Football Manager 2011

[King Ellis]

Probably sent them an email asking for it.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

So my 15/16 year old legend-to-be Rui Costa has just turned pro with us. I had to offer him a contract because AC Milan and some other club offered him a contract too. Luckily I'm favoured personnel so that must have helped. Anyway, someone was talking about how they were sick of all their youth players having half a star or 1.5 stars potential - Costa has 4. Wahey.

[Plubby]

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

Bahahaha - I imagine that's auto-generated to read as a nice story to whomever scores the game winning goal?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Meh, just got knocked out of the Europa League against Paris Saint Germain. Boo. They beat us 2-1 at theirs. We won 3-2 at home but the away goal took them through.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Just beat Nice 3-0 ON PENALTIES to win the French Cup! Wahey! Much happiness abounds and O'Hara scored the winning penalty which wipes out the disappointment of his miss against Man Utd a couple of years ago.

However we are now possibly going to be taken over by a Polish businessman who would give me somewhere around £50mil to spend apparently. The current board has placed a transfer ban on me for the time being.

What are people's experiences with board takeovers?

[Berober]

I've just come out of one with Dresden, it's not too bad really, although they always do have the option of bringing a new manager in.

[Cymbols]

Just beat Nice 3-0 ON PENALTIES to win the French Cup! Wahey! Much happiness abounds and O'Hara scored the winning penalty which wipes out the disappointment of his miss against Man Utd a couple of years ago.

However we are now possibly going to be taken over by a Polish businessman who would give me somewhere around £50mil to spend apparently. The current board has placed a transfer ban on me for the time being.

What are people's experiences with board takeovers?

I've had two

1. At Portsmouth I was told my job would be safe... 2days later... you have been sacked!

2. At Liverpool some rich Slovakian dude took over and gave me 70mil to spend in January.

[Berober]

Yeahh, I only got £90k, but what a useful little bundle it was, saving me from stupid wage budgets

[Liam]

Whenever I've got far enough into a game with Fulham for this to happen, we get a replacement, who inevitably seems to tighten the clubs collective belt, and give me fuck all money.

[Ben E.]

So I've wrapped up 5th in the league, 2 places higher than last year so I'm happy with it. I've just lost away to Tottenham but doing so means they've won the league, barring a terrible performance in their last game. That win meant they beat Arsenal to the position, so I was happy to help out.

In worse news, Michael Turner and Kevin Gamiero are out of the FA Cup final

[Gazz]

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?

Are you having lots of possession but not many shots or are you generally on the back foot for most games?

[Dynamite]

In my game where I took over a recently relegated West Brom side, I am currently leading the Championship and with 6 games left, I will almost certainly win the league. We have scored more goals than anyone and have the best goal difference. Yet on the board confidence page under club stature, it says 'the board are concerned that the club's stature is being tarnished by the team's performances on the pitch since you took over'. Is that just because we are in the Championship that the team's reputation is getting damaged or for another reason?

[Benji]

Picked up a lot if cards? That can have an effect, but sometimes it's the price to pay for victory.

[Dynamite]

Just looked and that's probably it. Second most yellows and 5th most reds in the league. Fuck it, it's nice to see West Brom with the ability to rough it up for once.

[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?

Are you having lots of possession but not many shots or are you generally on the back foot for most games?

It varies, against the bottom third of teams, I'm probably getting about 55-60%, middle third I'm getting 50%ish and 45%ish against the top sides.

[Ben E.]

Ended up winning the FA Cup! A pretty cagey game with Everton, 2-0 was probably a bit flattering. Rob Earnshaw got the first goal in his last game at the club.

I got a few deals done quickly in the summer, which is a first. I don't think I need a lot more than that this summer, but I'm considering trying for another central midfielder since I used 4-5-1 against most of the big teams last season.

Gary Cahill from a relegated Bolton for £6 Million

Jordan Henderson from Sunderland for £7.5 Million

Daniel Sturridge from Chelsea for free (out of contract). I was amazed at Sturridges wage demands; he only asked for 29 grand a week when he had been earning 60 at Chelsea. I managed to negotiate him down to 28, too.

Here's my team going into my third year in the Premiership.

GK: Scott Carson, Lee Camp

RB: Chris Gunter, Brendan Moloney

LB: Leighton Baines, Patrick Van Aanholt

CB: Gary Cahill, Michael Turner, Craig Cathcart, Chris Basham

RM: Jordan Henderson, Chris Eagles, Paul Anderson

LM: Royston Drenthe, Thorgan Hazard

DM: Lucas Biglia, Josh McEachran

CM: Chris Cohen, Levan Keina

ST: Kevin Gamiero, Steven Fletcher, Daniel Sturridge, Sloan Privat

[stokeriño]

Stoker: "So Kalou, I see your contract has only one year left. Let's talk renewal."

