Football Manager 2020

[The Lusophone]

He's just unstoppable.

[Krabby]

The mobile version of this is on sale for 3 dollars - is it worth it? has anyone played that version?

[FLiam]

I play it from time to time. It's really basic but you won't find a better management sim on mobile. Definitely a decent time-waster though. 

[DFF]

Yeah, i have FM19 and FM20 mobile games. Sank a lot of time into 19. 20 a little less, probs because the changes weren't a lot. However, if 20s your starting point into the mob franchise, its a good enough starting point

[Twist]

Won the Europa League in my first season with Rangers.

Took me 23 games with qualifying rounds. Somehow only lost two. Still managed to lose everything domestically to Celtic.

Then 2nd season won the domestic treble.

[King Ellis]

The not so ongoing adventures of Alfreton/Norway 27/28

Not so ongoing as I resigned from Norway after the Euros. Made it to the quarters before narrowly losing to the Dutch 1-0. I dunno if it was during the tournament or what but apparently we peaked at 9th in the world recently before steadying out at 11th. Felt like that was about as far as we could go and the squad was aging without any sense of great replacements coming through. I feel that's confounded somewhat in the squads following my departure where all the old fogies I'd cast out years ago have all snuck back in, guys who are like 33, 34, 35. This was a team that was already arguably over the hill when I took over in 2024 as all the team meetings were like "You should use your experience to see us through these games." "Experience is just another word for old, we need some young blood." Still, quarters of both the Euros and the World Cup I feel is a good achievement when the FA was pretty much only ever expecting to be competitive in qualifying. I owe everything to Haaland though, guy is currently 98 goals in 98 caps. Though, he ended up on the transfer list at City and I had the money to buy him but he wouldn't even talk to me. I thought we had something! Put in some big jobs that were availible and actually got offered France and Brazil but ended up turning them down. Keeping my eye out for one of the lesser nations who have a lot of gems like your Serbia, Slovenia, Slovkia etc.

First season in the Prem can be considered a success, finished a somewhat comfortable 12th and some way off the bottom 3 (18th had 31 points, we had 43). Very much a middle of the road team in terms of goals for and against, hopefully with the right goalscorer we can kick on. Second half of the season was a bit of a worry though, picture that season where Hull was really good for the first half and then just never won in the second half and scraped by. Like, we had 1 win in 15 by my count? Yikes.

Feel like I did the dirty on the guys who got me there by loaning a few of them out but I got tempted by all the cheap foreigners. Feel like I had a lot more misses than hits but did get two really good CM's out of it. I'm kinda overloaded there going into year 2, so much so that I was able to flip a young English guy I got on a free from Liverpool the year before for 23.5m to Leeds. This is Leeds who just got relegated back to the Championship but still managed to be one of the most active teams in the transfer window to the tune of £150m, but that's by virtue of them taking in 450m in sales. Crazy. We've not done too bad on the old transfers this summer, had the bulk of the team set so only spent 10.5m mostly on youth as the first teamers I got were on frees or nominal compensation. Ended up selling 69m worth of guys, including finally cutting a lot of dead wood from the Football League days. Felt kinda bad doing it, one guy I got on a free from Wales back in League 2 and he's played like 200 times in all competitions but it was time for him to go, got 3m for him and he's over in New York now so fair play to him. Seems like a lot of MLS teams come in for my guys, Seattle have like 3 of them now. Trying to switch up to the other 4-5-1 with the DM instead of CAM since all my recent CAM's haven't had much luck and I have tons of great CM's.

One thing that's annoying me is the general happiness system. Maybe it's my fault for kinda overloading the squad with lots of promises of playing time and not rotating properly but my top scorer for last year had 31 appearances in the Premier League, by far the most he's ever played since he joined me, but he refused to negotiate a new deal as he 'wanted assurances over playing time' but I couldn't see anyway to speak to him about it? And he never came to me to complain like other people have. Had the same with my backup AML as well so they both had to go as they had 2 years left on their deals, the backup was someone who came through my academy and I manged to get 14m for him which is up there in terms of record sales for me, certainly for someone from the youth team so that was neat. I've had to sell a couple of other people due to that complaint though and I had one where a player wanted squad number 6 when I signed him but I feel like we'd already passed the point where I could change the numbers and it was already assigned. Then at the end of the season he complained again so first chance I got I swapped it. But now it doesn't seem to have registered with him that he has the right number now so I'm constantly worried it's gonna pop up again.

