72k a week
Matt Ritchie - who thought £10m on him was a good idea?!
Berat Djimsiti - £7.5m and no idea who he is, but looks a reasonable backup CB at least
Diego Rolan - He was free and now valued at £21m so should make some profit on him, probably the best AI signing
Mitchell Dijks - another £7.5m on a player we didn't need, will just be backup to Lucas I guess

Also Carlo took basically the whole coaching staff with him leaving us with just a single goalkeeping coach and 2 fitness coaches, cheers Carlo. So quite the rebuild is going to be taking place. First job was a clear out - transfer listed Walcott, Bolasie, Sandro, Tosun, Besic, Pennington and Prodl. Had a couple of bids already so hopefully clear those guys off the wage bill and free up some transfer cash.


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## Wolf (May 26, 2020)

After having a couple weeks off of playing it through frustration, startes a new save yesterday with Ajax. Cracking little team they have even though in my first window I've lost 4 starting players, but made some good incoming signings as well. 

Outgoing:
Onana 55m to Liverpool 
Neres 50m to Roma
Blind 16m to Leverkusen
Tadic 14m to Atalanta 

So 135m in transfers made plus the 45m budget i had.. Made me wonder what I'd want to pick up but the squad was already littered with Wonderkids so instead of wholesale changes I've brought in

Boadu 40m
Ramsdale 17.5m (needed a starting keeper and took a punt) 
Lainz 27.5m
Antony 8m

Plus promoting players like Unavar, Gravenbach to first team and tying down some other contracts like ,Van De Beek, Veltman & Promes seems like we have a good nucleus to build a legacy. Already going well won the first 5 league games, the Dutch supercup and qualifying for Champions league proper.


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## Orikoru (May 26, 2020)

Selling Onana is bold - surprised Liverpool bought him given they have Allison already! Onana is really good in this game. Still you'd probably have to sell him to a bigger team eventually anyway. There are so many good youngsters in Holland it's mad.


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## Wolf (May 26, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Selling Onana is bold - surprised Liverpool bought him given they have Allison already! Onana is really good in this game. Still you'd probably have to sell him to a bigger team eventually anyway. There are so many good youngsters in Holland it's mad.
		
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Bid came in early and he wanted to go, I'd turned down 45m and figured he'd be off anyway at some point. So let him go whilst I had strong options everywhere else. Ramsdale played 8 conceded 1 so far.


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## Dan2501 (May 26, 2020)

Antony's a cracking signing, he was superb for Ajax in my PSV save, was so envious they signed him before I managed to. Holland's great fun!


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## Wolf (May 26, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Antony's a cracking signing, he was superb for Ajax in my PSV save, was so envious they signed him before I managed to. Holland's great fun!
		
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Already enjoying it a lot more, able to keep the team play with more attacking freedom and still got 87.5m in the kitty for January if i need additions. May squeeze in a cheeky bid for Camavinga mid season.


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## Dan2501 (May 26, 2020)

Been an interesting start as Everton. I stupidly agreed in my interview that I wouldn't try to expand the staff members, which I thought meant I wouldn't request extra staff on top of the allowance, but nope, it meant adding no extra staff at all. So I've been able to replace some of the crap staff but still got real bad staff quality compared to the rest of the league.

Transfer wise we spent £45m bringing in Alphonso Davies, Yari Verschaeren and Joshua Zirkzee but then sold £87m worth of players with Sandro, Bolasie, Tosun, Besic, Prodl and then two of the AI's summer signings also leaving making £8m profit on Dijks and £20m profit on Rolan, so that was tidy.

Sat 7th in the league after 5 games. Defeats to City and Chelsea away with wins over West Ham, Villa and Watford. Verschaeren has been great, but we've been dire defensively. Conceded 8 in our last 2 games - 5 against Chelsea before drawing 3-3 with Schalke in our Europa League group. Alphonso Davies probably not the best signing given our weak defence, his 10 tackling, 8 marking, 9 positioning is not ideal, very much an attacking wing back. He can play against the rubbish teams and Digne against the better sides until he improves defensively. Also managed to annoy Jonjoe by offering him out on loan and then upset Kean by not letting him go to Preston on loan deciding to play him in the first-team instead, mental. Doing better than our old boys Brentford though who are yet to win any of their first 5 games. Rough, although they are above QPR who have 0 points, so every cloud.


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## TheDiablo (May 26, 2020)

My Colchester Prem season was BRUTAL. 23 points told. 

They've never got close to sacking me, and the upshot is we're now well financed. Expanded stadium again, plus a decent kitty. Still trying not to overspend or start paying silly wages. Hopefully foundations in place for a proper effort next time

Now in Champ again and have got quite a poorly balanced squad, absolutely no full backs and can't pick any up. Do have an abundance of good CBs though. Playing a very weird 3-3-2-2 formation with 3CB and 3CM. Seems to be working ok, 2nd halfway through season


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## Wolf (May 26, 2020)

Well the game seems to have crapped itself again after the usual good start. Have got Hunterlaar, Boadu, Lainz, Promes & De Beek all out injured long term in 3 consecutive games as a result gone 8 straight without a win, drawing every single one of them. Leaving me languishing in 3rd spot 6pts from top. Only saving grace is I have 2 games in hand over 1st & 2nd thanks to being in champions league. Im 2nd in my group behind Chelsea, but I have them to play to guarantee qualification....


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## Wolf (May 27, 2020)

Well after getting Royally hammered by Chelsea dumping me out of Europe bottom of the group and despite my injury hit squad we limped through to January where I needed to make an emergency signing of Pavlidis up front, Lainez returned from injury to which aided a slight turn around in fortunes and picked up another 5 straight wins including my games in hand.

Ended up going all of January, Feb, March & April unbeaten. Got better and better as players returned from injury. Ended up winning the league by 20 clear points & winning the Dutch cup convincingly.  Board confidence on the game still makes me chuckle as I have supposedly impressed them with my ability & happy we've won 3 trophies in my first season, yet they think my transfers leave a lot to be desired especially Ramsdale (who conceded the least goals of any keeper all season and saved 3 out of 5 penalties in Cup semi 🤷🏻‍♂️)

I've now lost my top scorer Ziyech due to a pre agreed transfer to Chelsea from before my taking job, but thankfully it coincides with Antony finally completing his move.


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## Orikoru (May 27, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Well after getting Royally hammered by Chelsea dumping me out of Europe bottom of the group and despite my injury hit squad we limped through to January where I needed to make an emergency signing of Pavlidis up front, Lainez returned from injury to which aided a slight turn around in fortunes and picked up another 5 straight wins including my games in hand.

Ended up going all of January, Feb, March & April unbeaten. Got better and better as players returned from injury. Ended up winning the league by 20 clear points & winning the Dutch cup convincingly.  Board confidence on the game still makes me chuckle as I have supposedly impressed them with my ability & happy we've won 3 trophies in my first season, yet they think my transfers leave a lot to be desired especially Ramsdale (who conceded the least goals of any keeper all season and saved 3 out of 5 penalties in Cup semi 🤷🏻‍♂️)

I've now lost my top scorer* Ziyech due to a pre agreed transfer to Chelsea* from before my taking job, but thankfully it coincides with Antony finally completing his move.
		
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I did that save as Chelsea before, imagine my surprise when Ziyech turned up, just as I'd bought Zaniolo who plays the same positions.


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## Wolf (May 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I did that save as Chelsea before, imagine my surprise when Ziyech turned up, just as I'd bought Zaniola who plays the same positions. 

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Well you wasted money there 😂

Ziyech was beast for me in my only season with him, Leagues top scorer & assists despite losing him for 6 weeks to injury.  I do have huge imbalance in my squad though got an absolute lack of full back coverage, I've only got Tagliafico who wants to move on with Inter tabling a big offer & Dest as my other recognised one who is still young, so I need to go out and get at least 2 or 3 new ones, but an unbelievable amount of attacking midfielders to point its hard to give game time to any of them.


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## Orikoru (May 27, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Well you wasted money there 😂

Ziyech was beast for me in my only season with him, Leagues top scorer & assists despite losing him for 6 weeks to injury.  I do have huge imbalance in my squad though got an absolute lack of full back coverage, I've only got Tagliafico who wants to move on with Inter tabling a big offer & Dest as my other recognised one who is still young, so I need to go out and get at least 2 or 3 new ones, but an unbelievable amount of attacking midfielders to point its hard to give game time to any of them.
		
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Tagliafico usually seems to end up at Man City on my saves. Maybe you can nick Wijndal off AZ, he's a class left back. I think Dest becomes class as well so keep playing him.


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## Wolf (May 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Tagliafico usually seems to end up at Man City on my saves. Maybe you can nick *Wijndal* off AZ, he's a class left back. I think Dest becomes class as well so keep playing him.
		
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Already nicked him for 22m, slotted in nicely.. 

Quarter way through new season and sitting top with Antony & Boadu banging in goals. Sold De Beek as well so I've got a nice profit of 95m sitting there burning a hole in my pocket..


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## Orikoru (May 28, 2020)

My team are ticking along quite nicely, we were in 6th then we had to play Arsenal, Liverpool AND Chelsea all in a row in October - managed draws in the Arsenal and Chelsea games but lost to Liverpool obviously. So we dropped a little to 8th. But now there's a bloody world cup on! No games for us for 50 days!! Whose stupid idea was that??  Only four of our players were called up so I imagine I'll need to arrange a couple of friendlies to keep everyone else sharp. If the staff don't do it automatically.


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## Wolf (May 28, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			My team are ticking along quite nicely, we were in 6th then we had to play Arsenal, Liverpool AND Chelsea all in a row in October - managed draws in the Arsenal and Chelsea games but lost to Liverpool obviously. So we dropped a little to 8th. But now there's a bloody world cup on! No games for us for 50 days!! Whose stupid idea was that??  Only four of our players were called up so I imagine I'll need to arrange a couple of friendlies to keep everyone else sharp. If the staff don't do it automatically.
		
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That's going to be my issue this season, but likely I'll be losing a fair few players so 50 days of just hitting the continue button 🤷🏻‍♂️

Finished my 2nd seasons, only lost 1 game all season that was to PSV. Managed another league & Cup double plus made it to champions league last 16. Problem is my squad was ransacked post season by European Big clubs, I lost Ramsdale & Lainez to PSG for a combined 96m. Tagliafico has now left for 53m to Liverpool, Martinez to Barca for 42m plus some other fringe players. 

But have made some cracking signings to replace them and I've only spent 22m.

I have noticed though as Ajax manager I'm being offered so many jobs, in season 2 alone I rejected, RB Leipzig, Wolfsburg, Everton, Tottenham, Dortmund & Blackburn


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## TheDiablo (May 28, 2020)

Bounced straight back up, winning the Championship in the end with 102 points, helps getting 53 from the last 20 games. Managed to stay up in the Prem, came 13th but only 5 points ahead of 13th and got squeaky with a terrible run of form before winning 2 of the last 4. Really, really struggling to attract players that significantly improve the side, so its a case of incremental, slow improvements. Desperately need someone to score goals, my strikers ended with 10 and 3 this season!

I have a few 'fork' saves lined up, in the last 3 off-seasons have been approached by Sevilla, Wolfsburg and amazingly now Bayern (just came 5th, massive rebuild required). Tempted to take a break from  Colchester now and give the Bayern fork a go


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## Orikoru (May 29, 2020)

Got fed up with Norwich, too inconsistent to improve on the 7th we got last season. I've started a new save as Roma, and I'm trying a daft formation that basically imitates some others I saw online (but my own version of it). It's a kind of 4-3-1-2 with W(a) and IWB(s) on both sides, a SS(a) and two pressing forwards, very high line and plenty of pressing. Roma don't have much money or any good strikers so I've bought Dusan Vlahovic from Fiorentina and Giacomo Raspadori from Sassuolo. Both 19 with good potential, and will get plenty of games as Dzeko no doubt quickly ages into oblivion knowing how this game normally treats any player over 31.


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## Dan2501 (May 31, 2020)

Everton going about as well as I could expect. Just into Feb now, sat 6th in the league level on points with 5th place Arsenal but well off the pace of the top 4. Finished top of my Europa League group and been drawn against Marseille in the 1st KO round, a good EL run would be nice. 

Transfer wise we picked up Sergio Gomez in January for £9m and then Rolan finalised his move to Wolves - which might be the worst £20m ever spent as he joins them with 5 months left to recover from a cruciate injury, then Walcott (£3m) and Kenny (£18m) moved to Korea and FC Seoul, and sold some crap u23 players for a combined £7m so finances are looking decent which doesn't happen often in an Everton save.

Not sure what the plan for the save is, I'd like to win the league but we're a long way off that and it's bloody difficult to compete when Liverpool spent £107m on Bentacur in Jan, City spent £96m on Lautaro, and Chelsea have already spent £316m this season. Going to take a few seasons to get us up to the level required I think.


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## Orikoru (Jun 1, 2020)

Roma game is going ok. We started the season with 5-0, 4-1 and 5-0 wins in the league and I thought I had the holy grail of tactics, but then we lost to Juve 4-1 started drawing games endlessly. Lost to Lecce who are terrible, but now we're on a good little run again with a few wins taking us back into the top four, and top of our Europa group. 

Just approaching Christmas, our top scorer is Kolarov. From inverted wing back (DL position) he's managed 7 goals in 12(2) appearances. Several penalties and free kicks in that, but still. The guy is 34 years old! His average rating is 7.61. The downside is I'll never be able to replace him on Roma's meagre budget! 

Speaking of budget, Roma have players on absolutely stupid contracts, it's no wonder I'm not allowed to spend any money. Dzeko gets 155k, he's 33 and I rarely start him. Pastore earns 140k, I've started him only once. Even if I manage to sell him I'll never do it without having to stump up a wage contribution. Jordan Veretout, an Aston Villa reject, is our fourth highest earner on 92k and I haven't started him once. And I can't sell him in Jan either because he's only on loan at the moment, which becomes permanent at the end of the season. Give me strength.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 2, 2020)

That's always the issue with Roma. So much of their budget is blown on old past their best players that you can't really sell in the first season, but come the end of Season 1 you'll be able to have a squad clearout, you'll get some decent cash from the Serie A TV deal and then you can start building a decent side. Always a grind getting through that first season though, has been for a couple of seasons on FM as them. Some good talent in the squad though - Kluivert is excellent, Cristante, Pellegrini and Zaniolo are fantastic in the middle, Under's brilliant and Schick is a handy striker, good core to the squad.

Putting together some decent little cup runs as Everton. Just beaten QPR in the FA Cup Semi Final to reach the final, which is great, but we've got Liverpool in the final, so not going to win that. We've also just beaten Schalke in the Europa League Quarters and face Valencia in the Semis with Atletico or Spurs awaiting the winner. Could make the Champions League after all with a bit of luck!


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## Orikoru (Jun 2, 2020)

After I made that post, a couple of Chinese clubs came in for Pastore and by some miracle they didn't ask for any wage contribution! That's 140k a week off the books!  Kolarov signed an end of contract agreement with Arsenal. I did offer him a one year extension but he took the Arsenal gig. He is 34 though so _surely_ he's going to decline soon. I had a bid for Perotti (another part-time player on 90 grand) but he rejected the move, useless bastard. But yeah as you say, at least we have a strong midfield to start with.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 2, 2020)

Somehow absolutely smashed Valencia in the Quarters. Beat them 4-0 at Goodison and then got a 2-2 draw at the Mestalla to win 6-2 on aggregate, very tidy. Spurs then got dumped out 5-2 by Atleti so face them in the Final. Nice little end to the season, an FA Cup final and then a Europa final to try and secure a Champions League place. 

4 games left in the league. Sat 7th atm but only 2 points behind Spurs and have 2 games in hand. They finish their season with games against Arsenal and Leicester whereas we've got Burnley, Southampton, Liverpool and Chelsea, so I'm hopeful we'll nab 6th but need it basically in the bag before the last 2 games so need results to go our way. 6th place + FA Cup and Europa League finals makes for a decent little season, be even better if we can get a trophy out of it!


