Football Manager 2008

[stokeriño]

I'm paying over the odds for centre-backs here, but it's 17:45 on transfer deadline day and I have the money (£23m total), so I need a decision. Quick:

Fabricio Coloccini for £16m

or Martin Skrtel for £10m

Skrtel is younger and cheaper but Coloccini seems to have slightly better stats as well as really high influence rating, which is rather lacking in my squad at the moment.

[The Kraig]

Skrtel. There's also the added bonus of taking a good player from a team in your league.

But then Colo can play DR and DM...

I say flip a coin. Ball it's Colo, Goals it's Skrtel.

[Cabral_]

Stat-wise i'd say coloccini, he's also more versatile. But for £6 million less Skrtel is pretty close in skill, Mental & Physical attributes could be a bit better but he is 23.

I'd go with Skrtel, cheap and younger, t's how i like 'em.

[RoyWill Rumble]

Stat-wise i'd say coloccini, he's also more versatile. But for £6 million less Skrtel is pretty close in skill, Mental & Physical attributes could be a bit better but he is 23.

I'd go with Skrtel, cheap and younger, t's how i like 'em.

That's what she said!

[LexChaney]

I hate Aresenal so much after I lost to them 7-1, I was Manchester United.

But I did win Manager of the Month with United for September and manage to get a 6-1 over Sunderland, I wasn't cheering mind you.

Anyone know of any good players that could actually win The Premiership for my team? I'll take anyone since Gamst was a waste of 14mil from Blackburn.

EDIT: Oh, some decent tactics wouldn't be all that bad.

Edited October 18, 2008 by Sexy Lexy

[Cabral_]

Try a 3-2-3-2 recent tactic i have been using that works well, but all depends on having strong wing-backs and a pacey striker, i'd imagine a Man Utd line-up could be; Have wing-backs making forward runs to wingers, set the team as attacking, play through the middle with a slow short passing game. But you can mix up the team instructions to your liking.

3 CB's - Ferdinand, Vidic, Brown

Right Wing-Back - Neville, Left Wing-Back - Evra

3 CM's - Carrick, Scholes, Hargreaves

2 ST's - Berbatov, Ronaldo

I remember a while back i re-trained Wayne Rooney to play at centre midfield due to injures, was pretty successful, more so than that Alan Smith lark :-/

[DavidMarrio]

Thought i'd pop it in and reload my Aston Villa game where i was 6th joint points with Man.U who were 5th and Spurs were 1 point behind in 7th we were behind Everton in 4th by some bit.

Decided because it's Man.U i'll go 4-5-1 playing a team looking like this:

Neuer, De Silvestri, Mellberg, Laursen, Bouma, Young, Petrov, Van Der Vaart, Barry in DM, Maloney and Carew loan striker...

Dominate pretty much the whole game finishes 1-1 at Half Time and second half exact same story battering them but end up drawing 2-2 with them only having 4 shots on target against my 11 on target....

So pretty much in a bad run of form now and i've dropped to 7th due to Spurs winning. Drawn 3 games in a row and against pretty easy teams to who i should be beating in Bolton and Birmingham drew 2-2 and 3-3 so need to get my team to get a good result against Fulham going into an away game with Arsenal

[Matt]

I'm on my first season with Man City, (updated with mega moniez, but unfortunately all the decent players still tell you to get fucked), and I'm currently in 6th currently 7 points (with a game in hand) behind both Chelsea and Liverpool. Minimum expectation is 5th (UEFA cup place) but I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull it off. Newcastle are doing stupidly well, Owen's bagged 35+ for the season and there's 10 games left and Martins has more than 20.

Liverpool arsed up big time, they got maybe 12-15 points from the last 10 games, so I got 5th comfortably and qualified for the UEFA. I also won the UEFA cup in the same season, beat Marseille 3-1 in the final.

In the summer I signed Owen for 40m, fucking ridiculous but it was worth it to stop Newcastle being so fucking immense, also meant I could rotate my strikers and not be fucked when I got an injury.

Did well, top of the league in January, got to carling cup semis for 2nd year running where I was knocked out by Arsenal... for the 2nd year running. Still in the UEFA and all is looking well... Arsenal offer 45m for Arguero and chairman accepts (although I only get 35m of it because of his sell on clause... and because of the bank balance I only got to spend 35% of that. So yay, that's great). Still no big loss I suppose, I can live without him. Chelsea offer 50m for Robinho, chairman accepts and again I only get to spend 35% of it. Oh and look, it's 22:00 on deadline day, fucking brilliant - tried to bring Mutu in, didn't fucking have time.

Luckily, I won the league, although by March my lead was 10 points, and by the end of the season it was 1, and the fans love me. Yay.

Just signed van Persie for 40m and a couple of fringe players on frees (Nakamura and Cana) but can't bring in a left back, sold Rafinha to Liverpool but that was no biggie cos he was shit and Richards is playing RB anyway.

So far, I'm doing alright but my team have forgotten how to get shots on target and keep possession. Going to have to fiddle with my tactics I think.

[DavidMarrio]

Friggin typical...

I had Fulham who i beat easily 2-0 and Mellberg decides to get himself a 5th Yellow Card so haven't got him and Laursen for the Arsenal game...

Take the lead after 2 minutes with Van Der Vaart and than Eboue scores 27th minute...Curtis Davies decides to give away a penalty 39th minute and Mutu Converts. Davies than decides to injure Bendtner doing something good right before half time.

