***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[Cod]

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

Well in spite of things generally going incredibly poorly right now, WE SURVIVED!

Did you win a playoff to stay up? Or does the Eredivisie just relegate the bottom two without question?

[Suntan Superman]

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

Did you win a playoff to stay up? Or does the Eredivisie just relegate the bottom two without question?

Heerenveen is in the relegation play-out, managed to avoid that as well (they ended up losing the play-out as well)

[cranes74us]

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

Finished season 1 with Lierse K in 2nd place. Beerschot went up to the Jupiler league and it wasn't even close. My team hovered around the 2nd-4th spot most of the season thanks to my Striker 6'7 TF Leonardo Rocha from Portugal. Team is 3.5 Million in debt thanks to their dumb loan deals they had done irl. Started cutting the fat as the season went on and now have a reasonable payroll that I worked with to bring in some bargains but had to sell 2 key players as they wanted bigger teams.

Started season 2 with expectations coming in at 5th place, board expects playoffs for next 3 years and I am perfectly fine with that as I try to improve the finances and build up my youth system to hopefully sell some players along the way.

[Suntan Superman]

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

Out of curiosity, have any of y'all ever used Injections, or have you treated a sick player at the club? I used injections once on an end of season game and put the player in question on the bench, but ended up not subbing him in. I don't honestly think I'll ever do it outside of extraordinary circumstances.

[jb12780]

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

Out of curiosity, have any of y'all ever used Injections, or have you treated a sick player at the club? I used injections once on an end of season game and put the player in question on the bench, but ended up not subbing him in. I don't honestly think I'll ever do it outside of extraordinary circumstances.

I haven’t used them since 2019 just seems too big of a risk for me.


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[Suntan Superman]

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



Stuff like this is what i hate about pressers, the question makes no sense, we're not battling relegation at all lmao. We're overachieving and near a continental spot. At this point I'm very used to the repetitiveness of them.

[Cod]

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

Since about FM19, I've delegated the press conferences for the exact reason you're mentioning. That's an area of the game that needs an overhaul if they want players to continue using it.

[Suntan Superman]

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

Since about FM19, I've delegated the press conferences for the exact reason you're mentioning. That's an area of the game that needs an overhaul if they want players to continue using it.

I assume they have the click data from press conferences, and I'm sure they'd never share it publicly, but I would be extremely interested in how many of the players complete press conferences every time. The only press conferences I never do are "New Signing" pressers, those go to the Director of Football.


I have parted ways with SC Cambuur in my save, as after our 6th place Eredivisie finish, coupled with what the media called a "shock" KNVB Beker win, I was approached by Borussia Monchengladbach to take the reigns after 6 years of Daniel Farke. It is an incredible step-up in wage budget and transfer budget, and I fully admit to staring at my screen for a good 30 minutes after accepting the job wondering what I got myself in to.

That said, Gladbach is a club with a ton of history, and I will love the idea of putting them back up and hopefully creating a challenger to Bayern. After the usual mass exodus, we've got our set-up for the first half of the season and 7 games I'm sitting 4th with losses to Bayern and Hertha, a draw to Freiburg, and have beaten everyone else(including Dortmund!) I have to say though, having started as a Sunday League Footballer/0 Badges, this is the first club where the transition from someone else to me has gone over relatively smoothly. I didn't even intend on turning over the playing squad as much as I did, but I promised at the beginning that anyone who wanted to leave would be allowed to.

So far the most fun part is that the board want me to spend money, so I've spent a good deal of money on just a bunch of youth prospects to build up the U19 and II squad, and so I can eventually just have a steady stream of players coming from those squads that can then be supplemented by large signings. This is also the first club where the board have given me commercial revenue goals, so I'm curious to see how those are implemented and if I'll fail them if I don't sign players of high reputation.

[jb12780]

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

What do we think about the match engine this year?


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[Suntan Superman]

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

What do we think about the match engine this year?

Personally I've loved it. There's always going to be weird things and things I hate, but ultimately I feel like I have the amount of control that I want, and I haven't really encountered any bugs. For the first time in what feels like 3 years, defensive tactics also work. Against bigger clubs with some of my smaller sides, I was able to sit deep and defend, whereas in previous games no matter the opposition, I would always get carved apart.

[Cod]

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

What do we think about the match engine this year?


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One of the best in recent years. There are still a few lagging issues from years passed, like defenders having trouble with quick aerial balls, etc. but recent patches have been trying to fix those issues.

