Football Manager 2020

[King Ellis]

The game asked if I wanted to postpone my next game since my starting goalie got called up for international duty. I did and managed to arrange a situation where I would essentially need to be in the same place twice as the rearranged fixture was at 15.00 and then I'd need to be in Norway at 19.30 for a WC qualifier against Azerbijan. I was hoping for some situation where the game would ask which I wanted to attend and this would cause some friction either way but sadly not.

I ended up dropping said goalie anyway so it was pretty pointless in the end. Greece beat Lichenstein 12-0 in this round of matches so I have something to live up to. I did set a record for the Nations League by beating Kosovo 8-0 though. Bottled the last match away against the Swiss so only finished second.

EDIT: Only beat Azerbijan 6-0 in the end. Haaland got 5 but turns out he already has the Norway record of 7 in one game in an 8-0 win over Andorra. 52 goals in 59 games now, think he'll get the record for goals in a season now since he had 8 in the Nations League. Currently 11 by some guy back in 1929.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Unbeaten all the way to March, then get pumped 4-0 by Mainz. Oof.

[Arjen Robben]

2 hours ago, Jasonmufc said:

I don't want to go full Miles 'It's your tactics, mate' Jacobsen on you, but honestly... it might be your tactics.

Generally when I start seasons extremely hot, the team starts to struggle heavily starting somewhere around december/january because whereas in the early part of the season teams might've came at you with attacking/positive gameplans, they adjusted and are instead coming at you at cautious or even fully dig themselves in against you in the hope to salvage points or catch you unawares.

If you're ingame, you can check the opposing team's mentality by enabling the formation widget which shows how they're playing (e.g. cautious 4-1-2-3DM Narrow).

If you're running a tactic that is heavily dependent on high pace and high intensity forward play, you might be getting nullified now that teams are expecting to have a tough out and are going with a deeper backline, meaning those passes to the wing or over the last man towards Harry Kane are getting intercepted more often, and if they aren't, the players are getting less space to run into because the defense are still in front of them rather than behind them. As such your players will take worse shots, crosses get blocked more often, and passes can't find their way behind the defense.

Seeing that most of your assists come from your wingers and full backs, Kane and Erling might simply be struggling because they're one (great) man versus a packed box of defensive minded players.

You might be able to turn things around by slowing pace down, retaining possession, and maybe even letting your wingers attack the box to provide extra threats to the defense overloading and meaning Kane/Haaland are marked by one less defender.

Depending on the role of the sole striker, they might also be out of position too often to provide that killer spark you need when you're facing off against defensive squads. Advanced/Complete Forwards/False Nines add a lot of dynamicism, but they might be simply out of position too often to score themselves. Then again, I don't know what role they're in, so they might already be a TM(A)/P(A)/PF(A) or any other goal focused player.

Games where you're expected to dominate you can also run without the DM, slotting him in at MC/AM or even ST to add more scoring threats. Perhaps dropping your back line or running offside traps a bit to prevent a club from yeeting it over and catching you out on the counter.

Basically when you're trying to beat a defensive teams, which around mid-season as a winning team will be pretty much 15 out of 19 clubs, you need to try and slow the pace down and just try to dominate possession and overload the opposing team. Prevent them from double teaming your striker out of the game, force them to mark everyone and thus allow your stars to beat people one on one.

I personally run with a wide 433 like yourself, but I often have three versions of them depending on the formation I face and what my expectations will be. When the other team runs with an AM, I slot in a DM to nullify their midfield dynamics. If they run a DM, I run with a flat midfield 3. If they don't have a DM, I run with an AM. And so forth. As a top team it's not a requirement for success, but matching your formation to take advantage of the other team's formation can give you great success down the line.

And sometimes facing #20 Brighton is just going to be your team trying to breakdown a brick shithouse for 90 minutes only for Brighton to kick one in late for the cheeky win or draw.

See, that's the thing, is that I already play with a patient, passing game that aims to retain possession, set to positive. I have my wide players as inside forwards, and my full backs are exceptional at getting forward on the overlap, sometimes even underlap, and Semedo and Grimaldo were both named in the FIFA Team of the Year just a few weeks ago (in-game weeks). We usually do dominate possession, and end up having had upwards of 15 shots to the oppositions 5 or something like that but just too often fall away in the second half of the season. 

