Football Manager 2009

[Matt]

I hate managing Premiership clubs... I just can't do it Championship, League One and League Two I'm fine with... But my teams always suck in the premiership for no apparent reason.

[METALMAN]

I know. In my first ever game I went Man Utd because I thought it would be an easy ride. It seemed like that when I was 1st by the new year but I ended up 5th. My next game was with Aston Villa where I finished 12th.

Which is why I'm happy I'm actually doing decent in it for once.

[The Future]

I couldn't get the likes of Rooney,Tevez,Ronaldo,Berbatov to score when I first started at Man United although things did improve in the second season.

And Portsmouth are a bitch to beat...they always see to buy the quality south americans(Leto,Elano,Banega)and whenever I do beat them it's usually something crazy like 4-3,5-4 etc.

[Matt]

My Villa game is dumb, if I play 4-5-1, I get 0-0s or 1-0 defeats, if I play 4-4-2 I get 3-2 defeats or 2-2 draws

[Zaz]

Man, it's the end of the 14/15 season, finished 4th with Spurs (highest finish yet ) but Bale now dislikes both Falcao and Corluka. I was thinking of getting a replacement for Bale in the transfer window anyway, as although he's good he isn't brilliant, but I think he dislikes these two because he's loyal to the club and both Falcao and Corluka have been making noise about wanting to leave. So now I want to keep him for being such a champ

And I now have both Ledley King (he retired after the 13/14 season, but because I signed him on as a coach before the season's technically changed all his stats from that season were lost :@) and Erik Edman (who I resigned in 09/10 and he just retired) on my coaching staff. How awesome is that?

Edited April 9, 2009 by Zaz

[TheTruth]

Can you manage a club and country at the same time in '09?

[METALMAN]

Yes.

I have had a good January transfer window. I signed Dario Srna for £15,000,000, a guy called Mario Balotelli who looks like he could be pretty decent for £10,000,000, Ivan Cordoba for £1,500,000 and Ben Foster for £1,000,000 cause Cech is injured for a while. I also got a bunch of promising youngsters.

Best of all, I managed to get £8,000,000 for the dreadful Florent Malouda who has played 3 times for me this season.

[Bigal]

Balotelli is immense, or at least he was in my Man City game.

[METALMAN]

Yeah my scouts have been raving about him but he's still only 18 so I'm still taking a bit of a chance at £10,000,000. For some reason he is black in the 3D match thing. Not very common for Italians...

[Bigal]

That's cause he is black >_>

His parents are Ghanian.

[METALMAN]

Aww but he's declared for Italy. How dull.

He could have had an international partnership with Essien. :/

[IAceI]

He's going to be a good player in real life as well I imagine. Didn't have the best of times against Man Utd in the Champions League but he's got what it takes, scary looking guy as well. Considered signing him for my Man Utd game but since I have Ronaldo, Tosic, Nani and now Feghouli I guess I don't really need him.

Think he's a wonderkid on my game as well, doubt I'd pick him up for as little as £10m.

EDIT: So I retained the Community Shield over Chelsea. I was 2-1 down and after a corner Ferdinand had the ball on the edge of the Chelsea area, went round the whole team and slotted it in from a tight angle, Rio Ferdinand - super striker. Anyways I picked up the win on penalties, Malouda fittingly missing and costing Chelsea the cup, although I nearly paid for not picking my own takers but fortunately Ferdinand and Vidic did what Ronaldo was unable to do and fired it home.

Sold Carrick for £17m to Inter Milan and in return I picked up Alan Dzagoev for £18m. Unfortunately I was unable to lure 17 year old Mahoto as he picked Wolves over us... interesting choice from him there.

Oh and William Gallas is doing a Nicolas Anelka, he's moved to Liverpool for only £3.2m. I may just sign both of them so they could have completed the grand tour of the Big 4.

Edited April 10, 2009 by IAceI

[The Quasi Juice]

Yes.

I have had a good January transfer window. I signed Dario Srna for £15,000,000, a guy called Mario Balotelli who looks like he could be pretty decent for £10,000,000, Ivan Cordoba for £1,500,000 and Ben Foster for £1,000,000 cause Cech is injured for a while. I also got a bunch of promising youngsters.

