Football Manager 2020 Discussion Thread

[Mpache]

I just lost to Lyon in the CL, and the game mocks me with this headline.

LOL beat Sassuolo

Fuck off FM.

[LFCMike]

Just a quick update on Scotland

[...Dan]

This has been happening for as long as I can remember on this game, but the number of times my striker goes through one on one against the keeper and doesn't score is ridiculous. Even if he has 18+ finishing and composure they still miss those chances more often than they score them. So frustrating.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

5 minutes ago, ...Dan said:

This has been happening for as long as I can remember on this game, but the number of times my striker goes through one on one against the keeper and doesn't score is ridiculous. Even if he has 18+ finishing and composure they still miss those chances more often than they score them. So frustrating.

Yeah, I have no idea what's happened but Gelhardt has struggled a bit recently. His form has been very poor but he's my best striker by some distance. 

[LFCMike]

So here we are at the winter break.

If only we didn't concede that injury time goal 

Celtic went and got beat in their next game, haha 

[DeadLinesman]

On 30/04/2020 at 21:06, LFCMike said:

First two competitive games as Scotland boss. First game v San Marino was shocking. Deserved to win but was too close. Big improvement v Latvia

Did you have to buy an add on to go into International management?

[LFCMike]

2 minutes ago, DeadLinesman said:

Did you have to buy an add on to go into International management?

No got offered it. I think you need to buy it to start as an international manager. But you can unlock it

[...Dan]

I think I've gone a bit too far in my robbing of everyone's youth intake this season. I've agreed contacts with 43 players so far

[Deco]

FM2020 is currently discounted on Steam. So, after much procrastination, I've decided to buy it alongside the editor. Saw a file on FMScout to download a full database for the English leagues down to Level 13 of the pyramid. I'm going to select the closest team to my home town at the lowest possible level and build them up the leagues. Wish me luck! I'll also be starting a career with a bigger club in Europe and try to take them to European glory. Should be very interesting!

[Deco]

Alcester Town

I've decided to start my managerial career with Alcester Town, all the way down in the eleventh tier of English football. They play in the Midland Football League Division Two. I've often indulged in my local football and this team have meaning to me: their ground is located close to a former family estate of sorts, since transformed into its present state as a Michelin-star restaurant of all things. I digress: we play at the Stratford Road stadium. There's some interesting competition in this league. I guess all of my opponents are rivals of sorts: Stratford are up in the seventh tier so I'll no doubt be identifying key rivalries as I go on. We have a fair few reserve sides in the league, however I'll be taking each game as it comes. I look forward to sharing my progress with you all.

I have the perfect team in mind for my other career. More to follow!

[LFCMike]

Really annoying thing has happened at the March international break. Played a friendly with Scotland and we have our first Euro qualifier a few days later. However, in the middle of that I've got a league game v Dundee United. I've called up a few of my Scottish players too and my top scorer is on international duty with Turkey. This is with about 5/6 games left of the season as the title race is hotting up (more on that later)

[Mpache]

Haven't been in this thread for a while now. 

Haven't won any trophies since my league win, and this current season Juve are walking it. So I'll have to settle for Champions League and try and win that, or the Italian Cup. Latter looks more likely.

This is now my top player. He wants to leave but I'm not making the same mistake I made with Niessen. He has 5 years left on his contract and no release clause. He's complained about wanting to leave but the clown is going nowhere. 

This is my squad. A lot of the same core are still here. The frontline is the exact same as the title winning team (Messaoudi - Dona - Valenzuela as the 3 AM's and Choca up front) roughly the same CB pairing except I play the Venezuelan Silva a lot more than El Amrani now, and a completely different midfield. Olsen as BWM and rotate between Mathias Fernandez and Diawara. The goalkeeping situation is the exact same. Henrique the starter, Abdel Wahab the backup.

I play Leverkusen in the CL round of 16. Seems easy but they won the tournament last year. So it will be a bit of a tough one that.

[Dan+]

On 02/05/2020 at 16:50, ...Dan said:

This has been happening for as long as I can remember on this game, but the number of times my striker goes through one on one against the keeper and doesn't score is ridiculous. Even if he has 18+ finishing and composure they still miss those chances more often than they score them. So frustrating.

Don't get me started. Discovering the 'chances created' stat is the most infuriating thing I've done as it just compounds how abysmal our strikers actually are. I think there's something seriously wrong in their formula though because this is happening to too many people. I'm not one of these people who thinks because I have 20 shots and the opposition had 5 I deserved to win. However if I'm having 6 clear cut chances and they're having 1 - then yes, how the fuck are we not winning.

I'm about half way through my new season so it's about time for an update anyhow. I think this year's going to have a little less stress.

[Mpache]

@...Dan @Dan 

You two are right about the finishing, but there is a way around it. My striker Choca is the best in the league. Every 1 on 1 goes in.

I don't know what I did, my hunch is having the players either footed, with a finishing preferred move or just increased team cohesion.

[Mpache]

My striker

- Adept with either foot

- 16 finishing and 16 composure

- Tries first time shots

I have a feeling those 3 are really helping the situation.

