Football Manager 2016

[JasonM]

First season in the Premiership finished, and it became extremely tight in the final few games where I dropped to as low as fifth with championship aspirations very much out of sight... That is, until we somehow stole third place from Celtic during the final game of the season to get into the first round of the Europa League (YAY!)

So needless to say, I was chuffed and exhausted at the same time (The final stretch was brutal consistency to say the least). With my second ever shot at Europe, I feel that I really am going somewhere with this team... I'm sticking around for at least another season, despite offers from FC Copenhagen and a filthy-rice mid-table QPR to lure me to different shores.

Anyways, onto the next one and lets talk about the team first!

First team screenie, linked for size and such.
Despite having quite a bit more funds at the ready, I am still a frugal asshole who hates to spend money. So other than paying 875K to keep Liam Henderson around permanently, I only spent money on one different player, namely Robbie Muirhead from Dundee United, he's been terrible in front of goal for a long time but he has scoring talent so that matters right?

Jason 'Blue Steel' Cummings comes off a career season where he led the league in goals (21), hopefully he'll repeat that effort and gives us another reliable scoring outlet for the upcoming season... Right now he's sitting at 67 goals in 127 games for his career, which is very tidy to say the least.
Michael Hamilton is arguably my biggest talent right now, grows like kale and is gonna get time in the rotation this season to help his growth. Just a shame he styles himself after the other Hamilton...

Other (free agency) signing were,
Former Man Utd/Everton manikin Darron Gibson who brings his vast experience of career-ending knee-injuries to the team.
The fitness-freak Irish Frank Mir look-a-like Shane Griffin, because it's not like I don't have enough fucking defenders already, right?
and last but certainly not least, Greek Seth Rollins hossy striker Nikos Vergos who decided to score four against Rangers in his league debut...

Finally the only notable loss in the team was John McGinn, who demanded a move to Wolves but not before asking 800K + 50% of the next sale for the unloyal twat...

Enough ranting about the team, unless you lot like me ranting about teams but then i'm probably better off writing a diary i'll never finish anyways.
Being in mid-august, I can speak to you about the Europa League, and the quest for getting rich off of attendance money.

But first, end of June I got a testimonial offer from Celtic for Scott Brown who was a former player for Hibs. Of course I accepted and we beat them 2-0 with a 22 player rotation, take it ya slags!
First round we were thrown up against S.C. Ashdod from the European nation of Israel, and needless to say we had a pretty good time against them going 2-0 and 1-1 and setting a new attendance money record at 425K for a single game, get in!
Second round we went up against HNK Sibenik, who are actually from Europe for a change. But the Croatian outfit didn't last against our Scottish anger-footie, and 2-1 and 2-0 wins later we were standing in the third round (expectations met!)
Third round, and we get thrown against Champions League bogey-extraordinaire Viktoria Plzen from Czechia (yes I read the news section!), First game was away from home which we lost a dissapointing 1-2 as they had our number from the start. The return was at home though, and in front of a sell-out record crowd (475k moneyfoods) we made it 2-1 and went to extra time... then to penalties... then my defender chokes like the asshole he is and hands Viktoria a 5-4 shootout win... feck.

Anyways, that was my European adventure, over before we really got a chance to get started. But hey, I got a few million just from the three home ties and prize money, so I can invest that by never spending a single dime of it. (You're welcome, investors)

Finally i'll leave you with the current league standings, even though it's been only two games. (One of which was an infuriating dominant loss to Falkirk)

Looking to get another top 3 finish, or at least win the cup so I can get my ass back into Europe next year. Other than that I just want to continue improving my team so that we can hopefully stop the Old Firm bullshit and start my own dominance, but angrier and more frugal! (Lookin' at you, 'Scottish is optional' Celtic FC!)

Edited April 23, 2016 by Jasonmufc

[Arjen Robben]

Does anyone know how you change team names with the lnc files and have it take effect in a game you're already playing?

Have just noticed Flamengo are called Flemish, I guess for licensing reasons? And it's pissing me off a bit. I tried adding a bit in to one of the files but it hasn't seemed to work.

"CLUB_LONG_NAME_CHANGE" 322 "CR Flamengo" ""
"CLUB_SHORT_NAME_CHANGE" 322 "Flamengo" ""

Shouldn't that work? Can't see what's wrong with the formatting otherwise, but it hasn't had any effect, and I know that has worked before because I changed Gelsenkirchen II to Schalke II in the same way.

These annoying bloody little details

[Baddar]

Tried reloading the skin in settings? 

[Arjen Robben]

Yeah, closed FM, cleared the cache, skin reloaded. Still faced with that cursed Flemish.

[JasonM]

Game in progress can't be changed through deleting the lnc files. It might work with a real time editor like FMRTE, but I'm not certain.

[Arjen Robben]

Well it can, cause I've done exactly that before with what I mentioned? I changed "Gelsenkirchen II" to "Schalke II" just fine and that worked no problem. Same with the German national team stuff, if you've started a game before you delete the fake.lnc file then it usually sorts itself out and starts picking real players again soon enough anyway.