Best of all, I managed to get £8,000,000 for the dreadful Florent Malouda who has played 3 times for me this season.

Do you follow football? He has been one the biggest talents in the world for years now. He's a starting player for Inter Milan, at 18 years of age and has been playing for Inter now for 2/3 years. He's big, he's black, he will be one of the best in the next 10 years.

Also, IAceI, I just saw your options for feeder teams....wow. Those are some great options and I probably would've gone with Brondby.

[METALMAN]

Do you follow football?

Nowhere near as closely as I used to I'm afraid.

Anyway, I'm mighty pissed off. After an excellent start my team have totally wasted their lead after a succession of stupid draws against rubbish teams. It's the start of April and we trail Man Utd by about nine points so my only real chance of glory is the Champions League.

On the bright side, Dario Srna was man of the match in six of his first seven games, as well as scoring five goals.

Didier Drogba has scored 25 goals in 28 games which is all very well and good, but when he's injured, which is fairly often, nobody else can score. Hence my FA Cup penalty shootout defeat by Bolton after two 0-0 draws.

[-A-]

I decided to download CM01/02 since it's free and it's hilarious fun. Playing as West Ham I'm having a tough time deciding who plays as first choice left back - Nigel Winterburn or Scott Minto. And I have Steve Potts! It's great.

[9 to 5]

There is an 08/09 update for CM 01/02.

[-A-]

Yeah, I've got it but it's a bit pointless. I don't actually like the gameplay, I like the nostalgia.

[The Future]

Started up my old Man United game on 09 and I am really enjoying it.

I had to check back some of my old fixtures/records to get up to speed, I sold Tevez in the second season(currently in the 4th)and have done okay with Campbell and Welbeck as cover. For this season though I found Shevchenko unemployed and took a gamble on bringing him in...he's done a good job as a sub,some to train the younger players.

I got an offer from Barca(35 million)for Evra which I accepted and quickly bought in Sylvain Armand from PSG after 15 games I am top of the league with 36 points, Liverpool and Newcastle fighting it out for second. I have a bunch of very talented youngsters coming through who were really impressing in the Carling Cup but surprisingly we lose to Leicester at Old Trafford, also had an EPIC 3-3 match with Liverpool(Ronaldo hat-trick after going 3-0 down).

One thing though HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET ROONEY SCORING? I had him next to Berbatov in the same formation the last few seasons and he scored 27 goals both times but he hasn't scored a SINGLE goal after 20 odd gamesm I have tried all sorts of teamtalks but nothing seems to work.

[Dont Fear The Reaper]

Started up my old Man United game on 09 and I am really enjoying it.

I had to check back some of my old fixtures/records to get up to speed, I sold Tevez in the second season(currently in the 4th)and have done okay with Campbell and Welbeck as cover. For this season though I found Shevchenko unemployed and took a gamble on bringing him in...he's done a good job as a sub,some to train the younger players.

I got an offer from Barca(35 million)for Evra which I accepted and quickly bought in Sylvain Armand from PSG after 15 games I am top of the league with 36 points, Liverpool and Newcastle fighting it out for second. I have a bunch of very talented youngsters coming through who were really impressing in the Carling Cup but surprisingly we lose to Leicester at Old Trafford, also had an EPIC 3-3 match with Liverpool(Ronaldo hat-trick after going 3-0 down).

One thing though HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET ROONEY SCORING? I had him next to Berbatov in the same formation the last few seasons and he scored 27 goals both times but he hasn't scored a SINGLE goal after 20 odd gamesm I have tried all sorts of teamtalks but nothing seems to work.

Putting Rooney in a free role position and putting his creative freedom up a bit worked for me in the past.

[METALMAN]

I won my first Champions League on FM just there, in the process finishing my first season with Chelsea. The final was incredibly dull, scrappy match with more bookings than attempts on goal but over the season in general my team played some excellent attacking football. This is the story of my season in pictures. As you can see I didn't have the most challenging route to the final...