Football Manager 2020

[Kyle]

Got this through Game Pass now I have a laptop again, and in between FM's, I must have accepted how to lose a game and I'm enjoying it immensely more. Currently sat in 9th as Everton in late November, through to the quarters of the Carabao Cup against Norwich. 

[Arjen Robben]

Can I get a fucking break in these cup competitions ffs 

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

I can't be bothered to go through the effort of a Cube diary, so I'm just going to info dump here.

Started the challenge with Chelsea - the clean slate of having to use the youth players with the transfer ban made it appealing. Also, they were my obvious pick anyway.

Season 1:

Spoiler

After a mixed pre-season - a draw and a loss in Russia followed by a draw with Fulham, we hit form right as the season started with resounding wins against Porto and PAOK to get ourselves on the right foot. A European Super Cup clash with Liverpool followed the season opener with Palace, with Christian Pulisic scoring the only goal to give us a totally un-needed piece of silverware. This is apparently enough to immediately put me second on the Welsh Manager's Hall of Fame. Willian weirdly decides he wants out and joins PSG for 33m straight after. An unbeaten two months in the league saw us top with 19 points, with Liverpool lurking just behind.

October saw us reach the halfway point in Champions League group, wins over Genk and Inter along with a draw at Ajax putting us in great stead to qualify. Everton were dispatched in the 3rd round of the EFL Cup before we suffered our first league loss to Liverpool, who got some measure of revenge. Leicester compounded our misery by ending our EFL Cup run immediately afterwards, as the wheels looked to be falling off.

November also saw more losses, Inter beating us in the Champions League group and Arsenal dishing out another league loss to knock us to third. The Arsenal loss would spur the start of an incredible run of form however, as our next league loss wouldn't come until February. Ajax and Genk were thumped as we finished the CL Group in second place, frankly ludicrous given we had 13 points. Even worse, we drew Barcelona. A draw with Bournoemouth is the only blip in the league in December as we finally get to spend some money.

Outs: Giroud (Shaktar, 3.7m); Zappacosta (Guangzho, 16m), Alonso (Man City, 22m)
Ins: Edouard (Celtic, 40m), Correa (Atletico, 60m), Grimaldo (Benfica, 52m)

Giroud was constantly injured, Zappacosta never played because Reece James kept playing blinders, and Alonso just didn't fit the system. They were all replaced with younger, hopefully excellent talent. The fans moaned I spent 60m on Correa given he was in a goal drought, he immediately scored on his debut in a 4-0 demolition against Southampton. Edouard took longer to settle, but smashed a hat trick past Crawley as we marched onto the FA Cup 5th round in a flawless January. At the end of January, we are neck and neck with City, who are 3 points ahead having played an extra game.

February was weird. Crystal Palace of all people end our unbeaten run after Andros Townsend (one of my best mates from my FM18 Palace game) comes back to haunt me by turning into Lionel Messi for 90 minutes. For some bizarre reason we follow this up with an away trip to Shaktar for a friendly? I guess we just missed Giroud and fancied meeting up for a pint. We lost 3-2, which seemed like the exact thing we didn't want right before playing Barcelona, but Rudiger decided to run the show, scoring and keeping a clean sheet to take a 1-0 victory with us to the Nou Camp. City go on to win the EFL Cup, not that it matters.

We dropped two points against Man United to start March before thumping Brighton twice in a week, 5-0 in the FA Cup 5th Round and 3-0 in the league. Familiar scenes occurred as Barcelona quickly took a 2-0 lead before Mason Mount showed shades of Torres to give us an away goal to put us through. Liverpool then eliminated us from the FA Cup because they love ruining things for me. At this point, City are two points clear with a game in hand.

