Football Manager 2021 Discussion - Worth Buying?

[TractorBoys]

I've dipped in and out of playing FM over the years but not bought the last few.

Is it worth the £30-£40 or is it much of the same?

 

[Soup Ladle]

I've dipped in and out of playing FM over the years but not bought the last few.

Is it worth the £30-£40 or is it much of the same?

It is excellent this year, fully recommend it.

I play Touch on the PC, don't bother with the full fat, way too much to do instead of just playing games, tactics and ttransfers.

 

[TractorBoys]

Nice one, I've just bought it. Will have a play around.

 

[Luke Imp]

If you've missed a year it'll be well worth it.

I've bought it every year before release date but I'll wait until it's on offer, I'm not paying £35 for it. It was £22/£25 on CD Keys as a pre-order I forgot to do it.

 

[Soup Ladle]

If you've missed a year it'll be well worth it.

I've bought it every year before release date but I'll wait until it's on offer, I'm not paying £35 for it. It was £22/£25 on CD Keys as a pre-order I forgot to do it.

First one I got since 18. Can’t fault it except for minor gripes with the match day widgets and there’s no club coefficient table. That shouldn’t annoy me but it really really does.

 

[TractorBoys]

Got it off CDKeys for £30

Jesus christ, it's complicated. I've gone ahead and delegated a large amount to staff members. Will slowly take control of each element one by one.

 

[TractorBoys]

So I've finally managed to play a few hours in the last week or so and I'm actually really impressed. The match engine has come on in leaps and bounds for me, everything seems more in-depth yet they've achieved this in a compact user interface.

I currently sit 4th with Ipswich after 25 games; with an FA cup 5th round home tie to Burnley on its way. Also in the draw for the fourth round of the EFL trophy beating Arsenal U23's in our group.

As ever, it's worth noting it still takes a heck of a long time to complete a season. Loading times are fantastic but to give you an idea based on the where I've stated I'm at in season one; it's taken 13.9 hours of playing time... and that's with a significant amount of the roles delegated.

 

[Luke Imp]

Not started a save yet but got it for £25 on Friday on CD Keys.

 

[Master D]

It is excellent this year, fully recommend it.

I play Touch on the PC, don't bother with the full fat, way too much to do instead of just playing games, tactics and ttransfers.

I have bought it first time in over 10 years and with working from home, I'm addicted again and have it on in the background. The 2008 one I played religiously, it was sheer brilliance. From memory it became total shite in 2009 so I just stopped.

I also play the touch even though it comes with the full version too, I just want to play games and buy players. The ridiculous amount of faffing about with press conferences every 2 minutes was incredibly annoying. The tactics and training are I'm sure incredibly detailed for xG nonces but I simply can't be arsed, I just play with preset ones and change the mentality up a bit to suit the opponent and whether I'm at home or not.

I used a lot of time at the start getting rid of the unbelievable shit staff there and I appointed all the best possible staff I could. I have Chris Kinnear as my chief scout

Played 1 season as Wrexham so far, finished 10th having lost 4-0 at home to Barnet on the final day when a win would have seen me in the playoffs. Dog-shite bottle job from the strikers who suddenly had low morale a few games from the end and started missing everything in sight. I signed dodgy Ricky Miller on a free and he scored 20 for me but I've just let him go as he would only sign a 2 year deal and I didn't want to give that. My minimum requirement was the playoffs but they've not sacked me as I go into season 2.

Hartlepool won the league, I shit you not...

 

[BarraMatt]

I've just seen this thread, got the full version on release after skipping 2020, it's not worth me buying it year on year as I wouldn't get further than a couple of seasons if so.

Usually do a single club save (usually Barrow) and see how far I can get but opted for something a bit different this year and started one with Rochdale in League 1 and move on if I get offered something by a bigger club or one in a higher league so it's a bit more realistic.

Year on year targets are quite good, overall target is just to sit in League 1 for years so it's not too difficult to exceed. Sunderland just avoided relegation in the first season and they're sat 23rd half way through the second, Gordon Strachan has just been sacked

 

[Luke Imp]

I'm halfway through my second season on FM21.

I was a narrow 4-1-3-2 guy for years on FM but it wasn't working on FM20 so I moved to 4-1-2-3 (wide forwards and a striker) in and that served me very well in my career save (had 9 club's I think and resigned as soon as I got them to the PL to move to a basket case club and build them up). Settled with Lincoln for 7 or 8 seasons, won every trophy in one season and called it a day.

FM21 I'm Lincoln and got promoted via the PO's having been neck and neck with Hull and Oxford all season but faltered in the final handful of games. Morton top scorer with 37.

Just got into January in my second season and I'm mid-table in the Championship. Poor opening handful of games, conceding 3's, 4's and the odd 5 so I tweaked my tactics from positive to balanced and set my FB's as defend rather than automatic and that seems to have done the trick.

Ryan Edmondson on loan from Leeds has hit 27 in 25.

One thing I'm not keen on with this version is not being able to take out the recall options on loans. I signed two loan midfielders in pre-season and then in mid-August they got recalled due to lack of game time (despite playing 3 out of the 5 games!) but then re-signed them on loan again on deadline day!

 

[Luke Imp]

Missed out on the PO's by 3 points. Annoyingly had another mini blip (3 draws from 5) in the last handful of games again but it would have been a hell of an effort to sneak in after a poor start to the season.

Edmondson got to 38 goals, with Jorge Grant and Marcus Maddison (loan, and got back on another loan) getting 12 & 22 assists.

Bitten the bullet this pre-season and paid the odd monthly fee to take out recall clauses. Loan options are definitely better this season than last but Leeds won't deal with me and extend Edmondson's loan because of the loan recall issues mentioned in the above post!

Going to struggle to replace a near 40 goal striker, though...

 

[BarraMatt]

Two of the finest English Pounds to anyone who guesses who I'm managing. With having a 5 month old future Barra fan I have no time for games so still on '21 where I started off at Rochdale. Making gradual progress in the league but every January I get offers for my best players I just can't refuse, talking upwards of half a mil, then we fall away from a promotion challenge. For a small club in League One it's remarkably realistic.

 

[Luke Imp]

I'm still on this rather than FM22, but this will be my last Club before I move across.

One last challenge is Cheltenham, who I joined in December, 24th in the Vanarama and 12 points adrift, no money to spend, 25% over the wage budget, in debt, a terrible squad and no room for loans because they've used all the spaces up.

Made it out of the relegation places with a game to do and stayed up on the final day, mainly due to other results going my way because I only drew.

Released/sold/loaned out everyone bar two players (GK and ST) so a complete rebuild and I'm just about to start the new season. Can't attract many of decent quality, even the loan options are poor. Young L2 loans are about as good as I can get.