Football Manager 2016

[MDK]

4 hours ago, Jasonmufc said:

PS: What the hell do I do with a natural DC/ST?!

Sounds like a perfect DF to me

[JasonM]

50 minutes ago, Benji said:

Play him in ML?

I think you're onto something here.

[FestiveJack]

9 hours ago, stokeriño said:

It's December 2015 and Chelsea find themselves in 17th place? FM16 truly is the simulation king.

This is even with the winter update, so its Hiddink that took them there.

[JasonM]

 

[Liam]

10 hours ago, Jasonmufc said:

Moyes has been manager of AC Milan since the winter of 2016 in my game, am currently in the summer of 2020... So he's done pretty damn good for them, despite Juventus having won every single season by over 11 points every single season right now.

Juventus are ridiculously good in FM16

Then again, I am feasting on Juventus' OP-ness by grabbing super talented free agents who can't break through in their system. 

-------------

edit: Finished the 19/20 season with Hibs, so time for a bit of an update...

And the season was in a few words, absolutely spectacular!

As you can see, the league we were in a class of our own. And if we had shown a little bit more consistency early in the season (scoring woes for days), we would've probably ran away with the league title. Defensively we were simply top notch, and offensively we were pretty damn dominant too. Which is made even more impressive by our best striker scoring only ten times over the entire campaign, and me having striker woes all season long.

Striker wise, last year's super stud Nikos Vergos left in august when Malmö swooped in and bid his release clause of 4,2, which meant I had no chance to refuse the deal and just like that he had gone to Sweden, leaving me with Muirhead and Keatings to make it work, which they failed to do so. Muirhead for all his talent is the Scottish Torres, and by far my worst signing for Hibs (350K for 1 league goal in two seasons, yaaay!). And whilst Keatings had more goals, they only came late in the season.

So I jumped onto the market late, signing two players. One for free in Michalis Bastakos who turned into a pretty decent reserve striker, and one for which I had to 'splash the cash' in Charles Dubois from Ajax, whom finished the season with 10 goals in 19 games, and is looking to become the main striker of the future.

But really, the true star of the team was Sampdoria Free agent David Ivan, who agreed to a mere 14K a month and turned into an elite player sitting behind the striker, fourteen goals and eleven assists, and the most key passes of the league with 201, he simply dominated from start to finish.

Oh, and finally there was this free agency gem from Juventus. Federico Mattiello, who dominated the left side of the pitch all season long. Juventus' trash are my star players.

Then in the Europa League, we were expected to get to the third qualifying round with the team, and instead of that we did it better by fighting our way into the playoffs and into the group stages. And despite coming in last, I am pretty damn pleased with the results of our efforts. And lets not forget the extra money it gave us.

Cup wise we were less impressive, getting eliminated in the QF's of both the Scottish Cup and the League Cup, but at least it gave us less fixture strain towards the league...

Finally, here's the team itself as it stands at the end of the season. Minus the ones on loan...

We had yet another extremely strong academy intake, combined with poaching a few players from other teams, we're probably the most talented team in Scotland by a big margin. We are becoming the suppliers for the Scottish youth teams, and that's not even mentioning four 4/5pot players on loan, and the 5 kids that are arriving in the summer.

Talent wise the team is becoming an unstoppable force, it'll take a few seasons but seeing how this season has gone I feel we'll be able to overthrow the Old Firm and start our own run of league dominance. And that whilst spending more than half less than Rangers on wages, and six times less than Celtic. (Celtic has 6 players earning +100K a month!, where my highest paid player earns 30K).

Right now going into the off-season, I am wondering what I gotta do to get back next season with a better team that can win the league. And preferably keep financially tight on top of that.

Goalkeepers, There's Billy O'Brien who played every single competitive game last season, and I'm amazed he hasn't gotten a single cap for Wales yet, but then I see McClaren is their manager so it makes perfect sense. Billy's the man, he's paid fuck all and he never moans about it, and he's great in goal to boot. I have two young goalies that might challenge him in the future in Marc Moffat and Graeme Wood, but Moffat is still a few years removed from getting the nod. Loans/U20 for the two kids, and barring injury O'Brien is gonna play another full season next year.

Defensively i'm gonna overhaul a little bit, with some players not having panned out how I would've liked to see them pan out, and my youth needing/deserving playing time.

Midfield, Ivan, Fyvie, Henderson, and Hamilton are my four main midfielders now. Brown is there because I got him on a free at the start of the season, and his mental skills are perfect for tutoring duty and getting a bunch of games here and there. And again, the youth is there and they need PT.