Continuing the theme, we dropped another two points, this time against Leicester, because teams with L hate me, and to that end, we get Lyon in the Champions League quarter finals. We saw what worked against Barcelona and just did it again, Abraham giving me an away goal before Kurt Zouma copied Rudiger and kept a clean sheet whilst scoring himself to send us to the Semis. Guess who we get? FUCKING LIVERPOOL. Our toughest league run sees us beat Arsenal and Spurs back to back whilst City watch the ground crumble beneath them, drawing to Bournemouth before losing to strugglers Watford to put us back to within two points of first place. We kick off May playing City themselves, in the biggest game of the season. But first, Liverpool beat me 2-0 at Anfield in the semi-final first leg.

We kick May off with a stunning 2-0 victory over City before welcoming Liverpool for the second leg. We fought bravely, Liverpool scoring early to mean we needed 4, a quickfire double getting the tie to 3-3, before Mane ended our hopes with another away goal to send us home. Liverpool went on to beat PSG in the final, the bastards. As if they needed to retain the Champions League. The rest of the league season goes unbeaten, the title run going to the final day with just a point lead, before both City and ourselves drew to give us the title. Arsenal won the FA Cup because they had to have something I guess?

GLORY HUNTER TROPHIES: English Premier League
EXTRAS: European Super Cup

Season 2 (in progress):

Spoiler

Only one incoming signing as I identify my target early and sign Jadon Sancho for 99m. It should have been 90m but Abramovich got involved and fucked up the negotiations for no reason when all I wanted was for him to up my transfer budget, meaning the deal was off, Sancho wouldn't negotiate for a month, and Arsenal nearly swooped in to sign him. Thankfully they couldn't afford him and I eventually got my man. Ziyech also arrived for around 34.5m but it was already agreed.

There was an absolute culling through the reserves as a result as I had to balance the books, not helped by Rudiger and Jorginho demanding new contracts, and Grimaldo getting a pay rise for playing 5 games for Spain so my wage budget didn't exist. A quick summary:

Matt Miazga > Blackburn (11m) (Was never gonna play)
Danny Drinkwater > AC Milan (12.5m) (The English Pirlo, I guess? Leapt at it)
Kenedy > Some Saudi team (Free) (Was never gonna play)
Marco van Ginkel > Some other Saudi team (Free) (Spent the whole season injured taking up space on the wage bill)
Alvaro Morata > Atletico (47.5m) (The fans are fuming with me even though I had no say in it, get over yourselves)
Pedro > Guangzho (Free) (Big chunk of wage bill freed up)
Willy Caballero > Gremio (Free) (Blackman was just as good and counts towards the HG quota)
Izzy Brown > Dusseldorf (4.6m) (The HOYD agreed this one without telling me, I'm not really complaining)
Danilo Pantic > Brest (1.8m) (Played precisely one game, I think the Crawley demolition, because I had an injury crisis, won't be missed)
Baba Rahman > Wuhan (8m) (Didn't need him with Emerson and Grimaldo in good form)
Mario Pasalic > Lokomotiv Moscow (16m) (Not gonna knock that at all, great profit on someone I didn't need)
Nathan > Lokomotiv Moscow (7.5m) (Who?)
Ben Elliott > Norwich (6.5m) (I actually had to double take at this one because he had shit potential and his value was like 50k, nice work HOYD)

Few other loan deals too just to clear some wage bill; Billy Gimour to newly promoted Blackburn, Ethan Ampadu to Norwich, Victor Moses to Nantes, Michy Batshuayi to Leicester, Charly Musonda to Granada.

Pre-season went excellently, starting with another trip to Shaktar to say hi to Giroud again. He nearly spoils the trip by scoring in the 90+2nd minute, but Edouard scored a penalty to finish his hat trick immediately afterward. The rest of pre-season sees us score 4 or 5 and concede 0 or 1, which is lovely form ahead of a Community Shield clash with Arsenal, which ends 2-0 to us to give us our second pointless piece of silverware. August has been wonderful in the league, 17 goals scored and none conceded putting us in prime position. Man United and Everton have also gone undefeated and are just behind us, also on 12 points.

