Football Manager 2018

[Arjen Robben]

At least you'll probably sow up 3rd if you don't manage to get through, so you can potentially add the Europa league to your CV before trying to smash the Champions League  

I've been playing yet another save I'm not that committed to and am essentially just pissing about, took over Man Utd cause Jose got sacked and then they replaced him with Jurgen Klinnsman () and finished 11th. First of all, Man Utd's money in this game is mad. And it made me spend my entire first season doing everything I could to unsettle Neymar, and eventually got him wanting to leave for the small price of £158m. Paid it obviously, and he's fucking ridiculous. 59 games, 40 goals, 53 assists  

I still don't know who to be for a long-term save. Is managing in Germany fun @MadJack? Clubs there always seem so up and down, like they can be winning the league or challenging for it at least one season and them facing relegation the next. Leverkusen's squad always looks exciting with that bunch of good young players they have.

[The Lusophone]

45 minutes ago, Arjen Robben said:

At least you'll probably sow up 3rd if you don't manage to get through, so you can potentially add the Europa league to your CV before trying to smash the Champions League  

I've been playing yet another save I'm not that committed to and am essentially just pissing about, took over Man Utd cause Jose got sacked and then they replaced him with Jurgen Klinnsman () and finished 11th. First of all, Man Utd's money in this game is mad. And it made me spend my entire first season doing everything I could to unsettle Neymar, and eventually got him wanting to leave for the small price of £158m. Paid it obviously, and he's fucking ridiculous. 59 games, 40 goals, 53 assists  

I still don't know who to be for a long-term save. Is managing in Germany fun @MadJack? Clubs there always seem so up and down, like they can be winning the league or challenging for it at least one season and them facing relegation the next. Leverkusen's squad always looks exciting with that bunch of good young players they have.

I'm having fun with Red Bull but Leverkusen is also a nice save. 'Rebuilding' Bayern is fun for about three seasons, by which point you're the best in Europe and there's very little challenge. Trying to keep hold of your best players at Schalke offers a different kind of challenge. On the original database Meyer, Goreztka and a few others are in the final season of their contracts.

My main aims for the summer are to use the financial bump they get from paying off the chairman loan and the Keita deal to fund a defensive overhaul. Timo Horn from Köln is on my list (12.5 million release fee!) and there's some promising defenders from the teams down the bottom. You have to sign young for RBL if you want to compete in Europe as you have literally zero homegrown at the club players, so you have to leave at least 4 spots empty in your squad.

Edit: Bayern is like a hyper-intensified Arsenal save, in that you have an ageing squad full of injury prone players and promising youngsters, with the biggest expectations possible.

[Arjen Robben]

Red Bull have a good squad too actually, now I think of it, I'm always looking at their squad on there for people to sign. Invariably I always try and get Upamecano but never can. 

Leno, Henrichs, Jedvaj, Tah, Retsos, Wendell, Brandt, Bailey, Havertz and Volland is a pretty mad collection of young talent Leverkusen have actually, don't think I ever see them win anything either, oddly. Talking myself in to being Leverkusen, here.

Sounds pretty annoying about having no homegrown talent, although are some of the good ones you have at least young enough that they'll end up qualifying as home-grown? Upamecano is only 19 or so isn't he? 

I find it weird how everyone seems to hate Leipzig for the Red Bull thing but nobody seems to care about Leverkusen with Bayer or Wolfsburg and whoever else 

[The Lusophone]

10 minutes ago, Arjen Robben said:

Red Bull have a good squad too actually, now I think of it, I'm always looking at their squad on there for people to sign. Invariably I always try and get Upamecano but never can. 

Leno, Henrichs, Jedvaj, Tah, Retsos, Wendell, Brandt, Bailey, Havertz and Volland is a pretty mad collection of young talent Leverkusen have actually, don't think I ever see them win anything either, oddly. Talking myself in to being Leverkusen, here.

Sounds pretty annoying about having no homegrown talent, although are some of the good ones you have at least young enough that they'll end up qualifying as home-grown? Upamecano is only 19 or so isn't he? 

