Football Manager 2011

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Two games to go in my first season (it's taken ages!)

Arles-Avignon are bottom by miles after going on a 24 game run without a win!

We're up to THIRD (but have played a game more than Bordeaux in fourth). That's huge cos we were bottom with 6 points after a winless first 12 games. Lyon and Marseille are a LONG way ahead of us (like 12 points) but the fight for third is REALLY close between us, Bordeaux and PSG. Third gets Champions League qualifiers while fourth and fifth nets a Europa spot. Our 4-0 thrashing of Lens (6th place) means I think we're guaranteed some form of European football next season. Should keep the board happy.

Also, Coutadeur has been on great form and Liverpool are showing interest around the £5-6million mark. I'll have to fight to hold on to him.

[Evafreak]

I just signed Vilar for Celtic and he's got a free kick rating of 17 despite you know being a goalkeeper should I set him to take direct free kicks?

[Ben E.]

The Europa League has totally killed my enthusiasm for my Forest game. It seems like I'm playing every three days, half of my players are injured, suspended or knackered and the fans are "concerned" after I drew with Man Utd.

[TCO]

I just signed Vilar for Celtic and he's got a free kick rating of 17 despite you know being a goalkeeper should I set him to take direct free kicks?

Doubt it's worth the risk really.

Yeah the Europa League is bollocks. The games are so frequent and it kicks your game back to Sunday. I got to the final with Man City and it kicked mine and Man Utd's final game back to a Monday night for some stupid reason becuase we have to play at the same time considering there was a point between us.

Didn't get that really.

[Ben E.]

Extremely bored of my Forest save now. I'll leave it to come back to, but I think I'll start a game with Newcastle.

Carroll or no Carroll?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Do all clubs get 14 year olds in or is it just because Monaco have a fantastic youth system?

Also, I'm liking this new guy who's just joined my youth squad.

We got into the Europa League in the end. Liverpool are still trying to buy Coutadeur (but I'm keeping him happy staying here) and I've told the board I'll try to win the league this year so I get LOADSA MONEY!

[Dan McG]

Has anyone played the iPhone/iPad version?

Would it be worthwhile buying, given I don't have a PC?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Bringing the Brits to France!

Jordan Spence has signed from West Ham for £3mil after spending last season on loan with us. He was fantastic all season and was in the league's team of the year. Very happy we got him.

Also raided Spurs and picked up Jamie O'Hara for £1.8mil and David Bentley for £2mil.

Appiah and Mongongu have returned from loan so those are like two new signings. So has Mollo who is a left winger so may find his chances limited behind O'Hara and Bulot.

Mbokani has spent all season on loan at Wolfsburg so I haven't missed him at all. He's got a £2.9mil release clause but Wolfsburg have offered £6mil for him to stay with them! Wahey!

EDIT: Also picked up Woodgate on a free. He's been fit pretty much all season and his wages work out cheaper than signing the loanee from Zenit I've had all season.

[Benji]

Has anyone played the iPhone/iPad version?

Would it be worthwhile buying, given I don't have a PC?

Given the pricetag, no. I think it'd probably be better on iPad, but the small size of the iPhone really fucks it over. At least if it was cheaper then it would be worth a test pop.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

My 15 year old wunderkid in training spent 3 days with us before demanding a pay rise up to £3,000. Cheeky fella. Gave it to him though of course.

[TCO]

Extremely bored of my Forest save now. I'll leave it to come back to, but I think I'll start a game with Newcastle.

Carroll or no Carroll?

No Carroll, he's not very good in the original data and you can get Benzema on loan immediately for 400k if you don't have Spain running. I tried both but much preferred having 20mil to spend off the bat than having Carroll.

[stokeriño]

Nassim Ben Khalifa is awesome. I don't know if he will always be because he's very young at the start of the game, but look him up if you're a couple of years in. I've only had him for 6 months and Man City now want to buy him off me for £15m - they can fuck off.

Edit: £16.5m now.

[Summers]

Started a Wigan game. 1m transfer budget....score. So I signed no-one. Except N'Zog and Diame to new contracts. Better than new signings really. Diame's min release fee is now 10m, it was 5m and he turned down Zenit (they'd bid the minimum) to sign his new contract. N'Zog's release fee is currently 15m now. Gonna be a long hard season. 3 games in; I have a point.

[Jimmy]

Guided Mansfield to a second successive promotion so I now found myself in League One. I don't think I'll find it anywhere as easy as I found the transition to League 2. Debated whether to sign a new contract, but I thought I'd give it another shot. Saved another file if I fancy playing around with resigning. But looking forward to the next season - still kinda want to move clubs, though. As the whole point of this file was not to get attatched to a team and move on, it just hasn't worked out yet.

[The Quasi Juice]

Bringing the Brits to France!

Jordan Spence has signed from West Ham for £3mil after spending last season on loan with us. He was fantastic all season and was in the league's team of the year. Very happy we got him.

Also raided Spurs and picked up Jamie O'Hara for £1.8mil and David Bentley for £2mil.

