Football Manager 2021 - Discussion Thread

[LFCMike]

Made some good signings going into the 25/26 season. We had already extended the loans of Joe Byrne (second top scorer last season with 20 goals) and Jez Davies.

Carter McQuillan comes in as first choice keeper. Leahy provides competition at LB. McKechnie, McConnell and Alexander will all add depth to the front three. 

Made a great start to the season. A 3-0 away win at Crewe was followed up with this against one of the promotion favourites

[LFCMike]

Results since that 7-2 win over Preston

We had a few injuries, especially up top, around the time we went four games without scoring. I've since switched to a 352 and it's coincided with a great run of form barring that recent defeat v Blackpool.

Table at the end of October

[LFCMike]

I think we managed to navigate November and December pretty well. Fuming with the FA cup first round defeat to non league opposition though.

December certainly went better than last season which is where our season started to fall apart. Disappointing to lose to Southend given we were playing against 10 men for much of the second half but I'm not too concerned by the result given the time between the Christmas fixtures.

Looks like it's going to be two from three at the top at the moment

[LFCMike]

So quite a lot has happened on my save since the last update. 3 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats saw me 2nd in League 1 with Grimsby. Sunderland had pulled away in 1st. 

I was offered the St Etienne job after their manager left for Newcastle. 

So I left Grimsby in 2nd

St Etienne were 6th when I took over

Played two games with them so far, two wins. Couldn't have had a better fixture list to be fair. Don't play anyone currently above us between now and the end of the season. Second game was a 6-1 win against bottom of the table

[Tommy]

I didn't know where else to put this, but this is an interesting read. I still remember his name as well:

 

[LFCMike]

Good start to first full season with St Etienne. The Europa Conference defeat to Hibernian aside. 

Stade Brestois look like an absolutely bonkers side. They've scored four or more seven times already this season and conceded four or more (including 8 to Rennes) four times. We've got them next, should be fun!

[LFCMike]

Twats

[LFCMike]

Another close one with PSG, this time in the French Cup final.

Need to stop conceding early second half goals. We conceded three in the first seven minutes of the second half away to Marseille and ended up losing 5-0! Anyway, we only need a point to secure 5th place and a Europa League spot with four games left. Two of them are PSG and Lyon so probably a good job we only need a point.

[LFCMike]

Half way stage of my second full season with St Etienne (27/28 season). Not going too badly. Disappointed with a couple of results in the league. Although we managed to take our first point off Monaco since I took over which was pleasing. A long way off challenging for the Champions League this season unfortunately.

We'd qualified from our Europa League group with a game to spare. Sevilla beating Leicester in the final game saw us secure top spot.

[LFCMike]

Finally got back into this save over the weekend.

We're a little bit inconsistent in the league but did manage our first point Vs PSG since I took over. We're currently in 6th with 9 games left.

We're also into the quarter finals of the Europa League after a 5-1 aggregate victory over Ajax!

Bayer Leverkusen in the next round.

[LFCMike]

Into the semis of the Europa League after a 2-1 aggregate win over Bayer Leverkusen. We have Monaco in the semis and will play them in the league in between the two Europa legs. Probably where our run comes to an end unfortunately

[Whiskey]

Played with the wife's team, FC Porto with the aim to emulate Jose Mourinho's triumph there and deliver a Champions League crown. I'm at the start of Season 8, but haven't cracked it unfortunately - managed to get into the semi final (and beat Liverpool in the first leg) but just can't seem to go all the way. It's frustrating too as I'm dominating domestically, won the quadruple in Seasons 6 & 7 but we're a step down from the likes of Liverpool, Madrid, Bayern etc.

As a result I've put Porto on the back burner a little, inspired by @Dan I've finally started a Pentagon Challenge, started unemployed with no badges and was offered the Bali United job in Indonesia. After Googling them they're the most successful team in the country, so not sure if I've massively won the lottery here, was going to maybe reload and get someone worse but as I've done it properly (no badges, experience etc) I'm going to stick with it. Despite them being strong in Indonesia, I think I'll need to be with someone from China or South Korea to have a good stab at the Asian Champions League.