We've had a favourable Champions League draw which should be a formality, Napoli being the only real threat as well as trips to Club Brugge and Red Bull Salzburg. The EFL Cup draw is up next so hopefully it's someone easy so we can keep building momentum.

 

[Kyle]

"I'm having a great run in the Carabao Cup, I wonder who we'll get in the semis?!"

"...sigh."

Also I know, get the real logos, it's on my to-do list.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Join my pain.

Played a little bit more, we drew Arsenal in the cup and Hakim Ziyech just sliced them open as we won 4-1. He assisted 3 of them. He now has 7 assists and a goal in 6 appearances. Baller.

[FLiam]

I miss being able to actually play proper FM. 

I can only play FM Mobile at the moment. 

[Gorka]

English cup football in this game is seeing how far you can get before being knocked out by Manchester City or Liverpool (bastards don't even rotate like real life).

I still have flashbacks to Jose Mourinho's Manchester United on FM17.

[Lineker]

 

[Arjen Robben]

Lads, I have this lad in my U19's who came through a few years ago, or maybe last year, I forget.

I can't really figure out what to do with him in future. I have an abundance of right backs at the club, and left backs actually. And I don't really want a full back with no pace or stamina and who can't cross anyway. Is the way to go with this lad to try and just fully retrain him as a natural centre back? Even then I'm not sure how much more he's gonna grow technically if his potential is only three stars, and 10 heading for a centre back isn't great. 

[JasonM]

19 minutes ago, Arjen Robben said:

Lads, I have this lad in my U19's who came through a few years ago, or maybe last year, I forget.

I can't really figure out what to do with him in future. I have an abundance of right backs at the club, and left backs actually. And I don't really want a full back with no pace or stamina and who can't cross anyway. Is the way to go with this lad to try and just fully retrain him as a natural centre back? Even then I'm not sure how much more he's gonna grow technically if his potential is only three stars, and 10 heading for a centre back isn't great. 

Seeing he's 17 years old he can still improve greatly on all his abilities, even as a 3* potential player. Those mentals are amazing for a kid of his age.

With high bravery, all round technical abilities, and good physicals (but not raw pace) i'd retrain him as a DM or a defensive minded MC. His passing is decent, but can improve with focused training, he can be turned into a damn servicable utility Defensive midfielder. His defensive stats allow him to not give up fouls, his mentals make him solid as a rock, and as he fills out he'll be able to bully less physically gifted offensive players.

His passing ain't terrible too at this point, so he can even grow into an above average passer, so that's only extra utility.

So my first choice, as mentioned, would be a DM (BWM/A) or defensive MC (BWM/BBM) depending on the formation you operate with.

If you're feeling extra crazy, could even retrain him to a defensive Pressing Forward.

However you retrain him, he's probably not going to be a world beater, but with his balanced attributes he can easily be turned into a utility backup you can put on the deep end of the bench as an emeregency 'throw him wherever he's needed' sub.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Jasonmufc

[Jimmy]

Have genuinely thought about starting a cube diary, but I know I cba. 

Been on a proper journey. 

Got relegated with Swansea, built a great team for the Championship, form was inconsistent, was told I needed to avoid defeat in my next game. Won my next two. Sacked anyway. 

Spent some time waiting for the right job and landed the Nice job. Finished the last month by securing 5th. Had a great first season and finished 2nd. The board supported my big Champions League run by giving me...a £2 mil budget. 

Still, second full season at Nice was good. Came 2nd in my CL group including Liverpool and Dortmund, but eventually succumbed to Bayern. Had started the season poorly, but ended going 16 games unbeaten to finish 4th

In this time, Poch was sacked for a second time as Spurs manager. It's obviously the dream job, but I also admittedly was eyeing up PSG, who were not gonna win the title, and who I wanted to manage to just win some silverware and cos they beat me all the fucking time. But I couldn't resist and applied and got it. Decided to agree to see out the season with Nice, not realising Spurs had a Europa League final to play. 

