Football Manager 2011

[Jimmy]

I've started playing with attacking wingers before, because I thought it'd be a lot of fun, or I signed a good young player who was a winger and wanted to utalise him. Fortunatley for me, I'd been playing three in the centre of midfield, with a defensive midfielder behind him. So when I switched formations I had a centre midfielder or two who, basically, didn't get selected. I just had to buy the winger's to adapt.

Also, I seem to get quite lucky with youngsters on cheap prices. They either get recommended to me, or I'll just have a look through a bunch of european teams and get lucky and find a quality regen.

[MDK]

Has anyone tried to overhaul their squad for the single purpose of playing a different formation before? I decided I'd like to start playing 4-3-3 instead of 4-4-2, for various reasons including easier selection for the subs bench, being able to cater to my very best players and so on.

The main difficulties with this is that need at least 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders to make it work. It also means my 3 winger (MRL) players become effectively useless...unless they can suddenly learn to play MC, which I imagine is near impossible. Two of these 3 wingers are arguably some of my more talented players in Paul Anderson and Donel McDermott.

Also, my reserves are effectively non-existent at this stage (there are precisely 3 of them!) because whenever their contracts have come up for renewal I've looked at their report, seen a half-star rating in both ability and potential and "this player is nowhere near being good enough for the Forest team" and so just let them go. This could become awkward when I run out of players home-grown at the club. All of my youth intake are equally shit, of course.

I suppose I should go out and buy a bunch of 17 year olds, but I have no idea where to start with that. I can go and find the wunderkinds but they'll cost £7m a pop, whereas I basically need a bunch of average-but-not-terrible players who I can get on the cheap.

Could be a tricky year. :/

At the end/beginning of a season I check all the big clubs with good youth facilities and see who've they've let go, offer them a trial etc.

What about using your scouts? Get a couple of your scouts to search for players under 17 in England. Or Europe if you aren't patriotic.

[Jimmy]

Just lost 3-0 to Arsenal with my Mansfield team in the FA Cup 3rd round. All things considered, I thought this was a good result as we didn't get killed like most teams four league's below probably would. However, my fans are slightly concerned with the result. Fans are never happy.

[Hobo]

Played Torino in my third game for Catania. My new signing, my old Viking AMC, Thorgan Hazard!

Torino go 2-0 early on. We got one back and HT score is 2-1. Then Hazard thumps one in!

Also Bojinov scored from about 40 yards to get us the win but the more important thing is Thorgan Hazard got a goal.

[DavidMarrio]

My FM save won't load for some reason so I have to do all of preseason again...FFS

[Plubby]

Has anyone tried to overhaul their squad for the single purpose of playing a different formation before? I decided I'd like to start playing 4-3-3 instead of 4-4-2, for various reasons including easier selection for the subs bench, being able to cater to my very best players and so on.

The main difficulties with this is that need at least 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders to make it work. It also means my 3 winger (MRL) players become effectively useless...unless they can suddenly learn to play MC, which I imagine is near impossible. Two of these 3 wingers are arguably some of my more talented players in Paul Anderson and Donel McDermott.

I get a little confused by people's definition of 4-3-3 is...i've been told my 4 @ back, DMC, MC, MC, AMR, AML, ST is a 4-3-3, but I think of it as a 4-5-1.

My 4-3-3 is ML/MR/MC/ST/ST/ST - are you looking for MC/MC/MC/ST/ST/ST or something?

[Pesci]

You shouldn't really think of football tactics that rigidly. The AMR/AML/ST formation is a 4-5-1 on paper but plays more like a 4-3-3 because you've got a bank of defenders, a bank of three midfielders and then a bank of three attackers. Of course the mentality of those advanced wingers plays a big part.

[Plubby]

Well I think when the question is in some part looking for at least a little help on how to structure his 4-3-3, it is necessary to figure out if he means 4-3-3 on paper or in practice

[Liam]

The main difficulties with this is that need at least 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders to make it work. It also means my 3 winger (MRL) players become effectively useless...unless they can suddenly learn to play MC, which I imagine is near impossible. Two of these 3 wingers are arguably some of my more talented players in Paul Anderson and Donel McDermott.

The fact he said he needs 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders suggests he is literally going 4-3-3, with 3 strikers, 3 CM, and cover for all those players if necessary.

[Ben E.]