[ggsimmonds]

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

New to the game and would like some insight.
For context I started a career as Virtus Verona in Italy Serie C (maybe not the most beginner friendly)

1. How worried should I be about my finances in this situation:
Last week of September and I sit at about -$400k in balance (the save started at -$38k). My projected yearly expenses total 3.8 million, and my revenue sits at 2.8 million. I'm spending between twice and three times what I make each month.

I'm bleeding money and feel like I should be in crisis mode, but the game is doing the "this is fine" thing. Board is happy and I'm under the budgeted payroll. But it does not look fine to me.

2. How do you guys manage your matches in terms of tactic adjustments and formation changes?
So far I have 1 formation trained up (a custom 4-3-3 that plays like a 4-1-2-2-1) and never deviate from it. I have won every match (5) and sit at the top of the table, but looks like my early fixtures have mostly been against the bottom squads so it may not hold. I typically just change my mentality and thats been enough, but I don't know that such an approach would work against better competition.

I've thought about creating a few variations of my formation where I move the midfielders around based on the match. My current formation is 1 DLP DM, 1 CM-AT, 1 CM-SU.
I've considered moving a CM to an CAM role to give more attacking when needed, and when I need to hold a lead move a CM to a second DM role.

Part of me says if it ain't broke don't fix it. Thru five cup games I have won every match and have the most potent attack/highest GD in the table. But I've also yet to have a match against anyone in the top half of the table.


Note: The two questions are related. I'm looking into the possibility of drastically decreasing my player expenses because my top 6 salaries are killing me:
https://sortitoutsi.net/football-man.../virtus-verona

If I ship out my overpaid vets the quality of my team is going to suffer a huge drop. About 100 days away from the transfer window, if its typically expected to need to make tactics adjustments match-to-match should I start now even though its not needed so that I'll be prepared when my team turns to suck.

On the other hand, if I keep winning will this apparent financial crisis get resolved somehow and I'm fretting over nothing?

[Suntan Superman]

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

New to the game and would like some insight.
For context I started a career as Virtus Verona in Italy Serie C (maybe not the most beginner friendly)

1. How worried should I be about my finances in this situation:
Last week of September and I sit at about -$400k in balance (the save started at -$38k). My projected yearly expenses total 3.8 million, and my revenue sits at 2.8 million. I'm spending between twice and three times what I make each month.

I'm bleeding money and feel like I should be in crisis mode, but the game is doing the "this is fine" thing. Board is happy and I'm under the budgeted payroll. But it does not look fine to me.

If you want a real assessment post your income and expenditures screen, i can look at it and tell you exactly how deep you are or are not in. To be honest though, I would just keep following the wage budget, but I'd try to give yourself room to sign 2-3 players at all times. What happened in my recent save is that the wage budget just re-adjusts over time and I've yet to have a team go insolvent on me. With that said, your best choice is up to you, if you think you have a squad to go up, I would do what you can to keep them together, and get promotion, because promotion often saves your finances one way or another. Plus, it's a promotion on your resume, so if worse comes to worse, you'll look a little better for your next gig.

2. How do you guys manage your matches in terms of tactic adjustments and formation changes?
So far I have 1 formation trained up (a custom 4-3-3 that plays like a 4-1-2-2-1) and never deviate from it. I have won every match (5) and sit at the top of the table, but looks like my early fixtures have mostly been against the bottom squads so it may not hold. I typically just change my mentality and thats been enough, but I don't know that such an approach would work against better competition.

I've thought about creating a few variations of my formation where I move the midfielders around based on the match. My current formation is 1 DLP DM, 1 CM-AT, 1 CM-SU.
I've considered moving a CM to an CAM role to give more attacking when needed, and when I need to hold a lead move a CM to a second DM role.

Part of me says if it ain't broke don't fix it. Thru five cup games I have won every match and have the most potent attack/highest GD in the table. But I've also yet to have a match against anyone in the top half of the table.


Note: The two questions are related. I'm looking into the possibility of drastically decreasing my player expenses because my top 6 salaries are killing me:
https://sortitoutsi.net/football-man.../virtus-verona

If I ship out my overpaid vets the quality of my team is going to suffer a huge drop. About 100 days away from the transfer window, if its typically expected to need to make tactics adjustments match-to-match should I start now even though its not needed so that I'll be prepared when my team turns to suck.

