Football Manager 2009

[DFF]

I ended up doing a Man City game for a bit of fun. Finished 4th in the first season, but was sacked in January of the second season for being mid-table.

In the meantime I took over as Sweden coach and did really well in the first half of the Euro qualifiers, topping the group on goal difference. (The other teams in the group are Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Austria, Georgia and Andorra). However, my team decided to suck in the second half, losing to Italy, Serbia, Montenegro AND Austria. >_> I have two games left (Georgia away, Serbia at home) and have the absolute slightest chance of qualification now. *Grumbles*

Also, I've since taken over at Newcastle. They were 17th just over half way through the season. I won 9, drew 5 and lost 1 (Chelsea) to finish either 7th or 8th. Season two at Newcastle is plodding along okay. I'm about 5th after 5 or 6 games. My current squad is pretty good actually, and I hope with one or two more additions we can challenge for the top - only problem is that the board expect me to too.

I currently play: GK Akinfeev, DR Chretien DL Matheiu DC Coloccini DC S. Taylor DM Arturo Vidal CM Gelson Fernandes AMR Pepe AML Jonas CF Bangoura CF Pandev

[The Kraig]

My game finally has something worth of note!

I started unemployed. Applied for every position going and finally, a YEAR AND A HALF into the game I finally got a job at Bangor City in the Welsh Premiership during January 2010. I made good use of the January transfer window, bringing in a bunch of frees and £1k signings from all over the world. They were stuck mid-table when they should have been 3rd according to media predictions. I've lead them back to 4th place (by one point behind Aberystwyth), and won the Welsh Cup.

And the board say I should be doing better in competitions. Hilarious fucking bastards. I'm 18 games played, 13 games won, 2 drawn and 3 lost. Hilarious. Fucking. Bastards.

Oh well, UEFA Cup whippings from an equally obscure team to look forward to.

[The Future]

Darron Gibson in the Scottish Premier League= Him Morphing into Lionel Messi.

2 games, 4 goals all from outside the box.

[Cadj]

Downloaded an update that had Newcastle in the Championship and all the other stuff after the end of the season.

So I of course took over Newcastle to get them back up, just finished my 1st season in charge.

Finished 3rd on GD, 6 goals behind West Brom who went up with Boro (who stormed the league) so I had to do the playoffs.

Beat Derby 5-0 on aggregate then thrashed Bristol City 3-0 in the final to regain promotion.

Only downside is we were taken over and the new Chairman is useless, we're £6m in debt even though I've only made a few signings very early in the season.

But it's on to the Premiership and hopefully the expectations aren't too high from the board so I can adjust with what seems like will be a minimal budget.

[betterguy]

Following on from my last post...

2011/12 Season

Spoiler: Click here to view

SUMMER 2011 IN/OUT:

Andres Guardado (£48m!, from Liverpool)

Lorenzo De Silvestri (£23m, from Lazio)

Asmir Begovic (contract expired)

Francisco Javier Heredia (contract expired, to Santos Laguna)

Alessandro Gamberini (£11m, to Liverpool)

Antonio Nocerino (£10.5m, to Liverpool)

Nelson (£4.9m, to Blackburn)

At this point we had a huge transfer budget, which is why I was willing to spend so much on Guardado, who would obviously become our first team left winger. De Silvestri would become our first team right back. I let Begovic's contract expire, because he was never going to get good enough to replace Ochoa. Heredia is a young right winger I signed, but his contract expired before he could get a Belgian nationality. With the signing of Guardado, De Ceglie would be moving back to left back, and Felipe back to centre back, once again taking Gamberini out of the first team. Him and Nocerino were both backups, so I let them go. The signing of De Silvestri made Nelson a backup, so I was happy to let him go. £4.9 was a very good price for Blackburn. I may have signed him if I were them.