It's incredibly frustrating because yesterday I'll have a game where I labour to a 1-1 draw with relegation threatened Leeds, lose 2-1 to Watford, draw 0-0 with Newcastle and have absolutely no highlights whatsoever, then draw 0-0 away at Championship Birmingham in the FA Cup. And amidst all of that I'll dominate and beat a star studded Man City 3-0 absolutely effortlessly. My record against big teams is actually generally really quite strong, but after Christmas I can't seem to put the smaller teams to the sword the way I should and I can't figure out why.

I can't even seem to do anything to change it either, I had three of those matches yesterday that absolutely no highlights at all, or the two against Leeds and Watford, and in each of them I tried changing my team instructions to make something happen multiple times and in that classic FM way it just had absolutely no impact whatsoever, like the game has just decided the way it's going to go irrespective of however you try to affect it.

My preferred choice of formation in previous versions of the game has always been 4-2-3-1 but this year I find the AMC just so completely ineffective that in this save I've switched it to use a DM rather than an AMC. 

Kane goes on long streaks without scoring or having any impact whatsoever too, and sometimes I just can't get anything out of my wide players. I haven't even settled on a preferred choice of wingers this season because most of them aren't really playing to the standard they should be at. Chiesa started the season really strongly and he scored those 9 goals you see there in like the first two months of the season and has since not really done anything. Bernardeschi has stopped performing as he has in the previous two seasons, Brandt and Bailey aren't really delivering in the way I'd expect of them. Maddison's output has dropped drastically too but he's had a few injuries too so I'll allow him that. Dele Alli is just absolutely fucking useless and at this point is only really even still in the squad to make up for the home grown quota.

Meanwhile, the guy playing as Liverpool has signed Mbappe and now Messi, and is unbeaten in every competition, barely concedes and smashes everyone, all while basically just trolling at this point 

[Lineker]

 

[Baddar]

I found a facepack that is a little under 2.5GB (including the two updates below the main pack) and it works well. Might not be to some peoples taste as it shows the players in kits as opposed to just the face, but this will be more than good enough for me due to the size. Plenty of players and staff included too.

https://opzchannel.blogspot.com/2019/11/blog-post.html

[DavidMarrio]

I'll do a proper update later this evening but by god my defence have truly shit the bed this season with the amount of goals I've conceded in the league this season so far.

Played 6 in the league but I've scored 19 and conceded 17. Averaging nearly 3 goals conceded a game 

[Naitch]

Just secured my first ever back-to-back-to-back promotion in a San Marino challenge on FM12! It's my third attempt at it, so I kinda know who the best lower league players to get are, but it still went down the final day of the regular season. Beating Livorno with a couple of games to go meant that their final day defeat to Torino gifted me 2nd place and condemned them to the playoffs, where they've choked and been knocked out in the semis!

[JasonM]

2 hours ago, Baddar said:

I found a facepack that is a little under 2.5GB (including the two updates below the main pack) and it works well. Might not be to some peoples taste as it shows the players in kits as opposed to just the face, but this will be more than good enough for me due to the size. Plenty of players and staff included too.

https://opzchannel.blogspot.com/2019/11/blog-post.html

I bought the Sortitoutsi premium for a year when I got FM20 because I couldn't be bothered downloading everything in fifty different chunks.

If anyone wants me to put it on a share and spread the wealth, hmu and i'll look into the easiest way to share it.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

German Double - Tick! We ended up with a Division 2 side in the semis so reaching the cup final was easy enough, and Gnabry did the business in the final. We won the league with a game spare, which is annoying because we were about 12 points clear at one stage. We thrashed someone 9-0 though, which is lovely. Former champions Leverkusen ended up 11th. Liepzig also bottled it and came 9th. Germany is weird.

Liverpool retained the Champions League again. Honestly, fuck them.