On the last day of the season, we beat out main rivals Monaco, managed by Thierry Henry, to deny them the title, as they needed a win to secure it. Beautiful. 

Spurs lose the final to Chelsea. Less beautiful. Finish 6th for the 3rd season running. 

So, going into the 26/27 season, I've gone from Farsley Celtic, via Charlton, Swansea and Nice, to land the Spurs job. I've got one promotion, one relegation, and one FA Trophy to my name. I'm now fluent in French, which is nice. Spurs needed a massive re-build, sold £350mil worth of players and bought £310. 

Erik Lamela sadly retired at 30, but I still have Kane, Dier, Lo Celso and Sess. Tried to buy Troy Parrott back from United, but they wouldn't entertain 100mil. My fav Nice re-gen turned me down for Barcelona, so had to accept getting my 2nd favourite Nice regen. 

A few months in and finally finding some form and sit 5th, 6 points off the top. I played 4 of the top 5 away from home in my first 8 games which didn't go well. I also got knocked out by the League Cup by former club Swansea, and have thus scapegoated one of the players from that defeat and am only now starting to forgive him. 

But we'll see! 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Jimmy

[Arjen Robben]

Why did Lamela retire at only 30? Seems odd.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

9 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Spurs needed a massive re-build, sold £350mil worth of players and bought £310. 

To be fair, I don't think a net spend of -£349,999,690 is a massive rebuild. More of a massive demolition.

[Arjen Robben]

Not to one-up you or anything but in that online game where I'm Spurs, Ive spent a billion in two and a half seasons so...

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

I've just had a nose at the Shaktar team seeing as their doing okay in their Champions League group and they seem to be our favourite holiday destination, they've partnered Giroud with Diego Costa of all people, as well as signing Ben Davies, formerly of Spurs, which just seems an odd choice.

Honestly I think the weirdest thing I've found so far is Keisuke Honda, who seems to just be using his final playing years to bounce around the globe to wherever he fancies. He signed for Vitesse from Melbourne Victory, somehow ended up at Botafogo down in Brazil (there's no transfer data, he's just there) and is now heading off to Olympiakos. All whilst being manager of the Cambodian National Team?!

Anyway, away from that, the reason I came into this thread is to vent about this fucking match with Salzburg:

I don't even know where to start, the fact it was 0-0 at half time, the 12 yellow cards, the brace for Loftus-Cheek who my assistant has convinced me would make a good striker, the utter capitulation from the 80th minute onward, the absolute rollercoaster form the 90th minute onward, or RLC missing a penalty in the 8th of 6 added minutes.

[Jimmy]

1 hour ago, Arjen Robben said:

Why did Lamela retire at only 30? Seems odd.

I don't know. I tried to sign him at Swansea and at Nice just because, but by the time it was possible at Nice, he retired. Gutted. 

1 hour ago, Jericode said:

To be fair, I don't think a net spend of -£349,999,690 is a massive rebuild. More of a massive demolition.

oh grow up you silly little boy

Edited May 14, 2020 by Jimmy

[King Ellis]

I just had a (I think) 38 year old Honda on trial but he never actually got to play since he was injured at the time. Not sure if he'd have got work permit but I never tried to offer him a contract anyway.

Speaking of work permits, I'm confused on youth work permits. I had M'Boro as a parent club but I got up into the Championship, where they are as well, so it got cancelled. Then got L'Pool and managed to loan in some good players including a CB from like Spain or Chile or somewhere like that. His inf status has yWP and it says he can't play league games. I figured I'd keep around anyway in the off chance he could play cup games, because I wasn't going to use the loan spot anyway, he's not costing me any wage budget and maybe having that quality of player around might help in some sort of nebulos way in training. But then I was rotating after a 6-1 away spanking at Sheff Utd (at least Harvey Grice got his Championship goal in early) and he was allowed to play?