Wings there's Mattiello that is a guaranteed starter on the left, with a few guys like Harris/Skaanes/Ring/Murphy being able to do very good work on the wing. And again, I have two natural lefty youngsters that deserve PT.

Offensively Muirhead is gone through free agency, he's talented but if he can't score I don't need him. Dubois is gonna be taking most playing time in the point, with Keatings and Bastakos supporting him. And beyond those two I have a few upcoming strikers to choose from that could always use playing time if they're not being loaned out.

TL;DR, I really don't need to sign anyone because I'm up to my eyeballs in talent deserving PT.

Now, if after all that bullshit you're still with me... Here's the entire current team roster filtered on potential, since i've been talking about that all post long...

Yeah... I think we're gonna be just fine depth wise...

If anyone wants to know my scouting system, ask and i'll probably make a standalone post about it.

PS: What the hell do I do with a natural DC/ST?!

Go on then, scouting system ahoy.

[JasonM]

Oh it's pretty simple for Hibs.
1: Create a search filter that shows all u17's from the non-England UK region
2: Scout all those u17's
3: Pick the ones that want to join and/or have plenty of talent (3 gold potential at a minimum, 4.5 gray stars)
4: repeat ad nauseum every year, and cheese the shit out of the smaller teams/home nations around you.

Also, second from that I have a fucktonne of scouts (High Adap/det/judging), and every single scout gets to scout three nations into infinity. The reason for the high adaptability is to make sure their national knowledge doesn't rot as fast as they gain it, especially if they're scouting non-native areas.

To top the nation scouting off, I have a bunch of guys scouting the local leagues because I like to build on domestic talent and sometimes a few guys slip through the cracks of national scouts. These will be the Scottish Championship and L1/L2, the U20's, all cups, and Ireland/Wales/Norn Iron... Wales and N. Iron are meager on talent, but sometimes you get lucky and find the next Giggs or Best, which you can nurture and/or sell for a fucktonne.

Speaking of selling, even before players reach the first team a bunch will always have been sold on to the likes of Citeh and whatnot. I try my best to keep them, but if they'll give me 1-2M and 50% of the next sale i'll often take it because those kiddie shits are bound to start moaning at you for telling Citeh to fuck off. Even if they'll end up doing fuck all at the big teams.

And finally, with the Youth Champions Leagues being in the game now, I make sure to scout those yearly too, because it's a good way to find young talents from nations you otherwise don't scout (e.g. the caucasus).
 

In terms of what I seek for in people my scouts deem talents (4-5*), the usual stuff of high mentals and 8+ in all physical areas, even my goalies I want to be built like brick shithouses if I am able to. (Basically I look for good players, duhhhh me)

Jumping is of course very much optional for wing players, but don't underestimate a back that can head a ball, because they can completely ruin a team that loves to hoof it up the wing. Even average heading backs will tend to dominate most wingers. Of course pace/acceleration speak for themselves, but strength/balance is also very useful to make sure they don't get pushed off the ball by people.

Bravery is also personally an underrated attribute, especially because it's so damn hard to improve ever. And I only have one player with less than 8 bravery in my side (Alex Harris, a winger whose been with the team since before game start)... Again, low bravery will make them chicken out of challenges, and as a result make mistakes. I also haven't seen a correlation between bravery and increased injury rates, seeing my 17 bravery injury-prone midfield top talent Hamilton hasn't had any sort of 'collision' injuries in four seasons.

Again, work rate/stamina/natfit will make average players better and good players great, since they'll be motoring around the pitch all game without taking it easy, and work rate improves attribute increases.

In the past I was very much a 'technicals and physicals' guy, feeling mentals will 'catch up' eventually. But this year i've been more focused on getting players into the side that have strong mental abilities, and no extreme deficiencies in those areas, and I have found that even those players with lesser technical abilities will be more solid purely because they're playing smarter and not getting caught out, or caught faffing about... But of course, since this entire post has been about stating the god-damned obvious, physicals and technicals are super nice to have.

Edit: Final tip, find (model-)professional veterans who you can give a small contract as backups, they can tutor the crap out of your players.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Jasonmufc

[Benji]

Real managers scout every single British player that comes in on youth intake day, and every single major European club too.

[JasonM]

34 minutes ago, Benji said:

Real managers scout every single British player that comes in on youth intake day, and every single major European club too.

