Football Manager 2010

[RawIsWar]

And that just about brings me up to date. Oh, and I finally signed Lionel Messi - only cost me £133m!

Am I the only one who really feels uncomfortable about spending loads of money on transfers, even if said money technically exists?

For example, a common situation might be...

Bank Balance: £60million

Transfer Budget: £50million

Me: "Really don't want to spend more than £20million if I can help it..."

No?

I keep saying that but then I get a name in my head (Messi, Aguero etc.) and I just can't help myself. Just triggered the £53m release clause for Aguero .

[Rocky]

I wish I had that opportunity

I've got a transfer budget of just shy of £400,000 in Russian First Division...

Good ol' Nosta Novotroitsk... took over midway through the first season and just managed to survive relegation by 2 points.

Currently 9 rounds into the 2nd season and am sitting in 3rd spot with a 6-2-1 record and I'm about to play newly relegated Terek.

Should be good playing... I'm enjoying my career game

[The Quasi Juice]

I'm curious as how to everybody manages. When you take over a new team, do you guys tend to clean house? Or do you build from what you're given? What about your staff?

I've caught myself keeping a good core of players around when I take a new job. Obviously it depends on your transfer budget, but even when I have deep pockets, I tend to spend on two or three top flight guys, and keep chugging with what I inherit. But I'm usually the opposite with the staff. I get rid of everyone, and bring in a new staff completely.

What about your styles of play? I spent seven seasons in Barnsley, and by the time I left, I had us as basically an all-out attack squad. But I took the job at Q.P.R. (after failing to get a National job) and right out the gate, I attempted to use my all-out attack style and we got walloped. So I have tweaked quite a bit and now I have my guys playing more conservative and slow. We're a horrid team, and neither style is really helping, but we tend to lose 1-0 or 2-0 as opposed to 3-0/4-0.

It depends on who I play with. I love to play with Man City and what I do when I start with them is get world class players on the "weak" positions such as left back and right back. I also like to have worthy back-ups for every position, sometimes one, sometimes two or three. After 3/4 seasons I prefer; 2 world class players and 1 talent for each position. I do stick to the core though, but I tweak it once in a while to keep the squad fresh but also to upgrade it so for example the first 3 seasons I had Aaron Lennon at AMR but now I bought Alexis Sanchez who's even better, so now Lennon is a back-up. I feel sticking to a certain group of guys for an extended period really works;

GK Adler (3 seasons)

DR Srna (4 seasons)

DC Chiellini (4 seasons)

DC Sakho (2 seasons)

DL Lahm (3 seasons)

DM De Rossi (3 seasons)

MC Marchisio/Rodwell (3 seasons)

AMR Sanchez (1 and a half seasons)

AML Jovetic (3 seasons)

ST Neymar (3 seasons)

ST Dzeko (2 seasons)

I tend to build a strong back-up team around the first eleven. So for example if Sanchez gets injured I can put on Lennon or Milner. When Jovetic gets injured I can put on Young or Milner as well. For MC I have Rodwell and Ramsey as back-up. DM, also Rodwell and Sandro, etc etc.

[stokeriño]

Played some more of my Chelsea game last night. I was completely raped for injuries during mid-Feb to mid-Apr but somehow I got through it.

Of the most significant ones, both of my first choice strikers (Kalou and...some guy whose name I always forget, so I'm just going to call him Gonzales), my first choice keeper (Remy Riou) and the badass DM I bought at the start of the season to be the core of my midfield (Ducasse?) all had two month injuries. The depth of the squad I inherited is so incredibly dire that in most matches I ended up using only one sub because everyone else on my bench was too poor to contemplate using in a match of any importance.

AND YET.

I managed to maintain most of my lead over Arsenal in the league, except for a loss away to Birmingham and then to Arsenal themselves which reduced it from 11 to 6 points. My Champions League Quarterfinal tie against Inter Milan looked grim when they utterly outplayed me in the first half of the first leg at Stamford Bridge, leading 0-1 at the break, but two random sparks of magic from Sergio Aguero somehow turned it around in the second half for us to finish the leg with a 2-1 lead. I then went to Italy to park the bus and managed a tasty 0-0 draw to go through.

By the time I finished my playing session, Gonzales (or whatever his name is) had actually returned from injury and laid waste - scoring a goal in each of his first three games back (one of which being an 87th minute winner against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup Semi Final which sets us up for the Final against Everton). Now Riou and Ducasse are virtually back from injury as well.

Ought to be a strong end to the season...provided I can overcome the 3-1 defeat I suffered in the first leg of the CL Semi Final away to Valencia... Simon Kjaer got himself sent off in the first half, the muppet. His two match ban means he'd even miss the Final if we got there, so I'll either have to play Sam Hutchinson (who is still crap even in 2016)...or an ancient John Terry whose Stamina and Pace scores are both 3. Balls.

