Football Manager 2011

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Bah, two league defeats in a row drop us down to midtable but a plucky 0-0 draw away at Marseille is always good and we got a 4-2 win away at Freiburg in the Europa League. Metalist got a draw with Juve so we'll stay top of the group if we beat Metalist at home.

Unsurprisingly Kranjcar has been amazing but Bentley got himself sent off against Lille for a ridiculous two-footed lunge. Grr.

[METALMAN]

So starting the 2nd season at East Fife, we've managed to not concede a goal in our first 5 league matches as well as taking Motherwell 97 minutes to score on us. Naturally we've scored 1 bloody goal in that time. I'm scared to change my tactics though in case we start bleeding goals like we did last year.

Your mission is to attain the score East Fife 5 - Forfar 4

[Lineker]

I thought it was East Fife 4 - 5 Forfar?

[METALMAN]

don't be silly!

unless you are referring to this in 1963/64.

[TMM]

So apparently the Aston Villa board are amazing. Just started a new game with them and asked them to sign Christophe Samba for me...they said yes. Then I asked them to sign Scott Parker for me...they said yes to that as well. £29.5m for both despite starting the game with a £5m transfer budget. Damn.

[stokeriño]

I've never asked my board to sign a player...I actually never realised you could. I thought you would just be asking for a miscellanous budget increase or something.

I'm far too concerned about my finances as it is though. At the moment I think my Nottingham Forest finances looks something like this:

Bank Balance: £10.75m

Remaining Transfer Budget: £18m

(This is 'remaining transfer budget' in April when I've already frittered part of it away last summer/January)

So I could spend up to £18m if I wanted to. Would I ever do so? HELL NO. I'm not sending my balance into the red for anything. Hell, I'm even umm-ing and ahh-ing about whether I'll be able to afford my pre-arranged fee of £8m for loan signing Josh McEachran at the end of the season. Having just £3m in the bank is a scary thought! Frankly I want to get that balance level more towards the £20m than the £10m mark.

Perhaps I'm weird.

[Jimmy]

I always spend my remaining transfer budget when I realised it didn't carry over to the next season.

[TMM]

No no, I'm the same. However I thought that for a laugh I'd see if they felt like helping me out. I never use all of my budget so quickly, but they actually signed two bloody players for me! I thought they'd see sense and cancel the second one maybe.

Biggest problem with this is if you ask them to sign someone for you they'll go ahead and do it and won't then ask you if you're sure (happened to me with Gourcouff at Arsenal for £31m, didn't really need him but curiously asked them to sign him)

[stokeriño]

It's usually the wages more than the transfer fees that prevent me from signing someone I want anyway. The real kicker is that 4 or 5 players have the dreaded "match highest earner" clause. Fuck the lot of them!

[Summers]

When I was at West Ham, Barrera had that clause. Ending up earning near 100k. BARRERA. 100k. I was livid.

[Jimmy]

How do you ask your board to sign a player for you?

[METALMAN]

I usually have a bank balance of like -£100,000,000 towards the end of the season. But then Roman comes and tops it up and all is well!

[Summers]

How do you ask your board to sign a player for you?

When you're gonna bid it sometimes says interact with board in the top right corner. Other times if you have a bid rejected it gives it as an option with Bid Again etc.

Sorry I jumped off COD earlier, btw. Jack woke up.

[Jimmy]

No worries, mate. I went to jump in the shower, anyway.

And sweet, I'll give it a shot because I need some money to make a signing in my West Ham game or I'm afraid I'll fall behind after the January transfer window. Why oh why do I have to sign Robbie Keane at the end of the season.

[Hobo]

The board never want to sign players I ask them too. My ambitious and theirs always seem to be mismatched. Yet I have in my time lured a player to non-league AFC Wimbledon when Fulham wanted them. Got Brede Hangeland to turn down MLS and Premier League clubs for Villa, and brought Caleb Folan to Norway seemingly against his will.

Last night before I got distracted by watching Survivor Series 1990 on the chat, we beat Bologna 3-2 in what was my first away in with Catania. I've signed a couple of loan players from Liverpool, whose names I do not remember right now, but one of them scored the winner.

Then Gabriel Obertan got sent off in injury time. This team has horrendous discipline. More red cards and bookings than any other side in Serie A.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Capello has been fired by England and has been replaced by......Rafa Benitez.

[Ben E.]

I flat out refuse to give anyone the Match Highest Earner clause. I just about managed to get Lukaku for Forest but it took some serious negotiating to get rid of it.

Back on my first Forest game I asked the board to sign Hogan Ephraim for me. I can't remember the figure exactly, but they paid like triple his value for him. I could have signed a good winger for the money they spent, I was livid.

That Newcastle game got boring quickly, so I'm not really sure what to do next.

[Magus978]

Usually throwing in a bit more in salary will get them to get off the highest earner clause. Though I've managed to get people to sign by removing the clause and not balancing it out.

Started a new game with West Brom, but I'll be honest I've cheated to give myself another 20-25 mil in the pot to sign players. This is also with the free agent (and no work permits) databases I made. I don't know how the hell I did it, but I got Lionel Messi to sign for me (I did not touch the reputation of the club, which stands at 5900). Paying him about 18 mil US a season, but he couldn't help enough for us to win our opener.

Lost to Wolves 1-0 despite dominating the game, we couldn't put any shots on target. Didn't help that the ref gifted Wolves a penalty, when Otamendi took Kevin Davies down in the box (I complained about the call in the post-match presser, FA was silent). Of course, Davies put the penalty away, and we lost.

Rebounded nicely with a 4-1 win @ Manchester United, who despite thrashing Fulham 8-0 in their first game are having pretty big injury problems.

Might start a LLM game without the free agent DB. Never tried managing in the Conference and I wanna actually try and play a game without cheating

Current Lineup (4-2-4 variant)

GK - Fernando Muslera

DL - Gabriel Silva

DCL - Benedikt Howedes

DCR - Nicolas Otamendi

DR - Tomas Kalas (Haven't been able to get the best young right backs, but Kalas has potential)

DMCR - Eyong Enoh

MCL - Alan Patrick

AML - Zezinho

AMR - Keko

STCR - Alexandre Pato

STCL - Hulk

Injured: Lionel Messi (2-3 weeks with Twisted Knee suffered vs United), Ahmed Khalil (Fractured wrist in pre-season, will definitely miss our Carling Cup clash with Peterborough, but could be available for the next Premier League match)

Edited May 27, 2011 by Magus978

[Jimmy]

Messi plays for West Brom? Just, what?

[Magus978]

Messi plays for West Brom? Just, what?

Yeah, you heard right. I was just as surprised as you are. I can't make this up. I'll openly admit to cheating to give myself the finances to make it happen, but as I showed in my previous post, having him doesn't = wins. It's all about tactics, and against Wolves we didn't have the right tactics.

Me when I saw Messi agreed to sign for me: , over the likes of Man City, Real Madrid, and AC Milan? This would NEVER happen!

Edited May 27, 2011 by Magus978