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## Dan2501 (Jun 3, 2020)

We did it! It looked like it was going to be a disaster finish to the season. We lost to Liverpool and drew with Chelsea in our last 2 games of the season which allowed Spurs to overtake us so we finished 7th, the board were absolutely fuming and my Manager Performance rating dropped to an F. Then we lost the FA Cup final to Liverpool 2-1 which didn't help, but then by some miracle we actually beat Atletico in the EL Final. We dominated for a lot of the game, DCL scored in the 36th minute and we held onto our lead until the 84th minute where Koke scored from a corner. It was looking like the game was going to penalties and then Sergio Gomez pinged a ball across field to Moise Kean who cut inside, beat Partey and curled one past Oblak into the top corner to win us the trophy. Absolute miracle win and now we're on the way to the CL. Get in!

Now the fun of a summer re-build to get us ready for CL football. Have £58m to spend initially and then aiming to sell Delph, Bernard and Mina to free up some more cash to improve the squad. Could really do with a couple of CL quality defenders and a new winger or two. Just need more quality, we've got some good players, but not going to be good enough to compete in the CL yet.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 3, 2020)

PL season is about to start - starting off with 2 games against United, one in the league, then one in the Euro Super cup. Had an interesting summer. Signed our world class CB that we needed and we had to spend big to do it - £65m spent on Dayot Upamecano. We then also picked up:

Lucas Tousart - £3.4m - Perfect for our Half Back role and will allow Holgate to move back to centre half alongside Upamecano
Gerard Deulofeu - £36m (£15m up front) - Love Deulofeu IRL, Watford got relegated and he was transfer listed so had to pick up him
Becir Omeragic - £8.5m - Quality backup centre half with tons of potential, won't be CL ready this season but has so much potential
Leon Goretzka - Loan with £28m option to buy - World class centre midfielder but no major obligation to buy him with an optional future fee
Jesse Lingard - Free - Needed another winger, only paying him £37k a week, decent backup option and he's home-grown
David Raya - £6.25m - Lossl's contract is up at the end of season 3 so went in early and picked up my old Brentford GK. Only 25 and a quality GK, perfect backup to Pickford that can step up when needed.

In terms of departures, we've sold:

Bernard - £22m
Anthony Gordon - £20m
Gylfi Sigurdsson - £11m
Fabian Delph - £4m
Yerry Mina - Loan to Porto with £33m fee after 20 games

Still gonna be tough to battle Liverpool, City, or Chelsea. Liverpool have spent £229m on Frenkie, Boadu and Dest; City have spent £100m on Zaniolo and David; Chelsea spent £157m on Havertz and Everton; but United and Spurs have spent nothing which is weird, so could break top 4 but need a good season.

I got offered interviews at Barcelona and Lazio as well in the summer, accepted the Barca one and had the interview but ended up missing out to Luis Enrique unsurprisingly. Probably would have gone, but glad to get another season at Everton to try and build something decent, just hope we get a friendly CL group


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## Orikoru (Jun 4, 2020)

FM was being it's usual annoying self last night. We were on a great run of 5 wins that put us to within 5 points of the leaders, but then the game decided to punish me for my wishful thinking and we got 1 point from the next four games to drop us into 4th. Managed to win and reclaim 3rd just before I turned it off though, there's only about 4 games left I think. Somehow we got Liverpool in the Europa League 2nd knockout round, we managed two away goals in a 3-2 defeat, but were beaten 2-1 at home sadly, we made a decent go of it at least. We're in the Italian Cup final as well, but that's against our arch rivals Lazio, who annoyingly are top of the league and looking likely to win it! They just beat us in that poor run of form with 10 men.

I'm working on making my tactic slightly less gung-ho for next season, as it seems like we need to score 3 just to win the game at the minute. We're the top scorers in the division but we leak a lot of goals as well. And we're losing Smalling of course since he's only on loan, so I'll have to find a top centre back replacement for next to no money. Not to mention trying to replace Kolarov - even though he's nearly 35, he's our top scorer from left back with 15 bloody goals! Lots of penalties, free kicks, and screamers from open play - it'll be nearly impossible to replace that kind of attacking input. Roma is a funny team, aside from trying to win football matches, sorting out the wage bill is a massive challenge, and three of my first choice back four are leaving at the end of the season, so season two is almost like starting again. Florenzi comes back from loan to replace Zappacosta so I'm ok there, but yea, finding a top CB and LB on little money is going to be very difficult. The rest of the squad should be ok.


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## TheDiablo (Jun 4, 2020)

Rattled through a few more seasons with Colchester save, just finished 10th year. Have managed to stay in Prem now for last 4 of those and we're fully established.

I've enjoyed it as it's been incremental gains and patience, clever transfers, being prepared to sell anyone for the right price etc. Got the 'wrong-end' of the Brexit draw so its largely been UK based players as I can't attract good enough foreigners with such a small stature, although that has changed slightly in the last couple of years. Built Prem side originally around players such as Reiss Nelson, Rhian Brewster and Tom Davies, although these have been largely replaced and sold on now. 

We've always been pretty good defensively but struggled massively with goals - not sure anyone has ever got more than 12 in a season for us. I've stumbled on an awesome gk, def and dm and the result was just 22 conceded in the last season! Lots of 1-0 either way or 0-0s, but having finished 9th 2 years back the extra clean sheets and couple of surprise results see us nick into 6th. I've got such a thin squad though, only ever needed to build for a 40ish game season so Europa League will really stretch us. Happy with the summer window though, made a couple of good reinforcements and signed an exciting striker from Dortmund.

Such a good save, can see it going on for a while.


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## Orikoru (Jun 4, 2020)

TheDiablo said:



			Rattled through a few more seasons with Colchester save, just finished 10th year. Have managed to stay in Prem now for last 4 of those and we're fully established.

I've enjoyed it as it's been incremental gains and patience, clever transfers, being prepared to sell anyone for the right price etc. Got the 'wrong-end' of the Brexit draw so its largely been UK based players as I can't attract good enough foreigners with such a small stature, although that has changed slightly in the last couple of years. Built Prem side originally around players such as Reiss Nelson, Rhian Brewster and Tom Davies, although these have been largely replaced and sold on now.

We've always been pretty good defensively but struggled massively with goals - not sure anyone has ever got more than 12 in a season for us. I've stumbled on an awesome gk, def and dm and the result was just 22 conceded in the last season! Lots of 1-0 either way or 0-0s, but having finished 9th 2 years back the extra clean sheets and couple of surprise results see us nick into 6th. I've got such a thin squad though, only ever needed to build for a 40ish game season so Europa League will really stretch us. Happy with the summer window though, made a couple of good reinforcements and signed an exciting striker from Dortmund.

Such a good save, can see it going on for a while.
		
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Sounds a bit like my Norwich save, I had us in a 4-3-3 with an Anchorman, we were defensively solid in the end but it was hard to score goals with one striker, and if we won it was usually 1-0. The only times I've scored decent goals in saves have been with two strikers really. I usually find the AMC position a bit hit and miss as well, so having an attacking player there behind a lone striker doesn't always help.


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## Orikoru (Jun 5, 2020)

Well we scraped over the line in third, needing to better Atalanta's result on the final day, we had a ridiculous 3-3 draw with Fiorentina, but Atalanta also drew, so 3rd it is. Champion's League qualification which is all I wanted really.

Loads of ins and outs with loan deals ending and me having to get replacements with next to no money. Sold a bunch of reserves like Gonalons and Nzonzi to scrape enough money to buy Takehiro Tomiyasu - a wonderkid defender who will start at CB and can also cover RB. Needed a left back and managed to bring Luca Pellegrini in from Zebre on a two year loan deal, so that plugs a hole. And I needed wing cover so I did a loan deal for Thorgan Hazard as well. Florenzi and Schick returned from loans as well and go straight into the first team. Best of all I just managed to shift Dzeko on deadline day. Took £1m for him and we're contributing 31k towards his wages... but the alternative was him earning 155k to play for the reserves! 

Had a big tactical reshuffle as we scored 75 goals last season (good) but shipped 50 as well (bad). Have now gone to the classic 4-2-3-1 shape as follows:
PF(a)
IF(a) - AM(s)* - W(a)
DLP(d) - BBM(s)
WB(s) - BPD(d) - BPD(d) - IWB(s)
SK(d)
*added instructions to get further forward and take more risks​
So far in four friendlies (against pants teams) and two league games we've won them all and not conceded at all. Sure that won't last!


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## Orikoru (Jun 5, 2020)

Game does my head in (again). We were ticking along nicely, just smashed Sassuolo 4-1. All of a sudden it's seven games without a win after that. The 7th being a 3-0 defeat to arch rivals Lazio. I figured the game was trying to tell me something's wrong (even though it wasn't before), so I changed formation to a 4-4-2 - and smashed Juventus 3-0 in the next game, plus we had ten men for most of the second half. What the hell?? Next game smashed Basel 4-0 as well. So yeah, we play 4-4-2 now I guess.

PF(a) - CF(a)
W(a) - DLP(s) - BBM(s) - W(a)
IWB(s) - BPD(d) - BPD(d) - IWB(s)​


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## Orikoru (Jun 7, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Game does my head in (again). We were ticking along nicely, just smashed Sassuolo 4-1. All of a sudden it's seven games without a win after that. The 7th being a 3-0 defeat to arch rivals Lazio. I figured the game was trying to tell me something's wrong (even though it wasn't before), so I changed formation to a 4-4-2 - and smashed Juventus 3-0 in the next game, plus we had ten men for most of the second half. What the hell?? Next game smashed Basel 4-0 as well. So yeah, we play 4-4-2 now I guess.

PF(a) - CF(a)
W(a) - DLP(s) - BBM(s) - W(a)
IWB(s) - BPD(d) - BPD(d) - IWB(s)​

Click to expand...

Well, the turnaround since I changed to this 4-4-2 has been spectacular. Including that Juventus win it's been 16 wins, 2 draws and 2 defeats in all comps, and neither defeat was in the league so we're on a 13-match unbeaten run there that's seen us go from 10th place in November to 2nd in mid-February! 13 clean sheets from those 20 games as well. Not quite sure how I stumbled on this tactic but it bloody works! (Only minor difference to the above is swapping the strikers the other way around.) 

January window was pretty successful as well, we managed to offload Diawara for 25-odd million, brought in Saka from Arsenal for only £6m as his contract was running out, and Gabriel Barbosa who's a really good all round forward, but was only £14m because he was playing in Brazil still. He's knocked in 3 goals from 6 starts. The real man of the hour is Patrik Schick though - he is a class striker! 17 goals in 25(3) apps playing as the CF(A). 

2 points behind Atalanta (yeah) but they have a game in hand. Title race is on!

Full tactic :.
	
 (although I don't always use short passing, that depends on opposition)


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## Orikoru (Jun 9, 2020)

Our unbeaten run ended at 21 as we slipped up against Fiorentina, but we've had three wins since, and Atalanta finally lost a game too. The title goes down to the last day, they are 2 points ahead but we have the head-to-head record (and GD) over them. We have Napoli away (they're 8th), Atalanta have Lazio away, who are 3rd...

We open the scoring after just 4 minutes, the hero that is Patrik Schick with his 25th of the season. Napoli strike back just 3 minutes later though. Irritating. 38 mins we take the lead again, Mancini from a corner. Sadly though, Atalanta are a goal up. At half time, as it stands, Atalanta are winning the title. Surely our arch rivals can do us a favour? 

Big news on 50 minutes, it's all go! Roma have bagged a 3rd through Barbosa and Lazio have equalised simultaneously! Barring any bottlejob here it's all down to Lazio and whether they can hang on! 57 mins, we've added a 4th, Mancini again. It's done and dusted here. LAZIO HAVE TAKEN THE LEAD ON 70 MINS! They're bloody doing it! 

5 mins to go, we've smashed in a 5th through Kluivert, it's emphatic. Lazio are still leading! It's all over! We've done it! We were never top the entire season until now, but that's when it counts. My first league win on this game! Unbelievable Jeff!


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## Dan2501 (Jun 9, 2020)

Awesome - can't beat a bit of last day drama, the sort of stuff that makes this game amazing! How much cash you got to spend in the summer now?

I started a Barcelona save the other day. In every save whenever the Barca job becomes available I apply but still not managed them on this years' game so thought I'd just start a save as them at last. Not sure if you've heard of him, but this lad Lionel Messi is pretty handy. 13 goals, 15 assists in 17 games to start the season, he's amazing. We're currently top of the league by 3 points despite losing the El Classico at the Bernabeu. We won the Supercopa which for some reason takes place as a 4 team knockout in Saudi Arabia now, and won our CL group which contained Inter, Dortmund and Lille, so doing pretty well.

Transfer wise I sold Turan and Brathwaite which freed up enough budget to pick up Jude Bellingham for £25m who has been really good when he's played and is already developing really quickly. Ansu Fati has started to develop crazy quickly as well. We got injuries to Griezmann and Dembele so had to use Fati for a few weeks and he was exceptional - 8 goals in 8 La Liga starts, 2 goals, 2 assists in 3 CL starts, kid is going to be a superstar. Picked up Everton from Gremio in January as well. Been short on wingers and 1 or two injuries has left us in trouble so bought Everton in for £20m to provide some useful backup. Don't think this save will last many seasons but fun to finally be in charge of Barca, and my Pep-inspired tactic is working a charm in Spain.


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## Orikoru (Jun 9, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Awesome - can't beat a bit of last day drama, the sort of stuff that makes this game amazing! How much cash you got to spend in the summer now?
		
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£6m.   But Lorenzo Pellegrini, who just smashed player of the season getting 20 assists in the process, is muttering that he should maybe be joining a bigger club. So it might come down to it that I sell him for £100m and bring in 3 players that way. Otherwise it's just going to be bringing the youth products in more, or getting one or two loan deals done again. Or I might start a new save if the window goes badly, winning the league unexpectedly almost makes you feel like you've completed it doesn't it?


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## Dan2501 (Jun 9, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			£6m.   But Lorenzo Pellegrini, who just smashed player of the season getting 20 assists in the process, is muttering that he should maybe be joining a bigger club. So it might come down to it that I sell him for £100m and bring in 3 players that way. Otherwise it's just going to be bringing the youth products in more, or getting one or two loan deals done again. Or I might start a new save if the window goes badly, winning the league unexpectedly almost makes you feel like you've completed it doesn't it?
		
Click to expand...

Ouch. That's a brutal transfer budget given you've won the league. CL revenue next season should help. Also, you've not completed the save yet, not won the CL  

5 points clear at the top of La Liga with 4 to play, leading 3-1 over Inter in the CL Semi Finals after leg 1. Knocked Real out in the Quarters, and should we get past Inter which looks likely we'll play either Atleti or Juve and Atleti lead that tie 2-0 after leg 1, so looks like a Barca-Atleti CL Final. Which is lucky as my club vision goals are to win the league and CL, pretty high expectations


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## Papas1982 (Jun 11, 2020)

With work picking up somewhat, I've gone back to my old touch game.

Just about to start my 4th (first in europe) season as Saints manager having finished 7th last year. Squad is loaded with youngsters and primed for CL over the next season or two imo. Managed to sign Havertz on a free in the off season. Had watched him all last term and nobody went in for him, He wasn't interested all the while he was under contract so i got in early as soon as he was a free agent and threw money at him!


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## Orikoru (Jun 12, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			With work picking up somewhat, I've gone back to my old touch game.

Just about to start my 4th (first in europe) season as Saints manager having finished 7th last year. Squad is loaded with youngsters and primed for CL over the next season or two imo. Managed to sign Havertz on a free in the off season. Had watched him all last term and nobody went in for him, He wasn't interested all the while he was under contract so i got in early as soon as he was a free agent and threw money at him!
		
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Haha, Havertz on a free, that's crazy. Normally moves for like £60m! 

