Football Manager 2014

[Magus978]

In my latest Manchester United game, despite bringing in some of the best young players, we've failed to mesh as a team, leading to a shock 5-1 beatdown by of all teams, Aston Villa. The board blamed me for the defeat instead of looking at the players for their failure to play up to my standards, so I told the Glazers to go fuck themselves and resigned.

Wanting to get a team promoted to the Premier League so I could get my revenge, I applied at Blackpool. I made two mistakes here...

1. Applying for the Blackpool job
2. Not waiting for something better (anything)

In spite of myself, I ended up getting the Blackpool job anyway. Karl Oyston must really be desperate. Welp, time to perform a minor miracle without the aid of funding.

[JasonM]

My third season with ABC has been terrible so far, but at least I got an amazing goal from my backup striker...

[Bobfoc]

It's always been funny how most goals like that aren't considered for the Goal of the Month/Season awards in the game, yet it's usually won by a fairly ordinary, mundane effort.

[stokeriño]

In my latest Manchester United game, despite bringing in some of the best young players, we've failed to mesh as a team, leading to a shock 5-1 beatdown by of all teams, Aston Villa. The board blamed me for the defeat instead of looking at the players for their failure to play up to my standards, so I told the Glazers to go fuck themselves and resigned.

...Louis van Gaal?

[Gorka]

It's always been funny how most goals like that aren't considered for the Goal of the Month/Season awards in the game, yet it's usually won by a fairly ordinary, mundane effort.

I checked the Goal of the Season awards and all three goals were headers from corners.

Got back into the Aston Villa game that I had. Finished tenth in the first season and finished runner-up in the FA Cup, where I lost three-nil to Chelsea. Benteke only managed to net eighteen goals and was shipped out to PSG for £18 million. I sold Okore in January after some horrid performances. Kozak and Albrighton managed to chip in a few goals.

The second season was harder, finished fifteenth. However, I reached the last sixteen of the Europa League and went out on away goals to Bilbao. Had a win over Roma in the group stages. Kozak improved with thirteen goals and Weimann added sixteen goals. I brought in Papiss Cisse, Wollf Eikrem, Ibrahima Traore, Bryan Oviedo and Stefan Strandberg. Delph left at the end of the season and refused to sign a new contract because I fined him over a stupid red card.

Third season has been stable, lost a few matches that we really should have won. Sitting at eleventh in the league.

[Cheeky Hughes]

5 points from 5 games so far with Ipswich in the Prem, including an opening day dissecting of Everton and a shock 1-1 draw at the Etihad.

Made a few changes to my Play Off winning side- Costel Pantilimon is my new #1 replacing the on loan Amos, Signed Tyrone Mears and Dwight Tiendalli to replace the outgoing Richardson and Edwards, while I've signed up Agustin Allione from Velez for £4m. Seems a bit for a 19 year old, but this is the guy who lead my Man City team to glory, winning World Player of the Year twice in a previous save. It will be interesting to see how he gets on at a lower table club.

Ipswich 2014/15:

GK: Pantilimon

RB: Mears/Tiendalli

CB: Chambers

CB: Kyrgiakos

LB: Cresswell/Balzaretti (loanee)

CM: Skuse

CM: Hyam

RAM: Allione

CAM: Halfredsson/Taylor

LAM: Lingard

ST: Ilso/McGoldrick/Nouble

Edited August 28, 2014 by Hughes

[Gazz]

I signed Allione for Newcastle.

He was shit.

[Summers]

My game is broken.

My overly average Villa side (first season) finished 14th.

And won both cups. Somehow. It was never a real target, but we got 'em both.

Benteke didn't impress in the league, with 12 goals. But the 12 in the cups were nice.

Star of the season was Gabby.. 20 league goals, and four in the cup. All from out wide.

So 24 goals each, but Benteke wants to leave anyway. So fuck him.

[DavidMarrio]

Update on my Brighton game.

So after previously asking for suggestions with Jordan Rhodes, he finished on 15 league goals.

I ended up finishing 7th after a horrible period between March and May of not winning a game, narrowly missing out on Europa League by 3 points behind Liverpool. This despite signing Jovetic for 8.25mil and Jon Williams for 7.5mil. Got to the FA Cup semi final before getting beat 1-0 by Tottenham. Biggest results were a 3-2 win over Man.Utd at home despite having a man sent off, beating Chelsea 1-0 at home and then beating Chelsea in the FA Cup 3-1 away.

I decided this was the season to make that push into Europe so I've kinda went all out. I sold Billy McKay and Leonardo Ulloa to Reading for a combined £9mil and Arnatouvic left for 3.4mil to Celta (Massive flop, such a bad signing looking back) I signed 6 players at the start of the season. Ravel Morrison for £5mil, Anthony Knockeart for £7.5mil, Gabriel Barbosa for £7.5mil, Sebastien Jung on a bosman, Emre Can for £10mil and Tin Jedvaj for £9.25mil

I'm just in the start of January and Man.City decided to activate Balanta's release clause of 26mil so using that money I've signed Juan Jesus from Inter for £15mil as his replacement, signed Silvio from Atletico as a backup fullback for £275k and Gary Medel from Cardiff for £6.75mil.

