Football Manager 2014.

First topic message reminder :

Has anybody preordered this? This years looks to have improved on last years version, and if you have preordered then you get two week early access which is cool.

Hopefully I can repeat my success in getting Wrexham to the premier league.

Was just starting to get firing as Coventry, but got a job interview at Peterborough who are now in the Championship and I got an offer which I accepted. Low ambitions of mid-table, bit of cash to play with which is useful as the squad is very poor. Signed Shaun Wright-Phillips on a free as he was the only RM out there who was good enough and who I could afford wage-wise.

Got a couple of loan signings and an Italian striker called Belotti on a free, had a fairly average start with 1 win, 3 draws and 3 losses.

Third season with Liverpool, out of my original side I only have Johnson and Levia left.

Valdes
Johnson Matic Some Real Madrid CB Ben Davies
Leiva Wilshire
Pedro Silva Draxler
Lewandowski

On the bench
Mignolet
Agger
Skrtel
Henderson
Sigurdsen
Benteke
Countinho

Wilshire and Silva I got at a steal as they were both on the transfer list. Currently sat top of the league after 11 games, have qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League after three games in my first season.

The team basically gives me a licence to play all out attack for the first 60 minutes, normally by then most games are won

im in the middle of a ajax league, won the league every year for four years. won the cup 3 years and uefa cup. cant get past quarters in champions league though.

its abit easy at the minute so looking for a new challenge, got turned down for the valencia job even when though they were only 9th and ive got a world class reputation!! shouldn't ask for more money in the interview all the time!

Just finished my 3rd season, won the league, the FA cup and the league cup and reached the semi finals of the champions league.

My advice to anyone SIGN Ross Barkley, play him just behind the striker, scored 92 goals for me in 2 seasons for United, resulting in back to back league and Champions League. Into my 6th season now, so I signed Wilshere Draxler and Lucas Moura to replace Carrick, Nani and Young was loving it until I found out I'd broken the fair play rules and am now banned for next seasons Champions League and now as a result literally 90% of my squad want to leave!

really..? 92 goals in 2 seasons...hmm

^.......and I won the EPL with Cardiff first season  

Why on earth would I lie ! More than willing to post screen shots of his record// Basically had him attacking near posts from corners and he scored the majority of his goals that way.. Which is obviously a flaw in the game... Don't see why you feel need to doubt what I'm saying..

To be fair to cass, Wilshire scored 23 league goals for me in one season playing in midfield so the stat isn't that strange, if he'd played every minute of every game of course.

Thanks mate, which he basically did apart from the league cup games obviously, I mean was never going to drop him when he was scoring so freely, I think its a massive flaw in the game the amount of goals you can score from corners.. Just double checked and I apologise my previous statement was indeed false, it wasn't 92 goals it was in fact 89 in 105 games over 2 seasons !

I've decided to restart my Liverpool game again, however this time I am going to only sign players 23 and under. The last game because easy once I'd signed Valdes on a free transfer, as Mignolet is a real weakness in Football Manager.

best under 23 players I've found are Defender Luke Shaw. Midfield. Vitinho, Barkley Striker Jese

Ben Davies for me, had him at left back after my first season. After three seasons, Arsenal offered £30m for him. Jese is certainly a top youngster as well.

Tried to get Davies on one of my other saves was a total no go.. went for Alex Sandro in the end... Ive found Porto tend to have the best young players by far.. Telll you what Is massively frustrating about the game for me, Massive bids being rejected by clubs who the sell the player to someone else for so much less then what you bid.. Eg I was Real Madrid, Aguero 70Mil bid rejected, 6 months later I play PSG in the champions league and hes lined up for them after signing for 22 mil.. Happens all the time

Yeah, it's down to your relationship with that manager though. Not overly realistic sometimes, however it does mean you have to try and be gratious instead of a total kumquat.

