Football Manager - Your Career

[Luke Imp]

Bit close, that. Left it until the final game where I needed to beat 23rd placed Crewe and hope Tranmere failed to win away at a PO chasing side. They drew 0-0, I won 3-2 (86th minute winner). Drew quite a few games late on so that didn't help too much but kept me in touching distance.

Slashed the wage bill from £46k to £33k/week and my budget next season is...£22k/week! Some big earners out of contract so it'll not be difficult to get the wage bill down but might be tricky getting any half decent squad depth.

 

[smat]

Slashed the wage bill from £46k to £33k/week and my budget next season is...£22k/week!

Bloody hell, good luck with that. Surely the smallest in the league?

 

[yellow]

DOUBLE WINNERS

We won the JPT with a 2-1 comeback win at Wembley over Colchester, and then secured promotion with a 4-1 win over relegated Nuneaton with three games left. The title was secured on the final day with a nervy 1-0 win over Wycombe, meaning Bristol Rovers had to settle for second place. We finished the season with 91 points, after losing 5 of our first 6 games.

Woooooooooooooo! I can look for jobs in Europe now... although I may be tempted to give the Championship a crack.

 

[smat]

2-1

 

[SF_]

I ended last season in pretty shit form and my first 5 games of this season are;

Newcastle (a), Chelsea (h), Liverpool (a), Man Utd (a) and Arsenal (h).

A nice bit of pressure from the off then...

 

[Luke Imp]

Bloody hell, good luck with that. Surely the smallest in the league?

Probably be a bottom four one I would have thought.

About £170k/month going out in repayments, so that's not helped.

 

[smat]

I've gone to Burnley!

Not quite the European adventure I was after, but both Burnley and Wigan (finished 1st and 2nd in the Championship respectively) offered me interviews and I got the Burnley one. Premier League, £23.5m to spend... YEAH.

 

[yellow]

Injustice.

I need to finish an essay for tomorrow yet reading this thread makes me want to crack on with Blackpool as I feel left behind

 

[Techno Natch]

I've started pre season at Whitehawk with 4 players in my squad.

 

[yellow]

At least you don't have to clear anything out!

 

[smat]

Injustice.

I've gone from being relegated and sacked by Bradford Park Avenue and Skelmersdale to the Premier League in 6 seasons. METEORIC is the word you're actually looking for.

 

[Luke Imp]

Just checked and £22k/week is, this season, the 2nd smallest in L1 and a 14th/15th L2 budget.

 

[Techno Natch]

I've managed to bring in a full squad. I think the team is better than last season and we are less reliant on loan players which is good.

 

[smat]

I'm completely out of my depth.

 

[Luke Imp]

I've basically decided to release everyone who's out of contract and re-negotiated another deal on a lower wage.

Already agreed deals with 9 players to come in on frees and opted to sell Jim O'Brien, who it looks like I'll get £450k for. He's on £3.5k/week and silly bonuses so that'll free up more wages and get something in the bank. Can't recall what percentage I get back on transfer but probably around the 0% mark...

 

[smat]

Doing orite with Burnley in the PL actually. Got battered 3-1 at Wigan and 4-1 at Brighton, but we've won 1-0 at home to Norwich, 2-1 at Watford, 1-0 at Spurs and SENSATIONALLY 1-0 at home to City (wouldn't happen in real life). Tbf I did spend £25m in the summer so we should have a reasonable side, but I was a bit worried after those early disasters.

My only worry is that I'd promised to play direct, attacking football. Direct I can do, but attacking sounds bloody stupid now. Oh well, hopefully it's no big deal.

 

[yellow]

Stopped reading at this part…

Tbf I did spend £25m

WHO ARE YOU

 

[Mr Elmo]

Not lost a domestic game all season with Chelsea so far after 15 Prem games and in the capital one cup semis now after beating Liverpool 1-3, but European games were a bit of a struggle and just scraped through the group stages, and now I face the test of playing Barca in the round of 16, fantastic.

 

[smat]

Stopped reading at this part…




WHO ARE YOU

I think the development of my laissez faire approach to spending money on Football Manager is directly traceable to the moment Arsenal signed Özil (ie the exact moment it no longer became shameful to splash the cash).

And you can't argue with the results so far, buddy (for me, not Arsenal, who remain underwhelming). Finished your essay? Get back on the horse.

 

[RavenBish]

Got promoted first year through the playoffs with Wolves. Afobe the star man with 38 goals in all competitions but Sako and Drage also got into double figures and the real x-factor was signing Jordon Ibe in January - wasn't able to catch Boro in 2nd but I got 3rd easily and was much better than the other 3 teams in the playoffs.

Went about my 2nd season in the worst possible way in hindsight as I spent the bulk of my budget on 17 year old Serbian Luka Jovic for £5.75m who won't arrive until January for some reason - and Joe Gomez who has gone back on loan to Charlton for the season as part of the deal.

Adama Traore is superb and Coates/Pacheco have been solid. Jungwirth is average and a back-up for Tommy Rowe and Jenkinson has been probably the biggest disappointment.

Offloaded the shite like Kevin Doyle and his £38k!!!! a week wages and managed to sign my good players on nice long-term deals like Afobe, Batth and Drage.