If you're not cheating, you're not trying Esé. - Pep Guardiola

[Benji]

I am cheating, just more broadly

[Arjen Robben]

On 04/05/2016 at 10:09, Jasonmufc said:

Moyes has been manager of AC Milan since the winter of 2016 in my game, am currently in the summer of 2020... So he's done pretty damn good for them, despite Juventus having won every single season by over 11 points every single season right now.

Juventus are ridiculously good in FM16

Then again, I am feasting on Juventus' OP-ness by grabbing super talented free agents who can't break through in their system. 

-------------

edit: Finished the 19/20 season with Hibs, so time for a bit of an update...

And the season was in a few words, absolutely spectacular!

As you can see, the league we were in a class of our own. And if we had shown a little bit more consistency early in the season (scoring woes for days), we would've probably ran away with the league title. Defensively we were simply top notch, and offensively we were pretty damn dominant too. Which is made even more impressive by our best striker scoring only ten times over the entire campaign, and me having striker woes all season long.

Striker wise, last year's super stud Nikos Vergos left in august when Malmö swooped in and bid his release clause of 4,2, which meant I had no chance to refuse the deal and just like that he had gone to Sweden, leaving me with Muirhead and Keatings to make it work, which they failed to do so. Muirhead for all his talent is the Scottish Torres, and by far my worst signing for Hibs (350K for 1 league goal in two seasons, yaaay!). And whilst Keatings had more goals, they only came late in the season.

So I jumped onto the market late, signing two players. One for free in Michalis Bastakos who turned into a pretty decent reserve striker, and one for which I had to 'splash the cash' in Charles Dubois from Ajax, whom finished the season with 10 goals in 19 games, and is looking to become the main striker of the future.

But really, the true star of the team was Sampdoria Free agent David Ivan, who agreed to a mere 14K a month and turned into an elite player sitting behind the striker, fourteen goals and eleven assists, and the most key passes of the league with 201, he simply dominated from start to finish.

Oh, and finally there was this free agency gem from Juventus. Federico Mattiello, who dominated the left side of the pitch all season long. Juventus' trash are my star players.

Then in the Europa League, we were expected to get to the third qualifying round with the team, and instead of that we did it better by fighting our way into the playoffs and into the group stages. And despite coming in last, I am pretty damn pleased with the results of our efforts. And lets not forget the extra money it gave us.

Cup wise we were less impressive, getting eliminated in the QF's of both the Scottish Cup and the League Cup, but at least it gave us less fixture strain towards the league...

Finally, here's the team itself as it stands at the end of the season. Minus the ones on loan...

We had yet another extremely strong academy intake, combined with poaching a few players from other teams, we're probably the most talented team in Scotland by a big margin. We are becoming the suppliers for the Scottish youth teams, and that's not even mentioning four 4/5pot players on loan, and the 5 kids that are arriving in the summer.

Talent wise the team is becoming an unstoppable force, it'll take a few seasons but seeing how this season has gone I feel we'll be able to overthrow the Old Firm and start our own run of league dominance. And that whilst spending more than half less than Rangers on wages, and six times less than Celtic. (Celtic has 6 players earning +100K a month!, where my highest paid player earns 30K).

Right now going into the off-season, I am wondering what I gotta do to get back next season with a better team that can win the league. And preferably keep financially tight on top of that.

Goalkeepers, There's Billy O'Brien who played every single competitive game last season, and I'm amazed he hasn't gotten a single cap for Wales yet, but then I see McClaren is their manager so it makes perfect sense. Billy's the man, he's paid fuck all and he never moans about it, and he's great in goal to boot. I have two young goalies that might challenge him in the future in Marc Moffat and Graeme Wood, but Moffat is still a few years removed from getting the nod. Loans/U20 for the two kids, and barring injury O'Brien is gonna play another full season next year.

Defensively i'm gonna overhaul a little bit, with some players not having panned out how I would've liked to see them pan out, and my youth needing/deserving playing time.

Midfield, Ivan, Fyvie, Henderson, and Hamilton are my four main midfielders now. Brown is there because I got him on a free at the start of the season, and his mental skills are perfect for tutoring duty and getting a bunch of games here and there. And again, the youth is there and they need PT.

Wings there's Mattiello that is a guaranteed starter on the left, with a few guys like Harris/Skaanes/Ring/Murphy being able to do very good work on the wing. And again, I have two natural lefty youngsters that deserve PT.

