Football Manager 2015

[brenchill]

So far as an AP in the LW position, Mata has played 13, scored 2... and has 15 assists.

[Gazz]

Bayern's BENCH against me

Reina, Alaba, Ribery, Robben, Gotze, Shaqiri, Thiago.

[Gazz]

Lewandowski 4-0 St. Pauli. :/

[The Lusophone]

So far as an AP in the LW position, Mata has played 13, scored 2... and has 15 assists.

Mata is beast on this game in any kind of advanced position. So good.

[Lineker]

Lewandowski 4-0 St. Pauli. :/

It's your tactics.

[Plubby]

Not fair, Lineker.

It's his talent.

[brenchill]

Just started a game with Villa. Wingers are so bad so I'm not going to bother playing with any.

Going to try playing...

Benteke is out injured, so he'll replace Weimann eventually.

Sure that formation will give Gazz palpitations.

[JasonM]

Gabby a defensive forward...

[brenchill]

Gabby a defensive forward...

Have you not seen his stats? His top stats match DF perfectly.

With 2 BWM's, I need somebody to drop a little deeper to play in the hole with Cleverley.

[brenchill]

Westwood, English Xavi

Never seen 161 passes in a game before.

[The Lusophone]

And 143 completed for a cool 88.8% is really good.

[Gazz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_ycVeUP5_c

[stokeriño]

Pfft. I've had at least two of those.

[Gazz]

I blame the presence of Berbatov sending the keeper into a blind panic.

[Thrilla]

That's pretty realistic to how St. Pauli have been this year unfortunately.

[Whisper]

So apparently I need a bit more practice with this one. My Leicester experiment pretty much ended with an appalling pre season in which I lost interest.

So I've gone back to my United game to have a play around with formations etc. Settled for the moment on a variation of a 4-4-2 with a narrow diamond in midfield.

GK: De Gea

CB: Jones/Smalling

CB: Rojo/Shawcross

RWB: Rafael/Danilo (WB-A)

LWB: Shaw/Andre Santos (WB-A)

DM: Blind/Carrick (HB-D)

LCM: Di Maria/Herrera (RPM-S)

RCM: Herrera/Fellaini (CM-S)

AMC: Mata/Januzaj (APM -A)

CF: Rooney/Falcao (CF-S)

CF: Van Persie/Wilson (AF-A)

It seems ok. Still fine tuning it. My HB, CM and CF seem to be the most inconsistent but I'm not sure I can really change the roles. I'm trying to play around with the individual instructions. We keep the ball well, playing with a control mentality but it means most of our chances come from little passes around the box, as we tend to peg teams back rather than score goals on the break.

It seems to be working though. 2nd in the league after going the first six games unbeaten. Only behind City who have won every game, but pretty happy as I've had a tough start.

Results so far:

Sunderland ( a ) - W 1-0

West Brom ( h ) - W 3-0

Arsenal ( a ) - D 2-2

Liverpool ( h ) - W 2-0

Chelsea ( a ) - W 2-1

Blackburn (LC) ( h ) - W 3-1 aet

Hull ( h ) - W 3-1

Palace, Leicester, Villa up next. So expecting 9 points going into the Manchester derby. Finding this the toughest FM yet to be fair. Enjoying the challenge though.

No doubt some of you guys are better tactically then me, so I would be interested to know what you think of my setup.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Whisper in the Wind

[brenchill]

Seems to be working pretty well. I wouldn't touch it.

How are Falcao and Rooney performing as a CF? What are their ratings?

[Whisper]

Seems to be working pretty well. I wouldn't touch it.

How are Falcao and Rooney performing as a CF? What are their ratings?

Pretty average, but Rooney was doing better than Falcao.

We managed to lose at Palace, and throw away a 3-0 lead at Leicester (drawing 4-4), so I've made a few changes. We were conceding too many goals from deep crosses, so I've got the team pushing higher up and closing down more. I've also got my wing backs staying wider and marking more tightly, in an effort to stop the crosses.

My CM (S) now has a defend duty and my AP (A) is now support. Up front I've switched from CF (s) to DLF (A).

It seems to have worked so far. Since the changes we've beaten City 5-2 at home, Newcastle 2-1 away and Villa 3-1 at home.

Still too few clean sheets for my liking, but we aren't giving up as many chances now. Both Newcastle and Villa scored with more or less their only shot.

Top of the league after 12 games, 2 clear of Liverpool and 4 of City, and the board have just offered me a 2 year extension. Not sure we'll win the league, still all feels a bit fragile away from home.

Van Persie has been amazing though. 12 goals in 9 games. Falcao and Rooney have 5 each, though Falcao has played nearly twice as many games. Di Maria is so good in the RPM role and Luke Shaw has bagged 3 goals from LWB.

Anyway, I'm waffling on. Really, really enjoying the challenge of this game at the moment. This is definitely the best FM yet. Some of the animations are a bit off, and I think goals from set pieces/crosses need a bit of tuning but all in all the match engine is as good as it's ever been. It's really rewarding to see your tactical changes have an impact. And equally frustrating when nothing you do stops the inevitable come back from 3-0 at half time!

[stokeriño]

So.

The Singaporean league rules were that two teams would qualify for the Asian Confederation Cup (AFC Cup): the S-League winners and the Singapore Cup winners (or alternatively the S-League runners-up). This fits the pattern of the teams that qualified for the 2015 and 2016 AFC Cups.

So for the 2017 AFC Cup I expect Niigata Unicorn (treble winners) and Warriors FC (S-League runners-up) to be the qualifiers.

Nope. It's Tampines Rovers (7th in the league, Singapore Cup runners-up) and Warriors FC who are in the cup.

Either my team is secretly not allowed to be in continental competitions (something that I've not seen mentioned anywhere)...or it seems like something's fucked.

[Gazz]

Foreign clubs can't represent Singapore in Asian competitions according to the S-League wiki page.