Having downloaded a newer updated thing with real names fixes and stuff, turns out with the Flamengo issue was a bit more than just the lnc files and was some dbc file stuff going along with it cause it changed the club/kit colours too so in this instance it does mean having to start a new game.

[ROFF]

how I can take a screenshot in the game?

[JasonM]

30 minutes ago, ROFF said:

how I can take a screenshot in the game?

There are many various tools around the web that can allow you to make screenshots and instantly upload them online to share.
I personally use Gyazo for easy snip&upload, but there's plenty others out there that give you more options like picture editing and whatnot.

[Whisper]

Is it me or is FM16 significantly harder than last year's version? 

I've actually started to get into a game now, but I've had to continually tweak my "go to" 433. Early on I was getting absolutely destroyed by crosses, so I set my defensive line higher, in an attempt to not give their full backs/wingers time on the ball. Now I regularly get done over the top. I know that seems obvious but I swear the differences weren't as prounounced last year.

Anyhoo, just going into February in my first season and I'm second in League One with Coventry, 1 point behind Burton. Had to send Adam Armstrong back to Newcastle due to him being utter shite in the false 9 role. Thankfully, Marcus Tudgay and Jacob Murphy are banging them in. We've easily scored the most goals in the league, but do give up a fair few (half) chances over the top. I'm hoping that's more down to quality of players than the system though.

Promotion would be great. I normally start in the Prem or Championship, don't think I've taken a team up from the third tier since like CM97/98. Will make for an interesting challenge.

[JasonM]

I think it's mostly because there's no one-size-fits-all tactic anymore that can guarantee consistent success against everyone. 442's seem to be the best ones out there at the moment, because it's extremely solid on all fronts, but even then you can get outdefended by a team playing a 4141 or outpasses by a 4141 and so forth. The 433 is also very vulnerable against teams that employ a DefMid to make it super congested in the middle of the pitch.

Additionally, they have certainly bumped up the trickiness of away ties. No longer am I able to go into any away tie with an overly offensive mindset without getting my ass handed to me, even if it's against the lowest team on the table. You need to go into away games more defensive minded, and you have to exploit whatever the home team is throwing at you. Which often means starting out in a counter based formation (less aggro wingers/backs, and maybe drop the striker back a spot) and seeing how the game goes.

Also consistency is a real issue for me, and for others too. You got a good team going, a few wins and draws. And the suddenly you drop a 1-3 loss to a mid-table team despite having the game in hand, and really having done nothing wrong. It's football and it happens, sure. But it can sometimes get really fucking annoying seeing your chase for #1 bog down because Killie suddenly turned into Celtic.

But yeah, it's very much imperative now that you have 2 if not 3 tactics to use ahead of game days. Two generic home/away, and maybe one for tricky ties or to counter certain formations that your go-to formation are weak against (A DM tactic to counter AM's)

[Whisper]

Not sure that's entirely true in all cases regarding different tactics home and away. I've used the same one most of the season for both home and away games. Away games are definitely tougher, but it still seems possible to have a modicum of success by just finding a decent system and playing people in suitable roles.

Agree with your other points though. I was totally bossing it in the league for a period. 10 unbeaten, 8 wins. Home to mid table Rochdale in the FA Cup and got turned over 3-1. Followed that up with defeat to League 2 Luton in the JPT. After that, 3 back to back league wins as if nothing had happened.

Having said that. I won 4 Prem Titles, 2 FA Cups, 1 Champions League and 1 Europa League in 4 seasons with Everton on FM2015. I didn't change a single thing with my tactic from my very first game, so the increase in difficulty this time around is appreciated.

[Arjen Robben]

Think I've basically made this post before, but it applies again.

[JasonM]

Yeah, I use a few 'hairstyle' packs from mod sites, that mostly does away with those ridiculous defaults, like an ungodly amount of naturally bald people, or even worse, the bald-on-top one you just showed.

In return, you get a few wild 'out-there' styles that look like they came straight out of a N'Sync video, but at least I can chalk that off to players being style idiots.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Jasonmufc

[Arjen Robben]

Yeah, I use one of those as well, but these old man haircuts just seem to sneak through still

[MDK]

I'm Mike Dumny: England Manager.

I got Orient promoted to the PL again but this time I snuck a lucky FA Cup win, the England manager was sacked and I applied... and got it. Not bad.

[The Lusophone]

Spoiler

Well then.

[Whisper]

Sounds about right. He just got the Inter job on my Coventry save.

Speaking of Coventry... Burton managed to draw their last 5 games to gift me the League One title.

Coming up on half way through the Championship season and we're sitting in 9th, 4 points outside the playoffs. Not bad, as we were predicted 23rd and given no money to spend at all. We're woefully short up front though, dominating so many games but missing a huge amount of chances.

Hoping to finish in the top half this season and get a decent goalscorer in for a push at promotion next year.

[stokeriño]

12 hours ago, Work Experience Jack said:

  Hide contents

Well then.

It's December 2015 and Chelsea find themselves in 17th place? FM16 truly is the simulation king.

