Football Manager 2020 & FM Touch

[Dan2501]

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!

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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!

 

[Orikoru]

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!

 

[Orikoru]

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

 

[Papas1982]

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.

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

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.

 

[Dan2501]

I've never managed to get TAA.

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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