On the other hand, if I keep winning will this apparent financial crisis get resolved somehow and I'm fretting over nothing?

It's honestly completely dependent on your team/squad/competition. If you've read my earlier novels here, I'm currently attempting to simply run a "brand" of football, so I am currently forcing my tactic through, most of the time it just required me to be hyper specific in recruiting, now I just have enough money to plug holes with cash. Typically if I'm not doing a gimmick, I do whatever I have to win if I'm at a lower squad where I have little resources, normally involves heavy scouting and tailoring each match plan. Either way, I would honestly do what you think is best, one thing I love about this game is that there's no real wrong answers when it comes to tactics, when it works it's great, and when it doesn't maybe it's time to switch!

[ggsimmonds]

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

If you want a real assessment post your income and expenditures screen, i can look at it and tell you exactly how deep you are or are not in. To be honest though, I would just keep following the wage budget, but I'd try to give yourself room to sign 2-3 players at all times. What happened in my recent save is that the wage budget just re-adjusts over time and I've yet to have a team go insolvent on me. With that said, your best choice is up to you, if you think you have a squad to go up, I would do what you can to keep them together, and get promotion, because promotion often saves your finances one way or another. Plus, it's a promotion on your resume, so if worse comes to worse, you'll look a little better for your next gig.



It's honestly completely dependent on your team/squad/competition. If you've read my earlier novels here, I'm currently attempting to simply run a "brand" of football, so I am currently forcing my tactic through, most of the time it just required me to be hyper specific in recruiting, now I just have enough money to plug holes with cash. Typically if I'm not doing a gimmick, I do whatever I have to win if I'm at a lower squad where I have little resources, normally involves heavy scouting and tailoring each match plan. Either way, I would honestly do what you think is best, one thing I love about this game is that there's no real wrong answers when it comes to tactics, when it works it's great, and when it doesn't maybe it's time to switch!

Income:

Expenses:

And yeah overall I have a style I am implementing at my squad. Its not so much about that overall tactics approach, more a question of you're up 2-0 at the 60 minute mark what do you do to hold that lead? Just switch mentality or do you create a custom tactic ( a la the FIFA approach) for defensive and aggressive situations.

The bulk of my squad have their contracts expire after this current season so maybe the question of finances is largely moot anyway. (but I think my itty bitty 1,500 capacity stadium is hurting me the most)

Edit: The increase in staff salaries mtm is something the AI did I think. At the start of the save I was content with my youth coaching staffs but it was set to something the board controlled. I've been getting notifications of when they hired new staff so I'm guessing they bought out the original coaches and hired replacements and that jump in expenses represent the buyouts. I'm annoyed cause if so they fired some decent coaches and replaced them with trash

[Suntan Superman]

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

Not sure if it matters to you, but I believe your name is in the file path on those images. It looks like your finances will ultimately be fine for this year thanks to that sponsorship, if that sponsorship is real and listed as recurring you should be fine overall as well, otherwise like most small clubs your finances will just be year to year until you get a big sale or promoted.

Your Stadium is definitely hurting you the most as you can't really make good TV money without a cup run, but also without looking at the rules, I think if you get promoted you'll have to move or build a new stadium anyway which is a whole other financial crisis(as long as you don't immediately go back down it shouldn't be that bad)

RE: Staff, I would check your Staff Responsibilities screen, if you can change it to all being to yourself you can save on those buyout fees, and keep the coaches you like, I'm normally fairly particular about my coaching staffs, so I will not generally allow anyone access to hire/fire staff.

RE: Tactics I hate to really beat around the bush and kind of give a non-answer, but it really just depends on the levels I'm playing at, the players I have and the players the opponents will have. Like right now I'm at Gladbach, and my next match is a home tie against Bayern Munich. In the away fixture I bunkered down and switched my entire formation and style to try and absorb their immense attacking talent and because a lot of my defense and GK were new, so getting them more bodies just made more sense. Now with half the season in the book, and the defense currently 3rd best in the Buli, I don't plan on changing much, plus being at home, I really want to try and bring the game to Bayern as I think I can compete. Earlier in this career, especially at Cambuur where I had to face PSV, Feyenoord, and Ajax, and were never close to their level, I just had a tactic specifically trained to face them as I knew there were six games I needed them for, while a team like FC Utrecht, who were simply having a great season, I just made a mentality adjustment and a role adjustment to try and counter their threat.