Petrov is injured so bring on Agbonlahor and move Maloney to Right Mid at half time...

Davies scores 48th minute and i'm back in front only for Mutu to score 52nd minute.

Now it's pretty even game but Agonlahor decides to miss a few sitters near the end. 5 Minutes added time so what happens my defense decides to have a break and Van Persie scores...

Arsenal were unbeaten up to this point and i really needed a win to gain points on Man.U and Spurs.

4th: Man Utd 30 pts with a game in hand

5th: Villa (Me) 30 pts

6th: Spurs 28 Pts with two games in hand

22 Shots; 12 on Target, 48% Possession for Arsenal

21 Shots; 11 on Target, 52% Poessession for me.

It's just frustrating me now as i've drawn 3, lost 1 and won 1 last 5 games but luckily Arshavin should be back soon so maybe turn my fortunes around and i really need to invest in maybe another defender in the January transfer window because without Mellberg and Laursen it leaves me with a very young back four (Apart from Bouma) and Davies, Di Silvestri and some young reserve defender

[DavidMarrio]

lol the Aston Villa board are rather annoyed with me.

Javier Aguierre got sacked by Liverpool due to really crap performances leaving them 12th and i've been linked with the job. I said i'd be extremely interested in taking the job to try and get them from 12th to higher and now they are rather annoyed...

[Matt]

lol the Aston Villa board are rather annoyed with me.

Javier Aguierre got sacked by Liverpool due to really crap performances leaving them 12th and i've been linked with the job. I said i'd be extremely interested in taking the job to try and get them from 12th to higher and now they are rather annoyed...

What did you expect?

[DavidMarrio]

I expected them to plead for me to stay...

Turns out they hired Thomas Schaaf so leaves me in a sticky situation...Atleast none of the players seem to have lost morale and my job security ain't gone down. Just have to win next few games then they'll forget about it.

With Arshavin back hopefully fortunes will turn around

[Adam]

I dont get this game sometimes. I can put 11 men out and get beaten fairly easily at Middlesbrough, yet play those same 11 (or at least similar players like St. Ledger for Tate and Pugh for Magnin) and I can beat Spurs & Pompey by four goals at home, just two weeks later.

Maybe some teams are just easier to counter against, and some are harder to break down, I dunno, but it means Im currently 7 clear of relegation at the half way mark in the season.

[DavidMarrio]

Jesus Christ it's just going from bad to worse now. Lost 2-0 away to Sunderland a loss that means with 1 game till the halfway point the table looks like this:

3rd: Everton 41 pts

4th: Man.Utd 32 pts

5th: Me 30 pts

6th: Newcastle 30 pts

7th: Spurs 29pts (Game in hand)

8th: West Ham 28pts

I'm getting dragged into a battle for that Champions League and Uefa Cup spots and i don't know what's going wrong and i can't buy anyone due to lack of money thanks to big spending start of the season. Arshavin should be fit for the next game but i can't be resting my hopes on one player. I'm going to try a new formation see if it works with the schedule looking like this:

Reading Home

Pompey Home

Yeovil (FA Cup) Home

Blackburn Away

Liverpool Home

[Matt]

Try some new tactics - not necessarily your formation, but try and keep the ball more and increase time wasting so that your strikers are more composed.

[The Future]

Just beat Manchester United 2-1 to win the Community Shield, Vidic got in an assist and the MOTM award so pleased with that, Defoe is out for a while though but Berbatov and Keane both got goals against United so hoping that they can keep us going until he comes back. Failed to bring in a Defensive Midfielder as I was rejected by a few players and Radoi was turned down a work permit so might have to settle for Joey Barton.

[Anderson]

I was talking to a mate of mine about the game yesterday and he said there was a cheat for scoring at corners, but he didn't tell me what it was, is he lying?

[Matt]

I was talking to a mate of mine about the game yesterday and he said there was a cheat for scoring at corners, but he didn't tell me what it was, is he lying?

No he's not. Well it's not a cheat, it's just increases the chances greatly. Get a big (190cm+) centre forward with good heading and jumping. Set his attacking corner tactic to "Challenge GK". Get 2 big (one will suffice, but 2 is better) centre halves with good heading and jumping. Set their attacking corner tactic to "Attack Near Post" and "Attack Far Post"(if you've only got 1, then go for Near Post). On your team corner settings, aim for 6 yard box on both sides.

Edited October 19, 2008 by - Matt -

[Anderson]

Bastard, wonder how he kept winning every fucking game.

[DavidMarrio]

Well the bad little run of results has ended beat Reading 1-0 dominate performance changed formation to 4-5-1 and played Van Der Vaart and Petrov as Attacking Midfielders and bringing Reo Coker back into the team at DM. Reading got 2 players sent off didn't have a single shot while i had several opportunities

Match against Pompey ended a bore 0-0 draw too many missed chances and now dropped down to 7th. 4 pts behind Man.Utd in 4th, 2 behind Newcastle in 5th and 1 behind Spurs who have a game in hand...So not looking great again....Going back to the 4-5-1 formation i used against Man.Utd where i looked so good going to use that against Yeovil and give players i don't normally play games and have Arshavin and Laursen start to gain match fitness

Van Der Vaart came 2nd for European Midfielder of the year so that's made me happy that he's been recognized main factor in why we going after Europe