Appiah and Mongongu have returned from loan so those are like two new signings. So has Mollo who is a left winger so may find his chances limited behind O'Hara and Bulot.

Mbokani has spent all season on loan at Wolfsburg so I haven't missed him at all. He's got a £2.9mil release clause but Wolfsburg have offered £6mil for him to stay with them! Wahey!

EDIT: Also picked up Woodgate on a free. He's been fit pretty much all season and his wages work out cheaper than signing the loanee from Zenit I've had all season.

Mongongu is fucking epic in this version of FM, always becomes one of the best defenders in the game. Now that I think about it, Monaco have a pretty cool squad to start with. Haruna and Park-Chu Young are also pretty immense.

[TCO]

Man City are so annoying in this game. At Newcastle they're currently targeting 3 of my starting defenders, Coloccini, Cahill and Enrique.

I actually wouldn't mind losing Colo and his £80,000 per week wages but I wish they'd piss off form the rest. Considering Cahill wouldn't sign without a £17.25 mil release clause it's only a matter of time.

Also anybody ever sign Lacina Traore from Heerenveen? His stats look very interesting. 6'8 with brilliant pace for his height and ridiculously high flair too. He won't sign for me at Newcastle but he's obtainable for around 5 million.

[The Quasi Juice]

Man City are so annoying in this game. At Newcastle they're currently targeting 3 of my starting defenders, Coloccini, Cahill and Enrique.

I actually wouldn't mind losing Colo and his £80,000 per week wages but I wish they'd piss off form the rest. Considering Cahill wouldn't sign without a £17.25 mil release clause it's only a matter of time.

Also anybody ever sign Lacina Traore from Heerenveen? His stats look very interesting. 6'8 with brilliant pace for his height and ridiculously high flair too. He won't sign for me at Newcastle but he's obtainable for around 5 million.

Traore can become a great player. I've seen him play in real life too, very impressive guy. He doesn't play for Heerenveen in real life though, but some random Russian club after leaving Cluj in Romania. Shame.

[Summers]

Ok, so I wont lie - having the Caldwell brothers as my number one central defence partnership scares the shit out of me. Seconds after I type that Gary gets himself sent off in his first game of the season (back from injury). Lost to West Brom - which was disastrous. Needed to win that. Next game was Blackpool - Holloway said we'd be going down. We smashed 'em 0 - 5 (and that was with Gazza C gettin' himself sent off), so basically fuck off Holloway. Hugo, Diame and N'Zog all being scouted. Need to hold onto them.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Bringing the Brits to France!

Jordan Spence has signed from West Ham for £3mil after spending last season on loan with us. He was fantastic all season and was in the league's team of the year. Very happy we got him.

Also raided Spurs and picked up Jamie O'Hara for £1.8mil and David Bentley for £2mil.

Appiah and Mongongu have returned from loan so those are like two new signings. So has Mollo who is a left winger so may find his chances limited behind O'Hara and Bulot.

Mbokani has spent all season on loan at Wolfsburg so I haven't missed him at all. He's got a £2.9mil release clause but Wolfsburg have offered £6mil for him to stay with them! Wahey!

EDIT: Also picked up Woodgate on a free. He's been fit pretty much all season and his wages work out cheaper than signing the loanee from Zenit I've had all season.

Mongongu is fucking epic in this version of FM, always becomes one of the best defenders in the game. Now that I think about it, Monaco have a pretty cool squad to start with. Haruna and Park-Chu Young are also pretty immense.

Yeah Haruna is just coming through big time. Played the last 8 or so games of the season after one of my central mids got injured and he was bossing the place. It's part of the reason why I've just sold Diarra (he went to Valencia). He's a good player of course but he's 30, on £55k a week and a "biggest earner" clause. Him being around would limit games for others because he'd complain if he didn't play. However he'd only leave if I kept paying £20k a week because of the pay-cut he was taking. Cheeky beggar. I worked out that the £3mil I'd get from him would more than cover it though so I'd work out better off. Money's not an issue as I've offloaded half a dozen 22/23 year olds from my reserve squad who won't make it into the big time. My next wave of youngsters will replace them.

So now Diarra's gone I'll be playing 3 from Haruna, Coutadeur, O'Hara, Mendy and Lemoine.

Bentley has played well down the right in our pre-season, scored one too. Bulot is turning into a budget Gareth Bale down the left.

Jordan Spence is great at left back and Mongongu and Woodgate are solid at the back. In fact it's probably just a right back I need to find now before the window closes. I'm currently playing one up front and Vossen is just fantastic. Sampdoria have been after him all summer - offering £11,000,000 for him. Not selling him though. If I get Champs league next season then he'll stay along with Coutadeur (Juve and Liverpool are after him). I promised them that we were building into something big though in order to make them stay.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Needed a back-up striker due to long term injury to my third choice striker so picked up Simeon Jackson. He'll do a job when he's needed to cover and was only cheap so might improve a little.