Football Manager 2017

[DavidMarrio]

1 hour ago, Benji said:

Barrow meanwhile have been taken over by Simon Grayson who promptly sold over half my first team for tidy sums (and since almost all were frees, made a tidy profit) and is sitting pretty in 24th in the league as a result of bringing in a load of rubbish players for high fees

Kidderminster did not win their play-off and remain a Vanarama National team, but I'm pleased they've continued to make strides.

That would depress me depending on how attached I got to the team. I remember on FM11 taking Wrexham to the Prem and finishing 8th in my first season. I left that summer to go to Man Utd, McClaren took over and proceeding to finish bottom and destroyed the team I built.  Ended up going back to them in the Championship despite winning the league with Man Utd.  

 

 

Oh in terms of my game I finished bottom of my confederations group and got sacked as the FA clearly had unrealistic expectations....ended up getting the France job because Deschamps was sacked as well. I still have the AFCON and u20s AFCON to look back on during my two country spell in Africa. 

[Benji]

22 minutes ago, Davidmarrio said:

That would depress me depending on how attached I got to the team. I remember on FM11 taking Wrexham to the Prem and finishing 8th in my first season. I left that summer to go to Man Utd, McClaren took over and proceeding to finish bottom and destroyed the team I built.  Ended up going back to them in the Championship despite winning the league with Man Utd. 

It has me a little to be honest, but I left them in a strong position in terms of the next generation and finances, and it's not like he didn't have money from selling those players (and skills from already existing players who were happy at the club) to strengthen the squad better than he has. None of the absolutely key players have left outside of this smirking twat who was the one I suspected of having the big influence on morale...

Spoiler

 

Calvin Davies. That was the name I forgot.

 

Wales has softened the blow of leaving there significantly, as I had a little bit of a rocky start with them and they're coming good now I've left Barrow.

[DNB]

Using @Benji's tactics I've gone up to first in the middle of November, with my away form especially being strong. I've got 6 guys brought in on a free and then sent out on loan, as well as a few of my other youth 'stars'. 

 

I need to pick up a striker after my last minute striker signing from Northampton has failed thus far and the fans hate him. Pretty much a waste of money. 

[Benji]

Wales and Eintracht Braunschweig (hereafter referred to as their more common name of "BTSV" because fuck writing that out every time) 2023/24.

With the Welsh Dragons we qualified for Euro '24 in what is apparently only the third time in Wales' history (possibly fourth, I could be misremembering). We had to do it on second place as Belgium thrashed Hungary in their return game and won their other match, but we never let ourselves down and the team was never overconfident either, so I'm happy with that. A nice and respectable journey to my first major international tournament where I'm pretty confident we can at least exit the group so long as we don't get a group of death.

Speaking of group of death, we got Spain in our World Cup Qualifying draw group, along with some other challenging mid-level teams who I forget at the moment. This one may be more difficult

Over at The German Lions (that's right, I manage both dragons and lions, how fucking cool am I?) BTSV I took the job and had to quickly staff the club as we were down the entire coaching staff, all the scouts except for the chief and the DoF as they seem to have left before I joined (or weren't good enough when I was choosing which backroom staff to retain), and no physios at all. Got a reasonable crew together and for the first time in this save I also staffed my youth and reserve teams as we have the money for it. I also bought in some data analysts who will make my job a lot easier as I'll have more detailed advice on where we're succeeding and failing. Question though - what do sports scientists add? I've not bought any in but I'm not averse, I just don't know what they do.

So I joined 14 games into the season with no option for transfers and unable to register players from reserves or youth team as we're not in a registration window, so stuck with the first team squad with them sitting bottom of the league. They're actually a good team, definitely well above where we're sitting. A few positions are literally only filled out by loans (GK in particular is just two loanees who could be recalled at any time!), but we have a reasonable budget and plenty of knowledge to scout in time for the next transfer window. Mercifully they have a good central midfield, which is very good as it's the key position to my standard 4-3-1-2 tactic. They also have width, so I'm trying that out as a secondary, but not confident in it.