My third season with Roma is highly frustrating. We've had some awesome performances - beat Bayern home and away in the champions league group, 4-1 in the home tie! Battered Lazio and Milan in the league too. But we've also lost six games already, some to the likes of Verona and Torino. We were leading at Juve for 75 minutes, and ended up losing 3-1 with two of the goals coming after 90 mins. Inter are unbeaten and coasting the league while we sit 5th at the half way point. We're into January and I've managed to rustle up £19m with sales, but I still don't think that's enough to buy anyone who actually improves the first team at this point. And our reward for topping the champs group was Real Madrid in the first knock-out round, annoyingly.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 13, 2020)

Gone back to the PSV save. God knows what I was thinking in my last transfer window. I remember Militao being an accidental signing (a bloody expensive one at that) but the squad depth is all over the shop, especially in terms of CL registration where I've for some strange reason not registered my backup LB so only have 1 available LB in the CL which is mental, and now both of them are injured for 5 weeks anyway, so that's great. There's some definite quality in the squad but needs thinning out. Need to bin one of the strikers and sell/loan out a CM so I can get 4 full-backs into the CL squad at least. One bit of business I did do that has worked out big style is signing Filip Stevanovic. He's been superb. 6 goals in 8 games. Scored against Bayern, 4 in 5 in the league, £8m very well spent.

CL group is brutal as well. Got Real, Bayern and Anderlecht. So I should come 3rd and get Europa League KO's but looking very unlikely I'll get to the KO rounds of the CL after losing both away games to Real and Bayern. Top of the league though, so hopefully should make it 3 out of 3 league titles, but would like to win the CL before I give end this save. Nice to be back at PSV anyway, would like this to be my first proper long-term save on this years' FM.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 13, 2020)

Okay. Filip Stevanovic is the best player on FM20. No question. Just scored an absolutely incredible hat-trick at home against Bayern to lead us to a 4-0 win. He's 19, absolutely unreal. He's going to be crazy good with plenty of game-time.


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## Wolf (Jun 14, 2020)

After a couple weeks of no play, went back to my Ajax save, completed my 3rd straight league & Cup double but its a ball ache having to keep effectively rebuilding the squad each season as still have some players on release clauses from starting the game, but did manage to develop Gravenbach, Antony, Boadu & Bellingham. Problem is it never leaves enough in the tank for a decent crack at Europe. 

Got offered the Juve (Zebre) post season, so thought why not see if I can have a punt at the CL proper. I should've looked at the squad first though, it's ageing squad with a massive wage bill. Not really been able to offload anyone which is annoying as I have Higuan, Khedira, Rabiot, Bonucci and a few others on ridiculous contracts which to counter I've had to adjust finances and reduce my transfer budget. But have managed to nab Gravenbach for £44m & Labyad for a mere £6.5m from Ajax. 

Perfect timing as opening games have seen injuries due to age of squad. But so far we're 5/5 wins in league & drew with a younger superior Real in CL.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 14, 2020)

@Wolf Ajax must be more popular for the teams in Europe to scout than PSV. I've had very few offers for players in my team and the majority of the ones I've sold I've had to offer out to get offers. There's always interest in lads like Ihattaren, Gomez and Gutierrez but when the transfer windows come around it tends to go quiet, except when United came in for Malen, but he's the only lad I've lost that I'd have wanted to keep. Runs in Europe are tough when you're managing in a league like the Eredivise though, going to take a few seasons of building and then going to need the perfect timing to actually win the CL.

Juve tend to be pretty poorly managed by the AI in saves I've had. They win titles for a couple of seasons because the starting squad is so good but they tend to sell their best young players to England - Dybala and Bentacur, and then buy in a load of old boys on massive contracts. In my PSV save in Season 3 they've got obviously Ronaldo on obscene money at 36 but you can forgive that one as he's still one of the top players in the league but then Suarez (34) on £450k a week, Aubameyang (32) on £180k, Bonucci (37) on £170k, Fernandinho (36) and Rakitic (33) on £160k, Higuain (33) on £150k and they've also got Pjanic and Szczesny who are over 30 and on >£200k. Wage bill is insane. Good luck fixing that


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## Wolf (Jun 14, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



@Wolf Ajax must be more popular for the teams in Europe to scout than PSV. I've had very few offers for players in my team and the majority of the ones I've sold I've had to offer out to get offers. There's always interest in lads like Ihattaren, Gomez and Gutierrez but when the transfer windows come around it tends to go quiet, except when United came in for Malen, but he's the only lad I've lost that I'd have wanted to keep. Runs in Europe are tough when you're managing in a league like the Eredivise though, going to take a few seasons of building and then going to need the perfect timing to actually win the CL.

Juve tend to be pretty poorly managed by the AI in saves I've had. They win titles for a couple of seasons because the starting squad is so good but they tend to sell their best young players to England - Dybala and Bentacur, and then buy in a load of old boys on massive contracts. In my PSV save in Season 3 they've got obviously Ronaldo on obscene money at 36 but you can forgive that one as he's still one of the top players in the league but then Suarez (34) on £450k a week, Aubameyang (32) on £180k, Bonucci (37) on £170k, Fernandinho (36) and Rakitic (33) on £160k, Higuain (33) on £150k and they've also got Pjanic and Szczesny who are over 30 and on >£200k. Wage bill is insane. Good luck fixing that 

Click to expand...

Definitely seems Ajax are the talent pool for clubs to rinse, every player also seems have a release clause as well once triggered you can't turn down meaning in my 3 seasons I'd effectively lost my whole starting 11 but had rebuilt with some good players but it meant squad depth was paper thin. 

You're absolutely bang on about Juve got a seriously aging squad in horrendous wages, my wage bill is over £5m a week 😳. 

The only good thing is there are some decent youngsters, but I've slowly got to weed out the big earners and rebuild around that young core.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 14, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Definitely seems Ajax are the talent pool for clubs to rinse, every player also seems have a release clause as well once triggered you can't turn down meaning in my 3 seasons I'd effectively lost my whole starting 11 but had rebuilt with some good players but it meant squad depth was paper thin.

You're absolutely bang on about Juve got a seriously aging squad in horrendous wages, my wage bill is over £5m a week 😳.

The only good thing is there are some decent youngsters, but I've slowly got to weed out the big earners and rebuild around that young core.
		
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Ah, minimum fee release clauses can be killer. I earmarked the lads I wanted to keep long term at the end of season 1 that had release clauses and re-negotiated their deals to either remove the clause or set it stupidly high. Malen's £60m release was one I set but should have been higher, other than that I've done well. I got £40m from Dumfries because of his release clause and then it's staved off bids for the other lads. Ihattaren's release is £95m for example, so if someone comes in and bids that then fair enough, they can have him. Then there are a couple of other guys with clauses but they're all set to £60m or above and I can replace pretty much anyone in my squad with £60m to spend.

Gonna be rough that, can be tough to shift those older guys on mega contracts - might end up having to pay wage contributions to shift them which isn't ideal. £5m wage bill is mental. You still have Ronaldo?

Got a chance of making the CL KOs but I need results to go my way. I'm 3 points behind Bayern but their last game is in Madrid whereas I play Anderlecht. Thanks to smashing Bayern 4-0 at home, if I win and they lose we go through. Fingers crossed!


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## Wolf (Jun 14, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Ah, minimum fee release clauses can be killer. I earmarked the lads I wanted to keep long term at the end of season 1 that had release clauses and re-negotiated their deals to either remove the clause or set it stupidly high. Malen's £60m release was one I set but should have been higher, other than that I've done well. I got £40m from Dumfries because of his release clause and then it's staved off bids for the other lads. Ihattaren's release is £95m for example, so if someone comes in and bids that then fair enough, they can have him. Then there are a couple of other guys with clauses but they're all set to £60m or above and I can replace pretty much anyone in my squad with £60m to spend.

*Gonna be rough that, can be tough to shift those older guys on mega contracts - might end up having to pay wage contributions to shift them which isn't ideal. £5m wage bill is mental. You still have Ronaldo*?

Got a chance of making the CL KOs but I need results to go my way. I'm 3 points behind Bayern but their last game is in Madrid whereas I play Anderlecht. Thanks to smashing Bayern 4-0 at home, if I win and they lose we go through. Fingers crossed!
		
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Tell me about it, I've got Khedira sitting in the stands earning 350k a week, last year of his contract about to retire.. Not good enough to get in my match day squad, but release him from his contract wants a 7m payout 🤷🏻‍♂️
Still got Ronaldo he's 36 and on 475k a week, and still have players like Coquelin & Ramsey in squad on over 250k a week. 

Still played 3 more and were 8 straight wins in the league.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 14, 2020)

Pretty uneventful January window for my PSV side. Made a couple of sales - Gian-Luca Itter went to Ajax for £26m and Kaio Jorge went to Brighton for £30m. Really good profit from those two, £18.5m profit on Jorge and £25m profit on Itter who I signed for £350k at the start of season 2. Had a couple of bids for Solet which unsettled him but they wouldn't match his release and then Juve activated Sergio Gomez's release but he signed a new contract instead which was nice. Would have made £50m profit on him but I'd rather keep him. Signed Luke Shaw on loan to replace Itter but that was only because I couldn't secure a deal for Owen Wijnal, so got Shaw on loan and will go big for Wijnal in the summer. 

Real did us a huge favour in the CL, came back from 1-0 down at half-time to beat Bayern which meant we somehow qualified for the CL KO's for the 3rd straight season. Drew PSG though so not overly optimistic. The Mbappe-Neymar-Kane front 3 scares me a lot. Smashing it in the league, 6 clear of AZ with a game in hand, 9 clear of Ajax but they've got a game in-hand, so should be 3 straight league titles.


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## Orikoru (Jun 15, 2020)

It doesn't look like there will be back-to-back titles for my Roma team. With 8 or 9 games left in the season, Inter are still unbeaten, and have only conceded 5 or 6 goals all season! Ridiculous. We're about 6 points behind them in 2nd, can't see them bottling it from here. We still don't have much money, but I found a ridiculous Brazilian wonderkid CB who's arriving in summer once he turns 18. The lad has 18 tackling, 17 determination and bravery, 14 positioning, 16 passing, is quick as well - and has 4-5* potential! I also spotted Aaron Ramsey's contract expiring, he still has very good stats at 31, so I've signed him up on a free as well. If we actually get any money in summer I'll be on the look out for a new pair of full backs. Florenzi has been good on the right but he'll be 32 shortly so I'll need another option who's better than Karsdorp and Spinazzola, and on the left I have an academy youngster with great potential, but my two year loan for Luca Pellegrini is coming to an end so I'll need a second option there too. Back at the end of the Jan window I brought in Lassina Traore from Ajax as another striker option, he's done ok so far as back-up to Schick and Barbosa.

While the league may be out of reach, we have at least got the Italian Cup final to look forward - against arch rivals Lazio of course. A repeat of the final in my first season when they beat us! Would be nice to pick up another trophy, and especially get one over on them.


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## Orikoru (Jun 15, 2020)

I can't quite believe what's happened since I wrote that post this morning. I put the game on tonight and Inter have lost to Napoli, Atalanta, scraped a last minute draw with Sassuolo, and then lost again to Sampdoria! They're having an epic bottlejob, while we've picked up three calm 1-0 wins in a row - all of a sudden we're 5 points clear with 5 games to go! Did not expect this at all!

But it's Juve up next...


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## Wolf (Jun 15, 2020)

27 Serie A games played so far still undefeated. We've won Italian Super Cup, annoyingly just been knock out of Italian cup on away goals thanks to going down to 9 men in the 2nd leg. Plus we are in Quarter finals of CL. 

Managed to sell Dybala for 160m, Bonucci for 15m(not bad considering how old he was) and Rabiot for 40m. 
Used that money to sign Boadu, Camavinga, Ramsdale and Musa Barrow. All been quality signings so far.
The spine on the team is Ramsdale, Mavropanos, Dias, Camavinga, Llorente, Boadu & Barrow. So it's young, strong & creative. But I'm going to need to sign another wide man with Ronaldo retiring and 2 more full backs. 

So far so good in Italy though.


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## Orikoru (Jun 16, 2020)

We held our nerve to win our second title in a row. Ended up on 86 points, 6 more than last season. Somehow Napoli snuck into second, 4 points behind us, and Inter came 3rd after their epic bottlejob. Sadly we lost the cup final 1-0 to Lazio, just never turned up, and didn't have much chance after Lorenzo Pellegrini got sent off.

Actually got some decent money for the first time, 50 odd million, so I've signed Ben Chilwell as my new left back, along with the wonderkid Brazilian CB and Ramsey on a free. The game has decided to go full retard though unfortunately. Lost our first two games of the new season against Parma and Genoa (both 1-0), then conceded an injury time equaliser to Fiorentina, and now we're losing to Torino. So obviously the game wants me to sack this save off and start a new one for some reason. I don't understand why the game just screws you over for no reason, it's stupid.


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## Wolf (Jun 16, 2020)

Finished the Season with Juve, we won the league but took it right to penultimate game where we beat Napoli who finished 2nd. Ended up losing 1 league game all season and that was randomly to Perugia. 

Lost to bloody Liverpool in CL Semi finals on away goals. But first season in Italy a league and Super cup win isn't to bad a start. Immobile scored 22 goals this season not a bad return, but Musa Barrow scored 15 and I only signed him in January, so I'll be brining him into first team more. Got a mass clear out of retired players to come due to age if squad, now need to sign a new wide man, 2 midfielders and a couple of full backs.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 16, 2020)

Get Filip Stevanovic in if you need a new winger (if he's in your DB). He now has 22 goals in 20 in the Eredivisie, he's absolutely insane. I thought I'd miss Malen, but Stevanovic has stepped up and exceeded even what Malen achieved, and he only cost me £9m. 

Played a few games last night. Way ahead in the league now, booked place in the Dutch Cup final and should definitely be winnable seeing as we knocked Ajax out early, so should be back to back wins in that competition. Looks like we'll be out of the CL though. 1-1 home draw with PSG so we go to Paris with them already having an away goal, need a miracle.


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## Papas1982 (Jun 16, 2020)

Well I was right. 4th place secured. Lost in semis to spurs in europa. 

Budget went to hell and only stayed even after TV money. Secured a few freebie signings. Unfortunately the big boys have come sniffing and I can't refuse 100m for some of my stars.... 

Rebuild time. I'm off to scout Brazil....


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## Orikoru (Jun 16, 2020)

Papas1982 said:



			Well I was right. 4th place secured. Lost in semis to spurs in europa.

Budget went to hell and only stayed even after TV money. Secured a few freebie signings. Unfortunately the big boys have come sniffing and I can't refuse 100m for some of my stars....

Rebuild time. I'm off to scout Brazil....
		
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No one ever bids 100m for any of my players in this game. All I get is 70 mil "non-negotiable" when their value is 70 mil, and I tell them to sling their hook and they're never seen again. I have no idea how you sell anyone for a decent whack. Even the ones I'm allowed to negotiate they just back out every time.


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## Papas1982 (Jun 16, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			No one ever bids 100m for any of my players in this game. All I get is 70 mil "non-negotiable" when their value is 70 mil, and I tell them to sling their hook and they're never seen again. I have no idea how you sell anyone for a decent whack. Even the ones I'm allowed to negotiate they just back out every time.
		
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Tbf it is a wonderkid. 

I somehow got a non negotiable £115m for him and he had a 113 buyout. 

Signed Dybala on a free. So that helps.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 16, 2020)

CL KO 2nd leg in Paris went well. 6-0 win for PSG  2 of them were own goals plus a penalty, was a quality performance all round. 3rd straight title is wrapped up though with 4 games to go but for the first time it doesn't feel like job done. There's a long-term goal here to win the CL as PSV for the first time since 1988. It's not going to be easy though, we're going to have to invest really smartly and keep our key players.

Filip Stevanovic is absolutely key to our future success. Top scorer in the Eredivisie with 24 goals in 24 starts, most MOTM awards in the league, 2nd best average rating behind Marco Kana, we have to keep him for at least another 3 seasons if we're going to win the CL. I can see us receiving some massive bids for our other big name players in the summer window. There's interest in Farinez, Kenny, Solet, Omeragic, Gravenberch, Gomez, Ihattaren, Gutierrez, Vignato (who has also been fantastic), Gakpo and Gouiri so going to have to stave off some bids if we're going to keep the core of our squad together. Solet's almost certainly going as he's already unsettled and think we'll see one or two more leave but that should give us room to build. I already have 3 regens coming in - 2 16 year old CBs who have huge potential and then a 17 year old Colombian CM who isn't far off ready for first-team football already, so give those guys a couple of seasons to develop and we should have some serious talent.

