Football Manager 2020 Discussion Thread

[Mpache]

I want

[Mpache]

WELCOME!!!

[Mpache]

Zhaxou Ma joined in January. It's April now and he's the League's 2nd topscorer. His development fills me with optimism too, he's genuinely going to be the best player in the world.

[Mpache]

We were on course for a Mickey Mouse treble (Supercup, Europa League and Copa Italia). We smash Lazio in the Italian Cup final with a 5-0 scoreline. Sadly, they do the same shortly after to us in the Europa semi-finals and beat us 6-0 in their own home. Shocking performance. I'll have to be happy with the double I suppose.

Zhaoxu Ma's short term injury killed our chances I think.

[Mpache]

This cheered me up a little even if it means nothing. The players know they bottled it.

[Mpache]

Great headline 

[LFCMike]

If you can't win the match because of going down to 10 men after 13 minutes then this is a pretty satisfying way to end the game

[...Dan]

Just finished the season unbeaten, won the quadruple, thrashed Inter 5-0 in the CL final, and Polverino equalled the Ligue 1 record of 44 goals which has stood since 1971.

[Mpache]

Been a while, but I finally won the title again.

Nicked it on the final day. Juve had to lose or draw and they managed to bottle it at home to Lecce. We beat Fiorentina 1-0 and stole it away at the very end.

Also

This is something I like to call happiness  

[LFCMike]

Update as we reach the winter break.

Another win in the Betfred Cup. Would have been so annoyed to lose that match but thankfully we got over the line in the end.

Comfortably qualified in the Champions League. Our only loss being in our last game when we'd already qualified.

Looks like we're going to win the league more comfortably than last season. Just the two draws so far (Hamilton & St Johnstone). This with Callum Allen missing for three months too.

With Scotland, we won our Nations League group. And the below is our group for the World Cup qualifiers. I'd expect us to be challenging Croatia for top spot.

[...Dan]

I've been playing since about 2pm today and I haven't even played a match yet. Loaning out about 60 players takes a lot of time

[Dave]

We finished 9th in our first season back in The Championship with a high intensity, lot of running, aggressive style of play. Capped the season off by thrashing runners up Huddersfield 4-1 at Plough Lane to celebrate the clubs highest ever finish.

I sold two of my best players for £17,000,000 in the summer. Did the board give me the funding to replace them? Nope. So I'm relying on an academy lad and a diamond in the rough from France to step up.

[Dan+]

FC Andorra - 2025/26 (Part two)

The first half of the season had been superb and had completely exceeded my expectations. I did expect the Tsouka & Ranocchia signings to improve us but this is quite significant and just shows how important it is to have correct fits in your side, 5th in the league was a ridiculous effort in the first half, but I did feel the real challenge was still to come with a treacherous January on its way. January saw a number of new recruits although mainly youngsters who were loaned straight to Logrones to help get them up, there's some real value in the lower leagues if you look for it. We were screwed over by January's deadline in Spain coming sooner than others, meaning lining up replacements for outgoing players was risky. Youssouf Fofana departed for Reims with no replacement, dreadful really but we couldn't afford one until we knew he was going, and Alessio Piazza turned down Chinese club DL Pro - though his loan replacement Alessandro Rossi came in anyway from Brescia. We were stacked in attack but weak in midfield. I wasn't happy.

January, as expected, was a total basket case of a month.

 

 

I'll start with the obvious talking point - Malaga away. it was fucking mental. We went behind early doors to a Malaga side in shocking form but turned it around and lead 1-2, before throwing it before the half hour mark. Straight from kick off we ran up and Malaga's defender elbowed Piazza, was given a straight red and Hernandez put the free kick straight into the top corner. Their keeper then fumbled a simple header from Piazza before another Ranocchia belter put us 2-5 up at half time. You had to laugh. We then got a 6th immediately from kick off via Kladar, and then a 7th, again from Kladar, before a penalty is awarded to us in the 55th minute, Kladar completes his hat-trick and we're 2-8 up I couldn't believe what I was watching, there are collapses and then this. I make a couple of subs though that seem to totally kill our momentum and we concede two late goals. A mental result but I actually don't think it does justice for quite the hammering it really was. The Malaga win also turned out to be the first double we have done in La Liga, and with true London bus effect, Real Betis three days later became the second.