Start of the Championship has been OK, think I'm upper mid table after about 5-6 games, 3-0 home win against Sheff Weds was a highlight. Might have to actually look into a more defensive tactic away from home for once, I've pretty much played the same all the time on the way up and somehow it's always worked but the Sheff Utd game was pretty bad. I actually have a bundle of money to spend as Notts Forest activated the minimum fee on my awesome young CB (6.25m) who I only spent £750 years ago from Chorley, I think the only time I've actually paid a fee for anyone. Stupid me at the time agreed to a 30% sell on fee so they got 1.8m of that, gonna keep an eye on them to see how that affects them, think they've been around midtable in the National League the entire time. Also got 4m for an ex Man City regen left winger who wasn't amazing and had been having a strop all summer long because I was playing hardball on his contract. Think he was only 2.5* CA when I have a few of my own homegrown regens on 2* so I figured I'd cash in since his contract was up at the end of the season anyway. He's only gone to Brentford who are in the Championship as well and they aren't even playing him I don't think so nuts to him.

So up to like 11m in the bank, aiming to try and consolodate this season and see how the finances look at the end. All the players wanted bumper new contracts when we went up (I regret not tieing everyone down to multi year cheapo deals back in League One, think I only did it on one or two people) including the aforementioned Harvey Grice, notable 0.5* and Conference N/S quality player wanting to go from £200 a week to like £800. I have splashed out a little on new staff though since the club massively increased the amount of coaches we could have, got Chris Wilder and Jan Siewart in to join Arjen Robben who was already here amongst the more stand out personell. We make no money though so going to see where the finances lay at the end of the season and go from there. I did try again on the twice cancelled youth facilities upgrade since the budget should actually allow for it to finish now. I'm torn on the stadium, I think it's like 2500 seated, 5.5k ish total and we've been selling out every game so far but I think it's at maximum upgrade potential as the only option I have with the board is to ask for an entirely new stadium. But not sure if I want to ask for that before we somehow get into the Premier League. Again, might see what the balance is like at the end of the season and ask then.

How much do you get like TV/prize money wise for being in the Championship? Might be that I use that money to stay afloat yearly as we've never been a massive selling club up to this point. I think our lack of reputation means all the players end up valued at only a few hundred thousand and the players I do sell have all been for around 50k or so upto this summer. A few clubs have been sniffing around the promising youngsters that came through the last youth intake and I've managed to upgrade some of the youth coaching and what not along the way so hopefully we can make a big sale every year to start increasing the balance.

Oh, and in attempt to again help the team in some nebulos way, I applied for some national jobs after the latest Euros. Maybe increasining my personal reputation with help the clubs, make negotations with players easier etc? People like France, Spain and Italy were availible but I ended up being offered Russia, Norway and Mexico (who weren't in the Euros despite what Rey Rey thinks). Took Norway because, ya know, Haaland, Odegaard, Ajer, Elyounoussi etc. Lost 2-1 away to Greece and beat Kosovo 4-0 in my opening two Nations League games. FA only wants midtable in that, other team is Switzerland so not sure about winning the thing after that first loss. Should manage to not finish bottom at least. Being unfamiliar with most of the players has me feeling like it's a uncessary distraction from club matters at the moment, might only make a short stay depending on how results go. World Cup qualifiers are coming up so will see how that goes.

[Gazz]

58 minutes ago, Jericode said:

Keisuke Honda, who seems to just be using his final playing years to bounce around the globe to wherever he fancies. He signed for Vitesse from Melbourne Victory, somehow ended up at Botafogo down in Brazil

Those are real transfers. I believe he's the only player to have scored on six continents.

[Naitch]

Hopefully he can make it to seven before he retires. Then he can move on to completing the Pentagon irl before you do on FM.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Christ, you're right, I assumed the game was just being weird