LB is my main target position for improvement in the summer. Owen Wijnal is the top target. He has interest from Chelsea, United, Liverpool and Real though so gonna be tough to pick him up, wish I'd got in earlier, but hopefully we can get a deal sorted for him early before the other teams have chance to make an offer. As soon as I get my initial budget for next season I'm moving in.

So glad I've gone back to this save, still the most fun I've had with a save in FM this year. Love PSV.


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## Orikoru (Jun 17, 2020)

We seem to be over our shocking start. I figured maybe the other sides were going more defensive given that we've won the league the last two seasons now, so I went from Positive to Attacking mentality against the likely 'park the bus' suspects, and that's doing the job. Most notably in the Champion's League group where we've smashed Besiktas 5-1 and 8-0 (seriously) and Anderlecht 5-0 both times. We even beat Man City 4-2 in the home game, but lost 3-1 in the away leg, which means we only get 2nd in the group, despite having 15 points and 28 goals. Bit unlucky! We also managed to beat Juve in our last league game to crawl back up to 7th, with a game in hand that would take us to 4th.

Several of my players are begging for new deals though which is souring the save a bit, since our budgets are always really low and I can't afford to keep boosting these guys' paypackets. Lorenzo Pellegrini and Kluivert both want crazy money, and they are incredible players, but part of me thinks selling them both for huge fees will make this save fun for much longer as we do a massive rebuild. Even Bukayo Saka asked for like 165k and he's only back-up to Kluivert! Told him to whistle for that so he's not happy. 

I was really confused to see that we have four friendlies lined up in December, then I realised it must be the Qatari world cup season, so that's annoying given that we're playing really well at the moment. Sure we'll go back to losing stupidly by the time that ends.

I'm ending this post with a screenshot of that wonderkid centre back I have, because I can scarcely believe I stumbled across this guy and signed him for a mere £18mil...


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## Dan2501 (Jun 17, 2020)

He looks very good, he's not particularly tall and doesn't have great jumping but other than that he's very well rounded and only 18, nice find!

Played through half of my summer transfer window this morning. Started off bad - United activated Sergio Gomez's release clause so he left for £80m  Had a little look around to see who's available and noticed Milinkovic Savic was transfer listed by request with no bids yet, so jumped in and offered the asking price £58m and then expected him to want absolutely crazy wages, but he didn't, he's far and away our most paid player but £86k a week for a guy of his quality is nothing. Need to make sure we keep Ihattaren to play alongside him now.

Also managed to secure Owen Wijnal as I said before. As soon as the initial budget came in I went in for him. Cost me £57m but should be worth every penny, defence looking very strong with Militao on the right and Wijnal on the left.


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## Papas1982 (Jun 17, 2020)

Made a school boy in the summer.

I nabbed Dybala but completely forgot Havertz had a wages clause. So now both on 300k!

Tbf Dybala is purely for profit. He's worth 85m and I'll sell him for 50m next season. Having lost one 20yr old Brazilian I went on a spree and signed 4! All for around 20m each. Worth 40m each now purely because they're in a CL team.

Squad finally improving too. Now have a solid 18 outfield players I can rely on as well as 3 great keepers all with good age gap too. First choice 29.sub 22 and loaned out 18yr old.

Squad a little top heavy and need to shift a few on. Signed Greenwood for 30m last year after 2 seasons on loan where he scored 20 goals. Last season 3 goals! That being said I regretted purchasing him as I got Haaland on deadline day and he's basically just a cheat player.

Hoping for a serious tilt at title this season, but think realistically it's top 4 again.

Re the cb. Have you guys noticed how all defenders seem to prefer to be ball players now....


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## Orikoru (Jun 17, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			He looks very good, he's not particularly tall and doesn't have great jumping but other than that he's very well rounded and only 18, nice find!
...
Played through half of my summer transfer window this morning. Started off bad - United activated Sergio Gomez's release clause so he left for £80m  Had a little look around to see who's available and noticed Milinkovic Savic was transfer listed by request with no bids yet, so jumped in and offered the asking price £58m and then expected him to want absolutely crazy wages, but he didn't, he's far and away our most paid player but £86k a week for a guy of his quality is nothing. Need to make sure we keep Ihattaren to play alongside him now.
		
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Yeah, on his development page I've set it to focus on strength (which is actually jumping reach + strength) so if they go up a few points he should be pretty much perfect.

Milinkovic-Savic playing in Holland!? That's mad. On my saves he normally goes to Liverpool, Man Utd, etc. Except on the current one where he remains at Lazio to torment us three times a season of course. (I say three times because we always seem to get them in the cup somehow.)



Papas1982 said:



			Made a school boy in the summer.

I nabbed Dybala but completely forgot Havertz had a wages clause. So now both on 300k!
...
Squad a little top heavy and need to shift a few on. Signed Greenwood for 30m last year after 2 seasons on loan where he scored 20 goals. Last season 3 goals! That being said I regretted purchasing him as I got Haaland on deadline day and he's basically just a cheat player.
...
Re the cb. Have you guys noticed how all defenders seem to prefer to be ball players now....
		
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Man the clauses always kill me, I never spend long enough looking at them. I signed Vlahovic at the start of this save but accidentally gave him a clause that almost doubled his wages after he played only 20 games or something. He ended up on near enough 80k a week and he was rubbish. I've sold him now though luckily. I don't know why Roma are so poor, I've been steadily getting players off the wage bill so I can pay my top players what they want to stay, but that's leaving us in a situation where our squad is getting smaller and smaller. I think there's only around 20 in the first team squad now! 

I don't understand why players suddenly drastically underperform. In season 2 Patrik Schick scored me 24 league goals, the following season playing the same tactics and in the same position, he only managed 10. Greenwood and Haaland are like the top two wonderkid strikers so you should be all set there!

In real life the focus on ball playing defenders is a bug bear of mine, but in the game I use two BPDs so that suits me fine. I think they just recommend that role because he has 17 passing pretty much.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 17, 2020)

@Papas1982 Sounds like you've got an insane team - what's your strongest XI?

Mine going into Season 4 is;

-------------------Farinez-----------------
-Militao-----Solet----Omeragic---Wijnal
--------------------Kana--------------------
--------------Ihattaren--SMS--------------
--Vignato----------------------Stevanovic--
-------------------Gouiri----------------------

Just so good for the Eredivisie, that midfield 3 of Kana, Ihattaren and SMS is going to be fun.

@Orikoru I know. I couldn't believe I managed to sign him either, think I just timed it perfectly and got in before the big boys made offers as they were interested. Thought his wage demands would be mental as well, but £86k a week really isn't bad. He's going to be ridiculously good in the Eredivisie


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## Papas1982 (Jun 17, 2020)

Ideally I'll bench both Laporte (who's on loan) and Dybala but I've found that I need a few older heads through the squad. 

Average age I've the players I see with me long term is currently 21.


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## Orikoru (Jun 17, 2020)

Ah, another 4-4-2 man, excellent. Formation of kings.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 17, 2020)

Season 4 started nicely. 3-0 win over Ajax in the Johan Cruijff Schaal, the Dutch version of the Community Shield, and SMS scored an absolute banger, can't wait to see what he does this season. 

Also sold Bruma as he was our 3rd highest paid player on £56k a week so sold him and replaced him with Renyer who looks crazy good and also picked up Trincao on loan from Barcelona. Squad is mega stacked going into the season, just need to pick up another backup CB before the end of the window.


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## Wolf (Jun 18, 2020)

Got bored of my Italian save already, doesn't seem any real need to do much to keep winning due to the incredible budget I got for winning league.

Have gone back to my Ajax save, @Dan2501 is right it probably is the most fun league and its good trying to build a team that can show progression year on year in the CL. Having signed Adama Traore in pre season, I've just added Edouard to my attacking line up.

So my attacking options are now, Promes, Boadu, Antony, Adama Traore, Lassina Traore & Edouard. We've played 3 League games and 3 European qualifiers yet between those players alone we've got 19 goals.. 

Also got Matty Longstaff for long term development as well as Havard Njordvedt to sure up midfield, which with all the quality that have developed through last 2 seasons as well means my midfield options are hugely varied depending who i play against and able to control games against bigger teams. 

Definitely the most fun save by far.


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## Orikoru (Jun 19, 2020)

Managed to get Kluivert and Pellegrini to sign new deals so they're satisfied for now. In the January window I finally offloaded Spinazzola, then noticed Florenzi has lost a lot of pace (he's 32 and this is FM) so I signed Hakimi as full back cover. He was still at Real Madrid and not too expensive (20m up front another 20 odd over 3 seasons). The biggest coup was when I was having a look at contracts due to expire at the end of the season - a certain Mr. Camavinga, still at Rennes with six months to go. I don't know how they've not cashed in, he always moves to a massive club normally, but I figured it would be rude not to sign him, so he's arriving next season! Ramsey only had one good season in him anyway so that's a great addition.

Results-wise not too bad, we did lose a league game to Napoli but otherwise it's been mostly wins. Knocked Lazio out of the cup semi-final which is always nice. Smashed Parma 6-1. We got Dortmund in the Champs Lg last 16, I thought we were going to get smashed because they still had Haaland & Sancho, plus they'd added Cherki and Olmo. However, they had a propensity for silly fouls - gave us a penalty after 9 minutes, then Witsel picked up a straight red after 19 mins. We've done them 5-0 in the end so the second leg should be a doddle!

Edit: Just got a mail saying we've set a new record for number of goals in a champions league campaign with 33. Previous best was 28. We've only played the last 16 first leg!


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## Wolf (Jun 19, 2020)

Am so glad I went back to my Ajax save, really enjoying the Eredivsie and challenge of building a team that has progression each year in the CL. 

Its mid February we've played 26 League Games and are still unbeaten in all competitions yet only have a 3 point lead at top of table as PSV are having a storming season and we play them next. We won CL group with 4 wins & 2 draws, also drew 1st leg of last 16 game away to Atletico 1-1. Had a touch with cup as well we're in the Semi Final but have a KKC division team to play. 

Literally fighting on all fronts, if we can make the CL semis at least that will be big progress this year.


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## Wolf (Jun 20, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Am so glad I went back to my Ajax save, really enjoying the Eredivsie and challenge of building a team that has progression each year in the CL.

Its mid February we've played 26 League Games and are still unbeaten in all competitions yet only have a 3 point lead at top of table as PSV are having a storming season and we play them next. We won CL group with 4 wins & 2 draws, also drew 1st leg of last 16 game away to Atletico 1-1. Had a touch with cup as well we're in the Semi Final but have a KKC division team to play.

Literally fighting on all fronts, if we can make the CL semis at least that will be big progress this year.
		
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Following on from this post, season 3 completed. We won the league going unbeaten all season, won the Dutch Cup on penalties against AZ, won the Dutch Super Cup against PSV, got to Semi finals of CL where we drew the first leg 1-1 at home to Liverpool but then got hammered by them 5-1 at Anfield. Overall though a great season with progression and building the squad. Have just sold Boadu & Antony for a combined £146m. But have Gravenberch firmly playing in place on Antony now, bought Musa barrow to replace Boadu. Have added some strength in Midfield with Stark, also nabbed Kocku from Feyenord, plus picked up a couple of young centre backs including Saliba. 

In 3 seasons we have won 3 Leagues & 5 cups. In that time we've played 102 league games losing only 5 times. 

Season 4 is going to be a full crack at the CL.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 20, 2020)

Got another fun CL group in Season 4 as PSV. Liverpool, Atletico and Mainz. Gonna be another proper grind to try and get through to the KOs. Got a 1-1 draw in Madrid though so decent start. 

I signed a Brazilian regen at the start of Season 3 - *Adonias* - he's only played for us 6 times but has just started and played 90 mins for Brazil. Looks a serious talent. Signed him for £15m, already valued at over £30m. I've been training him as a Half Back because of his stellar defensive attributes, but he could do as well at Mezzala. Have this lad as well - *Etilson Laborde. *Picked him up from Colombia for £2.6m and has serious potential. My midfield is unbelievably stacked - SMS, Ihattaren, Kana, Gravenberch, Adonias, Hendrix, Laborde. 

My transfer window finished by selling Gutierrez to China for £63m and then Muric started kicking up a fuss about wanting to leave so sold him and tried to find a quality regen GK but didn't seem to be any on the market at all, slim pickings in regards to keepers in Season 4, so need to make sure Farinez goes nowhere. I also made a failed attempt at signing at *Marcos Leonardo*, who opted to join Liverpool instead, despite us offering him more money  Never seen his name pop up in a save before but damn he looks good going into season 4. Quick, can pass, can dribble, cross, head the ball, has 16 finishing, 14 composure, 16 technique, really solid mentals, looks fantastic. Only 19 in 2022 as well, will be trying to pick him up earlier in saves going forward!


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## Orikoru (Jun 22, 2020)

I didn't play over the weekend but I think Friday night my save had gone a bit daft. League has gone down the pan as we lost 4-0 to Inter and 4-0 to Lazio as well - I have no idea what happened either time. Normally our defence is great. I think we'll get top 4 but to win the league for a third time will be a step too far this time. We also lost the Italian Cup for the third time in my four seasons, which is incredibly annoying even though I don't prioritise that competition at all. We lost it 1-0 to Atalanta thanks to a JUAN FOYTH FREE KICK. Seriously. I don't know why I bother. 

Champion's League though, different story! After smashing Dortmund we got Liverpool in the quarters, didn't expect to get past them but we smashed them 3-0 at home and got the 1-1 at Anfield to see us through to the semis. Barcelona awaited us, but we won the away leg 2-1 at the Nou! Just need to hold it together at home and then I can look forward to us bottling another cup final. Joy.

I've signed Thomas Lemar on a free for next season as well. I don't really need him as I already have Kluivert and Saka on the left to be fair, might let Cengiz Under go and play Kluivert on the right or something. I don't really know. I have decided Schick can leave, he's worth £69mil somehow, and although he scored 25 goals in my second season, in the third & fourth seasons he's been rubbish. Unfortunately 50% of his sale fee will go to Sampdoria (this was already set in at the start of the game), so I need to sell someone else as well and my plan is to bring in Haaland, since he's still at Dortmund somehow so I reckon I might be able to get that one over the line. Not that I've made any enquiries yet because we have basically no money again at the moment. 

I might go for Luka Jovic, there was a weird situation with him. He was transfer listed at Real Madrid, PSG bought him for 31 mil, but two weeks later _they_ transfer listed him as well. With an asking price of £60m. It's not like PSG need to wheel and deal for cash so I couldn't work out what happened there. It wasn't by player request or anything either. But anyway, it does mean he's available and he looks good if I can't get Haaland in.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 22, 2020)

Played a little bit of PSV over the weekend. Just got to Feb in Season 4, dominating in the league and still unbeaten. No signings in Jan but sold Jorrit Hendrix to China for £35m, he'd been moaning about playing time and with Kana the starter in the spot and with Etilson Laborde developing crazy quickly it made sense to let him go. Him and Adonias have developed so much in Season 4, they're going to be unreal. Adonias' value has shot up this season, going to make so much profit on him.

Bottled the CL. A 2-0 defeat away at Mainz would have been enough to see us through, but we went and mega bottled it, lost 3-0 and got knocked out, so Europa League it is. Annoyingly Real Madrid also finished 3rd in their group, so looks like they'll be winning the EL, so won't even win that. Annoying. Season 5 we go again!


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## Wolf (Jun 22, 2020)

4th season at Ajax we were 10pts clear and still unbeaten then I got offered the Arsenal job mid season so thought why not. Sneakily saved it as a separate game so I can dip back into Ajax save as have been enjoying building them up to be champions league contenders.

So Arsenal... What a poorly unbalanced squad I inherited, only 3 CB 2 were youth players & the other was Calum Chambers. I only had Tierney  & Rosenboom as recognised Full backs, then midfield only gad Guendoozi and Willock. Plus an aging Ozil still sucking at wage bill. 

The main highlight in the squad though was I had Saka, Zaha, Martinelli and Emile Smith-Rowe who is a beast of a player and Pepe who also is far better innthe game than real life plus Leno has immense stats. So literally building a team around that base. 

