Football Manager 2012

[Khain]

Fernando Torres is the goalscorer in the Prem with 35 goals. Luis Suarez came in a second place with 34. Robin Van Persie with 24 in a third place.

I managed to make Luis Suarez score 70 goals in 59 games and it's my first season in charge. I love this game

[The Lusophone]

And how many racist comments did he make in that time?

[Khain]

Like 3 or 4 but no one heard him

[Gazz]

I've just realised, it's 2027 and Jose Mourinho is still manager of Real Madrid.

[King Ellis]

You're quite sure he hasn't just left and gone back like 5 times?

[stokeriño]

He certainly seemed to rotate between Real/Chelsea/Inter on my game. The favoured clubs aspect being a bit broken there.

[Mongrel]

Considering I plan on resigning after the Euros (if we make it), I'm sure the new Belgium manager will have fun navigating a World Cup qualification group including Italy and Germany.

[Gazz]

You're quite sure he hasn't just left and gone back like 5 times?

Nope, I'm guessing he enjoys his yearly tussles with Barcelona and their manager...

Paul Lambert.

[Herr Matzat]

Considering I plan on resigning after the Euros (if we make it), I'm sure the new Belgium manager will have fun navigating a World Cup qualification group including Italy and Germany.

So what you say is that you plan on chickening out?

[Pesci]

So I'm about to start my 2nd season with Spurs. Finished 5th after being in the Champions League places for most of the campaign, but a very poor second half of the season put an end to that. Chelsea were miles back in sixth and got to the Champions League final, much like real life, but lost to Barcelona. Robbie D was then sacked. I'm glad they've changed the slightly annoying mechanism from '11 that saw managers sacked after a bad league campaign despite having a Champions League final coming up, which allowed me to win the Champions League in my first game with Barcelona (against managerless Man City due to the same situation occurring ).

Managed to get the wage bill down by a good 200k or so, and started with transfer budgets off in the first window.

INS

January

Roberto Pereyra - 4.7m

Diego Renan - 9.5m

Mateo Musacchio - 6.25m

Jonathan dos Santos - 1.7m

Pereyra and Musacchio have been average at best, Musacchio probably less than average actually. I signed Renan to play on the left thinking that his "fairly strong" left foot meant he would actually be able to use it - his first few games were pretty good but he's since dropped off. Disappointing because he isn't getting past Walker on the right, but I'll persevere with him on the left for now. Signed JDS because he has pretty good stats for a midfield playmaker, he's Giovani's brother and there's tremendous resale value there, but I don't need him. He came in handy when Modric got injured, though.

Summer 2012

Yaya Sanogo - 2.2m

Jack Butland - 2m

Douglas (the centre back) - free

Rene Adler - free

Jack Robinson - 5.75m

Leandro Damiao - 17.5m

Gylfi Sigurdsson - 6.75m

Signed Douglas in January completely forgetting I had Caulker and Bassong to come back, as well as Dawson, Kaboul, King, Gallas, Nelsen and Khumalo on the books, and Musacchio, the young CB I'd just signed. So it was pretty fucking manic. Really just wanted to get rid of Gallas so I offered him out on a free after nobody was willing to pay money for him - I'm still paying him 29k a week for another year though . King was pretty shit when he came in after Kaboul's injury so I let his contract run down, Nelsen's too. Bassong's physical stats fit my high line well so I plan to utilise him - I then had to choose one of Dawson, Kaboul, Bassong and Musacchio to leave with Douglas coming in. I opted for Dawson because he's pretty slow. Managed to get rid of Khumalo too and figured I'd loan Caulker out for another season. Nobody wanted Caulker, though, so I ended up loaning Musacchio out to Mallorca - they qualified for the Champions League and he'll be a regular there, so I'm pretty happy. I decided to take a chance on injury prone Rene Adler. I figure Fridel's got at least another season in him so if Adler's always injured I can play Brad and sell Adler at the end of the season and bring somebody proper in. Adler's been injured twice already and he's been here for two weeks, so that one's not gone well. Signed Butland and Robinson because they're young and English and will help with the homegrown quota, essentially. Planned to loan Robinson out but if I don't he'll be homegrown at the club eventually so I'm just gonna keep him and he can challenge the returning Kyle Naughton for the right to challenge Carlito Diego Renan. Butland will probably develop more with my facilities than he will playing anywhere so I'll likely keep him as Adler's back-up for a while once Friedel goes to the farm. Lewandowski was my first choice as a striker but we couldn't agree on wages - also had a look at Adebayor for 4m but again, his wages were completely unrealistic. So plumped for Damiao. Good stats in everything I want from him, hopefully he'll be a success and if not I have 22-goal Defoe (despite not even starting much) to provide competition. When I play lone striker formations I like to have a young guy as my third choice so that's why I brought Sanogo in - again, good resale value too. Sigi I signed because I couldn't resist at that price. Toulouse got relegated so I was lowballing them for Sissoko and Capoue in the hope that they'd want to leave - Inter signed Sissoko before it could work but it worked for Capoue. I had a 3.4m bid accepted but he chose Atalanta over me - failed a medical because he was injured too, the prick. Then Sigi was kind of my rebound and he'll slot in nicely as one of the 2 in my new 4-2-3-1 formation. Also signed youngsters James Ward-Prowse, Jake Sinclair and Robbie Cotton on frees after they were replaced by their clubs. Ward-Prowse isn't great but I signed him because he's so promising in real life, Sinclair I signed to add depth to my youth team and Cotton has very high potential so I'm surprised he was even released. Signed a few young regens too, hopefully they'll come through decent enough.