Right before the transfer window closed, Lorenzo Davids handed in a transfer request for no reason whatsoever. Davids was my favourite utility midfield player and would come on off the bench a lot. I'd even just praised him for starring in a match against Tottenham. One of my better pieces of business too, since I brought him in on a free.

Being the ruthless, cold hearted manager (that's addicted to spending money) I am, I sold him and brought in Sunny from Valencia to replace him. Worked out pretty well though since I got £2.4 million for Davids and only had to spend £1.7 on Sunny. Had a cheeky little bid for Steven Defour rejected, but they suggested a £6.25 million deal, so I'm going to try and do that in January. I'll beg the board, or something.

Here's my squad at the start of the third season.

GK: Marco Wolfli, Lee Camp

RB: Chris Gunter, Luke Chambers

CB: Michael Turner, Ciaran Clark, Mike Williamson, Joel Lynch

LB: Greg Cunningham, Julio Arca

DM: Cheick Tiote, Sunny

RM: Sotiris Ninis, Jeffery Sarpong

CM: Chris Cohen, Jack Cork

LM: Mehdi Carcela, Paul Anderson

ST: Kevin Gamiero, David N'Gog, Ahmed Soukouna, Dexter Blackstock

[Plubby]

The main difficulties with this is that need at least 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders to make it work. It also means my 3 winger (MRL) players become effectively useless...unless they can suddenly learn to play MC, which I imagine is near impossible. Two of these 3 wingers are arguably some of my more talented players in Paul Anderson and Donel McDermott.

The fact he said he needs 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders suggests he is literally going 4-3-3, with 3 strikers, 3 CM, and cover for all those players if necessary.

I had thought as much, so the point of my post was to establish that - as my 4-3-3 uses ML/MC/MR so he doesn't necessarily need to get rid of the wingers if he doesn't want to.

[Pesci]

So after last night's debacle of a network game attempt, I decided to start a journeyman game, which I've never done before, mostly due to having fairly poor PCs all my life. But now I finally have a decent laptop I thought I may as well. Only included the top 21 leagues in Europe - well, apart from Cyprus because they're not there - and only down to the second tier in most of them except for England, Spain and Italy. Applied for every job I could and had quite a few offers but ultimately chose the dizzy heights of the Russian First Division (second tier) with Volgar-Gazprom Astrakhan, mostly because they gave me a whopping 575k transfer budget.

The league was already half-way through when I joined and Volgar were in 10th place out of 20 teams with my only task being to avoid relegation. I thought this was strange being that they were predicted 10th at the start of the season, but I soon saw why - there's 5 relegation places! Lost my first two games but I'm undefeated in my last four with three victories including one over the 3rd place team, so I've turned things around to an extent. I've slipped down to 11th but I'm a comfortable 11 points away from the relegation places so I'll take it.

The transfer window opened at the end of July and I've brought in a few fresh faces. Some 36 year-old Bulgarian DM on a free everyone spaffed over, some 35 year-old Cameroonian RB on a free everyone spaffed over and a 29 year-old Russian CB with 4 (four!) caps for Russia, which sent the fans into overdrive. He only cost me 80k too. I decided I needed to spend some kind of money and bought a 20 year-old Bulgarian LM for 190k without even scouting him just for the excitement. He turned out to be pretty decent actually. Anyway, I managed to get lucky in that a few of my signings hold a Russian passport but I forgot about the foreigners rule and just signed everybody without checking their nationality. Kind of annoying because it's relegated one of my best players to the bench since you can only have 3 foreign players in your 11 at any point during a game, but eh. Luckily my strikers are actually pretty good already so I don't have to worry about upgrading them, if I can just sort my spine out the goals should start flowing.

So everything was going well with this. I was undefeated in 5 including 4 wins, a couple of them against teams right up the top of the table. Turn the game off, reload this morning and I've lost my last four. Everything's gone to shit. I'm so confused. I'm not even angry, just kind of sad

Lost to three teams in the relegation zone and got absolutely cunted 6-0 by the team in 3rd place. The only thing that's changed is that my big striker got injured for five weeks and we're not winning any headers because everyone else is under six foot. But however much I try to get my players to play it along the floor they just won't do it. And I seem to concede within the first five minutes of all my matches, usually from a header. Meh.

