Football Manager 2020 Discussion Thread

[Deco]

Alcester Town - 2019/2020 Season - Friendlies

To start at such a low level of English football made it difficult to arrange friendlies. I found teams in Warwickshire who I've grown to know around this level just aren't interested. So, I've got my practice in against fourteen of varying strengths. My results are below.

I've got to say I'm quite unhappy with the results. Five consecutive draws at the end of the spell can't be attributed to fatigue as I've rotated my squads constantly. I'll take strings of results similar to this during the season itself, but it's a problem I have to address. I've made six free transfers but nothing of particular note. At this level I feel it's inappropriate to detail my squads until I have a refined and defined structure past this season. I've promoted many U23 players to the first team as it was practically empty and lacking depth. Our average team age is 19 and in some ways it shows.

We're in the Midland Football League Division Two; with 16 teams in total, one automatic promotion spot, a play-off spot and two relegation spots it's all to play for. The board's expectations are for a top-four finish which shouldn't be too difficult and two runs to the semi-finals of our two cup competitions; the Les James Challenge Cup and the Midland Football League President's Cup. The former is a small round-robin competition of teams from this division and the one below - 32 teams in total. The latter is reserved for the 16 teams at this level, so if a cup run is the pinnacle of the season then so be it. We've drawn Inkberrow, a village team from just outside of Stratford-upon-Avon, and Lane Head from Birmingham in former and latter respectively. They'll be an entertaining pair to play against. I have no further plans until these fixtures other than to ensemble my backroom team and an effective formation for the long haul ahead.

[...Dan]

Wtf?

[Dave]

1 hour ago, ...Dan said:

Wtf?

I refuse to watch highlights. They annoy me too much.

[Dan+]

We don't win enough to be honest. Plenty of respectable draws but it's too many. We need to start actually winning or we could get pulled into trouble.

Think we'll be fine but fuck me our lack of depth gets exposed a lot around January.

[LFCMike]

Champions League group stage here we come!

It's been a busy summer in the transfer market. We've lost four players for big money. I've got three of them back on loan. My thinking being that I have youngsters who aren't quite ready to step in to replace them but I think will be in a years time. The last player you can't see on the transfers in screen is Darren Grigg, back on loan for another season.

Oh and we've had the first player good enough to be kept on from our youth intake too!

I plan to do a breakdown of key players at some point as I realise you all won't recognise any of the names.

[LFCMike]

Signed for £55k from Raith. Raith had a 15% sell on clause. This happened on the last day of the window so no time to replace him. Had to promote one of my reserves earlier than expected

[Mpache]

Made it past the round of 16 in the Champions League for the first time, and what an epic win.

[Mpache]

Drew Sevilla in quarters. After that we get City or Spurs.

I like my chances to get to a final, but I'm taking this one at a time. Sevilla have beat me before.

[LFCMike]

Just played England in a qualifier. Dominated but Maddison scored a 30 yarder on 93 minutes for them to win 0-1. 

[Mpache]

Sevilla out of the way.

[Mpache]

@Dan "I'm gonna start as FC Andorra and create a team full of Andorran stars"

@Inti Brian "I'm gonna start a save as Sassuolo and enjoy it."

Guess who got the first potentially world class Andorran player? 

[LFCMike]

Well this more than makes up for their injury time winner at Hampden. A win at home to Belarus puts us through

[LFCMike]

A comfortable 2-0 win at home to Belarus puts us through.

Scotland have some very good young players coming through on my game. Excited to see how far I can take them in the Euro's

[LFCMike]

So here we are at the winter break. 

Finally a win in the Betfred Cup final! Absolutely twatted Celtic.

Our only loss in the league so far at Celtic, again. Celtic lost their final game before the winter break at Rangers to take us top. By comparison, we beat Rangers 0-4 at their place.

Lost our final group game at Milan after we were already qualified.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

I've finished the first season in the prem and after a great start, Lamela got injured and it was no surprise to see us struggle massively after that. We could barely manage a win to the point that the board were having major concerns about the form (despite the fact our objective was to avoid relegation and I was competing for Europe. Pricks).

Anyhow, to sum up, we finished 7th despite having a fairly weak team overall (bar a couple of stand out players like Gazzanigga, Grot, Gelhardt, Lamela, Albrighton and Mavropanos), so we have the Europa League to look forward to. 