Brought in Norveidt on cheap to add bite in midfield, signed Berge who is amazing from Sheff Utd, called AMN back from loan as has decent stats, same with Nketiah. Then signed regent player Thuram, Martinez and Mammana as CB. 

Managed to win League Cup against City, and Europa League against Milan, so managed 2 Cup wins already and when I took over they were in 15th place when I took over, somehow managed to go unbeaten and finished a respectable 5th place. 

Now to build this team properly for a challenge.


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## Orikoru (Jun 22, 2020)

Wolf said:



			4th season at Ajax we were 10pts clear and still unbeaten then I got offered the Arsenal job mid season so thought why not. Sneakily saved it as a separate game so I can dip back into Ajax save as have been enjoying building them up to be champions league contenders.

*So Arsenal... What a poorly unbalanced squad* I inherited, only 3 CB 2 were youth players & the other was Calum Chambers. I only had Tierney  & Rosenboom as recognised Full backs, then midfield only gad Guendoozi and Willock. *Plus an aging Ozil still sucking at wage bill.*

The main highlight in the squad though was I had Saka, Zaha, Martinelli and Emile Smith-Rowe who is a beast of a player and Pepe who also is far better innthe game than real life plus Leno has immense stats. So literally building a team around that base.

Brought in Norveidt on cheap to add bite in midfield, signed Berge who is amazing from Sheff Utd, called AMN back from loan as has decent stats, same with Nketiah. Then signed regent player Thuram, Martinez and Mammana as CB.

Managed to win League Cup against City, and Europa League against Milan, so managed 2 Cup wins already and when I took over they were in 15th place when I took over, somehow managed to go unbeaten and finished a respectable 5th place.

Now to build this team properly for a challenge.
		
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Sounds like nothing changed in 4 years at the Emirates then.


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## Wolf (Jun 22, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Sounds like nothing changed in 4 years at the Emirates then. 

Click to expand...

I beg to differ we've now won 2 cups 😂
Give it a few months and they'll sack me 😂


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## Orikoru (Jun 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I didn't play over the weekend but I think Friday night my save had gone a bit daft. League has gone down the pan as we lost 4-0 to Inter and 4-0 to Lazio as well - I have no idea what happened either time. Normally our defence is great. I think we'll get top 4 but to win the league for a third time will be a step too far this time. We also lost the Italian Cup for the third time in my four seasons, which is incredibly annoying even though I don't prioritise that competition at all. We lost it 1-0 to Atalanta thanks to a JUAN FOYTH FREE KICK. Seriously. I don't know why I bother.

Champion's League though, different story! After smashing Dortmund we got Liverpool in the quarters, didn't expect to get past them but we smashed them 3-0 at home and got the 1-1 at Anfield to see us through to the semis. Barcelona awaited us, but we won the away leg 2-1 at the Nou! Just need to hold it together at home and then I can look forward to us bottling another cup final. Joy.

I've signed Thomas Lemar on a free for next season as well. I don't really need him as I already have Kluivert and Saka on the left to be fair, might let Cengiz Under go and play Kluivert on the right or something. I don't really know. I have decided Schick can leave, he's worth £69mil somehow, and although he scored 25 goals in my second season, in the third & fourth seasons he's been rubbish. Unfortunately 50% of his sale fee will go to Sampdoria (this was already set in at the start of the game), so I need to sell someone else as well and my plan is to bring in Haaland, since he's still at Dortmund somehow so I reckon I might be able to get that one over the line. Not that I've made any enquiries yet because we have basically no money again at the moment.

I might go for Luka Jovic, there was a weird situation with him. He was transfer listed at Real Madrid, PSG bought him for 31 mil, but two weeks later _they_ transfer listed him as well. With an asking price of £60m. It's not like PSG need to wheel and deal for cash so I couldn't work out what happened there. It wasn't by player request or anything either. But anyway, it does mean he's available and he looks good if I can't get Haaland in.
		
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A tidy 1-1 at home with Barca saw us through to final. We lost a league game to Bologna which meant the league was out of grasp, but we then won our last 5 league games to put us in great form going into the final. It was at Wembley, against Chelsea, and I was expecting another huge bottlejob from us. But what we got was an epic final. 2-0 up inside 20 mins thanks to Zaniolo and Mancini. Loftus-Cheek got one back for them, but Kluivert put us 3-1. We were gifted a penalty but Barbosa missed it, then Loftus-Cheek scored again, so rather than 4-1 and comfortable it was now 3-2 at half time! Around the hour mark I subbed Schick on and he scored immediately to make it 4-2, and that's how it stayed. Champion's League - completed it mate! 3rd in the league was disappointing but at least we have something to show for the season now. Very happy with that.


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## Orikoru (Jun 23, 2020)

I was given £60m budget after that. I figured that since we've won the league twice and the champions league, the only thing left to try and do is really dominate domestically, since both our league wins were last minute affairs, and we're yet to win the Italian Cup. With that in mind, I decided to spunk most of that budget on Erling Haaland. We already had Camavinga coming in for free, as well as Lemar (although god knows why I signed him, I can't see him getting games to be honest). Inter wanted the keeper Pau Lopez, so I let them have him, and bought Vandevoort off them in return since he wasn't getting a game. And I needed another centre back, so I brought in Ben Godfrey from Norwich, reuniting with my skipper from my old Norwich save, lol. I just need to sell quite a few players to make ends meet now - we have about 7 strikers for a start! Schick is the big one I'm trying to offload since he's worth 75m now and takes home about 150k. 

SWK: *Vandevoort */ Guilherme(regen)
IWBR: *Tomiyasu */ Hakimi
BPD: *Mancini */ Tomiyasu
BPD: *Carlos*(regen) / Godfrey
IWBL: *Chilwell */ Pesce(regen)
WR: *Zaniolo */ Under
BBM: *Pellegrini */ Ramsey / Riccardi
DLP: *Camavinga */ Cristante / Riccardi
WL: *Kluivert */ Saka / Lemar
PF: *G.Barbosa */ Raspadori / Ranieri(regen)
CF: *Haaland */ Forni(regen) / L.Traore / Schick


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## Wolf (Jun 23, 2020)

So halfway through my first full season with Arsenal. Been good so far having built on the strong end of season we had previously, not lost a league game since I took over. 

Signed Reece James & Bubba Rahman at full back, both have been a revelation James is flying at RB even making the World XI, Rahman I signed as cover for Tierney but he has put in performances that means I can't drop him. Willock has suddenly developed into one hell of a midfielder forming a partnership with Berge. Also Baku who I Brough back off loan has been immense in Midfield. Martinelli was banging in goals but has now been out injured for 2 months. But seems Laca is having a renaissance and can't stop scoring meaning he's now starting & Pepe is flying with a goal every other game. 

19 League games played 14 Wins & 5 draws puts us 7pts clear at top of table ahead of Spurs, having beaten City twice, Spurs, Utd & Liverpool. We won our CL group smashing Dortmund 5-0, in fourth round of FA Cup and Just booked our place in the league Cup final so we could potentially win that back to back. This is certainly not the Arsenal I know 😂


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## Orikoru (Jun 23, 2020)

Wolf said:



			So halfway through my first full season with Arsenal. Been good so far having built on the strong end of season we had previously, not lost a league game since I took over.

Signed Reece James & Bubba Rahman at full back, both have been a revelation James is flying at RB even making the World XI, Rahman I signed as cover for Tierney but he has put in performances that means I can't drop him. Willock has suddenly developed into one hell of a midfielder forming a partnership with Berge. Also Baku who I Brough back off loan has been immense in Midfield. Martinelli was banging in goals but has now been out injured for 2 months. But seems Laca is having a renaissance and can't stop scoring meaning he's now starting & Pepe is flying with a goal every other game.

19 League games played 14 Wins & 5 draws puts us 7pts clear at top of table ahead of Spurs, having beaten City twice, Spurs, Utd & Liverpool. We won our CL group smashing Dortmund 5-0, in fourth round of FA Cup and Just booked our place in the league Cup final so we could potentially win that back to back. This is certainly not the Arsenal I know 😂
		
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Have you still got Saka there? He's immense in my squad, it's just a shame Kluivert is even better. I bought Saka for only £6m when his contract was running out, and he's now worth £70m. Unfortunately he's asked me for bloody stupid wages, which I've declined so he's transfer listed by request. Barca, Man City, Man Utd, Real Madrid and Spurs are all interested!


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## Wolf (Jun 23, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Have you still got Saka there? He's immense in my squad, it's just a shame Kluivert is even better. I bought Saka for only £6m when his contract was running out, and he's now worth £70m. Unfortunately he's asked me for bloody stupid wages, which I've declined so he's transfer listed by request. Barca, Man City, Man Utd, Real Madrid and Spurs are all interested!
		
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I do indeed he was playing superb but is currently out injured, current value  is  around £75m. Whilst he's out I've got Zaha playing there. 

If you want a good Attacking Midfielder/Play maker check out Smith-Rowe. He's immense and is playing all the big teams off the park.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 24, 2020)

Won our 4th straight title with 5 games to spare. Currently unbeaten this season as well, just beat Ajax away which was our last real tough game of the season so should hopefully manage an invincibles season. Not lost a game in the league since the 6th game of last season, so on a 58 game unbeaten streak. Also not conceded in the league for 14 games or dropped points since January, we're quite good   Europa League didn't go well, lost in the 2nd KO round to Leverkusen on penalties. Next season I'm hoping we'll give a better account of ourselves in Europe.

Got my eye on my big summer target for the summer window - going to splash the cash on Sebastiano Esposito. Currently at Dortmund but has a £79m release clause, so that's the most we'll have to pay, just hope his wage demands aren't mental. Gouiri's done well for us up top, has 19 goals in 36 starts but need a world class striker to take us to the next level and think Esposito is that man. If we can secure him I think the squad is going to be looking very strong.


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## Hackers76 (Jun 24, 2020)

Bought the game during lockdown and initially struggled to get into it this year (Last purchase was FM18). A friend who is an Everton fan offered a 3 season challenge with my team Spurs which was the push I needed...
First season won the league and league cup, as much down to Man City and Liverpool being pretty inept. I finished on 88 points with the other two on 85 & 84 respectively. Definitely the forward play that won it as I notched up 100 goals and conceded 44. With only a £15m transfer budget I only made the one first team signing pre season Schmelzer coming in from Dortmund for £4.7m, experienced left back who was needed with the injuries Spurs start with. Also signed Kenneh from Leeds and Hlozek from Sparta Prague as long term prospects. In Jan after being given extra funds I signed Oyarzabel as I couldn’t get a tune out of Lo Celso. Wasn’t able to sell him for the right price and he is still at the club after the second season (more on that in next post). In Jan I also sold Vorm, Lamela and Foyth to help reduce the wage bill. I am playing a heavy pressing 4231 so having depth in each position is important, rotates well and kept everyone happy. Kane won every award going in England and internationally, he finished with 39 goals in 35 prem matches.


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## Hackers76 (Jun 24, 2020)

Second season and won the league again but apart from the Community Shield that was the only success getting knocked out of the domestic cups very early, I did manage to get to the CL semi finals losing 7-6 on agg to Liverpool. Finished the season on 96 points losing just twice. Scored 89 goals but defensively much better conceding just 28. It was Liverpool’s league until last 7 games and as they had got to every final couldn’t keep up the form with So many games. They won 3 of those last 7 and I won the league by 4 points as I won 14 of my last 15 games, drawing the other. 
In terms of transfer Chilwell (£53m), Wague (£32m) and Tsygankov (£34m) signed in the summer and all were superb. No big departures at that point with Rose being the biggest for £15m but cleared down the squad and recouped £53m in total. In the Jan transfer window Beijing offered £72m for Son which was too good a deal to turn down. Especially as Sancho was listed at his own request. Couldn’t afford him straight away but convinced Dortmund to loan him with an £81m fee agreed for the summer. He and Sessegnon have been superb down the left. 
It’s in the AMC position I have a dilemma now as Deli Alli has been very poor so ideally I would be keeping Lo Celso and Oyazarbel but being homegrown he is good to keep about. Have a decision to make there. Also need to think about replacing Lloris and signing long term replacements for Alderweireld and Sissoko but with £81m going out of the transfer budget I am going to have some tough decisions on who to move on.


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## Dan2501 (Jun 24, 2020)

Well, there goes any hope of winning the CL this season. Summer window has started horrifically. Release clauses activated for Vignato and Kana, offered them significantly more money to stay but they both said no. £82m for Vignato from Real Madrid, £79m for Kana from Arsenal. Augustinsson has also gone, he's 29 and had an offer of £32.5m which I just couldn't resist, so that's 3 really good players gone and not been able to sign anyone yet. 

Looks like we might get Boadu from City for £70m, which would be nice. But now need to try and find a replacement for Vignato. Eugh. This is not the transfer window I wanted.


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## Wolf (Jun 24, 2020)

Just wrapped up my first full season with Arsenal.. League Champions without losing a game, League Cup Winners beating Liverpool on penalties and FA Cup winners thrashing Spurs 5-0 in the final. So we signed off a domestic treble in style, also means as a manager I haven't lost a domestic game in 3 seasons 😳😁

Only downside was getting my arse spanked by REAL in the Quarter finals of the CL. Still been a good season built the squad to an acceptable level but now need to add those touches of excellence to further that CL dream. Have just signed Dias from Juve for an unbelievably low 6.25m😳

I want another decent RB as cover for James, Another solid CM and ideally a striker as well. See what I can do with the 147m budget.


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## Orikoru (Jun 25, 2020)

Season 5 is going well. After 20 games we're W14 D5 L1, scored 51 and conceded 11. Couple of annoying draws against poorer teams which are annoying, and hence Juventus are only 1 point behind us. It's February and we're unbeaten since September (and in that defeat we were absolutely robbed by VAR). Smashed our Champions League group including beating Bayern 4-0 at home and 3-1 away, and knocking 6 and 5 past Shakhtar. We've got PSG in the next round. 

Haaland has 16 goals in 26(1), Kluivert has 15 in 23(3) from left wing which is superb. He just gets better and better. Thomas Lemar broke his leg which actually solved a problem for me - Saka did a massive U-turn on his contract demands and decided to stay for a lot less than originally demanded, so then I had three left wingers. So despite the fact I just signed Lemar for free, I'll probably be selling him at the end of the season without him making a single start! Oh, and I've also just signed Leon Bailey on a free as his contract is expiring at Leverkusen, so he arrives next season just to throw another world class winger into the mix. Also got Pau Torres arriving for free as centre back cover. We've got no money to spend as the whole lot goes on wage budget - every five minutes another player is demanding a better contract - but in all honesty we've top class players in every position now so it works out fine!


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## Orikoru (Jun 27, 2020)

23 matches unbeaten in the league. 8 goals conceded in that time, clean sheets in the last 7 games in a row. We're 6 points clear at the top after 27 games - 68 goals for 11 against. We've reached the Italian Cup final for the 4th time in my 5 seasons - maybe we've finally win it this time! Unfortunately we're out of the Champion's League. Lost to a frankly ridiculous PSG team. Their back line was Kimmich, Van Dijk, Upamecano, Reguilon with Onana in goal. And Mbappe is just terrifying. 

Most interestingly, the board takeover they've been talking about for 5 years has finally actually happened! Remains to be seen how that will affect things in terms of money. I was probably due winding this save down if we smashed the league and cup this season, but if they give us a tonne of money I could go for one more season.


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## Orikoru (Jun 27, 2020)

Season finished, we've smashed it. Finally won the Italian Cup in my 4th final attempt. Won the league with 93 points, 7 clear of Juve. 98 goals for and 16 against. Bit sad we didn't quite hit 100 goals but you can't have everything. Even though we've got Leon Bailey arriving and £90mil to spend thanks to the board takeover, I'm not really sure there's much point continuing this save now, I've pretty much achieved what I wanted and there isn't much left to do now.


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## Orikoru (Jun 28, 2020)

Unbelievable developments... in a bid to keep this save interesting for one more year, I threw some money plus Patrik Schick at PSG to try and sign Mbappe. To my great surprise, I've done it! They accepted 85m up front, plus Schick (who was worth 60-odd), plus another 40m in future payments. His contract demands were mental, wanted 450k, we were only allowed up to 325, but I gave him every bonus under the sun, we're talking 155k appearance fee, 155k goal bonus, 155k unused sub, you name it. But he's bloody signed! Mbappe and Haaland up top, this should be fun.