[...Dan]

18 minutes ago, Inti Brian said:

@...Dan @Dan 

You two are right about the finishing, but there is a way around it. My striker Choca is the best in the league. Every 1 on 1 goes in.

I don't know what I did, my hunch is having the players either footed, with a finishing preferred move or just increased team cohesion.

I mean, Victor Osimhen just left the club after 12 years here and he was Ligue 1 top scorer in 10 of those 12 seasons, so it's not like my strikers don't score goals. It feels to me like we create so many chances that if my strikers scored all their 1 on 1s we'd be scoring 5+ every match, and that's not realistic so FM have made it so that we rarely score them. What they should do is make it more difficult to create those 1 on 1 chances. In real life players rarely miss 1 on 1s, I think we miss around 75% of them

[Mpache]

Just now, ...Dan said:

I mean, Victor Osimhen just left the club after 12 years here and he was Ligue 1 top scorer in 10 of those 12 seasons, so it's not like my strikers don't score goals. It feels to me like we create so many chances that if my strikers scored all their 1 on 1s we'd be scoring 5+ every match, and that's not realistic so FM have made it so that we rarely score them. What they should do is make it more difficult to create those 1 on 1 chances. In real life players rarely miss 1 on 1s, I think we miss around 75% of them

I barely miss 1 on 1's, but that doesn't mean you are wrong. I just think I have a really mature squad. On my Verl save it was totally different, I missed so many chances it was unbelievable. That was a weaker team though so again I feel like it has to do with being one footed or having a lack of player preferred moves.

In fairness, only Messaouidi and Choca are clinical. The rest do miss plenty of chances. 

[Danny]

I've gone for an old formation that worked on FM15 that was pretty defensive but also possession heavy and trying it with United, it requires a 4 man midfield, two in defensive mid positions and two in centre mid positions. Generally 3 defensive minded players and 1 attacking, though if you can get 2 defensive, 1 box to box and 1 attacking that also works

Not had a great start, 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss but hopefully it just needs a bit of time

The only player I signed was Brozovic from Inter, a hard tackling workhorse with an eye for a pass to play deep.

[LFCMike]

Quite an incredible run since the 2-1 defeat by Celtic before Christmas. We've won every single game in the league since and are on the brink of the title. 

Through to the Scottish Cup final too and also have a quarter final in the Euro Cup 2 Vs Fiorentina.

One negative, we'll be losing our DM Herrera in the summer but making a nice £7m profit on him

[LFCMike]

Oh my...

[LFCMike]

Beat CSKA 2-0 at home and by the same scoreline away. Got Sevilla in the final

[LFCMike]

So in the final weeks of the season we were going for a treble. 

The league was wrapped up with four games to go. Our only two defeats in the league coming away to Celtic.

After knocking out Rangers in the semi final of the cup we had Celtic in the final. The scoreline was a little harsh but it was a simple case of them taking chances and us not.

The Euro Cup final was a much tighter affair. I feel like we edged it and even after losing Sowunmi to injury in extra time still had the best chance to win it. Feel like we could have gone onto win it had we not been playing the last 20 minutes with 10 men.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

Nicely done. Need to get back to the Bolton save. In March and we're currently in 6th, though have a chance of getting 4th as we're only a couple of points behind. 

Guessing my more defensive formation is helping with that. 

[Dave]

96 points and they lied...

[Dan+]

FC Andorra - 2024/25 (Part one)

God this save is just too much fun. It just feels like every time we come up against any kind of adversity we deal with it by the skin of our teeth. It always just seems to fall our way when we need it most. What was good about last year in-particular though is that we played ourselves into such trouble, that we had to demonstrate a totally new level of ability to survive at this level and we pulled it off. Now that we have seemingly done that, I think we're going to survive a lot more comfortably this year. For some context, last season, we picked up 35 points in our final 24 games - that form over a whole season would've seen us finish 7th in the last two seasons, which is quite frankly remarkable for a side with our lack of budget.

This years pathetic £3mil budget basically dictated to me that, once again, survival was going to have to be the aim and anything more a bonus. I had it in my head that we could do it a lot more comfortably though - like I say, our form over two thirds of the season was superb, so there's an element of thinking "we've cracked it here".

I'm not going to beat around the bush. This season just isn't that interesting a read yet, so I thought this time I'd expand a little more on the tactics and the players, rather than the story of the season. We are currently at the winter break, playing 18 games (only yet to face Sevilla).

-----

The transfers;

 

 

-----

The results;

 

 

It's basically everything I hoped for. It's just so much better. It's far less stressful - probably less satisfying when you do get the win, but I feel like we are comfortable this year and will have no issues beating the drop. I'll expand on this on a bit, but performances wise I actually think we ought to be even higher than we are.

 

 

This time I'll do a bit of a squad analysis, and list a few plusses and negatives.

