***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

So I ended my first full year/season with a disappointing, but expected loss. To a team who is going to be my arch rival for the rest of my FM playing life. The coach was talking **** about me in the media. And then when I engaged in it, my fans reacted poorly. So then I backed off the media non sense. But they were promoted, so we wont be playing them for a bit.

We first however, pulled out an unexpected win in both legs of the playoff semis against Eastleigh. Winning 1-0 at home, and 0-2 away. Shocked everyone, including me. But then in the final, we lost to a team who we couldn't beat all year. Grimsby. We were 0-1-4 against them on the year. They beat us (before I took over) 2-1 away. And then at home 0-2 after I took over. Then we played them in the semi final of the FA Calsberg Trophy over two legs. Drawing 0-0 away, and then losing again 0-2 at home. And then this last time in the playoff final 0-2. Damn you Paul Hurst! Who also won manager of the year.

And after the season ended, I was able to convince the board to upgrade our training and youth facilities. Which I didn't get any fight on actually, they agreed to it straight away.

Here are the results from when I took over until the end of the season.



Here are the final standings and some stats. Pretty proud of Jordan Burrow. Kid was a backup until I got there. Scored all 15 of his goals after I made him the starter. James and Hibbs were also both stuck down in the U21 squad. I moved them up to rotate, and they never left the first team. James turned out to be a star for us. He was also only one assist behind McDonald.




And that Peniket guy over there on the injured list, he did that in the pre-season I assume or very end of the prior season. He had zero app this season before I got here. So not sure what the deal with him was. Something went wrong in his recovery after I took over though. And he had to have another one. So hes going to miss most of next season also now. I'm probably not going to renew him end of contract, which is end of next season. He is being paid to sit on the bench two years in a row. I'd term him, but it would cost us $55K. We can't really afford that now.

And after some thought, I'm changing to this tactic for next season.

Spoiler

Changing the full backs to limited defenders, instead of attacking. Since it suits them better. And I am moving the wingers back into the midfield. I might also change them from attack to support. Not sure on that yet. I also changed the DM to a anchor man. I had him set as deep lying play maker. Which was working great. But the kid I was using we had in on loan. And has no intention of signing with me if purchased. So, going to make due with the a youth promotion, and play to his strengths in that role.

Much better experience than I had at Berwick to start the year. Really looking to dig in and have fun with the second season here at Halifax. Going to try and get promoted to League 2 this season.

[NoDakHusker]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Just lost a match where I had one player sent off and my opponent had 2 sent off. I dominated the match, had a 10-9 advantage and lost 1-0.

Fm'ed.

Also the Scottish Premiership is much more difficult than I anticipated. This might be a rough year for my Rangers if I don't pick this team up from a slow start.

Sent from my HTC6515LVW using Tapatalk

[Perceptor]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

So I will be needing better finishers as I move towards promotion. Albert Adomah, who is actually a pretty good player for me, had his Bendtner moment (thanks Nomar for the reference). At least he scored and I can laugh about it.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4BHjzdN1plA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[rsnomar05]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

So Nantes kicked the ball out of play so a player could receive treatment. I hit the instructions tab to tell my squad to take more risks, thinking "okay, well, we're just going to throw it back to Nantes." But then I noticed something. "Wait, why is the ball in the box? Did we just long-throw it towards the box to try and- oh my god, we just scored! WOW! That is so dirty!" Yup, that's right. Instead of throwing it back to Nantes my players elected to try and catch Nantes off-guard and score the winning goal. Because I wasn't looking, I initially thought it had been thrown into or close to the box, but this was just as bad, a long throw down the wing that my striker crossed into the box for an easy match winner. And since I needed that goal to stay in a promotion spot, I love it!


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V3-LRVKOnsg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[ubernoob]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I almost wept tears of joy, and I was spazzing out in my chair at this game.

Let me set the stage. 2017/2018 Season. Locked up the league at 31 games played, only drew 2, won 29. Spent the last part of the Prem season playing youngsters saving up my XI for the CL.

CL Semi-Finals. Draw Madrid (Arsenal and Bayern other semi.) Away leg first. Lose 3-1. Not only did we lose 3-1. Clyne (RB) is injured and didn't get to play. Flanagan (RB/LB) gets a straight red. Coentrao (LB) gets two yellows. It's a miracle we only lost 3-1. I'm down to Jorge at LB (serviceable, not mad about this - he could take over for Coentrao now if I wanted him to) but no RB. I have to slide Gomez over, which means Skrtel has to start at DC and I now have no backup CB.

Game starts. Firmino scores in the 4th minute to put me up 1-0. Barbosa scores in the 15th minute to put me up 2-0. At this point, I am blessing the away goal gods. Toni Kroos then brings it to 2-1 in the 23rd. Followed by a quick hitter from Bernardo Silva in the 26th. It's 2-2 at this point and all hope looks lost. My promises of winning a CL quickly fading by the wayside.

Then this happens.(right click -> open in a new tab if you want to see it in full-size glory.)

Spoiler

I have zero, ZERO, words.

[Perceptor]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Uber,

What freaking team you have: How much were Neymar and Gotze?

[ubernoob]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Uber,

What freaking team you have: How much were Neymar and Gotze?

Neymar was 90M, and had to promise him the captain's band to even talk to me when that offer was accepted.

Pogba was 100M.

Gotze was transfer listed and I picked him up for 15.5M.

The best part about it is I haven't spent much more than I brought in in fees.

2015/16 was 30M in, 22.4M out.
2016/17 was 160M in, 136M out.
2017/18 was 119M in, 104M out.

This year is going to be a bit different though. I'm bringing in some top quality young defenders with my CL money and I don't have too many players to move out. As luck would have it, John Stones is transfer listed at Man City so I don't have to overpay like mad for an English player.