It's the reason I never bother trying to sign Barkley for Liverpool, Everton don't even entertain the idea of selling him to me. I paying £19.5 for Davies on my last game, large amount for a defender but he was likely to either play for me for the best part of his career or be sold for a huge profit.

Yeahh I suppose I tend to get on good with most managers apart from Mourinho who seems to hate everyone !!

have a look at Porto every season when the transfer window opens they seem to have players with amazing ratings all the time!

barbosa from brazil is a good youngster, signed him for 5 mil, had to pay the agent 6 mil for the rest of him (after a couple of years) but eventually sold him for 45mil

got davies and barkley cheap on a previous game, davies was at city not getting games and barkely at arsenal similar. only cost me a combined 20 mil for both

Ok, so I sold Lucas for £27m, brought in Danny Ings and sent him straight back on loan, he's only 21 and better than the younger strikers in the squad who are the same age.

Signed Mohammed Salah for £9m, and Shaqiri for £17.5m, also brought in Will Hughes for £8m. At the moment I'm 6th in the league, rotating my defenders as they'll have a couple of really solid games and then have a shocker and give away loads of silly fouls or goals, Hughes and Henderson are playing every other game, Suarez is in the CAM position behind Sturridge and both are scoring goals, Salah, Shaqiri, Sterling and Coutinho are rotating on the wings.

Worst defeat so far has to be against Leeds in the League Cup. I was 2-0 up after 15 minutes, managed to throw the two goals away and then lost on penalties, I played the last 30 minutes of normal time and the whole of injury time with "overload" selected as my mentality and we still didn't score!

The midseason update was out yesterday and Liverpools ratings have increased a lot, while Henderson is now a 3.5 star player with 4.5 potential, Gerrard has gone from 4 stars to 3.5, Suarez and Sturrdige are both 4.5 now as well!

I can finally play free flowing attacking football with the original Liverpool squad

hampo171 wrote:The midseason update was out yesterday and Liverpools ratings have increased a lot, while Henderson is now a 3.5 star player with 4.5 potential, Gerrard has gone from 4 stars to 3.5, Suarez and Sturrdige are both 4.5 now as well!

I can finally play free flowing attacking football with the original Liverpool squad

good stuff, might have to start a new league to have a look now. is mata now at united? is moyes now a useless manager?

Mata is at United but Moyes is still massively overrated

I'm loving this game following the update. I finished 3rd in my first season, 10 points off the pace but I had been 7th going in to February so I was happy to finish where I did. The board gave me £40m to spend, so I bought Lovern from Southampton and Ben Davies from Swansea which took up my whole budget.

I've dropped Skrtel, Agger and Gerrard is now just a bit part player and has announced he'll retire at the end of the season. My line up is

Mignolet
Johnson/Lovern/Sahko/Davies
Lucas/Henderson
Sturridge/Coutinho/Sterling
Suarez

Suarez and Coutinho have both hit double figures this season, Suarez 31 and Coutinho 14, Sturridge has 11. Sterling is an awesome player, won the European Golden Boy award after the World Cup. I only made two signings in the first season, both from Ajax. Lucas Anderson and Viktor Fischer, both have 4.5 star potential and are starting to get more game time now.

Still need to solidify my defence as I lost 3-0 away to Bayern, United and Everton, but attacking is fine, beat City 5-3 at the Etihad

Ive just done a ajax game, out of the two fischer is the better. I had him wide but learnt the ability to cut inside and he'd grab a fair few goals. Only problem playing him wide is that his crossing is poor, think with a bit of training you can get it up to about 12 though

I was drawn against Barcelona in the first knockout stage of the champions league with the first leg at home. What a game the first leg was, it finished 7-4 to me but at one point I was 5-1 up. Couldn't believe it when I lost the second leg 4-0

Ill do a proper update at some point but been through 5 seasons with my team Sunderland:

2013/14 - Finished 3rd
2014/15 - Finished 2nd (lost the title on GD to Chelsea)
2015/16 - Finished 4th
2016/17 - Finished 1st
2017/18 - Finished 4th

Sunderland have potential if you play right but struggle if you aren't them. There net debt starts at £203m and money is tight over the first 3 seasons. You have to be really limited. But they do have players on high wages that do leave at the end of the first and second season which helps to free up some funds (O'Shea and Brown on £51k per week).