[Tommy]

12 minutes ago, Whiskey said:

Played with the wife's team, FC Porto with the aim to emulate Jose Mourinho's triumph there and deliver a Champions League crown. I'm at the start of Season 8, but haven't cracked it unfortunately - managed to get into the semi final (and beat Liverpool in the first leg) but just can't seem to go all the way. It's frustrating too as I'm dominating domestically, won the quadruple in Seasons 6 & 7 but we're a step down from the likes of Liverpool, Madrid, Bayern etc.

As a result I've put Porto on the back burner a little, inspired by @Dan I've finally started a Pentagon Challenge, started unemployed with no badges and was offered the Bali United job in Indonesia. After Googling them they're the most successful team in the country, so not sure if I've massively won the lottery here, was going to maybe reload and get someone worse but as I've done it properly (no badges, experience etc) I'm going to stick with it. Despite them being strong in Indonesia, I think I'll need to be with someone from China or South Korea to have a good stab at the Asian Champions League.

So basically you let your wife down. 

[Dan+]

It's a slog but you hit a point where you think you can do it. I'm genuinely quite confident I'm gonna take the lot.

Bali United is a class first job. That's better than Terengganu and I thought Terengganu was a scalp, they were predicted 3rd in Malaysia but were just having a bit of a car crash of a season.

You won't win the CL with Bali though bar a miracle. You're right in that realistically to have any chance you'll have to go to China, South Korea or Australia. Obviously I did South Korea.

You never know mind - when I won the Asian CL I came up against Persija in the semis, which was frankly ridiculous.

[Whiskey]

On 26/06/2022 at 03:37, Dan said:

It's a slog but you hit a point where you think you can do it. I'm genuinely quite confident I'm gonna take the lot.

Bali United is a class first job. That's better than Terengganu and I thought Terengganu was a scalp, they were predicted 3rd in Malaysia but were just having a bit of a car crash of a season.

You won't win the CL with Bali though bar a miracle. You're right in that realistically to have any chance you'll have to go to China, South Korea or Australia. Obviously I did South Korea.

You never know mind - when I won the Asian CL I came up against Persija in the semis, which was frankly ridiculous.

From what I've read you seem to have really hit your stride, bouncing from what look like decent jobs to set you up for continental success. Of course Europe is going to be the hardest of the lot I'd say, but the fact that you've got a decent CV should mean that you could perhaps transition well into European football, and no doubt bring some serious firepower from South America with you. 

In regards to myself yeah, I'm seeing Bali as just a CV builder. They basically sacked their coach as they were expected to finish 1st and were lingering in 12th (still no idea how they picked me to be fair) and with some strong signings from the next best tearm Persnib I've started to build a nice little squad, I really took advantage of the fact that most players in Indonesia seem to be on stupid 1 year or even part time deals, even if they're quite decent at that level.

Winning the league gets me into the 1st Round of Champions League playoffs, which for this year would have seen me against the champions of the Maldives - easy enough, but Rounds 2 & 3 start to add Chinese, Korean and Australians which as you say have a bit of firepower. It's not impossible to go all the way I guess, but it'd be some achievement. It's a dynamic that I'm really enjoying as every save I've done on FM has revolved around building from the future, looking to youth etc whereas here I'm basically looking to jump ship as realistically possible - so very much planning for the here and now.

I'm on FM22 for the record too, started posting in the topic that was pinned without reading the title - blame the mods 

[Dan+]

21 minutes ago, Whiskey said:

From what I've read you seem to have really hit your stride, bouncing from what look like decent jobs to set you up for continental success. Of course Europe is going to be the hardest of the lot I'd say, but the fact that you've got a decent CV should mean that you could perhaps transition well into European football, and no doubt bring some serious firepower from South America with you. 

In regards to myself yeah, I'm seeing Bali as just a CV builder. They basically sacked their coach as they were expected to finish 1st and were lingering in 12th (still no idea how they picked me to be fair) and with some strong signings from the next best tearm Persnib I've started to build a nice little squad, I really took advantage of the fact that most players in Indonesia seem to be on stupid 1 year or even part time deals, even if they're quite decent at that level.