Picked up a draw in the first match (we were up 3-0 and somehow gave away that lead to end 3-3), picked up two wins which pulled us out of relegation, then lost 3-0 to a top end of the league team, though we definitely didn't deserve to lose by that margin. I'm extremely confident we can avoid the relegation battle per board request, and given a bit of luck we may even be able to make a mid table fight this year. I did have some problems with people already wanting to leave when I arrived, but the one good one I convinced to stick around, the really good one I offered a contract telling him he'd be a key player in his favourite position (with a wage cut, lol), and the poor one I just basically told to get the heck out of the club ASAP.

My biggest recruitment problem will be that a philosophy I agreed on was to bring up players from Homegrown at Club ranks, and we only have two of those at the moment in the first team, one of whom is the one who I am letting leave, but can't officially go until I bring another in due to league rules. We have good youth prospects, but they aren't quite ready to make the jump yet, so I may have to look through the club's history and see if any decent HG at Club players want to come back.

[Benji]

I was looking for how to further develop my youth team skills and found this blog which goes into a lot of depth on what is important to a players development, some of which I wasn't entirely aware of before. Beware, it could be a bit of a tl;dr for some.

[Cymbols]

Got any well known players in your squad?

[Benji]

45 minutes ago, Cymbols said:

Got any well known players in your squad?

Wales or BTSV?

[Cymbols]

BTSV

[Adam]

And Wales actually, I was curious to see your squad when you took over

[9 to 5]

2 minutes ago, Adam said:

And Wales actually, I was curious to see your squad when you took over

Probably Neville Southall's grandkid.

[Benji]

Will post them tonight. Don't think there's anyone immediately recognisable at BTSV, but I don't know much Bundesliga so I could be wrong. Wales definitely has some old names kicking about, but the youngsters seem to be largely showing them up (regen called Rhodri Powell who plays for Spurs is a particular favourite of mine). Nobody has retired for them since I took over so should have a shot of the team as is and was.

[Benji]

BTSV first and second teams sorted by age, and Wales national pool sorted by caps to give the best chance at spotting someone you might know.

[Cymbols]

Yeah, nah.

[9 to 5]

kg and cm? You fucking fiend.

[The Lusophone]

cm is fine. kg i can't deal with like at all. stones and shit.

[Meacon Keaton]

Pounds and inches, boys. Pounds and inches!

[9 to 5]

27 minutes ago, Meacon said:

Pounds and inches, boys. Pounds and inches!

Well, stones and inches but close enough!

[Adam]

3 hours ago, Benji said:

BTSV first and second teams sorted by age, and Wales national pool sorted by caps to give the best chance at spotting someone you might know.

Some good names come through with Wales, but where is Donny Rovers' centre half Joe Wright?  

[Rocky]

My team looks to be playing alright atm. Keeper is just sitting outside of the list on 7.21

[Benji]

The league rules for minimum numbers of HG@C for 3 years between 15-21 combined with players wanting to leave for bigger club offers are kicking my ass. Basically wound up with almost the exact same problem I had with Barrow during the winter break. I started off with two of the HG@C, didn't realise one of the shit players was one of them and sold him, and despite a really good youth team and passable second team, none of them are old enough to have done it for three years. I don't know the consequences. From what I gather it will just force me to leave a squad slot open for when I can fill it with a player for those requirements, but can anyone confirm for me?

Players wanting to leave is awful too, plus I accidentally set the DoF to be in charge of selling players for the youth team and had to save scum to stop him selling a potential 5* player for a measly £6m because it apparently doesn't even let you make the final decision. Ridiculous.

I've signed two players, one was Joe Allen on a free to bolster my midfield (dat Wales connection, yo), and the other was a well known striker who I forget the name of at the moment. Neither fills the empty roles, but there's barely anyone available. Going to see out the season with my loanees since they can't be recalled outside a window and do some serious head hunting for end of contracts for the end of the season.