Started 2013/14 by only making 1 permanent signing to start, Mo Diame for £3.5m while bring in Ciro Capuano (LB), Palladino and Ayite all on loan. Sold Larsson for £5m, Ji Dong Won for £5.5m and Carlos Cuellar for £350k. There was other outgoings but loans.

January 2014 i brought in Keisuke Honda (pre contract) and Vicente Guaita (GK) from Valencia for £3.4m.

I will update with other seasons later but would like to mention a few bargains:

> Will Hughes - Nabbed for £4m (2nd or 3rd season)
> Nicolas Erramuspe - Regen signed from Argentina for £7m (Ability and potential of 4 1/2 stars), had him for a season and a half before selling him to Man Utd for £46m
> Giannelli Imbula - Signed for £12m and had offers in the region of £45m from Barcelona
> Signed Ben Davies for £8m in my 4th/5th season

I've been playing for ten seasons. Something really bizarre happened in my game. I'm currently managing AC Milan, and have signed a bunch of youth players. I noticed one of them has the same surname as me. When I clicked on his profile, I was listed as his father!

haha that's awesome!

I've just finished my second season, finished 3 points behind Chelsea who won the league. My signings so far going in to the third season are Kyle Walker to replace the aging Johnson and Asmir Begovic. I also signed Will Hughes for £4m and sent him back to Derby on loan, Henderson, Lucas and Allen are my CMs all rated 4 stars.

Defence is my biggest weakness but don't have the cash to splash out on the best defenders available.

Nakatomi Plaza wrote:I've been playing for ten seasons. Something really bizarre happened in my game. I'm currently managing AC Milan, and have signed a bunch of youth players. I noticed one of them has the same surname as me. When I clicked on his profile, I was listed as his father!

I think there is some achievement that if you stay with the same club for 10 years, your "son" becomes apart of the game. I saw someone do this on the FM Base site, i know his user name is Meat trombone soloist on the site and game so his son was called Meat trombone soloist in the game   

I think Hughes goes for 4m as i think he has 1 year left on his contract if you wait. Better than paying 9m

Haha, love the name change when you type in a rude word

Chelsea are just unbeatable since the update. I won the first 8 games of my third season, scoring 19 goals and conceding just 4. I then lost 2-1 to Chelsea and drew 2-2 with City, but Chelsea have won every game and only conceded two goals!
 
I got drawn with Bayern again in the Champions League beating them 2-1 at home, Basel and Dynamo are the other teams in the group, I beat Dynamo 9-0!

After I signed Begovic, Walker and Hughes, Barca offered £22m plus Rafinha for Sahko which was too good to turn down so I sold him, signed Nastasic as his replacement who usually progresses to be a top player.

My team now;

Begovic
Walker/Lovern/Nastasic/Daves
Henderson/Lucas
Sturridge/Coutinho/Sterling
Suarez

Bench:
Mignolet
Agger
Skrtel
Allen
Rafinha
Anderson
Fischer

I could never get into FM. It's a bit time consuming for me.

this isn't the thread for you then..

Just won league 1 with Wolves by an unbelievable 35 points. Coasted it so much that I was confirmed as champions by middle of March, maybe even earlier.

Was able to recoup almost 10 million pounds at the start if the game through selling players like Hennessy and Johnson and replaced them with good quality, cheaper replacements.

I bought this a few days ago as a treat for after my exams.

Started as West Ham.
Carroll is out for 7/8 months.
Have a transfer budget of £0 and already over my wage budget.

Spend pre-season and the first few games of the season trying to change the style of play to a more short-passing, possession based game but ended up being thrashed 7-2 by Villa on the opening day and getting one win and 4 losses after the first five games.