Winning the league gets me into the 1st Round of Champions League playoffs, which for this year would have seen me against the champions of the Maldives - easy enough, but Rounds 2 & 3 start to add Chinese, Korean and Australians which as you say have a bit of firepower. It's not impossible to go all the way I guess, but it'd be some achievement. It's a dynamic that I'm really enjoying as every save I've done on FM has revolved around building from the future, looking to youth etc whereas here I'm basically looking to jump ship as realistically possible - so very much planning for the here and now.

I'm on FM22 for the record too, started posting in the topic that was pinned without reading the title - blame the mods 

I've not really had a bad job all save and no team has worked out badly. There's been the odd scare - particularly at Kaizer Chiefs and Monterrey who are both big clubs in their own right with expectations, but I've had decent money to spend in most of these jobs too. Even Gangwon had a bit of money behind them and it was never hard to buy steady players at the level they were at. You'd get a budget of £2.5mil in the knowledge you could go to a midtable side and take one of their better players for under a million. It made constructing the squad fairly easy.

Use Bali to CV build, hopefully win some trophies in Indonesia and get coaching badges. At Terengganu I used to take virtually every free agent on trial as I had attribute masking on and just signed maybe 3/4 of them a season. There was usually a couple who were handy.

You need some kind of resource to build for the future. I think it's so wired into me to do it to some extent that I just can't really resist it, but over time I think buying players aged 21-25 is probably the best balance for both short and long term success. At Gangwon I've left a legacy - they're the best team in Asia now, their manager has actually really smashed it with them, won the league every season since I've left and they've just won a second Champions League. Kaizer Chiefs won the Champions League for a third year running the year after I left too. Terengganu however there was just no money, you're in a league of sides working off scraps and you can't really build anything at all unless you're in charge of Johor DT who actually have money.

I think the same will happen at Monterrey. Their squad when I took over had an appalling age profile. Can't remember if I posted it in the thread or not but it was like something out of the Turkish league. Loads of high earning players in their 30s. Luckily at Monterrey their academy is great and I was able to pad the squad out with a few youngsters, sign a few more as well, and then this season just buy more established players. They'll be far healthier for it though. They've got money and one of the best age profiled squads in the league now.

It's a great save to do. It's very long and there are times when I do just yearn to go and take over a side in say Holland or Belgium and build my usual wonderkid factory, but it's great when you remember where it started from. It's the one save I feel you progress through it thinking you really earned the role.

[Dan+]

The difference in Asia's competition as well by the way is that the bigger leagues are banned from entering their secondary cup (AFC Cup I think it's called). When I was in Korea you had 4 Champions League spots and nothing else.

I'm just looking at it now actually - the top 10 leagues in Asia don't qualify for it.

How the fuck did I run into Melbourne City? Were Australia seriously below 10th?!?! Yikes.

[LFCMike]

On 15/04/2022 at 23:39, LFCMike said:

Into the semis of the Europa League after a 2-1 aggregate win over Bayer Leverkusen. We have Monaco in the semis and will play them in the league in between the two Europa legs. Probably where our run comes to an end unfortunately

Made it through to the Europa League final where we lost 1-0 to Dortmund.

Anyway, the current season has been quite spectacular and one I didn't expect. We lost our star striker N'Goma to Norwich for £20m. Replaced him with 20 year old Argentinian Tomas Zeiden for £6.5m. He's gone onto score 28 goals as things stand. There were three more signings for the first team (one just making a loan permanent). Other than that, I'm just looking to promote youth as we have a lot of promising prospects.

We lost in the French Cup at the quarter final stage to PSG (still looking for my first win over them). We reached the quarter final of the Europa Conference playing largely youth graduates. Lost to Gent on away goals.

The Ligue 1 title race was a four way thing up until about match 34. PSG played Monaco and Nice back to back and picked up just one point. We went into our match v Monaco knowing a win would secure the title. And what a way to do it!