[Pesci]

I'm curious as how to everybody manages. When you take over a new team, do you guys tend to clean house? Or do you build from what you're given? What about your staff?

I've caught myself keeping a good core of players around when I take a new job. Obviously it depends on your transfer budget, but even when I have deep pockets, I tend to spend on two or three top flight guys, and keep chugging with what I inherit. But I'm usually the opposite with the staff. I get rid of everyone, and bring in a new staff completely.

What about your styles of play? I spent seven seasons in Barnsley, and by the time I left, I had us as basically an all-out attack squad. But I took the job at Q.P.R. (after failing to get a National job) and right out the gate, I attempted to use my all-out attack style and we got walloped. So I have tweaked quite a bit and now I have my guys playing more conservative and slow. We're a horrid team, and neither style is really helping, but we tend to lose 1-0 or 2-0 as opposed to 3-0/4-0.

It depends on who I play with. I love to play with Man City and what I do when I start with them is get world class players on the "weak" positions such as left back and right back. I also like to have worthy back-ups for every position, sometimes one, sometimes two or three. After 3/4 seasons I prefer; 2 world class players and 1 talent for each position. I do stick to the core though, but I tweak it once in a while to keep the squad fresh but also to upgrade it so for example the first 3 seasons I had Aaron Lennon at AMR but now I bought Alexis Sanchez who's even better, so now Lennon is a back-up. I feel sticking to a certain group of guys for an extended period really works;

GK Adler (3 seasons)

DR Srna (4 seasons)

DC Chiellini (4 seasons)

DC Sakho (2 seasons)

DL Lahm (3 seasons)

DM De Rossi (3 seasons)

MC Marchisio/Rodwell (3 seasons)

AMR Sanchez (1 and a half seasons)

AML Jovetic (3 seasons)

ST Neymar (3 seasons)

ST Dzeko (2 seasons)

I tend to build a strong back-up team around the first eleven. So for example if Sanchez gets injured I can put on Lennon or Milner. When Jovetic gets injured I can put on Young or Milner as well. For MC I have Rodwell and Ramsey as back-up. DM, also Rodwell and Sandro, etc etc.

I agree, keeping a core group of players is definitely the way to go. With my Man City team on 2009 (man, I think I'm gonna go back to that. Fuck not being able to get into 10) I had this, just about to hit 2022:

GK: Akinfeev (13th season)

DR: Santon (5th season) - all time is Srna with 9 seasons

DL: Predrag Vidojevic (regen - 3rd season)/Drenthe (7 seasons)

DC: Richards (14th season)

DC: Aritz Angulo (regen - 9th season, either side of a spell at Betis)/Sakho (5 seasons)

MC: Ignacio Camacho (6th season)

MC: Dylan Nicolas (regen - 9th season - but 4th actually playing)/Fabregas (8th season)

AMR: Luca Tremolada (5th season either side of 2 years at Barca, and some time in the youth team before that)

AML: Jean-Luc Pettitjean (regen - 3rd season)

AMC: Aguero (9th season)/Fernandez (11th season)

ST: Mauro Pace (regen - 3rd season)/Higuain (10th season)

I tend to keep with my players until they literally cannot run any more. Juan Arango was undroppable until he was 37, even though I had Aguero and Fernandez waiting in the wings. And I played Ribery, Arshavin and Ben Arfa until their legs turned into stumps from all the running I had them doing too. Yeah fuck 2010, talking about this is making me wanna play 09 again.

[The Quasi Juice]

Played some more of my Chelsea game last night. I was completely raped for injuries during mid-Feb to mid-Apr but somehow I got through it.

Of the most significant ones, both of my first choice strikers (Kalou and...some guy whose name I always forget, so I'm just going to call him Gonzales), my first choice keeper (Remy Riou) and the badass DM I bought at the start of the season to be the core of my midfield (Ducasse?) all had two month injuries. The depth of the squad I inherited is so incredibly dire that in most matches I ended up using only one sub because everyone else on my bench was too poor to contemplate using in a match of any importance.

AND YET.

I managed to maintain most of my lead over Arsenal in the league, except for a loss away to Birmingham and then to Arsenal themselves which reduced it from 11 to 6 points. My Champions League Quarterfinal tie against Inter Milan looked grim when they utterly outplayed me in the first half of the first leg at Stamford Bridge, leading 0-1 at the break, but two random sparks of magic from Sergio Aguero somehow turned it around in the second half for us to finish the leg with a 2-1 lead. I then went to Italy to park the bus and managed a tasty 0-0 draw to go through.