I find it weird how everyone seems to hate Leipzig for the Red Bull thing but nobody seems to care about Leverkusen with Bayer or Wolfsburg and whoever else 

There's some definite talent coming through. Upamecano is the stand out. There's also Ibrahima Konate who with a bit of training and tutoring will turn out to be a very good rotation option at center back, and Fabrice Hartmann who offers a future backup role on both wings. Elias Abouchabaka will be a major star but suffers from what I'm terming Emil Forsberg Syndrome. He's an asshole who will want to move away the first time a big club comes sniffing.

I've never been so happy to see one of my players injured than when Forsberg went down with a torn calf muscle.

[FLiam]

Aren't Leipzig hated because they're like the German Manchester City?

Surprisingly, I got bored of my Everton save, so I have started another, this time with Notts Forest.

[The Lusophone]

1 minute ago, Liam Mk2 said:

Aren't Leipzig hated because they're like the German Manchester City?

Surprisingly, I got bored of my Everton save, so I have started another, this time with Notts Forest.

They're hated because of their corporate structure and history, basically. It's still funny though. Bayern can get away with financial help from a multitude of companies (check their board of directors lol) and threw money at 1860 Munich to keep them in business - and thus paying rent for using the Allianz Arena (which 1860 sold their 50% share in to Bayern to deal with a previous financial crisis) because 'history' or some such shit.

[Nelson]

On 21/03/2018 at 09:21, Nelson said:

At Bangor City, once I reach the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions/Europa League, my home matches were moved to the Racecourse Ground due to requiring a minimum of 8000 seats, however, now they've been moved to the "Conwy International Stadium" owned by the local council. My first match there was apparently thee first match there and it was a 38,500 sell out which got us a whopping £1m in gate receipts, hammering our record attendance and gate receipts. At the Racecourse ground we were limited to 10,500 as standing areas are not allowed in Europe. 

 

 

So I think I know why this stadium was built as Scotland and Wales are hosting Euro 2036. Around that time, the Wrexham Community Stadium and the Bridgend Community Stadiums were also build with capacities around the 40,000 mark and have only been used by clubs for European games and the occasional Wales U19 internationals. These 3 as well as the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff City Stadium and the Liberty Stadium will be used on the Wales side of things for the tournament. Italy will be using my training facilities.

[Arjen Robben]

Wrexham Community Stadium sounds like it should have a capacity of about 100 people.

[Adam]

@MadJack are you playing Leipzig by sticking to their policy of only signing young prospects? Think they have a self-imposed limit of only signing under 25s or 23s or something, pretty interesting challenge if so.

[The Lusophone]

12 minutes ago, Adam es Tranquilo said:

@MadJack are you playing Leipzig by sticking to their policy of only signing young prospects? Think they have a self-imposed limit of only signing under 25s or 23s or something, pretty interesting challenge if so.

Yep. I've got Ro-Shaun Williams and Grant Margeman coming in from United and Ajax CT in South Africa and my only two summer signers were Danilo from Braga (21) and Lucas Romero from Cruzeiro, who's 23.

[Arjen Robben]

Is that set as their transfer policy in the game? I always notice that section at the start of a game where you're choosing a team to be, and Bilbao are the only team I can ever think of that has their Basque-only thing as their transfer policy. 

[The Lusophone]

2 minutes ago, Arjen Robben said:

Is that set as their transfer policy in the game? I always notice that section at the start of a game where you're choosing a team to be, and Bilbao are the only team I can ever think of that has their Basque-only thing as their transfer policy. 

It's not set as their transfer policy. Outside of Bilbao the only transfer policy I've ever seen was back in the day when you couldn't sign Saudi players as they weren't allowed to play for foreign teams.

[FLiam]

@MadJack

What sort of system are you playing at RB Leipzig?

[The Lusophone]

3 hours ago, Liam Mk2 said:

@MadJack

What sort of system are you playing at RB Leipzig?

Two systems, one for the league and one generally for the Champions League, where almost every team we'll come up against is bigger and better than us. I'll probably use this formation against an underperforming Bayern as well when we face them.