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## Orikoru (Jun 29, 2020)

After signing Mbappe I also managed to bring in Declan Rice as midfield cover, and Matvienko as a back-up left back. Unsurprisingly my team is ridiculous now. It's December, we are top having won all 16 games, 53 goals and 6 against. In fact, including the end of last season we've now won our last 29 competitive games in a row. Haaland has 16 goals in 17(1), Mbappe has 15 in 18(4). Even Rice has been a goal machine with 6 in 16(3) - not really how you'd perceive him in real life! This will almost definitely be my last season on this save unless it goes disastrously wrong somehow. I'm sure the game will chuck me a stupid defeat eventually, but obviously I hope we can go the whole season unbeaten to finish it all off. 

Starting to think about where to go next. I was thinking RBL, but I'm tempted to go back home to England, even with the Brexit rubbish. Man Utd are tempting but might be too easy, I'm not sure. Maybe go for a Wolves or a Leicester? Or, weirdly for a Spurs but recognising it's only a game - Arsenal might be a decent challenge!


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## ScienceBoy (Jun 29, 2020)

Top 5 fan requested features for FM21

5. New Match Engine
4. Stadium Design
3. More realistic training
2. More feedback on tactic
1. Left Backs


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## Orikoru (Jun 29, 2020)

ScienceBoy said:



			Top 5 fan requested features for FM21

5. New Match Engine
4. Stadium Design
3. More realistic training
2. More feedback on tactic
1. Left Backs
		
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I have Chilwell at left back and he's been more than decent!


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## Dan2501 (Jun 29, 2020)

ScienceBoy said:



			Top 5 fan requested features for FM21

5. New Match Engine
4. Stadium Design
3. More realistic training
2. More feedback on tactic
1. Left Backs
		
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Apart from all the household names like Alaba, Sandro, Robertson, Hernandez, Chilwell, Telles, Tagliafico, both Mendys, Grimaldo, etc are: Wijnal, Ait-Nouri, Itter, Vagnoman, Vazquez, Firpo, Augustinsson (my boi), Pedrosa, Myolenko, Lanza, Martin, Henry and Gvardiol not enough?


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## Hackers76 (Jun 30, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I have Chilwell at left back and he's been more than decent!
		
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I have him on my Spurs save too, Davies and Sessegnon as cover I am doing ok. Wague at right back as I couldn’t agree a fee of around £45m with Norwich for Aarons before second season started, at the end of the season he has just signed for Arsenal for £15m!!!! Not impressed


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## TheDiablo (Jul 1, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Apart from all the household names like Alaba, Sandro, Robertson, Hernandez, Chilwell, Telles, Tagliafico, both Mendys, Grimaldo, etc are: Wijnal, Ait-Nouri, Itter, Vagnoman, Vazquez, Firpo, Augustinsson (my boi), Pedrosa, Myolenko, Lanza, Martin, Henry and Gvardiol not enough? 

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Can tell you aren't a long save man Dan! A LB regen is a very rare breed. In my longer saves I've had to retrain young RBs, it's honestly mental how few of them there are, both quantity and quality wise.


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## TheDiablo (Jul 1, 2020)

I told you all the game was easy!


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## Orikoru (Jul 1, 2020)

TheDiablo said:



			Can tell you aren't a long save man Dan! A LB regen is a very rare breed. In my longer saves I've had to retrain young RBs, it's honestly mental how few of them there are, both quantity and quality wise.
		
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The only decent regen that came through for me was a left back. I sold him to Barca this season for like 40mil. 



TheDiablo said:



			I told you all the game was easy!
		
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I still think I might have got lucky in stumbling upon my formation. My next save will be the real test. Whoever I may be. 

-----

After going 38 games unbeaten in all comps (with only one draw) we finally lost a cup game when I chucked 2nd string out against Atalanta (my 2nd string are still good to be fair). Then a few games later we lost in the league for the first time in nearly a year, to Inter, in my 300th game as manager, which I was quite gutted about. That's still only 1 draw and 1 loss in the league this season, with about 8 games left. We've scored 92 or 94 goals so we're almost certain to get the 100 this time. 8-0 against Genoa helped! In the champs league last 16 we won the away leg against Leverkusen 3-2, I figured 3 away goals will be enough once we've nicked an early one at home. Won the home leg 8-1 so away goals weren't an issue really.  We've got Man City in the quarters.


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## Dan2501 (Jul 2, 2020)

Went back and finished off my PSV 23/24 summer window transfers. Went okay, obviously had a rough start to the window losing Augustinsson, Kana and Vignato, but it meant we made £194m in transfers so had room to improve the squad. With that money we signed:

*Myron Boadu - *£70m from Manchester City. One of the most promising young strikers on the game. Had struggled to get game-time at City and was being played out of position when he did, so hopefully we can bring him in, stick him up top and get him scoring again. Hopefully get the goals we need from him up top.
*Christian Pulisic - *£55m from Chelsea. Needed to replace Vignato, Pulisic was unhappy at Chelsea, so seemed like the perfect replacement. Has all the attributes to be a quality inverted winger, especially in the Eredivisie, hopefully he'll do as well for us as Vignato.
*Nedeljko Radojkovic - *£4.5m from FC Vozdovac. 19 year old Serbian LB regen eek, has high pace, good determination, solid defensive attributes (16 tackling, 13 marking), takes a mean long throw and solid mentals across the board, looks a very good prospect.
*Lucas Tousart - *£8m from Betis. Needed a backup DM with Kana leaving. Happy for my regen Etilson Laborde to step up as first choice but needed a good backup and Tousart fits that bill perfectly. All the stats I need to make a good half back. Good marking and tackling, 6ft1 and has decent heading, his mentals are really solid and he's strong physically. Should be perfect.

Still got £30m in the bank and a few days to work but not sure if we'll end up picking up anyone else, squad is looking pretty strong with good depth in all the right areas. Going into the next season our squad's looking like:

*GK: *Wuilker Farinez / Sergio Dutra

*RB: *Eder Militao / Jonjoe Kenny
*CB: *Becir Omeragic / Oumar Solet / Ibrahima Cisse
*LB: *Owen Wijnal / Nedeljko Radojkovic

*DM: *Etilson Laborde / Lucas Tousart
*CM(A): *Mohamed Ihattaren / Ryan Gravenberch
*Mezz: *Sergio Milinkovic-Savic / Adonias

*AMR: *Christian Pulisic / Renyer
*AML: *Filip Stevanovic / Jeremy Antonisse / Myron Boadu

*ST: *Myron Boadu / Amine Gouiri / Sekou Koita


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## Dan2501 (Jul 2, 2020)

Found this earlier, really good


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## Orikoru (Jul 2, 2020)

My sixth and final season with Roma has concluded. Annihilated the league - won 35. drew 2, lost 1. 117 scored 19 conceded, 107 points - 15 ahead of Inter. 

Champion's League - beat City in the quarters, 5-2 on aggregate. Liverpool in the semis 7-2 agg. Facing a pretty decent PSG side in the final, featuring Van Dijk and Varane at the back, Onana in goal, Kulusevski, Jovic, Zirkzee all involved - dismantled them 3-0 for the win. We're far and away the best team in the world and we've ended on a high, winning the double. 

Haaland and Mbappe had a great battle for top scorer, Haaland won it in the end with 37 in all comps, to Mbappe's 36! Leon Bailey chipped in with 16 goals and 14 assists on the wing as well though. Not bad for a free transfer, him.


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## Wolf (Jul 3, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			My sixth and final season with Roma has concluded. Annihilated the league - won 35. drew 2, lost 1. 117 scored 19 conceded, 107 points - 15 ahead of Inter.

Champion's League - beat City in the quarters, 5-2 on aggregate. Liverpool in the semis 7-2 agg. Facing a pretty decent PSG side in the final, featuring Van Dijk and Varane at the back, Onana in goal, Kulusevski, Jovic, Zirkzee all involved - dismantled them 3-0 for the win. *We're far and away the best team in the world and we've ended on a high, *winning the double. 

Haaland and Mbappe had a great battle for top scorer, Haaland won it in the end with 37 in all comps, to Mbappe's 36! Leon Bailey chipped in with 16 goals and 14 assists on the wing as well though. Not bad for a free transfer, him.
		
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That bit in bold for me is where I got to last night with my latest save. After 3 seasons at Ajax winning every trophy I took part in except the European trophies, I switched to the Arsenal mid season took them from 15th to 5th in half a season, won both Carabao Cup & Europa League in that time as well going undefeated with them in League in that time to. Now just finished my 2nd full season with them, winning back to back league Titles both times being undefeated all season, also won the league and FA Cup both seasons, and now won Champions league. As much as its good to dominate it left me a bit like we'll isn't there any challenges left. 

So now I've accepted the England Job, and taken over at Villa as well to rebuild them as I feel like I need something thats going to be a full on project. We lost our first league game of season to Spurs which was my first domestic defeat as a manager seasons 😳, actually felt nice to lose, 🤣


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## Orikoru (Jul 3, 2020)

Wolf said:



			That bit in bold for me is where I got to last night with my latest save. After 3 seasons at Ajax winning every trophy I took part in except the European trophies, I switched to the Arsenal mid season took them from 15th to 5th in half a season, won both Carabao Cup & Europa League in that time as well going undefeated with them in League in that time to. Now just finished my 2nd full season with them, winning back to back league Titles both times being undefeated all season, also won the league and FA Cup both seasons, and now won Champions league. As much as its good to dominate it left me a bit like we'll isn't there any challenges left.

So now I've accepted the England Job, and taken over at Villa as well to rebuild them as I feel like I need something thats going to be a full on project. We lost our first league game of season to Spurs which was my first domestic defeat as a manager seasons 😳, actually felt nice to lose, 🤣
		
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Yeah, it was definitely starting to get a bit boring with Roma, PSG had a strong side but we absolutely coasted the final 3-0. Time to end when you get too good like that! When the only challenge is to defend what you've already won.

I started a new save last night - I'm trying again as Newcastle, because when I picked them before it was an abject failure, sacked in the first season - but I think I've learned a lot about how to play the game since then so they're worth another stab. It's a relatively poor team that you should be able to build upon, given that they're a big club, and I think Fat Mike normally sells up at some point, so if you can hold it together at the beginning you'll get some cash down the line.

I threw this together which is loosely based on my 4-4-2, but with one striker sacrificed for an Anchor Man, and the wingers pushed up to compensate for that:

*PFa* Joelinton
*Wa* Almiron _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *Wa* St-Maximin
*BBMs *Longstaff - *APs* Bentaleb
*Ad* Hayden
*IWBs* Rose - *CDc* Lascelles - *BPDd* Schar - *IWBs* Lazaro
*SKd* Dubravka​I signed Benrahma from Brentford as wing cover, some Portuguese kid on loan from Wolves as Anchor Man back-up, and Naci Unuvar, a 16-year-old wonderkid you can pick up for next to nothing at the start of the game. We've already had injuries so I had to start Big Andy Carroll up top and Dummett in for Lascelles in the first game of the season, against Villa. We won 4-1 with a hat-trick for Maximin (on his debut), since he is incredible in the game.


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## Dan2501 (Jul 3, 2020)

Unuvar's quality, just gone to Inter in my save from Ajax for £88m and that's after basically only 1 good season. 

How much was Benrahma? I had him at Brentford and was expecting a lot but honestly he was utter trash in the Championship, did basically nothing all season, was like a poor man's Son Heung Min for me. Sergi Canos on the other wing was far better.

I tried a Newcastle save with the Takeover money added and it was painful. Their squad is an absolute mess, so many players on huge wages that are impossible to shift. Hell of a job to get that squad into decent shape.


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## Orikoru (Jul 3, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Unuvar's quality, just gone to Inter in my save from Ajax for £88m and that's after basically only 1 good season.

How much was Benrahma? I had him at Brentford and was expecting a lot but honestly he was utter trash in the Championship, did basically nothing all season, was like a poor man's Son Heung Min for me. Sergi Canos on the other wing was far better.

I tried a Newcastle save with the Takeover money added and it was painful. Their squad is an absolute mess, so many players on huge wages that are impossible to shift. Hell of a job to get that squad into decent shape.
		
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We only had 16m budget, I think he was like 14 up front plus a couple of add-ons. I figured Maximin and Almiron start regardless, I just needed another guy who could play right wing because literally no one else in the Newcastle squad can. And Unuvar will be a nice little project to develop. I'm actually training him up as a striker as he has 15 finishing. He's a bit short but I figure he might grow a bit since he's only 16. 

Yeah their squad including the reserves is huge and unbalanced, they have 4 right backs, about 6 centre backs who are mostly trash, two very good wingers but no good back-ups for them at all, a number of midfield players and not very much up front. I really wanted Gabriel Barbosa after he was such a top bargain in my Roma save, but after an accepted offer he flat out refused to talk to us. Doesn't he remember the good times we shared??


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## Hackers76 (Jul 3, 2020)

Start of third season and with a budget of £45m I am looking for a ball playing CB, I can either get Romagnoli from Milan or Diallo from PSG. Which would you chaos go for? Leaning towards the Italian due to better positioning and anticipation however the Frenchman has much better pace


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## Orikoru (Jul 3, 2020)

Hackers76 said:



			Start of third season and with a budget of £45m I am looking for a ball playing CB, I can either get Romagnoli from Milan or Diallo from PSG. Which would you chaos go for? Leaning towards the Italian due to better positioning and anticipation however the Frenchman has much better pace
		
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Upamecano?? When I had him at Chelsea he was a total beast. Is he available? Romagnoli looked a bit slow when I saw him on my Serie A save. I don't know much about Diallo to be fair. One surprisingly very good defender for me, that you can probably get quite cheap is Godfrey from Norwich. Finally Pau Torres is good, but I got him free, I don't know how much he usually costs. Those are just some of the guys I've used though. Mancini from Roma is incredible but probably too expensive.


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## Hackers76 (Jul 3, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Upamecano?? When I had him at Chelsea he was a total beast. Is he available? Romagnoli looked a bit slow when I saw him on my Serie A save. I don't know much about Diallo to be fair. One surprisingly very good defender for me, that you can probably get quite cheap is Godfrey from Norwich. Finally Pau Torres is good, but I got him free, I don't know how much he usually costs. Those are just some of the guys I've used though. Mancini from Roma is incredible but probably too expensive.
		
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Upamenco is likely to cost a lot more than I can afford and I was looking for someone with better aerial ability as that is a weakness for me at the moment (Alderweirald, Sanchez, Dier and Tanganga are still my options). Godfrey has gone to Arsenal so no chance I am going there, Pau Torres looks about the same as my first two choices (pace and anticipation sits between them both) but expected asking price is about £60m


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## Orikoru (Jul 3, 2020)

Hackers76 said:



			Upamenco is likely to cost a lot more than I can afford and I was looking for someone with better aerial ability as that is a weakness for me at the moment (Alderweirald, Sanchez, Dier and Tanganga are still my options). Godfrey has gone to Arsenal so no chance I am going there, Pau Torres looks about the same as my first two choices (pace and anticipation sits between them both) but expected asking price is about £60m
		
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Fair enough. Do you use future fees though? Generally if a player's value is 30 but their asking price is 60 I'll do it as 25-30 up front and 20-25 in two or three future installments, plus 50% profit from sell-on clause. The future fees seem to just get forgotten in my future budgets so there's no real downside that I've seen.


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## Dan2501 (Jul 3, 2020)

Hackers76 said:



			Upamenco is likely to cost a lot more than I can afford and I was looking for someone with better aerial ability as that is a weakness for me at the moment (Alderweirald, Sanchez, Dier and Tanganga are still my options). Godfrey has gone to Arsenal so no chance I am going there, Pau Torres looks about the same as my first two choices (pace and anticipation sits between them both) but expected asking price is about £60m
		
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Have a look at Oumar Solet. Depends on his starting attributes which are slightly random but he can be an absolute beast 3 seasons in. Other suggestions would be Becir Omeragic, I've been super impressed with Ibrahima Cisse at PSV, or another I rate really highly is Jerome Onguene from RB Salzburg. He's starting CB for Liverpool in my save in 23/24, valued at £55m. Tremendous physicals and mentals with solid defensive technicals to go with it and at 6ft3 he's a real unit. Todibo's worth looking at as well. Barca tend not to use him and he left to Schalke on my save for £21m so could get a bargain for him, he becomes really good. There's a ton of really good CB options.