I've changed from a 4-1-1-3-1 to a narrow 4-2-3-1 with the team looking like this

GK: Benoit Costil (Goalkeeper, Defensive)
DR: Sebastian Jung (Fullback, Support)
DC: Ryan Shawcross (Centre Back, Defensive)
DC: Juan Jesus (Centre Back, Defensive)
DL: Jonathan Silva (Fullback, Support)

MC: Emre Can (Deep Lying Playmaker, Defensive)

MC: Gary Medel (Ball Winning Midfielder, Defensive)

AMC: Nicusor Stanciu (Trequartista, Attacking)
AMC: Steven Jovetic (Advanced Playmaker, Attacking)
AMC: Anthony Knockeart (Trequartista, Attacking)

ST: Jordan Rhodes (Target Man, Attacking)

I've got more depth in the squad now, especially after January, with Tom Ince as a rotation option allowing me to change to the tactic I used last season and with Stanciu, Knockeart and Morrison all able to play out wide it gives me options. Scott Brown, Jon Williams, Gareth Barry all give me central options and different styles to play and now with Silvio I have an actual cover for left back as for the first half of the season I would move Balanta or Can to left back.

So far this season I am currently third with a game in hand, played 22, won 14, drew 2, lost 6. 44points. One point ahead of Chelsea, two behind Southampton and 8 behind Man.Utd. I don't expect to be in a title challenge come the end of the season but as long as I'm fighting around 4th/5th it'll be a succesful season. Despite having been shocking in the cup competitions. Knocked out by Championship side Sunderland in the 3rd round of the FA Cup and knocked out by Swansea in the 4th round of the Carling Cup. Jordan Rhodes has 15 league goals already so he's matched last seasons total, should easily be able to get 20.

[Magus978]

In my latest Manchester United game, despite bringing in some of the best young players, we've failed to mesh as a team, leading to a shock 5-1 beatdown by of all teams, Aston Villa. The board blamed me for the defeat instead of looking at the players for their failure to play up to my standards, so I told the Glazers to go fuck themselves and resigned.

...Louis van Gaal?

Darn, you found out my secret identity.

Meanwhile, I've made a fine start at Blackpool. Gotten them out of the relegation zone, and got Sabri Sarioglu coming in January for 185k from Galatasaray

[Hobo]

4-2 agg defeat to Flora means the Champions League dream is over. Which wasn't too bad for a team that had hardly any fit players. (I probably should've given them a shorter pre-season break).

Netted a cool £314,000 in total for being in the competition.

[Sam]

I signed Allione for Newcastle.

He was shit.

He's a superstar for my Chelsea team, sgned him for £2.2 million and had no idea how good he was until Oscar got injured and I threw him in on the right, 2 goals and an assist in the first game made me take notice and he's not been out of the team since.

21 assists and 18 goals in 30 games. I've never had a player has effective as him before.

[Gazz]

I mean, it was partially my fault as I signed him to play as an AMR inside forward and then completely revamped my tactic to a DMC, three MCs and 2 strikers, so he never really played in his correct position.

I sold him to Schalke and he did nothing there though either, I think he plays in Greece now.

[JasonM]

I have a legit reason to hate the Brazilian leagues now... And that reason is their scummy and useless ''minimum fee clause'' system.

Basically, every player has a minimum fee for domestic teams to pick them up, and they get decided for what wage they earn rather than it being negotiated.

So unwittingly, Flamengo swooped in and poached the next Tiago Silva for only 775K.

I was so pissed, i went back a save. A month of gametime gone, because I got fucked over by the system...

So now i'm taking nothing for granted, giving all my talented kids a 3000/m contract for as long as possible to get the minimum fee over 3M

[Lineker]

Cheat.

[JasonM]

Cheat.

If you're not cheating, you're not trying, esé

[Gorka]

I need to sack my U-21's manager. He played a goalkeeper and striker at centre back and a midfielder at fullback. I would like to say it's innovative...

[Cheeky Hughes]

Got Ipswich to the Capital One Cup Final!

[JasonM]

Got Ipswich to the Capital One Cup Final!

Awesome stuff.

Quick question, if anyone knows. I've seen tactics that pre-loads opposition instructions into it, so you don't have to do that during gametime. How do you do that yourself, because I keep getting tired setting wingers on weak foot and such.

[brenchill]

So Benteke had a wonder season, scoring 29 league goals, 35 in total. I was going to keep him until Man City came in with a bid of £30m. I didn't want to sell him so I negotiated the bid and asked for £40m. They agreed!

Best thing is, I've brought in Bony with the money for £22m, who is by far a better striker. He has began the season with 6 goals in 6 games. Hopefully I can get £50m for him at the end of the season and bring in another wonder striker officially making Villa the Atletico Madrid of the PL...