Football Manager 2015

[JTB]

So, Wolfsburg accepted my negotiations on the Raffael deal but contract talks broke down - looks like he's staying with me at Gladbach for the time being, so signing a top young striker is out of the question for now, as is getting in a potential Kramer replacement and a good centre half.

Raffael might just end up complaining about his lack of playing time though. When Odegaard arrives in January, I'll be slowly bringing him into the first team behind Hazard with a view to taking his spot permanently when Hazard's loan, meanwhile, Kruse and Hrgota are my two preferred options up front. Hrogta has been in scintillating form to start the season and hopefully it stays that way - touch wood! 8 goals in 4 games in all competition, with a hat-trick against Jena in the DFB Pokal, a hat-trick against Hertha Berlin in a 4-1 win on the opening day and then a goal in both legs of my Europa League play-off against Grasshoppers.

Got a winnable Europa League group too. Lyon, PAOK and Apollon L. Lyon should be my only real test there and even then they're beatable provided Lacazette isn't in one of his usual FM 'turn up and fuck every single one of the opposition's defenders up' moods.

Edited June 5, 2015 by JTB

[Millsybeast]

So the first year as Liverpool manager was odd. We started well and managed to stay in 1st place for quite some time, until our top scorer, Balotelli, got injured. In the end we just managed to finish 4th, 4pts above Spurs to end a disapointing season. Romero managed 10 clean sheets all season, but only costed 2m and wasn't always that bad, Skrtel got sent off about 6 times throughout the season, pissing me off. We ended up 2nd in our CL group of Barca, Monaco & some German team, only to get knocked out by Juventus in the first KO round 4-2.

Balotelli ended up our top scorer with an incredible 42 goals in 45 games in all comps, also bagging 12 assists. The nearest to him were Sturridge (15), Coutinho (11) & Sterling (14).

This season I brought in a few more players than I expected but the overall squad looks alot better than last season. Ilori, Lambert, Coates, Markovic, Luis Alberto & Iago Aspas all left and Toure, Flanagan & Brad Jones left on frees with Gerrard leaving for LA obviously. I signed Micah Richards for free to replace Toure as backup player, which is an improvement because he's much better, I still don't get why City release him. James Milner arrived to try and replace the hole left by Gerrard for 18m, PSV gave me Adam Maher for 6m, who will be backup in the AMC spot to Coutinho and I also signed Joao Moutinho from Monaco for 10m, pretty cheap for such a good player. I then broke my personal transfer record to get Harry Kane in, 55m and all upfront as I don't want massive debt. All the players I've signed are bought with the cash upfront as hopefully over time we can start to rely on our youth academy for players.

So the Squad is pretty good and will have to be rotated alot to satisfy everyone, I still have Lallana unhappy due to lack of first team apps from last season.

Squad:

- Sergio Romero & Simon Mignolet

- Micah Richards, Martin Skrtel, Dejan Lovren & Mamadou Sako

- Glen Johnson, Nathaniel Clyne, Jose Enrique & Alberto Moreno

- Adam Lallana, James Milner, Raheem Sterling, Jordan Henderson, Joe Allen, Phillipe Coutinho, Jordan Ibe, Joao Moutinho & Adam Maher

- Daniel Sturridge, Harry Kane, Mario Balotelli & Aleksandar Mitrovic

I also have these players out on loan:

- Youri Tielemans, Divock Origi, Ryan Seager, Ryan McLaughlin, Jordan Rossiter, Ryan Kent, George Cooper & Jerome Sinclair

Any suggestions to improve the team for the third season? The only thing I feel we're lacking is a world class keeper and maybe anoither good Centre Back.

[Gazz]

You bought FM15 version Harry Kane for £55m?

You mug.

[stokeriño]

Didn't Kane's stats get a boost in the January patch? (I've not looked, but it's the sort of thing they often do.)

[TCO]

Harry Kane is like Jesus on steroids after the January update, well worth that amount of money if he fits the system.

Main advice would be to play Youri Tielemans, every game he's not starting your pissing away his potential and he's easily the best midfielder in the world after a few seasons.

[JTB]

I'd say you need a decent CDM of the Anchor Man mould. Sure, it's not necessarily a headline-grabbing position, but to go far in the league, domestic cups and European competitions, you'll need a player you can introduce into a game to plug any gaps, try and shut out some world class players and keep hold of the ball by not playing crazy passes all over the pitch.

Motta and De Rossi are the best in the game that I myself have used, though looking through certain players' stats I'd imagine Martinez, Matic or either of the Bender twins, particularly Lars, can be massive for your team in that position.

Think about it. No team that was ever truly successful in football didn't have a quality defensive midfielder. Busquests for example has been a constant factor in Barca's reign of dominance under Guardiola and he's still an integral figure now as they take the crown of the best club side in the world again.

[TCO]

Re: Defenisve Midfielders. Lucas Romero if you can afford him, if not get Mattias Kranevitter!