The good news is that our transfer budget had gone up to £70m, but we lacked quality in key areas such as centre midfield and centre defence, while having a fairly small squad. However, I've made what I feel are a couple of shrewd signings for minimal fees, while recouping a decent chunk of it back in ayer sales that, quite frankly, were fringe players. 

The big signing so far (which admittedly wasn't a key area but we were lacking in quality after Grot and Gelhardt) was Mitrovic for £10m plus a reserve player. He's better than Grot all round and like the season before with Gelhardt, getting a quality player like him for that amount of money was a no brainer. It had to be done. To compensate the signing, I sold Oakley-Boothe (who wanted to leave) for £5m, Doyle-Hayes (who barely played) for £4m and a reserve team player for £1m, as well as selling Honeyman for £5.5m. I have 2-3 youngsters in the reserves who are considered on par with Oakley-Boothe, Doyle-Hayes and Honeyman but also have the potential to be much better, so while I admittedly weaken a key area in terms of bodies, I do have others to replace and surpass those sold. 

I currently have just under £60m budget left and am looking at a centre mid or two, a centre defender after Garcia left on loan and possibly a goalkeeper for depth and I'll be pretty happy then. 

[Dan+]

FC Andorra - 2024/25 (Part two)

-----

I said in pre-season that the aim was a solid midtable finish and everything I've seen so far points to exactly that being the case. I think we're looking clear enough of the drop to be OK this year without any major pressure, although we can't rest on our laurels as in terms of points we aren't actually that far clear. Serbian striker Sinan Kladar joined the club for £1.3mil - swallowing basically every bit of my remaining budget but to be honest, I didn't need anything else, we can't finish for shit and he's comforably worth more than that in my eyes, so the bullet was bitten.

We did however fail to secure a permanent move for French midfielder Jean-Claude Philippe, who opted to join Girona in a controversial move. The bad blood firmly brewing between us two. I can't beat the twats and they are our most local game, and now this, it's brewing.

We returned after the winter break with a totally abject display at Sevilla and went down 4-1 - worrying given we've just drawn them at home in the cup too and I want a bit of a run in that. We then drew games at home to Villarreal (decent result) and Real Sociedad (usually decent, but they're having a bad year) before Sevilla did as expected and put us out in round 3 with a 0-2 win. We then went and picked up our first away win since the opening day by beating Levante with two late goals, and a winner from new boy Kladar to give us the points. A slightly surreal game that saw Levante forced to playing not one, but two kids in defence. I smelt blood and gunned for them, and we got the reward. A real stroke of luck if we're honest.

February began with an expected drubbing at the Bernabeu, but we got a degree of revenge over Sevilla by turning them over at home for the third season running. They really don't travel well do they? We then picked up a very respectable goalless draw at Bilbao, before a slightly disappointing draw at home to Espanyol. The boys who couldn't draw had become the masters of it.

 

 

March began with the grudge match - Girona at home. Girona were in pretty awful form going into the game and were missing a number of players, I smelt blood and extraordinarily went 2-0 up after 3 minutes. We have taken the lead against Girona after 17 seconds away from home, and 14 seconds at home. Sadly though, we're draw specialists now, in a game that typified every single thing that fucks me off about this team we managed to draw it 2-2. Chance after chance to put them away on the counter blown and Girona score late from distance. 2-2 again. No wins in 6 against Girona. Unbelievable, and frankly emabrrassing. Why oh why can we not put this peculiar side away? Girona are a weird one. I've never seen tactics like them. They just throw everybody forward and hope for the best. It's no wonder they ship 8 goals annually at Barcelona.

We made it four draws on the bounce with a decentish point at Rayo Vallecano. I'd have taken a fifth on the bounce but it wasn't to be, as expected Barcelona absolutely slaughtered us again but the result that followed was abysmal, and possibly our worst since being up in La Liga as struggling Leganes picked up a comfortable 0-2 loss. A team meeting called and a bollocking dished up at the end of either half. No wins in six and while I think we were probably about one win from our final eight games away from survival, performances like that would see us pulled into trouble. It was abject. Absolutely pathetic.

 

 

That said, our run in actually looked really generous bar a horror last two fixtures. We eased any fears with a late victory at home to Real Betis, although served up a pretty abysmal pair of performances on the road, trips to Eibar and Mallorca seeing 1 point and 0 goals. We did however pick up a stoppage time victory over Celta Vigo, totally out of the blue, before a smash and grab victory at Osasuna. We were in the top half with three games to spare. We lost them all. Another loss at Sporting Gijon who had just been relegated, and an expected pair of home defeats to Valencia and Atletico Madrid saw us finish in a very respectable club record 11th place. The headlines however were elsewhere.

