Football Manager

[calgaryballer]

God damn I love this game sometimes. I am in near the end of my first season, with a pretty good hold on fourth. Currently have a 6 point lead on Villa, with 4 matches to play in the league. I'm also tied 1-1 with (league leading) Spurs in the Europa League, with them having the away goal advantage. I go in to match 35 against Chelsea, a team who tonked me 5-0 when we played at the Bridge. Needless to say, all my best players (Ben Arfa, Cisse, etc) are exhausted from a long season and a match only 3 days prior. So I go to the reserves, guys who haven't played much like Gosling, Ademilson and my loanee striker John Guidetti. Curtis Good and Van Oijen make their first team debuts. This is what they responded with-

 

Youngster Yven Moyo (a 1.5* winger who I don't think has much of a future with the club) bagged two because Jonas was tired as well

[calgaryballer]

Scraped in to the CL with Chelsea losing 1-0 to Barca. They finished 7th in the league

[calgaryballer]

Big moves for Newcastle in the offseason. Chelsea and (double winning, Europa and PL) Spurs battled for Hatem Ben Arfa, with Spurs winning the right to pay me £25.5 million for his signature. He scored 6 goals and had 19 assists last season, with a 7.25 rating, so it's a loss. However, I signed Alan Dzagoev in January, so am hoping he can step in to fill his shoes (1 goal and 2 assists in 12 appearances).

Other moves

Out
Jonas to Napol for £7.5m
Mike Williamson to relegated Wigan for £1m
Ryan Taylor to promoted Derby for £2.5m

In
Two under 15 players from Getafe and Sevilla for a combined £5m (will post pics if I remember)
Sidney Sam on a permanent move from Leverkusen for £5m (scored 12 with 10 assists in 46 apps last season while on loan)
Nacer Chadli on a free from Twente
Joe Allen for £15.5m from Liverpool. This is the big budget move and he will split time with Yohan. This could be boom or bust

Predicted squad for 2013-14 as of now

ST - Papiss Cisse and Ademilson
AML - Sylvan Marveux, Nacer Chadli and Maxi Beister (bought from HSV and was amazing before getting hurt)
AMC - Dzagoev and then a mix of Amalfatino, Abeid and Vuckic as needed
AMR - Sidney Sam and Beister (I play this as an IF so like left footers here)
MCR - Cabaye and Allen (this is a DLP support role, the crux of my team)
MCL - Tiote and Anita (Anita offered more dynamism, but Tiote is solid)
FBL - Santon
DCL - Taylor and Simon Kjaer
DCR - Colo (no on can match his ball playing skills at the back yet. I tried to get a 6'4" ball player in Jan Kirchoff, but he picked Bayern over me)
FBR - Russell Martin (he is solid, bought on the cheap from Norwich and I like his heart)
GK - Krul and then the youngster mentioned above (he's 15, but if needed, I'd toss him in. Might look for someone on a free for a stopgap)

[kyhadley]

Started playing my Chelsea save for FM12 a little while ago.

Finished the season top (3rd straight), along with winning the FA cup, club world championship, and champions league (second year in a row, last year against Juve on penalties, then Bayern 2-0 comfortably).

Table

 

Here's my team to start the 2015 season:
Striker

 

AML

 

AMC

 

AMR

 

CM

 

LB

 

CB

 

RB

 

My first team (loanees in blue):



Salary: 93M

[kyhadley]

So I'm 18 competitive matches into the 2015 season and we are 15-2-1 so far. The loss in penalties to Wolfsburg in the Super Cup, a league draw away to Blackpool, and a champions league 5-5 draw with Juve (more on that later).



The past two games were fun, crushing Fulham 7-0, then coming back down 1-0 at half to win 5-1. Lukaku had hattricks against Basel and Fulham, and probably would have had another if I didn't go to sub him immediately before he scored his second.

Here's what the table looks like at this moment:



And here are our stats:



Andre Schurrle is an absolute workhorse. Purchased him from Leverkusen in the summer of 2013 for 27M. He's never missed a day with injury. He made 52 total appearances and scored 15 goals with 21 assists his debut season, then last year made 59 out of a possible 62 appearances, scoring 28 goals with 15 assists. Was the champions league best player.

