Football Manager 2014

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Half way through January firmly in second place, 4 points behind Chelsea. Next game's the second leg of the Capital One Cup Semi Final. Against Man City. Yay. 2-1 defeat in the first leg has me right up against it.

Transfers this window:

Steven Naismith -> West Ham (Loan, 3.5m future fee option)

Mohamed Diame <- West Ham (3.5m)

Craig Dawson <- West Brom (1.2m)

Antolin Alcaraz -> Vitesse (725k)

Sebastien Giovinco <- Juventus (6.5m)

Barry and Lukaku have had their loans terminated as well. Barry for wage reasons, Lukaku because Mirallas has scored twice as many goals as him after being played as a striker, and a two month injury made him pointless with GIovinco coming in. Batshuayi broke his leg, so I looked at other options and found Giovinco going for roughly the same fee, which I think is a steal.

I've also kept Baines for the time being because nobody wants to give me a decent fee for him, Arsenal won't go higher than 16m.

[The Lusophone]

Nan, getting Ashley Young to fuck off is hard.

[Gazz]

I had to look where he was in 2018 on my save. Seattle.

The MLS is a lovely dumping ground, some teams have recruited better than others.

Montreal - Franck Ribery and Abou Diaby

Philadelphia - Ciaran Clark, Adam Johnson and Javi Garcia

Vancouver - Joe Lewis and Lee Tomlin

Chicago - Younes Kaboul, Darren Bent, Aaron Hunt and Colin Kazim Richards.

Colorado - Marco Amelia and Christian Trasch

Dallas - Leon Britton and Lee Cattermole.

[The Lusophone]

De Gea is either the laziest keeper ever or is trolling opposition strikers. Playing Swansea and every chance they get he just swats away.

Doesn't catch it or anything, just paws it off to the side for my defenders to deal with.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Nan, getting Ashley Young to fuck off is hard.

Yes dear?

[The Lusophone]

Phone keyboards suck.

But whilst you're here, I assume you could use a carer, so take Ashley Young. He'd be more useful and less expensive to me that way.

[Baddar]

Won't no-one bid when offering to clubs? I seem to recall shifting Young, Clev and Evans quite easily that way, and for decent prices too.

[The Lusophone]

Highest I've ever gotten for him is about 6 mil.

[Whisper]

Yeah it took me forever to get rid of Young. I ended up having to offer him out for like 2.5m just to try and get him off the wage bill. And then he demanded that we pay him like 30k per week to move.

He's actually gone on to do quite well for Newcastle, but yeah, fuck Ashley Young.

Just finished my second season with United and had the most hard fought title victory ever. 3 points clear of Chelsea with 8 games to go and they have a massively better goal difference. We end up winning 6 of our last 8 (including Arsenal away and Liverpool at home, with draws away at Chelsea and Blackburn) to win the league by two points. I normally win the league comfortably with United but Chelsea were ridiculous - they scored something like 110 goals and just kept winning. Normally you can rely on the AI teams to fuck things up. Ended up having to win our last 2 to win the title (5-0 at home to Sunderland and 4-1 away at Villa did not reflect our nervy end to the season). Ended up on 93 points - last season we coasted to the title with 77 points.

Also won the Champions League, beating City in the semis and Arsenal in the final. Really liking this game, yes its "easy with man yoo" etc but I enjoy bringing youngsters through and trying my hand at international management.

So far managed to win;

2013/2014 - Community Shield, League Cup, FA Cup, Premier League.

2014/2015 - Community Shield, League Cup, Premier League, Champions League.

My team currently looks like this;

GK: David De Gea

RB: Rafael / Juanfran

CB: Phil Jones / Dejan Lovren

CB: Salvatore Bochetti / Jonny Evans

LB: Luke Shaw / Alex Buttner

DM: Nemanja Matic / Michael Carrick

CM: Marouane Fellaini / Claudio Yacob

AM: Wayne Rooney / Shinji Kagawa

AM: Juan Mata / Nick Powell

AM: Adnan Januzaj / Danny Welbeck

ST: Robin van Persie / Andre Schurrle

Others

Tim Weise

Darren Fletcher

Nicklas Stark

Jessie Lingard (one of those players with average stats who seems to play unbelievably well)

James Wilson (out on loan)

Angelo Henriquez (out on loan)

Plus a couple of youngsters I've bought and loaned out.

Just blown my £36M transfer budget on Jordan Ayew (free), Alex McCarthy from Reading and then a load of young 4 1/2 star prospects.

Had RVP injured a lot this season and played Welbeck up top after realising Schurrle is highly average. Welbeck ended the season with 32 goals, including scoring in the CL semis and final!