[Millsybeast]

Yeah Kane is a god, he got 5mins as a sub against Chelsea in the first game and scored in injury time, we still lost 2-1 though . He has 2 in 2 sub apps so far. Yeah I probably should get another Defensive Midfielder as Joe Allen, while good, probably isn't good enough as a first teamer and has no competition. I might bring Gerrard back in January though for 500k-1m, if nothing else than to have him back and retire here. How much do you reckon them players would cost? I know I can get Romero for something like 10m and he's still at Velez (for now as Valencia/Benfica want him). What about that Danish player at Bayern, Hojbjerg? Also what kind of player is Will Hughes, he's been on my radar for some time, alongside a Leeds CM, would he be considered more an attacking player or a CM. I have a potential future spot for him as a B2B Midfielder fighting for Hendersons place if he's good enough. I know he's been good on past games, but I don't follow Derby or the Champiopnship that closely.

[JTB]

Hughes wouldn't be stand-out in that role I'd imagine. You might be able to train his physicals and defensive stats to a level where he's decent back but he's more of a playmaker than a midfielder who gets stuck in with the dirty work.

Romero was a great suggestion, whilst I'm yet to try Kranevitter myself. Lars Bender is always quality on FM so if you can get him, you have an elite European CDM in your team who can play a solely defensive role or be a quality box-to-box midfielder.

[METALMAN]

Lucas Romero has been really good for me. I've actually started using him as an attacking midfielder.

[fourstarfizzle]

Who'd you buy in the two seasons so far? I just started another Liverpool game last night and have just got into September. The Champions League group for first season tends to be bad, but this time I have Barcelona, Monaco and Gelsenkirchen, which looks like i'll probably be struggling to finish 2nd in.

I haven't sold anyone yet, but plan to get rid of Lucas next season and bring in someone like Verratti or Pogba to replace them. I brought in Sergio Romero to compete with Mignolet for 2m, then raided Anderlecht for Youri Tielemans, 15m, and Aleksandar Mitrovic, 16m. Was looking to loan them both back to their previous club but they didn't want to be loaned back so I guess they'll be good backup.

So far I've brought in:

Danny Ings (Burnley)

Saido Berahino (West Brom)

Maximilian Meyer (Schalke)

Andreas Cubas (Bocas)

Steven Gerrard (LA Galaxy)

Eder Alvarez Balanta (River)

John Stones (Everton)

Nathanial Clyne (Southampton)

Mendes (Maritimo)

[Baddar]

Re: Harry Kane.

I've only just bought the game and 8 games in as United, he's scored 11 goals for Spurs who are top after winning 7 and drawing one. Spurs always seem ridiculously overpowered on FM.

[Arjen Robben]

Gaston Gil Romero > Lucas Romero

[JasonM]

Re: Harry Kane.

I've only just bought the game and 8 games in as United, he's scored 11 goals for Spurs who are top after winning 7 and drawing one. Spurs always seem ridiculously overpowered on FM.

In my mates game they were bottom of League 2 in 2023/2024, that was until my mate decided to leave Barcelona to get them back into the league.

Spurs problem is that they tend to overspend hugely on players, and they never seem to consistently reach european spots that pay enough to keep them profitable. Even in the save of my mate they were hugely overspending on bad players despite being in League 2 and having nowhere near the monetary power to even underspend, they went into administration three times in that save and only when my mate came in they start to pay smartly (all in part due to my mate knowing how to pinch pennies)

[Baddar]

Lamela and Eriksen have also started the season by scoring for fun too. They always seem to drop off, mind.

Looking forward to playing it some more tomorrow afternoon.

[Liam]

Spurs are overpowered because they have some excellent players - on paper.

In reality, they can never convert that into anything tangible.

[TCO]

Balotelli is the biggest case of being over powered. He's banging in 30 league goals with Liverpool almost every season.

[Baddar]

I guess that's one thing I wouldn't be opposed to using the in game editor for, if I had it. Improving under rated players and reducing stats of players who are just too good.

I don't think I'll get it though. Not even sure what it costs, and chances are I wouldn't drop stats of a player on my own team, so yeah.

On the Vita version last year, I brought Andreas Pereira through and got his stats up despite not playing him every single week. That's the plan with this one to. For his position, he has good stats to start with. Same goes for Januzaj.

[Jimmy]

Re: Harry Kane.

I've only just bought the game and 8 games in as United, he's scored 11 goals for Spurs who are top after winning 7 and drawing one. Spurs always seem ridiculously overpowered on FM.

In my current game Spurs got relegated in their first season. So yeah, not always.

Kane was sold to City where he did really well for 4 seasons and Spurs just bought him back.

[DavidMarrio]

I started a new game with Gateshead and Adam Campbell is far too good for the conference. He's set to break Matt Tubbs record with a third of the season.

I hope I can get him back on loan if I make it into League 2. Got a 17 point advantage ahead of 2nd place so unless I drastically fuck up I should be alright.