The CL game against Juve was nuts. I started out with an experimental 3-5-2 formation that just didn't work, went down 2-0, subbed Willian on for Escobar in the 17th to revert back to our normal 4-2-3-1. Luiz cut it to 1 in the 30th, but Bacinovic made it 3-1 four minutes later. Just before halftime Schurrle made it 3-2. Vucinic made it 4-2 in the 53rd, then Vidal and Costa scored in the 63rd and 65th to tie it at 4. Lichsteiner completed his hattrick in the 71st to take a 5-4 lead that looked permanent, but Nilton Reis had a dramatic 88th minutes header to salvage us a point on the road.

I'll add the actual highlights later.

Formation

 

[WrightStuff]

I'll add the actual highlights later.

Formation

 

What did you end up doing with Eden Hazard? Hes my boy

[kyhadley]

What did you end up doing with Eden Hazard? Hes my boy

Tottenham signed Hazard.

[calgaryballer]

What did you end up doing with Eden Hazard? Hes my boy

Keep in mind this is FM12 ky is talking about, so he's at Lille to start with. Chelsea may never of had him

[Lanteri]

Had one of my prouder achievements on FM. Started a save with Wigan, and guided them to the Europa League in the first season using my own tactics. We only finished 9th in the table (which was a record high for Wigan), but we won the Capital One Cup to secure the European spot. The road was not an easy one. It started easy with a match against Gillingham, but quickly ramped up with matches against West Ham (1-0), Southampton (3-1), Arsenal (2-1), Newcastle (4-0 agg.), and finally Everton (2-1e). All this was achieved with a near default squad, with the only signing being Matthew Lowton at right back, and Jeffren in on loan from Sporting.

Can't show stats since I've already progressed far into the summer window, but my top scorers were: Mauro Boselli with 17 goals in 28 apps (7.21 rating), Franco di Santo with 16 goals and 10 assists in 35 matches (7.39 rating), and Arouna Kone with 10 goals in 22 apps (7.17 rating. Other key players included Ali Al Habsi (7.33 rating, 8 clean sheets, 58 conceded), James McCarthy (7.16 rating, 6 goals, 6 assists), Gary Caldwell (35 apps, 2 goals, 7.25 rating), and Ivan Ramis (35 apps, 7.31 rating).

Here's the league table:

[Bigpapa42]

Haven't really settled into a game yet. Tried Spartak Moscow but felt kinda meh. Starting again with Bayer Leverkusen. Two of my old standards - Ajax and Hamburg - don't appeal to me that much in this version. Been doing more reading than anything, trying to get as much of a handle as possible on doing things myself with a tactic.

[Lanteri]

Summer signings to bolster the squad for the European campaign:



Starting XI when all is said and done:

GK: Ali Al-Habsi
LB: Maynor Figueora (Jan Lecjaks possibly, not so sure yet)
CB: Ivan Ramis
CB: Gary Caldwell
RB: Matthew Lowton
LM: Gary Mackay-Steven
CM: James McArthur
CM: James McCarthy
RM: Vladimir Weiss
ST: Franco Di Santo
ST: Aurona Kone

Subs: Mandl, Boselli, Felipe, Vandam, Sulejmani, Lecjaks, and Watson
Unused/part of rotating bench: Maloney, Beausejour, Romeu

[Lanteri]

One thing I've focused on intensely this go around on FM is team work and work rate in all my players. We're always going to be going into most matches as underdogs, so I felt it very important to have a team that's going to work hard and together to, well in the case of Wigan, overachieve.

I've actually been pleasantly surprised too by a player I've never been able to get production out of in the past - James McArthur. I've had him on a few of my sides in FM past and have struggled finding him a role. Turns out, despite his miniscule stature (5'6" 138 lbs), his mental attributes particularly, work rate, team work, positioning, anticipation, and determination have turned him into quite the defensive player for me. In fact, he's been playing as a ball winning midfielder (on support as he's a very good passer - 17 passing, 16 creativity). Last season I got a 7.12 rating out of him in that role. He and McCarthy have been terrific in midfield.

[Anthony]

[Fappin Raptor]

I can't keep up learning a new game every year. Wish I would've stuck with 12 because I played the shit out of that. 13 I've logged in a few hours.

[Anthony]

I can't keep up learning a new game every year. Wish I would've stuck with 12 because I played the shit out of that. 13 I've logged in a few hours.

FM13 is a bit of a challenge since they decided to change everything it seems. In some ways it's a bit easier and some ways a bit more of struggle. There's just so much that you can take charge of that it kind of gets in the way of playing the game, which is why I think they brought the Classic mode into play as well as the ability to delegate tasks out to your staff. Having your DOF or Director selling players is an addition I take full advantage of. The days of repeatedly offering a player out to clubs is over finally.