JAN 2012 IN/OUT:

Robinho (£22.5m, from R. Madrid)

Francesco Bolzoni (£14.5m + 50%ONS, to Aston Villa)

Robinho was unhappy for some reason at Real (I don't remember why). I'd now signed two of the best strikers in the world in Tevez and Robinho, for not much over £20mil. Quagliarella was already starting to deteriorate due to age, so Robinho came available in good timing. Bolzoni is a youngster I signed from Inter for £5.75m. He wasn't happy, and he would probably never get good enough to replace any of my existing central players (Kroos, Ben Arfa, Robinho, Tevez), so I accepted Villa's bid of £14.5m, with 50% of next sale. 18 months later, he left Villa for Juventus for £16m, netting me a further £8m.

END-OF-SEASON SQUAD (first team players underlined)

GK: Francisco Guillermo Ochoa, Anthony Guy

DR: Lorenzo De Silvestri, Gordon Woodman

DL: Paolo De Ceglie, Christian Pander

DC: Felipe, Andrea Barzagli, Dumitru Negrea, Rafael Forster

MR: Shaun Wright-Phillips, Fabio Quagliarella

ML: Andres Guardado, Stewart Downing

MC: Toni Kroos, Hatem Ben Arfa, Marek Hamsik, Douglas (re-promoted from reserves)

ST: Robinho, Carlos Tevez, Karadeniz Batuhan, Peter Crouch

END-OF-SEASON SUMMARY

PORTSMOUTH STATS

Premier League: 1st

FA Cup: won

League Cup: lost in Quarter Final

Community Shield: won

Champions League: won (treble!)

UEFA Cup: N/A

Super Cup: N/A

Club World Champ: N/A

Top goalscorer: Fabio Quagliarella (42)

Top league goalscorer: Fabio Quagliarella (23)

Highest AvR: Fabio Quagliarella (7.43)

Fans' Player of the Year: Fabio Quagliarella

LEAGUE STATS

Champions: Portsmouth

Relegated: Hull, Bolton, West Ham

Promoted to PRM: Derby, Birmingham, Sunderland

Top goalscorer: Dmitry Sychev (35, West Brom)

Most assists: Giovani dos Santos (17, Arsenal)

Highest AvR: Alberto Gilardino (7.60, Newcastle)

Overachievers: Tottenham (5th)

Underperformers: Fulham (16th)

Best signings of the season: Stevan Jovetic (Fulham, £0), Marcus Berg (Fulham, £0)

Worst signings of the season: Alessandro Gamberini! (Liverpool, £11m), Antonio Nocerino! (Liverpool, £10.5m)

CUP STATS

FA Cup winners: Portsmouth

League Cup winners: Arsenal

Community Shield winners: Portsmouth

Champions League winners: Portsmouth

UEFA Cup winners: Man City

Super Cup winners: Ajax

Club World Champ winners: Sao Paulo

2012/13 Season

Spoiler: Click here to view

SUMMER 2012 IN/OUT:

Gai Assulin (bosman, from Barcelona)

Henri Saivet (£7.5m, from Genoa)

Manuel Neuer (£17m, from Schalke)

Stewart Downing (£20m, to Newcastle)

Karadeniz Batuhan (£25m + 50%ONS, to Arsenal)

Assulin and Saivet were good young backup players. £17m was a great price for one of the best keepers in the world. He'd replace Ochoa, who was starting to want a new challenge. At this point I didn't know you could avoid having players want to leave for a new challenge by offering them a new contract. Either way, he's older and not as good as Neuer. Downing had been a backup for a while, so £20mil was good for him. Batuhan was a great young striker prospect, but I didn't think he'd ever replace Robinho or Tevez, so selling him for £25m + 50% of next sale was a good deal. He's since gone from Arsenal to Liverpool for £14.5m, giving me a further £7.25m.

JAN 2013 IN/OUT:

Mamadou Sakho (£35m, from Tottenham)

Thierry Francois (£30m + 50%ONS, to Chelsea)

I wish I'd signed Sakho when he was a teenager. Still, £35m was good considering he was the second-best centre back in the world, after Sergio Ramos. He replaced the aging Barzagli, who by now disliked me and found me difficult to work with . Sakho is the last signing I've made in the entire game that's not a youngster. Any new additions to the first team from this point on are youngsters who have risen up the ranks. I'd signed Francois for £4m, and now he was in a similar position as Batuhan, but he's not quite as good. So to get £30m + clauses was great. In my current game he's still at Chelsea, as their lead striker, so no additional fees yet.

