Football Manager 2020 & FM Touch

[Orikoru]

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

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.

 

[Beezerk]

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

 

[Orikoru]

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

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.

 

[Beezerk]

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.

Just hide and be a complete coward like me ?

 

[Orikoru]

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

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.

 

[Wolf]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

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.

 

[TheDiablo]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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!

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Dan2501]

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.

 

[Wolf]

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.

 

[Orikoru]

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.

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.