OUTS

January

William Gallas - free, Dortmund

Summer 2012

Cudicini, Gomes, Nelsen, Saha, King, Bentley - free

Michael Dawson - 10m, Fulham

Jermaine Jenas - 4.8m, Fulham

Borgani Khumalo - 2.1m, Cagliari

Niko Kranjcar - 6m, Fiorentina

Vedran Corluka - 7.5m, Rubin Kazan

Steven Pienaar - loan, Lille

Jake Livermore - loan, Aston Villa

Mateo Musacchio - loan, Mallorca

Jonathan dos Santos - loan, Soutnampton

Frustratingly couldn't shift Pienaar so he'll see out the last year of his contract with Lille. Kranjcar didn't do too badly for me last season, got me a lot of assists when he played, especially from corners - but he was second string so they'd usually be against a bunch of wank and though RVDV was disappointing for me I took a look at his stats and decided it was worth giving him another chance to prove himself. I've moved Modric forward into attacking midfield too, so he just wasn't gonna get a look in. Liking Fulham lots for giving me 15m for Dawson and Jenas, which means I'm either in profit for the summer or very close to it. Dawson actually didn't do that badly last season but I conceded a lot of goals on the counter and he's just not fast enough for me. Livermore went on loan because he wasn't gonna get a game with JDS and Huddlestone in his position, and JDS went on loan after I bought Sigi for the same reason. Figure I'll probably sell JDS next season, should make a decent profit out of him. I want to get Livermore in the squad because he's English and to do so I might have to move Parker on next season. Glad I've managed to get both of them as well as Musacchio top flight experience for the season too.

So this is my squad for the coming season:

GK: Rene Adler, Brad Friedel, Jack Butland

DR: Kyle Walker, Kyle Naughton

DL: Diego Renan, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Jack Robinson

DC: Douglas, Younes Kaboul, Sebastien Bassong, Steven Caulker

MC: Tom Huddlestone, Sandro, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Scott Parker

AMC/AMR/AML: Luka Modric, Gareth Bale, Aaron Lennon, Giovani dos Santos, Rafael Van der Vaart, Roberto Pereyra, Iago Falque

ST: Leandro Damiao, Jermain Defoe, Yaya Sanogo

Man Utd bid 44m for Bale and I told them I'd sell him for 10m more but they pulled out. I don't think I'd be able to replace him - the closest to a left-sided tour de force I can find is Ryan Babel, who to be fair is pretty decent on all FMs - though he might not flourish in this formation like he did for me last season. We'll see.

[stokeriño]

18 mins - GOALFLASH - Manchester City 0 - 1 Milton Keynes Dons (Gary MacKenzie)

:w00t:

...This is a live update so it probably won't last long.

Edit: 23 mins - GOALFLASH - Manchester City 0 - 2 Milton Keynes Dons (Andy Weimann)

At this point I should clarify the City line-up: Pantilimon, Coulson, Rekik, K.Toure, Plummer, Benali, Hargreaves, Román, Balotelli, Nasri, Dzeko.

Edit2: 30 mins - GOALFLASH - Manchester City 1 - 2 Milton Keynes Dons (Owen Hargreaves, penalty)

Edit3: 49 mins - RED CARD (Manchester City's Karim Rekik)

Edit4: 87 mins - GOALFLASH - Manchester City 2 - 2 Milton Keynes Dons (Mario Balotelli) :(

(Extra Time)

Edit5: 106 mins - GOALFLASH - Manchester City 2 - 3 Milton Keynes Dons (Andy Weimann)

Edit6: 116 mins - GOALFLASH - Manchester City 2 - 4 Milton Keynes Dons (Paul Slane)

Edit7: Full Time!

And the £420,000 gate receipts will do nicely, thank you.

[Summers]

Andi*

[stokeriño]

Well, *Andreas actually, but I was just taking the game's spelling.

[Summers]

Yeah, Andreas. But he uses Andi for short. On twitter and everything. >_>

[stokeriño]

I shall write to SI immediately!

...

[Mongrel]

Considering I plan on resigning after the Euros (if we make it), I'm sure the new Belgium manager will have fun navigating a World Cup qualification group including Italy and Germany.

So what you say is that you plan on chickening out?

I just lost two matches to Northern Ireland. I'm not sure I'll have a choice.

[Plubby]

Feeling another Spurs game on current transfer data. Anyone got suggestions for Transfer Update locations? It seems "LFCMarshall" from FM-base is the go to that I keep hearing about. Anyone got other suggestions?

[Jimmy]

Ooh, is there a transfer update out? I'd dig a game on that, especially a Spurs one too.

[Berober]

LFC is the best update, and his penultimate update is out tomorrow 9am if you feel like waiting, otherwise there was another one on FMbase you could look at, but it's not as good, aside from being out faster

[Plubby]

I've got tomorrow at 5pm. Which time zone?