I have now gone to five at the back, Carlton Cole up top, direct and defensive football in an attempt to curb the loss of form. Managed a good 0-0 draw with Chelsea which I am hoping will be the turning point.

In short, I have a lot of sympathy for Sam Allardyce.

 

I've found the jump up to Championship tough.

Played 8 and haven't lost but have squandered a lot of leads, so have drawn far too many games.

Sold a lot of players in the summer, the best deal being getting 6.75m for Bakary Sako, who was my player of the year in league 1. Miss his creativity, but was able to sign Adam Le Fondre, Matt Ritchie and Tom Cairney to give a bit more squad depth. Also got Konchesky on a free to provide some competition in defence.

Yeah, I gave up on West Ham, was ridiculously poor.

Started as Norwich:

Sold Wes Hoolahan for £2 million to Celtic.
Bought Leon Osman for £1.2 million
Albert Riera on a free transfer
Michael Keane on loan

Still in pre-season

Cass1234 wrote:Why on earth would I lie ! More than willing to post screen shots of his record// Basically had him attacking near posts from corners and he scored the majority of his goals that way.. Which is obviously a flaw in the game... Don't see why you feel need to doubt what I'm saying..

I noticed that you can get about 20+ goals a season by attacking the near ost from corners not just in this FM but in previous ones too.

In 1 season Sebastian Bassong was my top goal scorer with 27 goals  

Just signed a nice striker called Manolo Gabbiadini from Italy.

Had to strengthen in Jan because of an injury to my main striker and he got 12 goals and 5 assists for the remainder of the season

I have trouble with my Wolves side conceding straight after scoring...

What would you guys do?

Id be less than helpful. Im 20 games in (in all comps) and failed to keep a clean sheet yet

DP wrote:I have trouble with my Wolves side conceding straight after scoring...

What would you guys do?

Immediately change system?

If you're West Ham Crimey you should play Jarvis and Downing on opposite wings, use Downing as an inside forward. I immediately signed Eduardo on loan too. Basically all the transfers I did. Downing will grab goals, though the update may have killed that.

Crimey wrote:

DP wrote:I have trouble with my Wolves side conceding straight after scoring...

What would you guys do?

Immediately change system?

Helpful...

Following an extended break from Football Manager, I decided to try a fresh challenge on the latest update and decided to give Coventry City ago...

The first season is a complete right off as you start on -10 Points so If you relish a long-term project, I would highly recommend giving this a go. To generate any kind of cash, you have to sell before you can buy and even then you don't get any of the cash and roughly 3/4 of the wages of the player that you sold. With an inconsistent, younger-side, it's a challenge to pull away from the dropzone as you will probably see on your saves, Cov always seem to finish in 24th place.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:If you're West Ham Crimey you should play Jarvis and Downing on opposite wings, use Downing as an inside forward. I immediately signed Eduardo on loan too. Basically all the transfers I did. Downing will grab goals, though the update may have killed that.

That's what I tried to do, ended up leaving it with West Ham lying in 18th. I didn't even have the budget to get anybody in on loan unfortunately.

Started one on my tablet, had Norwich 11th in the table in mid January and they sacked me!!!!

I was in the capital one cup semi finals as well!!!

Crazy bastards now I'm managing Port Vale cos I had no reputation ffs

Haha, I'm Norwich, top four near Christmas.

Beat Manchester City 2-0
Arsenal 1-0 
Came back from 3-0 down at half time to draw 3-3 with Chelsea.

The season of dreams for Olly. Although true to Norwich's form, home record is fantastic, away record pretty poor.

Going to London via train later so picked this up for about 9 quid

I've managed to arrest the conceding problem and have found myself top of the league after 15 games. Switched the training focus to defensive positioning as I was comfortable enough with my squads attacking capability. Highlight of the season so far was going to the previously unbeaten Doncaster(!!!!) and turning them over 3-0.