My strategy in this save has basically been buy young players for the future with my starting transfer budget, then whatever I make from selling players buy whatever star power I can get with that from the transfer fees received.

Also, outside of Gotze at 15.5M, I think my best bit of business has been Andre Cubas honestly. I bought him in 2016/17 for 4M from Boca after my scouts found him. Well worth the money, and with playing time/tutoring he's really made me not miss Can at all. Only downside is him being a midget, but man what a bargain. Also, they underperformed at the World Cup, but he played so well for me that they called him up and he played in all 4 of their World Cup matches in his international debut. They lost in the second round 1-1 on penalties, however.

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I made the mistake of scheduling 6 pre season games (all against league 1 and 2 teams, so way better than us), to try and get the board some money back for all that they spent. Because the club was about to go in the red. Big mistake. 6 key players ended up getting injured. Ranging from out 2-6 months. This of course all happened at the end, after I had already loaned up some players. And sold two players who would now be key players if I still had them. However the board affiliated with Sheff Wed towards the start, so I can try and get some of their backups to cover for 6 months with no wages hopefully.

And at the end of last season, that Platt kid I was using as my star DM. He tells me flat out he will never join us permanently. So after his loan is up, he goes back to York, and they straight up show him the door. He sits on the free for a week, 16 teams have interest in him. I send him an offer for 900 a week, making him my highest paid player by double the wage. He says no, I also want a 5K sign on fee. I tell him to get bent. Two weeks later, only 3 teams have interest. Probably because of his attitude. I send him the exact same offer I sent before. He agrees. I so badly wanted to then withdraw the offer as a screw you for his attitude about the whole thing. But we really needed him. So I signed him. Then he gets hurt in his first game. Also after I signed him, then all the sudden 15 teams had interest again. If he doesn't perform when healthy, at least I can get a good price tag for him in January. Hes valued at 88k currently. Plus it would free wages for two players.

I also sold my third string striker for 2k now and 25k over the next 24 months to a VNN team. Shattering their record transfer fee. Previous of 7k. I had to do it to get wages out of the red. I also had to loan out two players on a 50% wage (no one would take them for full). And now if I try to recall one to fill a gap I'll go back in the red. So I have my fingers crossed that I can get a couple of these Sheff Wed guys on free loan. Otherwise this is going to be a very rough start to the season.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

That awful feeling when injuries ravage your squad, and you're forced to change your tactic due to lack of available players. We're going from a 4-3-3 to a 3-5-1-1, we're gonna hope this doesn't destroy my season. My starting left back just broke his collar bone and is out for 7-9 weeks, my backup left back has the shin splints and has 2-3 months left on his injury, I don't have a third string left back, as my former starter got sold to PSG for £40m, and with no youth prospects ready, forced to switch with missing the left back position.

[rsnomar05]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

That awful feeling when injuries ravage your squad, and you're forced to change your tactic due to lack of available players. We're going from a 4-3-3 to a 3-5-1-1, we're gonna hope this doesn't destroy my season. My starting left back just broke his collar bone and is out for 7-9 weeks, my backup left back has the shin splints and has 2-3 months left on his injury, I don't have a third string left back, as my former starter got sold to PSG for £40m, and with no youth prospects ready, forced to switch with missing the left back position.

Ouch that's rough. Hopefully the 3-5-1-1 is a success.


Well, the promotion race couldn't be any tighter with 1 match left to go in the season. Time for an unbelievably nerve-wracking final 90 minutes.

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

That awful feeling when injuries ravage your squad, and you're forced to change your tactic due to lack of available players. We're going from a 4-3-3 to a 3-5-1-1, we're gonna hope this doesn't destroy my season. My starting left back just broke his collar bone and is out for 7-9 weeks, my backup left back has the shin splints and has 2-3 months left on his injury, I don't have a third string left back, as my former starter got sold to PSG for £40m, and with no youth prospects ready, forced to switch with missing the left back position.

Here is to hoping you have some quality mids that are in great shape.

[rsnomar05]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Thanks largely to the fact that I had 5 key players away on international duty, I drew my final four matches in the league. But despite that disappointment: OH YEAH, PROMOTION! TAKE THAT, MEDIA WHO PICKED US TO FINISH 18TH!

In light of this achievement, the Strasbourg Board upped my payroll from $3.9 mil with no transfer budget (lol!) to $8 mil with a $100k transfer budget (still lol, but slightly less so). With that payroll it might be a real struggle to stay up. But luckily if I find it's too futile to try and bring Strasbourg to Ligue 1 glory, I turned down what had to be 100 job interview requests, so I can always switch teams. That's last resort though, as I want to turn Strasbourg into a French force.

[Kobalt]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I went back to my France save, my break was done. This guy scored against me, I was kinda sad.

[Mo]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

End of the season time again.

Top of the league with 4 matches to play. The schedule is disgusting though.

Spoiler

Now on the Champions League front, we got a winnable group and won it by a point. Got an easy draw in the rd of 16 vs FC Kobenhavn. Won the leg 6-0. Then got Liverpool, won the first match 2-0 at Loftus road.

Second leg was something




Barca next.

[ubernoob]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Damn, the FM gods hate you this season. Between almost making you cry with Liverpool launching all the long balls, then Barca and the end of your league schedule... it's shaping up to be quite the FM save.

On an unrelated note, I started a German save (I did... FM14 I think it was with them) and I feel like keeping notes/track of it, so I started a dynasty. If those are your kind of things.

Shameless Plug

Not sure how I want to do updates during the season. Maybe every other week do an update post, with box scores and stat updates with big games getting their own posts or what. Still working that out while I get the initial posts ready. I want it to be relatively in-depth but not be dragged down by a constant trickle of small "here's this game" posts.

I guess it'll be something that will be ironed out in time.