Anyhow, long and dull post over, gonna try and get me an international job soon. Always like taking minnows to the World Cup

Edited May 25, 2014 by Whisper in the Wind

[Summers]

Got a job in the Uruguayian second division. Over 200 days til the league starts or something. Wth.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

6 games left of the season as I start April. 5 points behind Chelsea after a stupid loss to Sunderland, 6 ahead of City, though they have a game in hand. Kevin Mirallas is insane for me; has 23 goals in 40 games and could easily sneak a few more in to put his name up for Golden Boot.

Giovinco's doing an OK job up top, 6 in 14, but most of my goals came from my Wingers and CAM so not overly worried. almost matched the 9 Lukaku managed in the half season he had with us. Think settling is part of the problem, so may look to get in someone else who speaks Italian to aide on that front.

First signing of the summer is already agreed, Urby Emanuelson on a free from AC Milan. Could mean the end of either McGeady or Pienaar's time at the club depending on how my squad depth looks.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Won the title on goal difference! Got Manager of the Year too.

Chelsea imploded at the end, drawing with Man City and losing to Arsenal to eliminate the 5 point deficit, I beat both of them to nudge ahead on goal difference and both of us drew on the final day!

Chelsea, City and Man United are joining me in the Champions League next season, after Man United finished 5th and pulled a Chelsea to send Arsenal down to the Europa League alongside Liverpool and Spurs. Sunderland, Hull and Crystal Palace are headed to the Championship, with Reading, QPR and Wigan coming the other way.

Mirallas won Player of the Year, which is absolutely no surprise to me. Baines has had a complete turnaround and been named Player's Player of the Season. He decided in March he wanted to stay, and I let him, because I love Baines really

Baines, Mirallas and Jagielka made Team of the Season, Distin made the bench.

Great season overall.

Edited May 25, 2014 by JeriCodeBreaker

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

All my buying is done for the summer, think I've refurbished my squad nicely.

Eder Alvarez Balanta <- River Plate (6.5m)

Urby Emanuelson <- AC Milan (Free)

Mateo Kovacic <- Internazionale (12.25m)

Leaving so far we have:

Steven Naismith -> QPR (3m)

Magaye Gueye -> Guingamp (1m)

Both were average and never played enough to warrant keeping them.

As for the World Cup, Argentina just win, beating Germany in the final. France took third, beating Chile (!?) in the 3rd Place Playoff. Biggest disappointment has to be Spain, who failed to qualify from their group, which was won by England and saw Chile take second.

Decided to look over the manager movements since a few interesting ones cropped up:

Aston Villa: Paul Lambert > Martin Jol

Cardiff: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer > Roy Keane (Made after season ended when OGS took the Valencia job)

Hull: Steve Bruce > Steve Clarke (Post-relegation change)

Liverpool: Brendan Rodgers > Andre Villas-Boas (Very strange, AVB took the Sevilla job in November, promptly failed horribly and got Sevilla relegated, and now lands one of the best jobs in England. Don't know why they chose him.)

Man United: David Moyes > Carlo Ancelotti (Moyes got axed in March after they mathematically couldn't get Top Four, brought in Ancelotti who'd just been axed by Madrid for being 3rd too long, turned them around and won the Champions League. Bizzare. Madrid hired Marseille's Marco Bielsa as a replacement.)

Southampton: Mauricio Pochettino > Michael Laudrup

Spurs: Tim Sherwood > Guus Hiddink > Nobody (Hiddink's just left for Bayern Munich, following Pep Guardiola taking the Spain job after a disappointing campaign saw Del Bosque dismissed.)

Sunderland: Gus Poyet > Malky Mackay (Made in April after shit results saw them basically relegated)

Swansea: Garry Monk > Paul Lambert

[Plubby]

Signs you learned IRL coaching from Football Manager: When all your tactical ideas over the long run trend towards 4-3-3, triangle midfield, with wingers.

[Gazz]

This is a new one, even for me...

[9 to 5]

Ah yeah, in 14 you can spawn a son. Apparently they are always shit. >_>

[Gazz]

I knew that human managers could, I didn't know it happened to AI managers too.

His birthplace is listed as Munich and wikipedia makes no mention of him, so what was Pep doing in Munich in early 1998?

[Gazz]

England just beat Brazil 5-1 in the 2018 World Cup Final too.

[Liam]

Playing as Everton as that seems the new hip thing to do. Finished 4th first season, so not bad all in all.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Signed Will Hughes for 1.5m because he was desperate to leave Derby following their relegation to League 1. Super cheap for such a good young talent.

And my striker crisis is resolved! After getting injured in a 3-2 defeat to Man City for the Community Shield, Apostolos Vellios made his return to the first team and scored a hat-trick against Arsenal. In my heart forever he will reside for that.