Started the season terribly and thought I was fucked but I've had an excellent little run to take me up to 11th after 14 games - taking 13 points from my last 5 games. Just hoping to stay up this season, got a very young squad that should improve a lot over the next couple of years.

 

[yellow]

I think the development of my laissez faire approach to spending money on Football Manager is directly traceable to the moment Arsenal signed Özil (ie the exact moment it no longer became shameful to splash the cash).

And you can't argue with the results so far, buddy (for me, not Arsenal, who remain underwhelming). Finished your essay? Get back on the horse.

Ha, poor excuse. Yeah I have, I'll give FM a go on Saturday I think - can't actually remember but I think I'm two PSF's in with Blackpool.

Not bad Raven. Has Afobe moved permanently in real then or did you do that?

 

[Pyeman]

I've gone to Burnley!

Not quite the European adventure I was after, but both Burnley and Wigan (finished 1st and 2nd in the Championship respectively) offered me interviews and I got the Burnley one. Premier League, £23.5m to spend... YEAH.

Best decision you'll ever make.

 

[BCFC Jordan]

Argh, I'm in the second season of my Newcastle save. Not doing anything special (7th) but my USB's stopped working whilst I was on FM earlier. My mouse and keyboard stopped responding, and I just happened to be beating Man City at the time. I was powerless as I sat there watching the game go on but my keyboard and mouse continued to refuse to work.

Won 3-1, but had to eventually restart the PC to get everything functioning again.

Lost four games because I hadn't saved. Forgot how annoying a feeling that is. It's like you're lost a bit of history.

Going to do the cheating thing and keep replaying the City game until I win now.

First world problems.

Edit - Beat Man City 1-0 at the first attempt. Also got the exact same amount of points with the only difference being a swapped draw and win in two fixtures. Panic over.

 

[RavenBish]

Not bad Raven. Has Afobe moved permanently in real then or did you do that?

Yeah Wolves bought him IRL for a hefty fee IIRC. I'm using the latest 15.3 patch so he was already there thankfully otherwise I'd have struggled with just Dicko (who in a season and a half has scored 1 league goal in 34 appearances, most of them as a sub admittedly but still, jeez). Afobe is incredible though, 38 in all comps 1st season and about 10 in 16 so far 2nd season and knocking on the door for an England call-up. I play him as a lone targetman (attack) as well, in case you fancy buying him in the future.

My next issue is all the players who have wage rises in their contracts after call-ups. I think Afobe gets a £10k pay rise after 5 England caps and I'm expecting him in the next squad. I also gave Danny Batth a high clause for the same thing, in order to get him to sign, expecting he'd never get a call-up...but turns out he qualifies for India and is now 1 cap away from triggering his pay rise too.

 

[smat]

Doing orite with Burnley in the PL actually. Got battered 3-1 at Wigan and 4-1 at Brighton, but we've won 1-0 at home to Norwich, 2-1 at Watford, 1-0 at Spurs and SENSATIONALLY 1-0 at home to City (wouldn't happen in real life). Tbf I did spend £25m in the summer so we should have a reasonable side, but I was a bit worried after those early disasters.

My only worry is that I'd promised to play direct, attacking football. Direct I can do, but attacking sounds bloody stupid now. Oh well, hopefully it's no big deal.

Having a STORMER here. After slaying City, we beat Spurs 1-0 at WHL, beat Newcastle 3-1, and won 4-3 away to Everton in a PULSATING game, putting us FOURTH in the table after NINE GAMES. If we can hold out for just twenty nine more...

Into the League Cup quarters as well, winning a DRAMATIC PENALTY SHOOTOUT following a 3-3 draw with Championship West Ham. Could this MEMORABLE FIRST SEASON yet have a SILVER LINING?

BURNLEY

SMAT

CAPITALS

 

[Luke Imp]

Sold another player for £350k. Again, a high earner but not a great player. They gave me 10% of transfers so ended up with £80k, which I turned into wages.

It was needed really because I'm still short of 4 or 5 players (first choice CB and ST and back-up's). Hoping to get a couple of half decent freebie loans in from the PL/Championship).

Also completely changed my backroom staff. All the existing lot were out of contract.

 

[yellow]

I also gave Danny Batth a high clause for the same thing, in order to get him to sign, expecting he'd never get a call-up...but turns out he qualifies for India and is now 1 cap away from triggering his pay rise too.

 

[SF_]

Done some great business this summer on my Preston game.

Nikos Karelis - £4m from Panathinaikos, scored 9 in 10.
Matos - £3.5m from Fiorentina, average rating of 7.25 with 1 goals and 5 assists, already a fan's favourite
Marian Sarr - £1.2m from Dortmund, averaging 7.30+, beast of a centreback with a goal to his name already.

That's after 11 games, Callum McManaman remains my main man though, he's been unreal.

Top 10 is the aim this year.

 

[Pyeman]

Just found out my laptop is finally repaired and raring to go, so for the third time I'm going to attempt to climb from the very bottom to Champions League glory.

Just a quick question - what previous experience/coaching badges have people given themselves when starting an unemployed challenge style game? I increased mine a bit on my last attempt but I wasn't sure if that devalues my efforts at all. Do people usually go for the lowest possible settings?

 

[smat]

I went for nothing. Coaching badges presumably speed up your ascent (or do they actually do anything except give your team's training stats a boost? Maybe they make lower league teams respect you a bit more?). I'm still on my National B license...