[JasonM]

Moyes has been manager of AC Milan since the winter of 2016 in my game, am currently in the summer of 2020... So he's done pretty damn good for them, despite Juventus having won every single season by over 11 points every single season right now.

Juventus are ridiculously good in FM16

Then again, I am feasting on Juventus' OP-ness by grabbing super talented free agents who can't break through in their system. 

-------------

edit: Finished the 19/20 season with Hibs, so time for a bit of an update...

And the season was in a few words, absolutely spectacular!

As you can see, the league we were in a class of our own. And if we had shown a little bit more consistency early in the season (scoring woes for days), we would've probably ran away with the league title. Defensively we were simply top notch, and offensively we were pretty damn dominant too. Which is made even more impressive by our best striker scoring only ten times over the entire campaign, and me having striker woes all season long.

Striker wise, last year's super stud Nikos Vergos left in august when Malmö swooped in and bid his release clause of 4,2, which meant I had no chance to refuse the deal and just like that he had gone to Sweden, leaving me with Muirhead and Keatings to make it work, which they failed to do so. Muirhead for all his talent is the Scottish Torres, and by far my worst signing for Hibs (350K for 1 league goal in two seasons, yaaay!). And whilst Keatings had more goals, they only came late in the season.

So I jumped onto the market late, signing two players. One for free in Michalis Bastakos who turned into a pretty decent reserve striker, and one for which I had to 'splash the cash' in Charles Dubois from Ajax, whom finished the season with 10 goals in 19 games, and is looking to become the main striker of the future.

But really, the true star of the team was Sampdoria Free agent David Ivan, who agreed to a mere 14K a month and turned into an elite player sitting behind the striker, fourteen goals and eleven assists, and the most key passes of the league with 201, he simply dominated from start to finish.

Oh, and finally there was this free agency gem from Juventus. Federico Mattiello, who dominated the left side of the pitch all season long. Juventus' trash are my star players.

Then in the Europa League, we were expected to get to the third qualifying round with the team, and instead of that we did it better by fighting our way into the playoffs and into the group stages. And despite coming in last, I am pretty damn pleased with the results of our efforts. And lets not forget the extra money it gave us.

Cup wise we were less impressive, getting eliminated in the QF's of both the Scottish Cup and the League Cup, but at least it gave us less fixture strain towards the league...

Finally, here's the team itself as it stands at the end of the season. Minus the ones on loan...

We had yet another extremely strong academy intake, combined with poaching a few players from other teams, we're probably the most talented team in Scotland by a big margin. We are becoming the suppliers for the Scottish youth teams, and that's not even mentioning four 4/5pot players on loan, and the 5 kids that are arriving in the summer.

Talent wise the team is becoming an unstoppable force, it'll take a few seasons but seeing how this season has gone I feel we'll be able to overthrow the Old Firm and start our own run of league dominance. And that whilst spending more than half less than Rangers on wages, and six times less than Celtic. (Celtic has 6 players earning +100K a month!, where my highest paid player earns 30K).

Right now going into the off-season, I am wondering what I gotta do to get back next season with a better team that can win the league. And preferably keep financially tight on top of that.

Goalkeepers, There's Billy O'Brien who played every single competitive game last season, and I'm amazed he hasn't gotten a single cap for Wales yet, but then I see McClaren is their manager so it makes perfect sense. Billy's the man, he's paid fuck all and he never moans about it, and he's great in goal to boot. I have two young goalies that might challenge him in the future in Marc Moffat and Graeme Wood, but Moffat is still a few years removed from getting the nod. Loans/U20 for the two kids, and barring injury O'Brien is gonna play another full season next year.

Defensively i'm gonna overhaul a little bit, with some players not having panned out how I would've liked to see them pan out, and my youth needing/deserving playing time.

Midfield, Ivan, Fyvie, Henderson, and Hamilton are my four main midfielders now. Brown is there because I got him on a free at the start of the season, and his mental skills are perfect for tutoring duty and getting a bunch of games here and there. And again, the youth is there and they need PT.

Wings there's Mattiello that is a guaranteed starter on the left, with a few guys like Harris/Skaanes/Ring/Murphy being able to do very good work on the wing. And again, I have two natural lefty youngsters that deserve PT.

Offensively Muirhead is gone through free agency, he's talented but if he can't score I don't need him. Dubois is gonna be taking most playing time in the point, with Keatings and Bastakos supporting him. And beyond those two I have a few upcoming strikers to choose from that could always use playing time if they're not being loaned out.

TL;DR, I really don't need to sign anyone because I'm up to my eyeballs in talent deserving PT.

Now, if after all that bullshit you're still with me... Here's the entire current team roster filtered on potential, since i've been talking about that all post long...

Yeah... I think we're gonna be just fine depth wise...

If anyone wants to know my scouting system, ask and i'll probably make a standalone post about it.

PS: What the hell do I do with a natural DC/ST?!

Edited May 4, 2016 by Jasonmufc

[Benji]

4 hours ago, Jasonmufc said:

PS: What the hell do I do with a natural DC/ST?!

Play him in ML?