[Gazz]

(Cautious): I want more playing time.

(Assertive): The last time I gave you a chance in the team, you didn't perform well.

(Aggressive): I agree I was shit against Liverpool.

(Cautious): I never said that.

(Aggressive): Guess I'll be going now.

[Krabby]

So can someone explain a little how all this transfer and loan stuff goes. I mean I understand what a loan is but how do you do it effectively in game? Whats a transfer exactly, like a trade?

And is there a good way of seeing who is all available for these transactions without clicking on every club and every player?

[Naitch]

A transfer means that a player signs a new contract with a new club, usually in exchange for a sum of money (though there are lots of additional clauses available and it can include players being traded instead of money).

A loan is a temporary move where the receiving club agrees to pay a set amount of the player's existing contract in exchange for borrowing the player for a set amount of time. The player returns to their club at the end of the loan deal. This works best if you can't afford a full transfer, are managing a lower league club and want to "borrow" a promising youngster from a big team, or want to give the player a sort of "trial run" before considering a permanent transfer. You can include future fee clauses when submitting a loan request that means the original club have to accept an offer of that amount, if they choose to accept the loan offer at all.

There's a comprehensive search function which means you can narrow players down to precise details if you chose to do so.

[Gorka]

Started a save with the Republic of Ireland and the start date means half of the European Championship qualifiers have been simulated. Managed to beat Gibraltar, Denmark (4-2 in Dublin), draw with Switzerland and finished the campaign by winning against Georgia. 

That put us on 16 points with Denmark (16 points) and Switzerland (15 points) set to face each other. I just needed one of them to lose to the other to secure a top two finish and Euros spot...and they draw. Bastards. Switzerland qualified over us due to head-to-head rules because in the simulated, no-record matches, they won in Dublin. 

Irish FA are annoyed with my failure to qualify because of something out of my control, but least we have the last chance play-offs, I believe. 

[Gazz]

So Jose, what do you do to relax away from football management?

[Naitch]

Just seen Everton get relegated from the Premier League three seasons after they finished second. Not sure I've ever seen such a marked decline in any FM game before.

Mind you this is the same FM12 game where Switzerland won the 2014 World Cup before finishing last in their Euro 2016 group and Arsene Wenger was succeeded at Arsenal by former Man City manager Sam Allardyce.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

They do tend to throw up some weird things at times.  I've just finished season two of a Chelsea game for fun, Mourinho got sacked by Spurs in February for a poor league position (they were 7th), 2-3 weeks later Joachim Lowe gets appointed, literally a month later he got sacked for a poor league position. They were 6th, undefeated since Mourinho left, but they lost 3-0 to someone shite like Brighton the day before he was axed. Literally a month, and their league position had improved!

[Bobfoc]

I remember a game I played on 03/04 in which Sven Goran-Eriksson, manager of Tottenham, left the club on the eve of their Champions League Final appearance to join Fulham, who had just finished 12th.

When FM2008 first came out, lots of people reported that managing Leeds was impossible because of their 15-point deduction. You'd get sacked for your poor league position, even if you won all your matches, by October or November. I think they patched it out eventually.

[METALMAN]

Why patch? that sounds like something Ken Bates would do in real life

[Gazz]

FM20 is now free from the Epic Store until 24th September

[FLiam]

As in, free-to-play up until then? Or grab a copy to play forever? 

[DFF]

If its Epic Store its 'temporarily reduced to free so hurry up and get it before the price goes back up'! 

[Gazz]

36 minutes ago, Liam Mk2 said:

As in, free-to-play up until then? Or grab a copy to play forever? 

Forever

[Meacon Keaton]

Sounds like a reason to finally upgrade from 15...