[stokeriño]

Has anyone tried to overhaul their squad for the single purpose of playing a different formation before? I decided I'd like to start playing 4-3-3 instead of 4-4-2, for various reasons including easier selection for the subs bench, being able to cater to my very best players and so on.

The main difficulties with this is that need at least 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders to make it work. It also means my 3 winger (MRL) players become effectively useless...unless they can suddenly learn to play MC, which I imagine is near impossible. Two of these 3 wingers are arguably some of my more talented players in Paul Anderson and Donel McDermott.

I get a little confused by people's definition of 4-3-3 is...i've been told my 4 @ back, DMC, MC, MC, AMR, AML, ST is a 4-3-3, but I think of it as a 4-5-1.

My 4-3-3 is ML/MR/MC/ST/ST/ST - are you looking for MC/MC/MC/ST/ST/ST or something?

For simplicity's sake I am calling the formations what the game (FM11) calls them.

Whereas in the past they've deemed MC/MC/MC AML/ST/AMR (with potentially one of those MC being DMC) to be 4-3-3, the one they call 4-3-3 here is 3xMC and 3xST, yes.

Not sure I could get away with 3 midfielders stretched across as ML/MR/MC. That to me seems like a death sentence to the poor guy in the middle.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

The three stretched midfielders are ok if your three strikers are relatively tight and two are happy to track back.

[stokeriño]

I don't think my strikers are the back-tracking type.

[Summers]

I got relegated with the Baggies. I resigned. I tried but ultimately failed. Still ranked as World Class, I got offered the Roma job. I delayed my decision - glad I did. Fergie was fired for finishing sixth. Say hello to the new United boss!

[stokeriño]

BOOOOOO

*throws things*

[Pesci]

Has anyone tried to overhaul their squad for the single purpose of playing a different formation before? I decided I'd like to start playing 4-3-3 instead of 4-4-2, for various reasons including easier selection for the subs bench, being able to cater to my very best players and so on.

The main difficulties with this is that need at least 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders to make it work. It also means my 3 winger (MRL) players become effectively useless...unless they can suddenly learn to play MC, which I imagine is near impossible. Two of these 3 wingers are arguably some of my more talented players in Paul Anderson and Donel McDermott.

I get a little confused by people's definition of 4-3-3 is...i've been told my 4 @ back, DMC, MC, MC, AMR, AML, ST is a 4-3-3, but I think of it as a 4-5-1.

My 4-3-3 is ML/MR/MC/ST/ST/ST - are you looking for MC/MC/MC/ST/ST/ST or something?

For simplicity's sake I am calling the formations what the game (FM11) calls them.

I was playing a Liverpool game yesterday and apparently my 4-2-3-1 was more of a "4-4-2 DM". I don't know what criteria they use but it seems strange to me.

[Matt]

Has anyone tried to overhaul their squad for the single purpose of playing a different formation before? I decided I'd like to start playing 4-3-3 instead of 4-4-2, for various reasons including easier selection for the subs bench, being able to cater to my very best players and so on.

The main difficulties with this is that need at least 6 strikers and 6 central midfielders to make it work. It also means my 3 winger (MRL) players become effectively useless...unless they can suddenly learn to play MC, which I imagine is near impossible. Two of these 3 wingers are arguably some of my more talented players in Paul Anderson and Donel McDermott.

I get a little confused by people's definition of 4-3-3 is...i've been told my 4 @ back, DMC, MC, MC, AMR, AML, ST is a 4-3-3, but I think of it as a 4-5-1.

My 4-3-3 is ML/MR/MC/ST/ST/ST - are you looking for MC/MC/MC/ST/ST/ST or something?

For simplicity's sake I am calling the formations what the game (FM11) calls them.

I was playing a Liverpool game yesterday and apparently my 4-2-3-1 was more of a "4-4-2 DM". I don't know what criteria they use but it seems strange to me.

Whilst that is a very strange way of putting it, I'm guessing they were saying that your central attacking midfielder was more of an attacker but your wingers were more midfielders whilst your 2 central midfielders were holding... But yeah, that's a very unspecific way of describing any sort of 4-2-3-1.

[Gazz]

I got relegated with the Baggies. I resigned. I tried but ultimately failed. Still ranked as World Class, I got offered the Roma job. I delayed my decision - glad I did. Fergie was fired for finishing sixth. Say hello to the new United boss!

Disowned.