-----

Goalkeepers

So in goal we've primarily used German Moritz Nicolas ever since being promoted, picked up for a sensational £200k from Gladbach, my last FM save. He's a solid La Liga level goalkeeper and simply had no business being that cheap so we had to do it. He's backed up by Ghanaian Felix Annan, picked up on a free this summer from his native Asante Kotoko. I signed French goalkeeper Thierry Laine for £1.2mil this summer and in doing so made him the clubs third most expensive ever buy. I loaned him back to Le Havre

 

Defenders

At right back we have experienced Jordi Calavera and younger Alpha Dionkou. Both picked up for under a million combined. Dionkou initially planned to replace Calavera after his very sketchy first season but to his credit, he's turned things around a bit and Dionkou appears to have developed the cardinal sin of being a big game bottler, so I'm not convinced he'll ever come in to replace Calavera after all. Centre backs are Sam Hughes and Giangiacomo Magnani. Hughes has been here since my second season and is a good example of just how well players seem to develop in this game with consistent game time. He didn't even make my first team in the third tier at first. Magnani is a typical no-nonsense Italian defender, signed on loan last year to help us solidify and specifically help us at set pieces, and I felt given our crap budget he was worth signing permanently for a mere half a million. He isn't a long-term option but in the short-term he's good and I like him. Back-ups here are Alexander Hack (who I want to sell to be honest), Jose Martinez who covers both centre back and left back (he wants out though) and young Belgian Wout van Herck, who I expect to see in the team in the next couple of years, probably to replace Magnani. My left back is the swiss-army knife Javi Hernandez, one of my very first signings who came in on loan from Real Madrid and still starts today, with impressive stats for crossing, defending, pace and aggression, and also a mean set piece taker. I just can't bring myself to get rid of him though I think I'll probably upgrade in a couple of seasons.

 

Midfielders

I'll start centrally with the captain Sergio Alvarez, picked up on loan from relegated Eibar as we came the other way and made permanent a year ago - a typical well-rounded leader type of box to box midfielder, though on the decline now. We also have Youssouf Fofana picked up from Monaco for £1.3mil, Oihan Sancet who came from Bilbao as we came up and then chief shithouse Pierre Zebli, a walking yellow card and a perfect embodiement of the fundamentals that have seen us get where we are today. The favoured partnership seems to be Alvarez and Fofana but there's a lot of rotation here, largely suspension fuelled. I brought in Jean-Claude Philippe from OGC Nice on loan to bolster both central midfield and the right wing as an option to strengthen the squad (I hadn't apparently done this enough for my new signing Piazza but I suppose it ultimately benefits us) and there's a chance I'll get him permanently on a free in the summer, but I think those pesky twats up the road Girona are going to snare us to him. The wide men are the pride of this team, the areas I feel we're really quite strong in, in the form of Paraguayan Derlis Mereles and Colombian Luis Sinisterra - the latter a club record £3.8mil signing. They're both right wingers but Sinisterra is so built for this side that I got him in on the left anyway, for some context he was suspended this season just 10 games in, remarkable for a winger. He's a genuinely good player too though. I still carry Waldo as a back-up on the left and Antonio Crespo as a back-up on the right although neither are good enough anymore, particularly Crespo.

 

Strikers

Finally the strikers. I'll start with a man I consider a bit of a cult hero in Viktor Gyokeres. He's another good embodiement of what this club is about - aggressive, quick, determined, and up until this season actually pretty effective, but god knows what's happened to him this season, despite a ridiculous number of chances he's got less goals from open play than Magnani. Still though a pressing forward is key to this team and he keeps his place. Alessio Piazza has made a bright start to his career here, the pacey Italian striker looking a steal on a free transfer. They are backed up by Raul Asencio, a nicely rounded striker signed from Genoa and Manu Appeh, a Nigerian I've had since the third tier though he's barely had a kick since we've been up - despite being vocally unhappy with that he's still happy to stick and fight for a place that he isn't going to win rather than move on, so I think he'll be about a while yet. He's a low earner too so hardly even worth selling.

It is with this that I can announce our January signing. I must admit I am struggling to know where to throw this bloke, but I couldn't pass up a bargain like this as no doubt the usual suspects such as Girona or Real Betis would be on it to spoil our fun, I saved some money for a rainy day and today it rains. For £1.3mil, welcome to the club, Sinan Kladar!

 

The so called miracle system

It is a very basic, quite attacking 4-4-2. It really is nothing fancy what so ever. But wow - we create a ridiculous number of chances, in-fact, the most chances in the entire league, yet our finishing has been off all season and you can't help but feel that if we had Kladar we might actually be pushing for Europe. Maybe we still yet might?

 

That'll wrap up the half-way review. My aims are simply to keep this season up and stop it from going massively tits up, which is possible, but I'd say unlikely as our stats suggest we're likely to start scoring a few more rather than the opposite. I want to take the Copa Del Rey seriously but ultimately, this year was about consolidation and the budget suggested that. It's gone very much to plan. Next year we move into our new 17,000 stadium and that's where I feel our budget will take off a bit, and we'll eventually start being able to invest in some players that may actually raise funds rather than short-term buys like Magnani. This club's going in the right direction though. Oh, and one final aim, I want to force a rivalry with Girona. They are our most local club. Barcelona and Espanyol won't give a monkeys about either of us. They're about to nick my youngster on loan here. I also can't beat the bastards. Maybe the big game thing would actually encourage us to beat these twats once and for all.