Kalou: "Awesome. I would like a salary of £80,000 per week please. And a signing-on fee of £2m."

Stoker: "......"

Kalou: "Oh okay, maybe only £75,000 per week."

Stoker: "...HEY WORLD, WHO WANTS TO PAY ME BIG MONEY FOR KALOU?"

I asked for £20m and got 27 separate offers ranging from £9.5m (lol) to £14.5m. I'll accept one of those higher ones, send him off to Inter, Monaco or Lille and get perhaps Sturridge in for free. Cha-ching.

And another thing: in what universe can Burnley afford to bid £14.25m for a player??

[Cymbols]

I quit my job with the Congo after the cup of nations, waited a year and signed for Lazio

[stokeriño]

So this is what the fans voted as Nottingham Forest's 'Best Eleven' in our title-winning year:

GK Vincent Enyeama

DR Luke Chambers

DC Gary Cahill

DC Ciaran Clark

DL Martin Olsson

MC Chris Cohen (Forest's Player of the Year)

MC Charlie Adam

MC Josh McEachran

ST Danny Welbeck (Premier League Signing of the Season)

ST Nassim Ben Khalifa

ST Robbie Findley

Don't really agree with Chambers, as he was usually on the bench and kept getting red cards. I think the fans just dislike my other two right-backs. The rest I would go with.

Current transfer movements...

OUT

* Salamon Kalou, £14.5m to Inter Milan

* Owen Hargreaves, contract expired

IN

* Daniel Sturridge, free transfer from Chelsea

* Bosko Stanojevic, £6m from Hoffenheim

Stanojevic is a 20 year old DC/DM/MC who is my replacement for Hargreaves. He already looks pretty quality, but insisted on a £12m minimum fee release clause. Awkward, but hopefully I can hold onto him for a year and offer him a new deal to cut that out.

The best part of all this is that I've replaced two players like-for-like postions, made more than £8m profit and saved £20kpw on wages (Kalou and Hargreaves were £100kpw combined, the new two are £80kpw combined). FINANCIAL WIN.

See Benji, that's how you do it.

[The Quasi Juice]

So this is what the fans voted as Nottingham Forest's 'Best Eleven' in our title-winning year:

GK Vincent Enyeama

DR Luke Chambers

DC Gary Cahill

DC Ciaran Clark

DL Martin Olsson

MC Chris Cohen (Forest's Player of the Year)

MC Charlie Adam

MC Josh McEachran

ST Danny Welbeck (Premier League Signing of the Season)

ST Nassim Ben Khalifa

ST Robbie Findley

Don't really agree with Chambers, as he was usually on the bench and kept getting red cards. I think the fans just dislike my other two right-backs. The rest I would go with.

Current transfer movements...

OUT

* Salamon Kalou, £14.5m to Inter Milan

* Owen Hargreaves, contract expired

IN

* Daniel Sturridge, free transfer from Chelsea

* Bosko Stanojevic, £6m from Hoffenheim

Stanojevic is a 20 year old DC/DM/MC who is my replacement for Hargreaves. He already looks pretty quality, but insisted on a £12m minimum fee release clause. Awkward, but hopefully I can hold onto him for a year and offer him a new deal to cut that out.

The best part of all this is that I've replaced two players like-for-like postions, made more than £8m profit and saved £20kpw on wages (Kalou and Hargreaves were £100kpw combined, the new two are £80kpw combined). FINANCIAL WIN.

See Benji, that's how you do it.

You won the title with that team? Did Clark and McEahran become good players in your game? McEachran always has a lot of potential but I've never seen him actually fulfill his potential. I had him with Chelsea for 3 or 4 seasons, gave him a few games, he trained with the first team etc, but he hardly developed. Then he went to the Championship and never returned.

Started a new game with Crystal Palace, with only the UK + Ireland + France + Holland fully loaded. I'm interested to see if countries like Wales and NI get good regens after a while because I chose them at the start. Currently 8th in the league, I have no money, VERY small squad, and I'm over my wage budget so loaning players wasn't really an option either. I basically have to rely on Vaughan, Clyne and Iversen

I contracted a decent right back on a free because Clyne got injured. The same day, he got injured for 5 months. Score.

Edited June 7, 2011 by The Quasi Juice