Offensively Muirhead is gone through free agency, he's talented but if he can't score I don't need him. Dubois is gonna be taking most playing time in the point, with Keatings and Bastakos supporting him. And beyond those two I have a few upcoming strikers to choose from that could always use playing time if they're not being loaned out.

TL;DR, I really don't need to sign anyone because I'm up to my eyeballs in talent deserving PT.

Now, if after all that bullshit you're still with me... Here's the entire current team roster filtered on potential, since i've been talking about that all post long...

Yeah... I think we're gonna be just fine depth wise...

If anyone wants to know my scouting system, ask and i'll probably make a standalone post about it.

PS: What the hell do I do with a natural DC/ST?!

What skin and/or graphics do you use? All the colours and things on your game seem to be really vivid and stand out a bit more than I think they do on mine. I like it.

[JasonM]

I am using the YACS2 skin
Also I have gone into skin colours, and made the attribute colours different.
Excellent 16+: Orange(255-112-0)
Good 11-15:  Bright Green(0-200-0)
Average 6-10: White (250-250-250)
Low 1-5: Gray (64-64-64)

You can if you're so inclined make the green the highest one and choose something else for the 'good', but this is what i've been rolling with ever since FM13 I think, and it really helps attributes stand out at a glance, and means I don't have to strain myself when I'm looking through players.

[MDK]

Changing the colours for the attributes is fucking golden man.

How many playmakers can you get away with? I only ever use one, either DLP or AP in CM or an AP in attacking mid.

[JasonM]

1 hour ago, MDK said:

Changing the colours for the attributes is fucking golden man.

How many playmakers can you get away with? I only ever use one, either DLP or AP in CM or an AP in attacking mid.

I use one or none, and if I use them they have to be a really really good passer. I prefer to not funnel possessions through one guy, since it can really hinder the team if the other side can lock him down.

[MDK]

My playmaker is Ravel Morrison >_>

[stokeriño]

I found that having both an AP and DLP in central midfield tends to leave them miles apart from each other and all cohesion in the middle of the pitch just evaporates. That's partly why I like to have one (usually an AP) combined with a BWM.

That said, I did in one game as Chelsea stick the three AMs in a 4-2-3-1 (e.g. Hazard/Oscar/Willian) all as AP with max flexibility etc. and once the tactical familiarity got decent they were decimating teams.

[MDK]

I'm too scared to have more than one playmaker. I really want to bring back the sweeper into fashion tho, I had one player who I was training up to be a sweeper but he wasn't all that good, Newcastle came in with a bid that was too good to turn down so I said Adieu.

[JasonM]

6 minutes ago, MDK said:

I'm too scared to have more than one playmaker. I really want to bring back the sweeper into fashion tho, I had one player who I was training up to be a sweeper but he wasn't all that good, Newcastle came in with a bid that was too good to turn down so I said Adieu.

I'm really annoyed that practically no young defenders are genned with some form of experience to be able to play sweeper, even if it was just yellow or orange rather than none at all. I get that the Sweeper is all but extinct in modern football, but I just wish I wasn't forced to retrain all my defenders to be able to play the position, because that's a right pain in the ass.

[MDK]

Just now, Jasonmufc said:

I'm really annoyed that practically no young defenders are genned with some form of experience to be able to play sweeper, even if it was just yellow or orange rather than none at all. I get that the Sweeper is all but extinct in modern football, but I just wish I wasn't forced to retrain all my defenders to be able to play the position, because that's a right pain in the ass.

I'm waiting for a really good midfielder to come thru the ranks and I can retrain him as a sweeper

[JasonM]

Needless to say, my butt was clenched for 90 minutes as we somehow managed to come back with four goals to beat Midtjylland straight up rather than pennos or extra time. And whilst I dominated the pitch, it was way too close... Also, that David Ivan goal was absolutely mental!

Then the group draw came, I was 4th seed. And I got dumped in with Guimaraes, PSV, and Roma... Feck. In comparison Rangers are up against Besiktas, Vitesse, and CSKA Moscow... And Celtic get to face AEK, Stoke, and Anderlecht.

I mean, I should have a decent shot at third? Maybe get lucky against Roma and PSV to sneak into a second spot?

[Meacon Keaton]

43 minutes ago, MDK said:

I'm too scared to have more than one playmaker. I really want to bring back the sweeper into fashion tho, I had one player who I was training up to be a sweeper but he wasn't all that good, Newcastle came in with a bid that was too good to turn down so I said Adieu.

I always had a sweeper in FM 07.  I can't get anyone to play the position decently anymore. :/