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## Hackers76 (Jul 3, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Fair enough. Do you use future fees though? Generally if a player's value is 30 but their asking price is 60 I'll do it as 25-30 up front and 20-25 in two or three future installments, plus 50% profit from sell-on clause. The future fees seem to just get forgotten in my future budgets so there's no real downside that I've seen.
		
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Never tried it to that level, this is the last season of a challenge against a mate so I should really be doing that with every deal : )


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## Hackers76 (Jul 3, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Have a look at Oumar Solet. Depends on his starting attributes which are slightly random but he can be an absolute beast 3 seasons in. Other suggestions would be Becir Omeragic, I've been super impressed with Ibrahima Cisse at PSV, or another I rate really highly is Jerome Onguene from RB Salzburg. He's starting CB for Liverpool in my save in 23/24, valued at £55m. Tremendous physicals and mentals with solid defensive technicals to go with it and at 6ft3 he's a real unit. Todibo's worth looking at as well. Barca tend not to use him and he left to Schalke on my save for £21m so could get a bargain for him, he becomes really good. There's a ton of really good CB options.
		
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Scouts think Todibo would cost £80m but he looks immense. Didn’t consider Onguene as I have a couple of Africans already and it can cause problems when the Cup of Nations comes about. Missed out on Omeragic as he has already signed for Everton and he would have been class, definitely one to add to the spreadsheet along with Todibo for further saves tho


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## Hackers76 (Jul 3, 2020)

I went with Romagnoli in the end. Pace at 12 is not great but with positioning and anticipation at 16 & 17 respectively I think that makes up for it. Good stamina and marking too.


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## Papas1982 (Jul 4, 2020)

The moment you finally (7th season), seal the title on the last day. Ended up 4-0.


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## Wolf (Jul 6, 2020)

It seems with this current save I'm destined to win trophies regardless of the club I'm at. After leaving Arsenal because there was nothing left to win & no challenge in staying ahead of the pack. Took the Villa job as previously mentioned, got a budget of just 35m. Signed my old Ajax keeper Valero for a mere £12m but other than him Couldn't really find much in the way of quality signings so did a couple of loans deals for youngsters Erb (19) & Castrao (18) from Arsenal. I'd signed them as Wonderkid prospects in my 2nd season at Arsenal for a combined 7m.

They worked out a treat as loan signings Castrao scoring 23 League goals and by the end of season he's a 4 star striker with ridiculous ratings and worth £47m, Erb provided unbelievable quality in midfield seeing his value rise to £43m.

Our expectation was to avoid relegation and improve the squad, but ended up winning the league by just 4 points ahead of Man Utd & Liverpool. Not sure how but we kept scraping wins against big teams. Got hammered in both cups though by Chelsea both times but as of the end of my 7th season as a manager with Ajax, Arsenal & now Villa respectively that's 6 League titles and 17 cups.. 

P397 W275 D91 L31. Not sure where else to take this save now 🤷🏻‍♂️


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## Orikoru (Jul 6, 2020)

Newcastle are bloody awful. I can't get a tune out of them whatsoever. I already got sacked trying my trusty 4-4-2, so I reloaded it from about a month back to give it another go with the 4-1-4-1 wide. We've agreed deals for Gunn and Holding when the window opens, since Dubravka is bloody terrible and the defence are pretty shocking as well. Would love a new striker as well but all the money's gone. Carroll was doing ok as a targetman in the front two but I can't really play him up top on his own since he doesn't have enough about him. So it's Joelinton who's extremely hit and miss. I don't know why they're so bad - certain teams on this game I just cannot do anything but fail miserably, it's so weird.


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## Hackers76 (Jul 6, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			certain teams on this game I just cannot do anything but fail miserably, it's so weird.
		
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Sounds pretty realistic to me 😃


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## Orikoru (Jul 6, 2020)

Hackers76 said:



			Sounds pretty realistic to me 😃
		
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I'm only playing FM Touch - as I said in the opening post of this thread, I just don't think it should be as difficult as it is sometimes.   Even when I do succeed it feels more like I fell into something that works by accident rather than really knowing what I'm doing right.


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## Dan2501 (Jul 6, 2020)

To be fair, Newcastle have a rubbish team in FM, it should be a struggle with them.


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## Orikoru (Jul 6, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			To be fair, Newcastle have a rubbish team in FM, it should be a struggle with them.
		
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I thought they had enough passable players with the likes of Maximin, Bentaleb, Schar, Rose, Dubravka, Almiron.. but most of them just haven't performed at all. S.Longstaff has shown a couple of sprouts of improvement. I think I just need to defend for our lives for the first season by the looks of it. Need to check out what free transfers I can pick up for next season as well since Rose & Bentaleb are only on loan of course. I think one of my main issues with the 4-4-2 is that their wingers like playing at AMR/L but they all hate playing MR/L and have no affinity for it at all so that must have been affecting their performances. Hopefully see a bit more from them now they're back at AM.


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## Dan2501 (Jul 6, 2020)

This is fun  Like Championship Manager 4 where you could buy anyone in the world for £0 by changing the fee after negotiating


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## Orikoru (Jul 6, 2020)

Dan2501 said:








This is fun  Like Championship Manager 4 where you could buy anyone in the world for £0 by changing the fee after negotiating 

Click to expand...

What... the.... hell?? Does that seriously work??


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## Dan2501 (Jul 6, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			What... the.... hell?? Does that seriously work??
		
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Seems like it, just tried it out and it definitely works and is still in the game, mad how that got through testing. Bit like the in-game editor or save scumming though, still not going to do it in my saves!

Started a new save as Everton the other night, trying to emulate a similar 2-up top formation to Carlo using DCL and Richarlison as our strikers but using AMR/AML instead of traditional MR/ML's and so far it's working a charm. 3rd in the league after 12 with 9 wins and 3 defeats - those defeats coming against Wolves (a), Man City (h) and Chelsea (h). DCL has been inspired, 9 goals in 12, 7.47 average rating. Richarlison's been quiet though, only 1 goal, 1 assist in 10 so maybe need to tweak his role, or move him out wide and use Kean through the middle who has 5 goals in 13 appearances (5 starts). Didn't make any major signings in the summer - picked up Ryan Fraser on a free (I've got the latest Sortitoutsi transfer update) and managed to sell Tosun to Palace for £15m but that was it. I have Everton (couldn't resist) coming in in Jan for £20m though, so he should be a real boost to our attacking play.


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## Orikoru (Jul 6, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Seems like it, just tried it out and it definitely works and is still in the game, mad how that got through testing. Bit like the in-game editor or save scumming though, still not going to do it in my saves!

Started a new save as Everton the other night, trying to emulate a similar 2-up top formation to Carlo using DCL and Richarlison as our strikers but using AMR/AML instead of traditional MR/ML's and so far it's working a charm. 3rd in the league after 12 with 9 wins and 3 defeats - those defeats coming against Wolves (a), Man City (h) and Chelsea (h). DCL has been inspired, 9 goals in 12, 7.47 average rating. Richarlison's been quiet though, only 1 goal, 1 assist in 10 so maybe need to tweak his role, or move him out wide and use Kean through the middle who has 5 goals in 13 appearances (5 starts). Didn't make any major signings in the summer - picked up Ryan Fraser on a free (I've got the latest Sortitoutsi transfer update) and managed to sell Tosun to Palace for £15m but that was it. I have Everton (couldn't resist) coming in in Jan for £20m though, so he should be a real boost to our attacking play.
		
Click to expand...

But you've no idea how tempting it is to fleece the next low-balling Chinese team of an extra £10mil now.


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## Orikoru (Jul 7, 2020)

I'm going to have to give up on Newcastle, it's too frustrating. I signed Morelos up top who made a difference for a bit, but just when you're doing well they  the bed at home to Bournemouth for no reason. Can't be arsed anymore. I was tempted to try Wolves but I think I'm going to get away from the Prem again. Probably going to take a leaf out of Dan's book and go to Holland. I think AZ are the team for me, they have some great wonderkids and I'll see if I can overhaul the tyranny of Ajax and PSV.

Edit: Also as a random piece of trivia - my Sunday team just got new kits, Nike ones from the FA store as we had a voucher. It turns out AZ's new third kit in real life is the exact same kit, haha.


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## Dan2501 (Jul 7, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I'm going to have to give up on Newcastle, it's too frustrating. I signed Morelos up top who made a difference for a bit, but just when you're doing well they  the bed at home to Bournemouth for no reason. Can't be arsed anymore. I was tempted to try Wolves but I think I'm going to get away from the Prem again. Probably going to take a leaf out of Dan's book and go to Holland. I think AZ are the team for me, they have some great wonderkids and I'll see if I can overhaul the tyranny of Ajax and PSV.

Edit: Also as a random piece of trivia - my Sunday team just got new kits, Nike ones from the FA store as we had a voucher. It turns out AZ's new third kit in real life is the exact same kit, haha. 

Click to expand...

Good choice. AZ are stacked - Boadu, Wijnal, Idrissi, Stengs and Koopmeiners are all fantastic, just good luck keeping hold of them


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## Orikoru (Jul 7, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Good choice. AZ are stacked - Boadu, Wijnal, Idrissi, Stengs and Koopmeiners are all fantastic, just good luck keeping hold of them 

Click to expand...

It's ok I'll just use that glitch to take £150mil when someone bids. (Just kidding haha.) I'll resist selling them as long as I can but I should be able to take decent money when they do go. 

By the way, did you see that other video about poaching other teams' youth intakes? Apparently on youth intake day you can go and see who other teams got, offer them a trial on the day and they tend to get accepted, then once you've seen how good they are you have a good chance of signing them apparently. That would have been handy to know in my Roma save when we had the worst youth intakes in all of history three years in a row.


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## Orikoru (Jul 8, 2020)

My AZ game has started off really well. Spent most of my budget on Amine Gouiri, as they don't have much up top besides Boadu and this one other guy. First time I've been able to get Gouiri, as I never load many leagues so he usually doesn't appear in the database. 

First round of Europa qualifying was fun. Facing Lechia Gdansk, we won the away leg 3-0, so the first leg should have been a procession, instead it was probably the maddest game I've ever had on this FM, as we won it 9-3. So 12-3 on aggregate. Gouiri with a hat-trick and two assists on his competitive debut. After that we've won our first league 4-0 v Emmen, and the first leg of the next Europa quals put us against Trabzonspor, we conceded the first goal but bounced back with four of our own. So we're certainly not struggling to score goals at the moment. Stengs has been injured, I've played the back-up left back Ouwejan at left wing and he scored a bloody hat-trick in the league game! Unbelievable. 

Obviously it was going far too well, so I've just been told Boadu is out for 2 months with broken ribs. Cheers for that.


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## Orikoru (Jul 11, 2020)

AZ still going well. Won our first 6 league games, including one against Ajax, so we were 4 points clear, but then a small blip as we lost to Feyenoord and draw a couple of others. Got through three qualifying rounds to reach the Europa group stage, and we were unlucky to lose 1-0 to Lazio with a resilient performance. My big surprise player is Ferdy Druijf, been using him as a target man up front, and he's scored 10 in 10 in the league. So now Boadu is back I have a little selection dilemma with them and Gouiri. My main annoyance is injuries though. Idrissi and Stengs are quality wingers but they're both injured ALL the time. We've just slipped to 2nd, but with a game in hand that would take us 2 clear again with a win.


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## Dan2501 (Jul 13, 2020)

https://twitter.com/TheFMRetroGroup

Not downloaded yet, but about to. This is very cool. 1999/2000 FM20 DB that it appears a TON of work has gone into. A load of leagues manageable with downloadable kits and logos to go with it. Awesome stuff.


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## Orikoru (Jul 14, 2020)

God this game is annoying. We'd gone 15 games unbeaten, then out of nowhere, usual bollocks from FM. Three defeats in a row in the league. That's our title bid dead and buried, we're now 4th. Knocked out of the Europa as well in that same spell. We've scraped through to the Dutch cup final, against Ajax (obviously), but other than that it's roll on next season really. We've got Aleix Garcia arriving for free from Man City, but he was the only decent out of contract guy who didn't ask for wages that were way beyond us. I'll be selling Idrissi though so hopefully make some money there - the guy is literally injured all the time, he must have missed at least 35-40% of the games through fitness.


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## Hackers76 (Jul 14, 2020)

Just reading an article on the beeb about Gareth Bale’s current issues at Madrid and got me thinking about trying a save with them and seeing if I can get things to work for him. Has anyone tried before, is he worth it?


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## Orikoru (Jul 14, 2020)

Hackers76 said:



			Just reading an article on the beeb about Gareth Bale’s current issues at Madrid and got me thinking about trying a save with them and seeing if I can get things to work for him. Has anyone tried before, is he worth it?
		
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That doesn't sound like much of a challenge. He's probably world class in the game so you just play him and he plays well, end of.


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## Orikoru (Jul 16, 2020)

I got bored of my AZ game as we kept drawing or losing to stupid teams, then we lost to Ajax twice in a week. I started a new game, you'll laugh as it's Spurs again, but I wanted to test a few tactical bits and bobs on a quick game that I didn't have to invest too much interest in. Basically it's this:




As usual with Spurs we have all the injuries, but in fact I've had even more than my previous Spurs games, so the starting line-up has literally just been whoever is fit enough to play. Son has just gone down for 3 months now. Anyway, I wanted to test the higher line and pressing than I normally use, plus I'm trying the 'stopper' duty on Sanchez - I've not used a stopper before, but this formation is a little prone to long range goals due to the lack of DM I think, so I wanted him to really get out to them and stop those if possible. 

It's started reasonably well I suppose. Six games played:
Southampton(H) 2-0
Palace(A) 1-2 
Newcastle(H) 1-0
West Ham(A) 0-0
Watford(H) 1-0
PSG(A) 2-0

So the Palace result was terrible, but clean sheets in all the other games, including a big scalp against PSG. We're not scoring as many goals as I'd like, but that's mostly down to Harry Kane being absolutely shocking just like he was in my previous saves. Every game I seem to be taking him off as he's on a 6.4. Can't work out why he's so crap. I'm giving Parrott plenty of games and I'm going to try and buy Edouard in Jan I think. We had 22 shots against West Ham, 23 against Newcastle, and 1 goal combined to show for it - a Ben Davies injury time screamer.   I'm hoping it's just inconsistency due to the injuries we've had and having to chop and change, not able to build partnerships etc.


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## Hackers76 (Jul 16, 2020)

The board confuse me on this game. Into 2022 and I have just sold Moura for £46m and Sissoko for £26m and they are unhappy. Neither were in the first team and struggled to get on the bench, at 29 and 32 I thought they were acceptable deals but the board are disappointed by the finances involved in the deals.


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## Orikoru (Jul 16, 2020)

Hackers76 said:



			The board confuse me on this game. Into 2022 and I have just sold Moura for £46m and Sissoko for £26m and they are unhappy. Neither were in the first team and struggled to get on the bench, at 29 and 32 I thought they were acceptable deals but the board are disappointed by the finances involved in the deals.
		
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They always say that. And it overlooks the fact that it's damn near impossible to sell most players for much above their value. I just ignore 99% of the board feedback because it's all bollocks. I swear they were disappointed in the finances when I loaned somebody out once. When I was Norwich we beat Man City and they were only 'satisfied'. Jog on!


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## Dan2501 (Jul 16, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			They always say that. And it overlooks the fact that it's damn near impossible to sell most players for much above their value. I just ignore 99% of the board feedback because it's all bollocks. I swear they were disappointed in the finances when I loaned somebody out once. When I was Norwich we beat Man City and they were only 'satisfied'. Jog on!
		
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Board confidence and reactions to certain things definitely need adjusting in the next version of the game, but not sure how much they affect your overall job security in the grand scheme of things.