 

 

 

Well well well. Remember Michael Folorunsho? Michael Folorunsho was one of my signings I made in the second summer at Andorra, on loan from Napoli, a solid box to box midfielder who I aimed to tie up on a free transfer at the end of the season, but he turned me down for Cordoba. Cordoba were relegated and Andorra promoted. Folorunsho had picked the third tier over the second.

Lightning strikes twice. Jean-Claude Philippe must be absolutely gutted. Girona, against all odds, managed to get relegated despite being in the top half at the half way stage, failing to win any of their last 15 games, failing to win away all season, and being sent down with a game to spare with a loss at home to Leganes who pulled off a bit of a great escape - they sat bottom at that very stage. It also proves that we did need to finish the job off, we were below Girona at that point. It is a quite remarkable relegation, they were well established in this league for me and had a squad that shouldn't be close to it. Real Betis will also be horrified with their attempt. Sporting Gijon another surprise drop for me. Barcelona are just a machine, their goals tally is frankly absurd and they're just unstoppable.

-----

Some final thoughts for this season:

- So we wave goodbye to our 'FC Andorra Stadium' after three successful years in La Liga, for the new 'FC Andorra Stadium', capacity of 17,000 - inkeeping with La Liga rules.

- Despite finishing 17th and 16th in our previous two seasons, this season we actually recorded just ten league wins compared to eleven in each of the previous two, which is quite remarkable and shows the value of avoiding defeat.

- Despite three years of La Liga and 32 wins recorded, we are still yet to take six points off any team in a La Liga season.

- Viktor Gyokeres and Alessio Piazza with 10 each were our top scorers in the league.

- Andorra created the most chances in La Liga. A frankly absurd stat and evidence that to me we have the right blueprint, but lack the quality right now.

- Andorra once again recorded the most fouls in the league. Mallorca however beat us on both yellow and red cards.

- We had the lowest possession stat in the division by an absolute mile.

- Next season will see a couple of grudge matches - Malaga & Alaves are both back following us sending them down, and Deportivo nearly joined them but once again blew it in the play-offs. Real Zaragoza are the others to join, and are my tip for 20th this year.

To next year!

 

[LFCMike]

January transfers:

- sold my number 1 keeper to Inter for £27.5m. Got a couple of good young keepers on the books already so they'll fight it out for our number 1 spot.

-Signed these two from Liverpool and Chelsea. £11.25m and £6.75m

I've now made £146m in sales and bought £87m worth

[Dave]

Scoring goals in The Championship still seems to be a real problem for me.

Thankfully I have a Goalkeeper on loan from Chelsea who has been nothing short of an absolute legend so were still in with a chance of staying up.

[...Dan]

Have any of you ever had a fifteen year old as good as this?

 

[LFCMike]

Going into the final five league games when the league splits.

We beat Fenerbahce 3-0 on aggregate in the last 16 of the CL. 

[Mpache]

Fucking hell @LFCMike you've made some proper progress since I last visited this thread regularly. Well done, on very good course.

[Mpache]

8 hours ago, ...Dan said:

Have any of you ever had a fifteen year old as good as this?

 

This is the closest thing I've gotten to that in possibly the most random place

[Dan+]

Forgot to mention in my review that I set up an arrangement last year for Andorra to be able to send youngsters to UD Logrones of the third tier - funnily enough a team I played in our promotion season, summing up our progress.

The main objective really is to be able to get South Americans sent there on two year loans to gain Spanish citizenship

   

[Mpache]

This has got to be the best Andorran of all time.

[...Dan]

CL quarter final against Man Utd. First leg we draw 3-3 at Old Trafford. Three away goals, great. Now all we have to do is avoid deafeat at home. 9 minutes into the 2nd leg and my defensive midfielder gets a straight red for a horrible and pointless tackle in the middle of the pitch. WHY? They're 2-0 up at half time. We get one back. They make it 3-1. We get another one in the 60th minute. Now we only need one more goal to take it to extra time, and half an hour to get it. We have chances but don't take them, United score on the counter in the 87th minute and we're out. FM need to add an option to scream in your player's face or something.