Football Manager 2009

[METALMAN]

Arsenal win the Premiership far too much on these games.

[The Quasi Juice]

Arsenal win the Premiership far too much on these games.

Yes and Man Utd always ends up using Van der Sar two or three seasons too long, then they buy some average goalie who immediately becomes the first goalie, followed by some more shitty signings and voila, they are fighting for UEFA Cup spots every year.

[therockbox]

I'm playing Chelsea at home, and Michael Essien just got sent off after 9 seconds for a late lunge on Carlton Cole. Makes a nice change from conceding straight away against this lot.

[9 to 5]

I guess he was after Vinnie's record.

[Matt]

I guess he was after Vinnie's record.

Pfft Walter Boyd got sent off 0 seconds after coming on as a substitute.

[R.W.]

I've been given a transfer budget of £800!

Thank god for free transfers, loans & parent clubs.

Bought Johnny Flynn & Tony Kane back for another season, they were immense last year, thank you Rovers.

My parent club Wigan sent my Tomasz Kupisz, the right winger I've been crying out for

Man Utd let me take some Italian kid called Macheda or something for a bit of pace up front

And the legendary Kenny Deuchar joined me on a Bosman!

I'm aiming for the play-offs this year!

[9 to 5]

I assume Deuchar will be doubling up as your physio too?

[R.W.]

Of course!

[The Future]

Bought in Federico Fazio from Sevilla to shore up and add some steel to the Man United midfield, a very powerful player who I plan on use to just kick the shit out of the opponent's creative midfielder(The hitlist so far includes Cahill and Fabregas! both injured within the first half). I thought I'd slowly start phasing Carrick out of the team and throw in Anderson and a young dutch regen I have but Carrick's suddenly decided to score every two games with some screamers and is playing amazing.

I have the likes of Gibson,Possebon who I give chances too in the cup but I don't see anyway for them to break through so I guess I am going to have to sell them.

Oh and what's awesome is I have Neville,Giggs and Scholes all as coaches!.

[Farmer Reil]

Won the Norwegian Premiership by 3 points after a bit of a nailbiter. Ended up only losing two league matches (the expected one to Rosenborg away, and one to Sogndal because half my squad was away on International duty (well, ok, 4 players, but still...)), we drew far too many though, and despite Rosenborg losing 6 in all, we needed that last loss to win the title (thanks, Moss).

Oddly, since this is Norway and the season runs from April to October (i.e, nearly exactly the opposite of England), the early rounds of the European competitions have already started, so I get to retain my UEFA Cup crown this year () as Champions of Norway, and then will be entered into the Champions League next year, regardless of where I finish next season.

Lost out in the Norwegian cup in the semi finals to Bodo/Glimt, who ended up being relegated and losing the final 6-0. Don't really need to tell you who against.

[The Future]

Opponents finally cracked my tactics...this was evident as I was losing 3-0 to PSG with Man United so 28 minutes into the match I change things up, put Anderson forward and set Fazio as the monster DM and I draw 3-3!.

[-A-]

Cracking of tactics doesn't happen, you just hit a bad run of form. Did Aston Villa's tactics get cracked a couple of months ago? Nah, they just lost a bit of momentum. Same with Hull earlier in the season or even United when they lost to Liverpool and Fulham.

[The Future]

No I don't think this was form, I have been using the same tactics for about 4 or 5 seasons and isn't the opposition supposed to adapt to it after this long?

[therockbox]

Losing in one game doesn't mean the game has 'cracked' your tactics. It was probably a whole combination of things - the team talk was wrong, your players were off form, and chances are the PSG managers favoured formation countered yours.

[METALMAN]

Being Man Utd you can just blame the referee.

[-A-]

Yeah, your tactics don't work consistently for 4 or 5 years and then get abruptly 'cracked.' It's just a single result. Yeah, if you keep exactly the same tactics for a long period of time you tend to see a slight drop in performance, but there's never a serious decrease and it never happens over night.

[Kanegetshighbysmellinhisarmpits]

I'm currently in the midst of a Man City game, and I'm realistically having trouble purchasing the world's best players. For example, Liverpool came 7th in the first season, and as I came 4th and was challenging for the title for most of the season, I had a go at purchasing Gerrard and Torres; the prices I got quoted were deals worth £96million and £118million respectively. I didn't buy either of them, but it got me wondering...what is the most you have spent on a player?

Mine would have to be £83million on Lionel Messi on FM08 - I was Arsenal in about 2013, and as per usual on that game they were absolutely loaded, worth over a £billion, an annual transfer budget of £150million (which was obviously capped because they never let me go any higher), and as I needed a left winger, and Messi was in his prime...deal kinda made sense, although I did have to take a brief rest after clicking 'confirm transfer', as I'm very much a wheeler-dealer by nature, so spending any kind of fortune on one man is very, very foreign to me.

[Zaz]

24m pounds for Artem Milevskyi, Ukrainian striker. The new Berbatov for Tottenham

In all competitions over the years:

10/11: 11 goals in 35, 3 assists (think this was with a one man striker system, was pretty rubbish)

11/12: 23 in 48, 7 assists

12/13: 16 in 39, 9 assists

13/14: 27 in 49, 7 assists

14/15: 23 in 43, 5 assists

15/16: 2 in 23, 2 assists (yeah, has been rubbish this year, hasn't even made the bench in the past month or so)

Formed a really good partnership with Pavlyuchenko originally and then Falcao in the last two-three years. But has past his use-by-date and I'll be selling him this transfer window. He has the most league goals for the club with 76 (not in history, obviously, just since I started) which Pavlyuchenko held with 68 before. Falcao currently has 45. Those 3 have been my main strikers over the years with cameo appearances from Bent (18 in 49 in his one season before I sold him) and Owen, who I got for free before selling him the next year for 15.75m as he got ZERO goals in 25 league games (12 starts) and 2 in 32 overall.

First three years was one up-front (Pav with Bent as back-up the first, Pav with Owen the second and Pav with Milevskyi the third) before I bought Falcao in the fourth and changed to two up-front, so I had a rotation of those 3 for the next three years. Sold Pav last year with my third being Victor Moses or one of two English regens. Bought a really good German regen this year who has cemented a first team spot thanks to Milevskyi going shite.

Just checked the overall stats, Pav got 106 in 256, Milevskyi has 102 in 229 and Falcao 73 in 187.

Edited April 23, 2009 by Zaz

[IAceI]

Was that like the 3rd season you got him? Villa have him early in the 2nd season on my game (between the first and second seasons) and I don't think it was much more than £10-12m.

I myself have paid a handsome £18m for future star Alan Dzagoev, and £14-15m for Marquinhos. Before that the most I'd spent on 09 was £1.6m for Jonjo Shelvey to sit in my U18's. Don't think I've really signed anyone else.

Try to work out what to do with my game,

Stay with Man Utd and start a new lower league game

Leave Utd and start a lower league game

Stay with Man Utd and don't bother with another game

[9 to 5]

Why not leave Man Utd and join a lower league team within that game?