If you're struggling to sell players for as much as you'd expect for them - watch this:






Few little tips in there that will help get the maximum for every player you try and sell. Love Zealand's content, one of the few FM content creators worth watching.


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## Orikoru (Jul 16, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			Board confidence and reactions to certain things definitely need adjusting in the next version of the game, but not sure how much they affect your overall job security in the grand scheme of things.

If you're struggling to sell players for as much as you'd expect for them - watch this:






Few little tips in there that will help get the maximum for every player you try and sell. Love Zealand's content, one of the few FM content creators worth watching.
		
Click to expand...

I did watch that and it doesn't work, he's talking rubbish. When I offer to clubs over their value it just comes back that nobody made any offers. I think he just had good players in a poor league hence they were easier to sell. 

I do like Zealand though, I subscribed after the last video of his that you posted. Have watched a fair few of his vids.


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## Dan2501 (Jul 16, 2020)

You tried offering out with the value unspecified? I had a few bites doing that with a couple of Everton players that had no interested clubs and seemed to work nicely. Think it helps if you already have significant interest in the players though.


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## Orikoru (Jul 17, 2020)

Dan2501 said:



			You tried offering out with the value unspecified? I had a few bites doing that with a couple of Everton players that had no interested clubs and seemed to work nicely. Think it helps if you already have significant interest in the players though.
		
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If you get an offer that way it's always miles below their value.

Anyway, this game is bloody stupid chapter 101 - my team were doing really well, we had suffered a couple of defeats, but every win we'd had produced a clean sheet as well so I figured I was onto something. Sod that though, because the traditional November/December slump was back with a vengeance. Lost three straight league games to Everton, Wolves and Bournemouth - still found time to beat PSG in Europe in between them though. Then we managed two late goals to drew 2-2 with Man Utd, smashed Villa to finally notch a win. I thought, I could use a run of easy fixtures now. Who have we got? City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool. Great. City smashed us 4-0, but we beat Chelsea thanks to 3 goals in the first 15 minutes, and their 2 second half goals weren't enough. So we're 7th now anyway, but top four looks a long way off at the moment.

The board randomly boosted my budget to £68 million - maybe because I topped the Champs League group, beating PSG and RBL twice each. I've spent it all on Leon Bailey (has to be better than Bergwijn) and Ruben Dias (need to phase out Toby really as he's not going to improve). If I can flog Lamela and Sissoko I'll probably look to bring in another striker, but no emergency as Dele Alli has done surprisingly well up top.


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## Orikoru (Jul 19, 2020)

Weird season with Spurs. After that shocking league form in December we found it hard to recover, very patchy for most of the season and found ourselves in 9th place for a lot of it. The only reason I wasn't sacked was top performances in the cup. I've got us to two cup finals, the Champs League and FA Cup. We face Liverpool in both of them, obviously.  Had a good spell in the league though winning 6 in a row, so we've crept into 5th place with one game remaining. No chance of 4th because the gap to Wolves is 4 points, but beat Watford and 5th is ours. Would be quite pleased with that overall.

Hoping I get decent money in the summer. Need to pack Sissoko and Son off as well, but I could use a right winger to challenge Lucas Moura, and a new keeper since Lloris is old, and I already sold Gazzaniga so I don't actually have a back up. I didn't mention before but as well as Bailey and Dias I managed to bring Tonali in on deadline day, and he's been incredible until he broke his ankle a while back. I also signed Fabio Silva from Porto, he arrived already injured but when he eventually got fit he scored 4 in first 5 games or so, but then slowed right down (young strikers never have consistency on this game to be fair). But with him and Parrott improving to rotate with Kane, I should be set in attack really.

Edit: Lost all three. Am currently bringing in Onana and Coman.


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## Orikoru (Jul 21, 2020)

This game winds me up so much. Somehow I've developed a team/tactics that do brilliantly against good teams and poorly against rubbish ones! Into October now, we've beaten Arsenal 3-0, City 1-0, got a 0-0 with Liverpool where we were the better side as well. But we've lost 1-0 to West Brom (we had 27 shots, 12 SOT, 59% pos); drew 2-2 with Norwich where we were 2-0 up absolutely cruising and they scored in the 81st and 83rd minutes; and drew 0-0 with Sheff Utd who were down to ten men after 25 minutes (20 shots, 7 SOT, 57%). That West Brom game is our only defeat, but we're 7th thanks to all the crappy draws! I'm finding Fabio Silva and Parrott inconsistent so I've done a deal for Moussa Dembele to arrive from Lyon in January. Consequently my squad is pretty damn good:

*Kane*, F.Silva, Parrott, *Dembele
L.Bailey*, *Coman*, Moura, Bergwijn, Son(tried to sell him but failed)
*Tonali*, Lo Celso, Gedson, Ndombele, Dele, Winks
*R.Sessegnon*, Davies, *Tomiyasu*, Vagnoman
*R.Dias*, *Ajer*, Sanchez, Alderweireld 
*Onana*, Lloris.

Bold is who'll usually start, but I still don't know who my best box-to-box is really. My tactic is this now, with loads of high pressing and kicking lumps out of the oppo:

AFa - CFa
IWs - DLPd - BBMs - Wa
WBa - BPDco - BPDst - FBs
SKs​Obviously the WBa is to make best use of Sessegnon now that he's improving.


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## jmf1488 (Jul 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I got bored of my AZ game as we kept drawing or losing to stupid teams, then we lost to Ajax twice in a week. I started a new game, you'll laugh as it's Spurs again, but I wanted to test a few tactical bits and bobs on a quick game that I didn't have to invest too much interest in. Basically it's this:

View attachment 31641


As usual with Spurs we have all the injuries, but in fact I've had even more than my previous Spurs games, so the starting line-up has literally just been whoever is fit enough to play. Son has just gone down for 3 months now. Anyway, I wanted to test the higher line and pressing than I normally use, plus I'm trying the 'stopper' duty on Sanchez - I've not used a stopper before, but this formation is a little prone to long range goals due to the lack of DM I think, so I wanted him to really get out to them and stop those if possible.

It's started reasonably well I suppose. Six games played:
Southampton(H) 2-0
Palace(A) 1-2 
Newcastle(H) 1-0
West Ham(A) 0-0
Watford(H) 1-0
PSG(A) 2-0

So the Palace result was terrible, but clean sheets in all the other games, including a big scalp against PSG. We're not scoring as many goals as I'd like, but that's mostly down to Harry Kane being absolutely shocking just like he was in my previous saves. Every game I seem to be taking him off as he's on a 6.4. Can't work out why he's so crap. I'm giving Parrott plenty of games and I'm going to try and buy Edouard in Jan I think. We had 22 shots against West Ham, 23 against Newcastle, and 1 goal combined to show for it - a Ben Davies injury time screamer.   I'm hoping it's just inconsistency due to the injuries we've had and having to chop and change, not able to build partnerships etc.
		
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Tactic is never going to work.

Drop Ali to AMC support.

Move your wingers forward. You can keep them as wingers or inside forwards or inverted wingers depending on what roles suit them the best. You can have 1 winger and 1 inside forward, it will work.

Don't have both your wingers on attach. Put one side attack and 1 side support.

Do the opposite for full backs. If your LW is attack then put your RB as attack then LB support and RW support. This way its balanced and you have attacking options on both sides of the pitch.

Put your DLP to defend to help connect the back 4 with the midfield.

If you are playing with wingers set them to shoot less. It doesn't mean they wont shoot but they will stop running into the side netting as much.

Put the CB to cover on the side the full back attacks. Put the other CB on support.

Tactics needs balance. A good balance of player roles and duties always. It is very important that the players you put in the role suit the role. You could have a 5* player who is playing at a 2* level cause he is in the wrong role.


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## Orikoru (Jul 27, 2020)

jmf1488 said:



			Tactic is never going to work.

Drop Ali to AMC support.

Move your wingers forward. You can keep them as wingers or inside forwards or inverted wingers depending on what roles suit them the best. You can have 1 winger and 1 inside forward, it will work.

Don't have both your wingers on attach. Put one side attack and 1 side support.

Do the opposite for full backs. If your LW is attack then put your RB as attack then LB support and RW support. This way its balanced and you have attacking options on both sides of the pitch.

Put your DLP to defend to help connect the back 4 with the midfield.

If you are playing with wingers set them to shoot less. It doesn't mean they wont shoot but they will stop running into the side netting as much.

Put the CB to cover on the side the full back attacks. Put the other CB on support.

Tactics needs balance. A good balance of player roles and duties always. It is very important that the players you put in the role suit the role. You could have a 5* player who is playing at a 2* level cause he is in the wrong role.
		
Click to expand...

A tactic pretty much the same as that one won me everything with Roma. But I have changed it now anyway to the one two posts above this. Coincidentally enough a lot of it is exactly what you said. And it has worked very well, we went 37 games unbeaten in all competitions, until finally losing a crazy FA Cup quarter final against Liverpool (3-0 down.. got it back to 3-3 but lost in extra time). We are three points ahead of them in the league with about 8 games left though. Our only league defeat is still that stupid early one against West Brom. I managed to add Goretzka for 62mil release clause in January, as well as Jude Bellingham for not very much at all as a squad player / future legend. 

To be fair the amount of money I've been able to spend is ridiculous considering I'm playing as Spurs, but it is what it is. Hopefully I'll do the league and Europa double then one more season to have a go at the Champions League then I'll probably move onto a new save.


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## jmf1488 (Jul 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			A tactic pretty much the same as that one won me everything with Roma. But I have changed it now anyway to the one two posts above this. Coincidentally enough a lot of it is exactly what you said. And it has worked very well, we went 37 games unbeaten in all competitions, until finally losing a crazy FA Cup quarter final against Liverpool (3-0 down.. got it back to 3-3 but lost in extra time). We are three points ahead of them in the league with about 8 games left though. Our only league defeat is still that stupid early one against West Brom. I managed to add Goretzka for 62mil release clause in January, as well as Jude Bellingham for not very much at all as a squad player / future legend.

To be fair the amount of money I've been able to spend is ridiculous considering I'm playing as Spurs, but it is what it is. Hopefully I'll do the league and Europa double then one more season to have a go at the Champions League then I'll probably move onto a new save.
		
Click to expand...

I play the full game on my phone using Google stadia. You cant download tactics because its remote play basically. I researched how to create tactics. Main things were balanced the tactic. Player roles must suit the style of play and player duties must also be balanced. Dont attack all down the same side of the pitch. Have a good mix of balance support and defend. Make sure your players suit the role you are asking them to play. The roles must suit the style of play too. You can basically make any tactic work based on any set of players following them principles.

I always found in fm it doesn't really matter what players you have if the tactics aren't good. You don't win then you don't have good morale and a team with poor morale and tactics struggle big time.

I am playing as Newcastle. Got them to europa league and won it and finished 6th but got CL and won it too. My team was nowhere near the best team in the league but the tactics were spot on and the dynamics and morale was good. Took me 5 years to win CL but didn't win it again for another 4 years. Won the league in year 6.

I like to find a tactic that works then replace every player one by one with better ones when i have money and they are available.


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## Wolf (Jul 27, 2020)

Games getting on my tits at the minute, this save I started as Ajax was thoroughly enjoying it and won everything every year for 4 years straight, took the Arsenal job mid season went the next 2 & half years unbeaten in all competitions so literally won everything again. Got bored took the Villa job for a challenge as the board criteria was avoid relegation and improve squad, ended up winning the PL in the first season, 2nd season board expect league win & run in Europe with a 20m budget 😒 opening 5 games I played Liverpool, Utd, City, Spurs & Barcelona. Won 3, drew 1 lost 1 got sacked for underperformance😂. 

So took the Dortmund job am currently top of the league after 22 games in the CL quarters and the board have told me they're unimpressed with current form and jobs basically hanging on a thread.. I swear sometimes the game just crap itself for the sake of it.


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## Orikoru (Jul 27, 2020)

jmf1488 said:



			I play the full game on my phone using Google stadia. You cant download tactics because its remote play basically. I researched how to create tactics. Main things were balanced the tactic. Player roles must suit the style of play and player duties must also be balanced. Dont attack all down the same side of the pitch. Have a good mix of balance support and defend. Make sure your players suit the role you are asking them to play. The roles must suit the style of play too. You can basically make any tactic work based on any set of players following them principles.

I always found in fm it doesn't really matter what players you have if the tactics aren't good. You don't win then you don't have good morale and a team with poor morale and tactics struggle big time.

I am playing as Newcastle. Got them to europa league and won it and finished 6th but got CL and won it too. My team was nowhere near the best team in the league but the tactics were spot on and the dynamics and morale was good. Took me 5 years to win CL but didn't win it again for another 4 years. Won the league in year 6.

I like to find a tactic that works then replace every player one by one with better ones when i have money and they are available.
		
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I've heard all that and obviously there is truth there, but also if you go and look at all the best-rated downloadable tactics, they all have all the forwards on Attack, or both strikers using the same role rather than a partnership, etc. So I figure there's more than one way to skin the cat.

My Spurs side are currently bottling the title like a good Spurs team should do. From 2-0 up at Man Utd, Coman got sent off and we conceded four goals, then we went and lost to bloody West Brom for the second time this season. Absolute farce.


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## Orikoru (Jul 27, 2020)

Wolf said:



			Games getting on my tits at the minute, this save I started as Ajax was thoroughly enjoying it and won everything every year for 4 years straight, took the Arsenal job mid season went the next 2 & half years unbeaten in all competitions so literally won everything again. Got bored took the Villa job for a challenge as the board criteria was avoid relegation and improve squad, ended up winning the PL in the first season, 2nd season board expect league win & run in Europe with a 20m budget 😒 opening 5 games I played Liverpool, Utd, City, Spurs & Barcelona. Won 3, drew 1 lost 1 got sacked for underperformance😂.

So took the Dortmund job am currently top of the league after 22 games in the CL quarters and the board have told me they're unimpressed with current form and jobs basically hanging on a thread.. I swear sometimes the game just crap itself for the sake of it.
		
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Damn, your game sounds even more broken than mine.


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## Wolf (Jul 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			Damn, your game sounds even more broken than mine.
		
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Absolute joke of a game sometimes. The exact wording in board confidence is "The recent awful form of the team is a major cause for concern" 

We're literally top of the table unbeaten ahead of Hannover & Bayern. Literally couldn't make it up. Am considering a new save with some random lower league team with naff all expectations and see where it takes me.


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## jmf1488 (Jul 27, 2020)

Orikoru said:



			I've heard all that and obviously there is truth there, but also if you go and look at all the best-rated downloadable tactics, they all have all the forwards on Attack, or both strikers using the same role rather than a partnership, etc. So I figure there's more than one way to skin the cat.

My Spurs side are currently bottling the title like a good Spurs team should do. From 2-0 up at Man Utd, Coman got sent off and we conceded four goals, then we went and lost to bloody West Brom for the second time this season. Absolute farce.
		
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I have watched a few videos with the downloadable tactics. They go against the principles I follow but I find they have a lot of individual player instructions which probably plays a big part in them tactics. I tend not to alter the individual instructions too much cause you'd be there all day trying to tweak that.

Its sickening when that happens. I was 3-0 up against Real Madrid in CL semi final. I was winning 3-0 and they scored 2 goals. One of there goals was a 93rd min away goal to put them through on away goals. Gutted. Ever since then if I was 2 up or more against a team that was better than me I changed tactics mid game. My AMC goes to DMC put both my full backs on defend and changed my mentality to balanced. I havent bottled a 2 goal lead since.


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## Wolf (Jul 27, 2020)

Scrap that above, as I was typing it out of nowhere I've just been hammered 5-0 by none other than bottom of the league Freiburg 😒

Subsequently I've just been sacked for 2nd time in as many seasons despite being top of the table 👍🏻

Still i have the England job as well, gonna finish after this seasons WC and retire my manager.


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## Orikoru (Jul 27, 2020)

Well we certainly bottled the league, finishing 4 points behind Liverpool - didn't even take it to the final day which is bitterly disappointing. We finish on 89 points. But I did at least win a trophy as we dominated Lazio in the Europa Cup final. Now I'm wondering what I have to do with this squad to topple Liverpool next season.


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