END-OF-SEASON SQUAD (first team players underlined)

GK: Manuel Neuer, Francisco Guillermo Ochoa

DR: Lorenzo De Silvestri and Gordon Woodman (rotation)

DL: Paolo De Ceglie, Christian Pander

DC: Mamadou Sakho, Felipe, Dumitru Negrea, Rafael Forster

MR: Shaun Wright-Phillips, Sebastian Schafer (youth signing)

ML: Andres Guardado, Gai Assulin

MC: Toni Kroos, Hatem Ben Arfa, Marek Hamsik, Douglas

ST: Robinho, Carlos Tevez, Henri Saivet, Fabio Quagliarella

END-OF-SEASON SUMMARY

PORTSMOUTH STATS

Premier League: 1st

FA Cup: lost in 6th Rnd

League Cup: lost in Quarter Final

Community Shield: lost

Champions League: lost in Semi Final

UEFA Cup: N/A

Super Cup: won

Club World Champ: won

Top goalscorer: Carlos Tevez (37)

Top league goalscorer: Carlos Tevez (27)

Highest AvR: Hatem Ben Arfa (7.63)

Fans' Player of the Year: Hatem Ben Arfa

LEAGUE STATS

Champions: Portsmouth

Relegated: Birmingham, Blackburn, Derby

Promoted to PRM: Bolton, Hull, Leicester

Top goalscorer: Goran Pandev (36, Chelsea)

Most assists: Hatem Ben Arfa (20, Portsmouth)

Highest AvR: Hatem Ben Arfa (7.68, Portsmouth)

Overachievers: Fulham (6th)

Underperformers: Tottenham (13th)

Best signings of the season: Archie Campbell (Everton, £160k), Martin Fenin (Liverpool, £12m)

Worst signings of the season: Thierry Francois! (Chelsea, £30m), Stewart Downing! (Newcastle, £20m)

CUP STATS

FA Cup winners: Fulham

League Cup winners: West Brom

Community Shield winners: Arsenal

Champions League winners: Lazio

UEFA Cup winners: At. Madrid

Super Cup winners: Portsmouth

Club World Champ winners: Portsmouth

Edited May 31, 2009 by betterguy

[METALMAN]

Hull bought Ben Sahar off me for £5 million and are paying him £62,000 a week. lol. Idiots. I am playing "world's best player" Mario Balotelli £41,000 a week.

[Matt]

So, as Rochdale, I score 2 goals in 5 games in the league (still unbeaten though ), and then go and thrash Tranmere (unbeaten in League One) 4-0. And my 3rd choice CM scores a hattrick

[IAceI]

Glad you ran with my idea

Buckley and Le Fondre still there?

[IAceI]

Double post (but like an hour apart)

Anyways, half way into my season as Sunderland manager.

Spoiler: Click here to view

Is the current table. Ignore the manager name, I was going do a diary on it and wanted something authentic, had the backstory and the lot with him coming from Krylja Sovetov, but changed my mind and just played the game out. Sheffield United have just literally took the top spot off Newcastle for the first time this season in the last match. And I think it's really cool how you have 2 big rivals Sunderland/Newcastle and Sheffield United/Wednesday fighting it out at the top.

Burnley have been atrocious.

Spoiler: Click here to view

Here's my team at the minute. Just approaching January, I don't really have anyone I want to sign. Signing a regen from West Brom called Kyle Kemp, he's got the potential to be a good Premiership player in the future, so I just had to have him given that most of the time I get told by my scouts that such and such is worth buying but they don't think they'll ever be more than a good Championship player, and since I don't plan on staying in this league. That's not much use to me. So yeah, a snip at £400k given that he's meant to be twice as good as the other regen I signed (sicknote) whose in the reserves with his 3rd injury in 6 matches. And I spent £1.5m on him.

