Football Manager 2011

[stokeriño]

Post/pre-season contract renewal time is the part I hate most of this game. I have to fork out for stupid signing-on fees, agent fees etc., usually push my salary costs up to or above the limit, and watch my temporarily lovely-looking end of season bank balance wilt and wither away.

ARGH.

[Benji]

And that is why good youth camps are glorious money savers and gainers. It's one of few things I am good at

[stokeriño]

And yet you win fuck all, apparently.

I've spent the past couple of seasons having the board upgrade things youth-related. A year ago I had them improve the youth scouting network, and this season they were upgrading the youth facilities (due to finish in September) to make them all..."good", I guess. More than "average" anyway. Hopefully all of this will help something, because I'm sick to the teeth of 9/10 of my youth players being rated 0.5 star "nowhere good enough for anything" and clinging onto 1.5 star "could become a decent player" kids like they're the best I'll ever get.

I do buy some good kids from elsewhere but they tend to cost about £1m a pop (including signing fees etc.) if they're worth anything at all, so I can't exactly go nuts. Bought three of them last season and not a week goes by when I don't have United/Chelsea/Arsenal/etc. offering me £3m for one of them. They can fuck off, I tell you.

At least Andy Hunt has made my senior squad. The others might be good too but I haven't had the opportunity to really examine them yet!

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Injuries are a bitch. For the next game I'll have one fit striker (Torres and Obasi BOTH have fractured ribs and Pacheco has something wrong with him); and for the next 3-5 games a lot of my attacking midfielders are injured - Poulsen (not attacking, but still), Cole and Gerrard all have injuries and Affellay has the fitness of a bed-ridden pensioner, and Obasi, who can be a beast on the right wing, as I have mentioned is injured. Without him, Cole and Gerrard and even Pacheco I have no right winger. I have no one who has ever heard of this strange position known in some circles as the right wing.

I have centre-halfs. I have whole armies of those. I have central midfielders WHO CAN PLAY THERE ONLY AND NOWHERE ELSE.

My option seem to be to turtle it in the Champions League games; but that seems daft against teams like Middlesborough and Wigan in the Premiership; or call up youngsters from the under 18's and hope for the best.

Edited June 6, 2011 by Yoshihiro timmayyama

[Guest Neon Noodle]

Atletico Madrid beat Chelsea 6-0 in one leg of their Champions League semi final on my game. That both amused and depressed me.

Yes, Atletico Madrid were in the CL final. Madness.

Meh, in my game Scotland lost 2-0 to Brazil in the 2014 World Cup final.

In my game England lost 1-0 to Belgium in the Euro 2016 final.

[Lineker]

Man City just bid £36.3m for Ricky van Wolfwinkel. Not sure whether to accept it.

[Clawson]

I love when I pick up under-19s on free transfers after they've been released and 6 months later a team comes by offering 14k for them.

My U-19 is also dominating their group and most of them are better than my over-21s but you need 15 to make registration requirements. Ugh...

[DavidMarrio]

Man City just bid £36.3m for Ricky van Wolfwinkel. Not sure whether to accept it.

I'd accept that anyday. 36.3mil for Van Wolfwinkel is mad haha

Update on my Liverpool game as of 2nd January 2012

20 played: 13 won, 6 draws, 1 loss with that lone loss being to Chelsea 2-1, Davide Santon got sent off like a muppet I'm currently 2nd in the Prem (6 points behind Man.U and 4 points ahead of Man City but I have a game in hand)

Finished 2nd in my Champions League group with Roma topping it (I went on awful form in the Champions League too many draws screwed me up) and well now I have Real Madrid in the next round so that'll be very tough.

Playing Aston Villa in the Carling Cup semi final (Man.U V Blackburn is the other semi final so hopefully I'll get a chance to possibly avenge last years final defeat to Blackburn) and I have Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup 3rd round.

Sold Danny Wilson for 10mil to Bordeaux (he wanted to go so I thought 10mil's a great offer so had to accept, shame he started to have the form off his life aswell in the past few games ) and Paul Koncheskys going to Bristol City to join Jay Spearing for 2.3mil. Signed Neymar as well for 29mil as I thought with Suarez picking up injuries a bit too frequently for my liking and Andy Carroll this season being mixed as in he'll have a run of goals then just do f*ck all for ages.

Michael Owen retired as he couldn't find a club, I did try offering him a contract like but he didn't want to join so now i've got him as a coach. Fabio Aurelios retiring end of the season as well so I'll probably try and get him as a coach what with Carragher and Capdevilla being player/coaches for me.

[Lineker]

I ended up rejecting it! He's only going to get better, and Drogba needs replacing.

[Benji]

And yet you win fuck all, apparently.

Football is a business, technically I'm winning

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Ahhh the Spirit of Arsene.

[Ben E.]

Opposition managers always comment saying I'm "out of my depth" and they find it difficult to get on with me, even when I beat them. I've also won the Carling Cup and am 6th after 30 games this season.

Getting tired of all these haters.

[Gazz]

25 games unbreaten comes to an end with a dodgy penalty at the Stadium of Light.

Wankers.

[Summers]

I ended up rejecting it! He's only going to get better, and Drogba needs replacing.

Mistake. Crazy money and better available.

[stokeriño]

Opposition managers always comment saying I'm "out of my depth" and they find it difficult to get on with me, even when I beat them. I've also won the Carling Cup and am 6th after 30 games this season.

Getting tired of all these haters.

I only get the "out of my depth" one from relegation-battling managers the day after I've comprehensively thrashed them. I find them funny.

[Baddar]

Are there any completely up to date database files to download anywhere?

Not so much ''Jol at Fulham'' but more ''Hughes isn't at Fulham, Houllier no longer Villa manager, Ancelotti gone from Chelsea'' and possibly some of the transfer deals already gone through...

[Berober]

Made it to January, in 4th still but I had a tough stretch of about 2 points in 4 games which would have had me at 1st. I got took over, but I'm not going to suggest any higher than a top half finish, since not even promotion is guaranteed for 3rd place.

Got a bit more of a budget thanks to the owners, used it to get myself out of wage troubles. Now just got to roll on to the next 6 months.

[Matt]

Bah, I can't create enough chances/can't get enough shots in. My team isn't brilliant - my target is to battle bravely against relegation - but if we could score a few more goals, top half wouldn't be out of the questions. My midfield has two creative midfielders, my wingers are pretty good for the level I'm at and my strikers are alright (even though at the minute I'm playing my 3rd and 4th choice strikers because the other 2 were injured on the opening day) but we're incapable of getting more than 4-5 shots per game in and it's really annoying - even against shit sides I'll struggle to get more than say 7-8 and this means that I'm tending to get about 2 SOTs (4-5 vs shit teams) so I rarely score.

Help?

[Lineker]

I ended up rejecting it! He's only going to get better, and Drogba needs replacing.

Mistake. Crazy money and better available.

The way I saw it was that he's only 20 and already has insane stats. If he were a few years older then I may have considered it. Plus, City are my main rivals for the league every year so to sell to them would be madness.

[ADG]

Did he steal the cup or something? We lost 3-0 on aggregate, how did he lift the cup?