Football Manager

  • Thread starter Sureboss
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I'm 12 or 13 seasons into Pompey's glorious domination of Europe, and it's just about time for a new game.

I'm playing on 'easy' but it seems harder to climb to the top then stay at the top. In my first season in the EPL I was crushed by most of the big teams at every outing, but managed to scrap my way to safety. Then I managed to sign a wonderkid and between him and Conor Chaplin, they scored 50 goals between them and I took the FA Cup and Premiership and from there it's been easy. Strengthen squad depth,sign some wonderkids, farm em out, make some money off thems, sign big names for the first XI, work on cohesion, win titles. Rinse repeat.

The one thing I have not yet worked out is how best to develop young players with a view to keep them. Reserve teams seem to stymie any real growth but farming them out to other teams means they will probably get squeezed out by a big name transfer and never get a look in. Need to think it through more.

The other thing is, as a small team you are just stuffed financially. Without a big stadium the money potential is capped, and building a bigger one is a ticket to administration. I am sure I can make Forest Greens the next Galacticos though!
 
From a real life perspective, 🤬 Forest Green, Barrow, Salford, Eastleigh and all the other non-league teams who spend millions every year thanks to a generous sugar daddy who is doing nothing but saddling the club with debt. Don't believe the media luvvies who tout these teams. There's no FFP in the Conference and there damn well should be.

If you want to take a small team to the big time the sleeping giants down that level are Wrexham and Tranmere. Or if you want a real challenge try a team like Southport, Gateshead or Macclesfield.

As for getting back to FM, my FM16 career has seen me take Wrexham to the Championship, then Slovakia to the World Cup QFs and now my task is taking Spartak Trnava back to the top of the Slovak league and into Europe. I'll carry on playing this until FM18 comes out. I'm still one of those players who skips a year to invest fully in the proper game.
 
Liquid
If you want to take a small team to the big time the sleeping giants down that level are Wrexham and Tranmere. Or if you want a real challenge try a team like Southport, Gateshead or Macclesfield.
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I originally picked Pompey as I hated seeing them gutted by incompetence and mismanagement. Doesn't feel right they are cellar dwellers.

I think my next foray will be one of the French L2 teams, who might have also taken a tumble from past grace.
 
So I kicked up a new game picked Stade de Reims rather randomly, Ligue 2. Turns out the squad is ok-ish, nobody remarkable and slightly older then I like....but my transfer budget is all of 200k....and for some reason I have 250k in debt costs every month for the first year :grumpy:.

I sold or loaned out the excess players to my plans and got stuck in - two interesting observations on French football:
1) No reserve games! Wtf. Combined with lazy player, it means keeping fitness for fringe players in a useful range is very difficult. At least I could flog off most of the reserve team who were not going to amount to a hill 'o beans.
2) French teams other than PSG and OL are useless.

I managed to win L2 without much effort, but got booted out of of cups by OM and OL. Together with some sponsorships and selling an ok striker, I managed to rustle up $12m for a transfer budget for S1 of the Ligue 1. I managed to bottomfeed some transfer listed reserves off Real and Barca and they'll make some money. Signed for 200-300k and already worth 1-2m. But I pushed all my chips in on a transfer listed wonderkid DC who was 4.5 stars at age 18 and he bit, so that was a great win.

The season was ok, ugly wins but effective, helped by signing a complete forward from Poland mid-year. Effective other than PSG, who steamrolled me 8-1 and 1-5 :(.

The biggest win came unexpectedly end of season. My gun DC is attracting the attention of all the wrong clubs, and is unhappy with the lack of depth up front - valid! So I scoured and scoured and dug up two good complete forwards, one from Argentina and the other from Spain, and secured them for about 5m all up.

Only to be tapped on the shoulder that one of our "affiliated clubs" is being stormed by every blue chips club in the world in pursuit of a wonderkid striker! Of course I match the offer, having first rights to, not really expecting to stand much hope against Barca et al...but the other team's board intervenes and forces the transfer to Stade! So I picked up this wonderkid for 800k on a 5yr deal at 5k a week!:

kid.jpg


Ahhh, so good. Pity I spent that 5m now and 30k p.w. in wages :indiff:.
 
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My Laptop bit the dust this week, getting a new one which will be delivered on Wednesday, hopefully should be able to download Steam and transfer my saves over, i will be a bit gutted if that's not the case.
 
So, update on SdR's quest for le glory.

Life is tough in Ligue 1, mostly because PSG have sacks of cash and I don't. They lashed out EU200m+ midseason on 4 players! I have all of 30m to manage transfers and wage growth!

I am pleased with my squad though, although my wonderkid defender isnt - he wants more players before signing a new contract, so i slapped a 80m price on him to ward off the vultures. Still 3 years left on his contract, so time to play with. Of the two strikers I wish I might not have signed, the Spanish one was a spud and couldn't buy a goal...had to force him out to reduce the wage bill. The Paraguayan has been a weapon with Sassi - 28 goals in 26 goals so far. I locked him in to a 5 years deal asap to head off suitors....

I had been eyeing out Malcom from GdB but he didn't want to know my name - well, until they got relegated. Then I swooped and pushed all my chips in and landed his signature. Well worth it, 12 goals and 28 assists in his first full season! But now he also won't renew because of lack of squad strength :rolleyes:

I was fortunate enough to sign a gun right winger to partner him, from River, for cheaps. Turns out, he is a wonderkid! So now I have 3 in the squad, not bad! Need to win the title this year to get some badly needed cashola, especially as the board have decided to build a new stadium. Everything I read on the interwebs suggests that is a passport to administration....should be fun.
 
So I figured my lower league romps had skilled me up to finally take the reigns at the Gooners.

So much moneys. Fell into a bit of a "buy all the wonderkidz" trap and now have an army of them farmed out at other clubs, having their development either boosted or murdered, depending on the wisdom of my loan club selection. I think I worked out that keeping them in the Arsenal reserves generally develops them better (unless it's an Ajax or RBL) then your random Spanish 1st div club or Ligue 1 outfit.

The wage bill is also a headache when trying to flog off the likes of Wilshere, Ramsay, Cazorla, Ox to make space for the wonderkids when they come back. End up having to take a bath just to offload them.
 
Can remember discovering Robben through this game. Used to like getting the oldie legends on a free transfer also. Spent loooads of hours on this
 
Not played on the more recent versions though. Haven't got all day to play on it anymore Wonder who the latest whizz kids are
 
The next edition of Football Manager was today given a release date, FM 18 will be out on November 10th.

As usual a full two-week beta will be released beforehand with players being able to continue their game saves once the full game is released, all three versions of the game-Football Manager, Football Manager Touch and Football Manager Mobile-will be released on November 10th, the first time that all three will be out on the same day.

No screenshot or videos have been released yet as the game isn't ready, expect some more news this time next month.
 
Ouch x2

Screenshot_20230915_162836_FM23 Mobile.jpg


Details of FM24 have just been announced and the mobile version is moving to Netflix games. I do not have Netflix so FM Mobile 23 will probably be the last FM that I play. I've been playing Championship Manager since it's first iteration on the Amiga and then onto FM when they split. I moved to the Mobile version as the full fat version was getting to detailed and time consuming for me.

I do not have a Netflix account and will not be paying the fiver a month for a basic Netflix account in order to play FMM24.

Bye then. It's been fun. Mostly.
 
Anyone have any experience with FM on console? Just been watching a bit of FM stuff on Youtube over the past month or so and it's has me thinking about maybe picking up FM24 on PS5 at some stage.
 

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