By the time I finished my playing session, Gonzales (or whatever his name is) had actually returned from injury and laid waste - scoring a goal in each of his first three games back (one of which being an 87th minute winner against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup Semi Final which sets us up for the Final against Everton). Now Riou and Ducasse are virtually back from injury as well.

Ought to be a strong end to the season...provided I can overcome the 3-1 defeat I suffered in the first leg of the CL Semi Final away to Valencia... Simon Kjaer got himself sent off in the first half, the muppet. His two match ban means he'd even miss the Final if we got there, so I'll either have to play Sam Hutchinson (who is still crap even in 2016)...or an ancient John Terry whose Stamina and Pace scores are both 3. Balls.

How did Kakuta do in your game? In my City game in Jan 2013 he's showing some great potential at Chelsea.

[stokeriño]

In 2009 I signed actually Kakuta as West Ham manager (for £200k). Obviously he was still only 18 so it was a 'future prospect' purchase, but even so he didn't do much to impress so he only got 8 first-team appearances in the subsequent four years when I was manager.

He was still at West Ham when I left to become England manager. In 2012-13 he got loaned out to FC Brussels for half a season (13 appearances, 8 goals). The following season he got a brief loan out to Birmingham, but only played 3 games there.

In the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons he got a few more appearances in the West Ham first team, with 10 in the former and 6 in the latter, though only with an average rating of around 6.40 each time. Then in January 2016 he was sold to Middlesbrough for £1.9million, where he currently has the status of a squad rotation player.

His stats really aren't that impressive. He's got high Dribbling and Technique, but the rest is average-to-poor. My scout at Chelsea describes him as merely "a decent signing" to make for a Premier League side.

On another subject, it turns out my striker's name is Aritz Gonzalez Martinez. So I was partly right.

[stokeriño]

New season. Changes are afoot...

In my first season at Chelsea I was using a 4-3-1-2 formation since we had an abundance of central midfielders but not much else. I didn't like how bloody narrow it was, but it did allow Sergio Aguero to play in the AMC position behind the two strikers, which is by far the best position for him.

Now it's July 2016 and I've bought and sold a few players:

OUT

Srecko Knez, to Valencia (£18 million) - good money and I have so many AMCs that he wasn't a guaranteed starter anyway.

Sam Hutchinson, to Tottenham Hotspur (£4 million) - not a very good defender, and he kept whinging anyway.

John Terry - retired.

IN

Mark Williams, from Leeds (£300,000) - 22 yr old English D/WB/AML. Signed as a 'hot prospect' to play back-up left-back for the time being, though he's 'accomplished' at every single position down the left wing.

Fernando Goikoetxea, from Osasuna (free transfer) - 20 yr old Spanish DC. Signed to play backup centre-back now that John Terry has finally retired (and taken his £120k/wk salary with him, thank fuck).

Sotoris Ninis, from Manchester City (£20 million) - 26 yr old Greek AMRC. Looks talented as fuck, though maybe not much of a goal-scorer.

Luis Suarez, from HSV (free transfer) - we know who this is. Now a 29 yr old AML/FC.

Micah Richards, from Manchester City (£28 million) - another familiar face. 28 yr old DRC.

So now I've definitely got my defensive line sorted, and am trying to decide what formation I want to use this time. I think my best players point towards a 4-4-2 Diamond...even though I kind of dislike the diamond. Usually in FM I play either a flat 4-4-2 or a 4-3-3, but certainly the former would probably be limiting to some players. The latter doesn't let me play as many strikers as I like...

The best AI teams usually end up using a 4-2-3-1 or something like that. I try to copy it but never quite seem to make it work. Maybe there are important team/player instructions behind the scenes that I don't do? Who knows.

Anyway, here's the Chelsea 2016/17 squad at this time (age in brackets):

Remy Riou - GK (28)

Petr Cech - GK (34)

Micah Richards - DRC (28)

Loic Abenzoar - DRC/WBR (27)

Mamadou Sakho - DLC (26)

Mark Williams - D/WB/AML (22)

Falcon - DC (27)

Simon Kjaer - DC (27)

Fernando Goikoetxea - DC (20)

Pierre Ducasse - DMC (29)

Michael Essien - MC (33)

Michael Johnson - MC (28)

Corry Evans - MC (25)

Joe Cole - AMRLC (34)

Sotiris Ninis - AMRC (26)

Marko Marin - AMC (27)

Miroslav Stoch - AMRL (26)

Sergio Aguero - AM/FC (28)

Salomon Kalou - AMRL/ST (30)

Luis Suarez - AML/FC (29)

Aritz Gonzalez Martinez - ST (25)

Of those, Miroslav Stoch, Joe Cole and Corry Evans are not good enough for the first-team and could easily move on if I found a decent way to let them go.