Other than that I expect there to be bids for some of my squad players in Richardson, Reid, Collins and McShane. I don't need to sell, but everyone wants to be a first team star and they aren't going to manage that really so I may sell and then sign replacements on the cheap. Just to make a little bit more money. Will probably try and shift Prica as well, just could never get him to hold down a starting spot - so I have Agbonlahor and Murphy up front usually with Waghorn and Bojinov as back ups. Bojinov has been atrocious so I might not say no to selling him in January if a nice bid came in, but I won't go out of my way to shift the bloke.

So players who will probably go in January if I can get them sold; Stokes and Prica

Players who may be sold if bids come in and I can get replacements; McShane, Collins, Tainio, Stokes, Reid, Richardson, Bojinov

Everyone else I'd like to keep. But the teams alright, I have a £20m kitty but I just can't see who I need to sign. I don't wanna splash silly money for no reason, we lose a bit every month but getting back to the Premiership would help right that. Also as you can see, the teams pretty British/Irish centric which means a lot to me at the minute. But should we go up I can't see how I can cope without looking abroad.

[Hobo]

Yay! Just over turned over a 1-0 deficit against Hoffenheim thanks to the least liked player on my squad - Nene! He scored in the 80th and 93rd min. after coming in off the bench. We're up to 4th after 15 games. However we're currently without Vincent Kompany for five months

[Matt]

Glad you ran with my idea

Buckley and Le Fondre still there?

Yes but Buckley isn't in the team too much mainly because of the awesomeness of everyone else. My only worry is that the spine of my team is built on Premiership youngsters who I might not be able to get again next year, but I did pick up a quality DC/DM/MC who was out of contract which is cool.

[IAceI]

That's why when I play a lower league team I always try and steer clear of loans as much as possible. Because it's like your using a part-time team to get places, so I often try and make sure the team is primarily full contracted players.

However with Gillingham that didn't stop me loaning Matt James and Gokhan Tore, but that was basically a "my team is rubbish, God help me" sort of thing.

[Fudge]

Fuck me. I didn't expect to win that much.

[Matt]

Bah, I hate how annoying this game is tactically. Nothing seems to fucking work without pissing about with the player instructions too much, which is far too fiddly for something I'm supposed to be having fun with. Seriously I can beat a good team in the league above 4-0 and have got 6 draws and 2 wins in the league, what the fuck?

[Matt]

This shit's crazy, look at the amount of draws in this damn league.

[KoA]

Up to my last game of my first season in my United game. Going in to the final game against Wigan, me and Chelsea are level on points AND goal difference, both probably with wins on the way.

I'm quite nervous, actually...

EDIT: Champions! First season I've ever finished on FM, too. Won everything this season, just got the CL final against Barcelona coming up (a chance for revenge!) and the FA Cup final against Arsenal.

Edited June 2, 2009 by KoA

[Sick N Twisted]

Why do I have a habit of deleting the wrong save file >_<

I had a file named "Manchester City" and one named "Man City" ... I deleted my newest save by accident, and was left with my one from when I first started the game.

Oh well, started another unemployed game with lowest reputation and got the job as Romania manager, so let's see where I can take them. ^_^

Just finished first season of this game. Got the job at Berwick in December, and they were last (10th) in league when I took over, and we were predicted to finish 1st, and we did in the end. I really don't see how they were 10th when I took over with the squad they had.

Also, I have a habit again, this time of using all my subs at once, I don't know why, I just do.

[EddieG]

I normally bring in 2 subs around the 62nd minute, saving my third in case of an injury.

Started a game as Boca Juniors, after 6 games I was 13th in the league but got a job offer from DC United who were 9 points ahead of Galaxy with 3 games in hand, so obviously I took it.

I'm now 5 points ahead but still 2 games in hand, with them on 28 games and me on 26 .. so 1 win for me or a loss for Galaxy will give me the division title.

Not looking forward to the playoffs though. :/

[KoA]

I need a fantastic right back who is younger than John O'Shea. Chelsea wont sell me Bosingwa, I'm not paying over the odds for Ramos or Alves, so does anyone have any ideas?

[Matt]

That German chap, or at least he plays in the German leagues.