Spoiler

First some background. Ralfball is a style of football developed by Ralf Rangnick, the overseer Sporting Director of entire Red Bull family of clubs. It features, like most modern German systems, an element of Gagenpressing, but is mainly characterised by more direct play up to players like Youssouf Poulsen holding the ball up and setting the likes of Timo Werner or Naby Keita free, the latter moving up from midfield.

I try to play similarly, but the limitations of FM result in some differences. In real life RBL have played a 4-2-2-2 under multiple managers, but my system is a 4-4-2 in defence before transitioning to what could be called a 2-4-4 or 2-2-2-4 in attack. All screenshots are from a recent game against a Gladbach side on a decent run - unbeaten in 4 and unconceded in that time:

Spoiler

Without the ball: 

With the ball:

The counter-press is best implemented in FM, I find, with the following:

1. Closing down opposition defenders and marking them tightly, either in player instructions or opposition instructions. Both if you're going all out like you're the Netherlands in the 60s.

2. High work rate players. 12 and above is good, but obviously the higher the better. As evidenced by the screenshot, you want your forward players to be attempting a lot of tackles, even if they aren't necessarily completing them. The wide players are particularly important, as full backs tend to have less composure than centre backs, as shown by the high numbers of interceptions for my four primarily wide players:

Spoiler

3. Targeting the weak players. This is either a player with poor discipline, or poor mentals. In the Gladbach game it was defensive midfielder Denis Zakaria who has a poor disciplinary record and has made a large number of mistakes in the Bundesliga this season (35 in 14 games including the game against us). I used opposition instructions to mark him tightly, tackle him harder and close him down more. We also showed him onto weaker foot, as it was only rated as 'reasonable' (you should do this with anyone lower than 'fairly strong')

The result of doing this successfully is that the opposition is forced to go long in order to get the ball clear, making it easier for you to intercept. Interceptions against Gladbach:

Spoiler

Note how long most of these passes are. You see a similar thing with completed passes. 

This is Reece Oxford's pass completed map, and most of them are on the long side.

Once we win the ball, the team is encouraged to press forward quickly and play with the ball in and around the opposition box. This results in a lot of touches inside the box for the likes of Werner and Poulsen:

Spoiler

Contrast that to Gladbach's lone striker in this game, Raffael and his 72nd minute replacement, Ibrahima Traore:

The advanced nature of the two wingers and Poulsen's skill in the air also means we can cross the ball in regularly and be sure to win a significant amount of headers. We have the highest cross completion rate in the league (20%), have put the most crosses in (90) and Poulsen has won the most headers out of any player in the league, even defenders (127).  The attacking statistics for the team in all competitions:

Spoiler

In the Champions League I tend to play this 4-4-2 diamond wide:

Spoiler

However if I need to be a bit more attacking it changes:

Spoiler

I included the team instructions in this one cos they are the same, although I might go attacking if needed.

 

[Cymbols]

7 hours ago, Adam es Tranquilo said:

@MadJack are you playing Leipzig by sticking to their policy of only signing young prospects? Think they have a self-imposed limit of only signing under 25s or 23s or something, pretty interesting challenge if so.

When they were still in 2. Bundesliga they had a policy of only signing players between the ages of 17 and 23. Granted, this is primarily what they still do, but it isn't rigid thing that they stick to.

Last summer they signed Kevin Kampl, who was 26 at the time. Impressively, one of their oldest signings. But they also brought in the likes of Damari and Ilsanker when they were over the age of 25.

[9 to 5]

Kevin Campbell. 

[The Lusophone]

Fuck you Bayern. I switched to my 4-4-2 from the diamond at half time. Great turn around and restores my 11 point lead at the top after I lost to Dortmund. I need to learn how to manage games better. I was 2-0 up at the Nou Camp at half time, but Barca came back to make it 2-2, knocking me out of the UCL. 😕

[Arjen Robben]

Barca’ll do that to ya.

¡Tiempo de Fergie!

[MDK]

[Arjen Robben]

They've done you a disservice, you only swore once.