[Rocky]

I'm 2/3rds the way through my first "Full" season in charge of Nosta and am sitting well clear of relegation in 9th place

I'm still 11 pts behind the league leader but considering I vowed to avoid relegation this season, I'm happy.

Not too sure how much longer I'll stay at this club... There's a job available at Cardiff, but jumping from Russian first division to the Championship is a bit much.

I've just made my biggest buy (In my eyes), Luka Savic from Red Star Belgrade for £90,000 and will strengthen my midfield greatly, even at his young age.

I'm going to make Savic my Career player... I'll buy him for what ever club I end up taking over at whatever point in my career

He will be joining in time for our match against last placed Chita so he should have no trouble building confidence.

Well, back to it I guess... I want to at least get through August before bed tonight, Unless I decide to watch Leverage first

[Hobo]

I got bored with the MLS and resigned at Vancouver. Now I have moved to St. Pat's Athletic until the end of the year. They're currently at the bottom the league. I figure if I don't save them I can just leave with my short term contract.

[Blue Rosler]

I can't remember if it was just chatting to Reily or not, or whether I actually posted this, but have any players actually lived up to FM or CM greatness?

Julius Aghaghowa, Cherno Samba, Tonton Zola Mokouko, Alexander Farnerud, Ibrahim Bakayoko etc. etc.

Was anyone fuck-off awesome and actually was that good?

[FireDoughnut]

Tonton Zola Mokouko retired a few years ago to look after his sick mother. He has since returned to football and I think he is playing somewhere in Scandinavia...

[Twist]

Luka Modric is living up to his FM-awesomeness pretty darn well.

[The Future]

Agahowa had a small stint at Wigan and is now at Donetsk I think.

Ah Cherno Samba, now there was a legend. I was reading an interview just the other day where he talks about how Millwall didn't let him move to United/Liverpool when they came in for him and he lost his passion for football then and never went onto fulfill his promise. He had a fucking cracking record at youth level I can actually see why they made him so great at CM

[Pesci]

Higuain was incredible in 07 where he was at River and is incredible in real life now.

What annoys me is when a player is clearly shit yet the game makes him as awesome as he was before a big team signed him and he got found out. eg Ryan fucking Babel. I think even Nicolas Millan is still good enough for a decent Prem team on FM.

[stokeriño]

Can't remember many CM/FM Super Players (maybe because I rarely bothered to go looking for them). Leon Knight was immense on at least one game, wasn't he?

[Sam]

So just finished my first season as Newcastle, got them promoted to the Premier League, sold Joey Barton, Mike Williamson, Ryan Taylor and Leon Best for a combined £8.5 million as well as letting Nicky Butt go for free and sending off Alan Smith on loan (their wages were £100k together), brought in a bunch of loan players, of which Muamba and Possebon were my stars in midfield, Diouf from Man united came in on a year long deal, broke his leg 4 games in came back in March and scored 11 goals which I was happy with.

My biggest achievement was in the FA Cup where I lost 1-0 to Chelsea in the final (the fans are very disappointed about this, clearly forgetting the fact we're a Championship team and have now got European football next season.) Got to the final by beating Birmingham, West Brom, Portsmouth and Aston Villa, all in replays and then beating Spurs 1-0 in the Semi Final in a game they dominated from start to finish.

Overall very happy with the season after achieving the minimum in the league and excelling in the FA Cup, hopefully one day I can actually win it but that looks a long way off with the quality of the squad. Just looking to stay up next season but have an okay squad. Possebon has been signed forever for £3 million and Dan Gosling will also be joining for £3 million after Everton chose to sell him. Got Jerzy Dudek coming in on a free and will be scouring the market for cheap wingers as that's the tactic which has worked best for me. Jonas has been my star player scoring 21 goals in 52 games from left wing and Wayne Routledge hasn't done too bad from there either. Hoping to keep Diouf on loan next year, also spent £5.5 million on some Argentine guy who has been a complete disaster, has improved his value though so considering just selling him off as I couldn't really afford the transfer but took a risk with it, bad choice!

Edited July 13, 2010 by Sam

[The Quasi Juice]

Tevez, Higuain, Mascherano and Kaka have lived up to the expectations but they were safe bets. There were a lot of odd ones through the years (like Braaten) but who can blame them when some players are seen as the future but eventually fuck up. The FM developers also tend to make certain players too good, like Srna, or too shit like Van der Wiel at Ajax. I'm curious how some players will be rated next year considering the World Cup performances. Sneijder, Ozil, Robben, Van der Wiel, Khedira, Pedro and Navas to be amazing next year.

Edited July 13, 2010 by The Quasi Juice

[rocksta]

Ozil is already immense.

[LL!]

Shut up, rocksta.