Question of where to go next now. Jobs at Sevilla and Napoli have opened up and their both in the Europa League, which is tempting. Pep Guardiola just took the Juventus job though, having agreed to earlier in the season, so there's the Man City job to consider, but I only need the FA Cup in England. Decisions, decisions...

Sevilla offered me the job first, hello Spain!

[ADG]

 

Oh how the mighty have fallen. From earning fuck knows how much money every week to playing for free on an amateur contract in the Scottish fourth tier (and not even being good enough to make the match day squad).

[METALMAN]

How on earth can you handle that shite face gurning at you every time you open his page

[TCO]

That's a small bit unrealistic considering he signed for Sheffield United in real life during the same month you're in!

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Sevilla is gonna be a very different challenge, their budget is nothing like Bayern's. Expected to finish 4th and have a decent cup run, if I can get lucky and grab the Europa League I'll be in dreamland since it's undoubtedly the hardest trophy in this challenge just for the qualification process. Interesting group of Spartak Moscow, Lille and Vitesse to get through.

Transfer-wise, a few players left on pre-agreed deals, namely the team's only right back, Jesus Navas. Also sold a keeper who wanted out to Man United for 7m.

Incomings:

Marco Asensio for 11.25m - he got fed up bench warming at Real Madrid, but he's still only 26 and arguably about to head into his prime. Hopefully going to be very important.

Djibril Sidibe for 8.25m - we needed right backs, and my first choice was proving difficult to sign, so I asked the board to find me one and this is who they found. He'll end up as back up though, because eventually I got my man.

Cezar Azpilicueta for 8.25m - Dave  Chelsea fucked him off to Saudi Arabia after I left, which is frankly unacceptable, so I rescued him and he's gonna be a critical part of my team.

Conor Gallagher on loan - He was one of the brighter prospects I had at Chelsea and he deserved better than another year at Vitesse so I brought him along for a big Chelsea reunion with me and Dave (and also Frank Lampard, who's now one of my first team coaches). Interestingly, he now counts towards the foreign quota because of Brexit. Scotland remained, the lucky bastards.

 

Side note, I'm still Wales manager because the stupid Qatar World Cup has been delayed to November, which is frustrating. Was hoping to not have to deal with that for now. My World Cup group is Colombia, ENGLAND, and Burkina Faso, so realistically ending up 3rd and going home early, at which point I'll resign from them. Weirdly I'm now managing Harry Wilson twice, because Liverpool sold him to Sevilla last year.

[Naitch]

On 19/05/2020 at 17:07, Naitch said:

Just secured my first ever back-to-back-to-back promotion in a San Marino challenge on FM12! It's my third attempt at it, so I kinda know who the best lower league players to get are, but it still went down the final day of the regular season. Beating Livorno with a couple of games to go meant that their final day defeat to Torino gifted me 2nd place and condemned them to the playoffs, where they've choked and been knocked out in the semis!

No wins and just eight goals before the winter break. Lol, back to Serie B we go.

At least I managed to tie down most of my first team players who got us promoted in the first place.

EDIT - But I did manage to beat 3rd place Sampdoria away in the Coppa Italia 1st round to earn a cool €500k

EDIT 2 - And immediately followed that up with a 2-0 win against Cagliari for our first league win on matchday 20!

EDIT 3 - We're in the semis! Took Napoli to penalties after a 1-1 draw and managed to scrape it back after missing our first one. That's another €500k and some youth training upgrades paid for to help the challenge.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Naitch

[Baddar]

So, those player pics paired with the Opz Elite skin look great. 

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

He looks great playing for Trident-upon-Shield FC

[Adam]

I've got those badges too and I like them. They're a bit different whilst incorporating the real club's badge designs and the uniformity of the shield shape looks nice around the game.

I haven't bothered with facepacks though. I'm not eating up a quarter or more of my free space just to see Richarlison's mug every time I play a match.

[Baddar]

Yup, those badges look really good I think. Different to the ones I usually get so it's a nice change.

[Monkey D. Lars]

Started a game with Dortmund, wanted to test some of their talent and they have a striker named Erling Haaland you guys should try to get. The first 9 official games of the season he scored 15 goals and assisted 2.

[Gazz]

Never heard of him.