We were clearly struggling with rotation though and our lack of depth was exposed with two home defeats to teams just below us - though the Celta Vigo cup win was absolutely mental and provided some great content, their manager absolutely losing it with us after Gyokeres bagged a winner right at the end of extra time to take us into the quarter finals for the first time in our history. We would meet Atletico Madrid.

 

 

There would be no repeat of the Atletico victory, an expected belting at Real Madrid, and then an extremely disappointing loss to an Alaves side who were absolutely flying in fairness, but it's frustrating because they're actually starting to steal our thunder - their form was unbelievable for a newly promoted side, though saying that, they have a genuinely world class striker come through for them that's propping them up. We then went and ended Osasuna's 10 game unbeaten run with yet another chaos game. I didn't know if I liked this. I liked the result but I feel like it's unsustainable to ship this many goals, with 11 conceded in 4 games this month and our home form frankly worrying in the league.

 

 

March was a slight improvement. Atletico was to be expected, and Real Sociedad are still yet to lose a game to us, but in fairness that was a pretty good result given all three winers in our squad were suspended, which is absolutely classic FM and happens too often to be a coincidence. What are the odds that all three of them would pick up bookings when just one off? We finally won at home again, beating bottom side Rayo Vallecano comfortably before another victory at surprise strugglers Levante, who for me have to be the most bizarre club in the league. Levante are about 2/3 signings off being a genuine European threat, yet leave their squad so bare that they can't even name a full bench and that's despite raking in £80mil for player sales last year. What on earth are they doing?

Alaves had overtaken us, which was a shame, but April looked quite a generous one to pick some points up, and we would deliver.

 

 

The most impressive thing about us now is that I go to places like Espanyol, providing we're at full strength, and I expect us to bring home the points. We lost our winning run with a last gasp equaliser against Eibar which was gutting, and despite fighting from 2-0 down at Valencia, we would go down late there too. We finally avoided defeat to Barcelona, an incredible effort from ten men. We had three games to go and looked very likely to play in Europe - the Valencia result pretty much sunk our top 4 chances, but Europa League was a real possibility now with us, Alaves and Villarreal going for it.

We would have to settle for the second tier Europa League.

 

 

We disappointingly drew at Leganes who were near the bottom, before an absolutely disgraceful showing at Sevilla where nearly everything went pear shaped in the first half an hour. Results elsewhere had confirmed that we would play in Europe, although the very nature of that result meant that it was probably going to be in the Conference League, and Levante's failure to win at Villarreal on the final day consigned us to 7th, which is still brilliant, although I do feel we paid the price for the lack of depth. Just a word on Celta Vigo - that is the third season on the trot we have beaten them 2-1 at home with a last minute winner, they must be shit scared of us.

 

 

So there we have it. Barcelona win the league yet again although were made to work a lot more this year. Alaves overshadowed our achievement which is fucking annoying - you feel that Sancet signing actually seriously helped both us and them after all. I was disappointed with the three who went down as we do well against all three of those, and to make matters worse those irritants Girona are back next year as well, much to my annoyance, joined by Real Sporting and Deportivo

I think what I realised this year was that our depth is just seriously lacking to be anything too dangerous on the continent. I actually think playing in the Europa Conference may help us a bit though as it gets us a taste of European football without the strain of having to go through a shit load of qualifying rounds. That said we have got to get a bit more depth into our squad next year and it will be tricky given Mutanda & Cioce are already two gaps we need to plug immediately - ideally on permanent deals but it's a lot easier said than done and I can't afford to blow all of our budget on two players. The difference when we lose a first choice midfielder in particular is absolutely ridiculous, we just crumble as a team.

I'm very happy with it though. Yet another record high. On we go.

[...Dan]

6 hours ago, ...Dan said:

I've been playing since about 2pm today and I haven't even played a match yet. Loaning out about 60 players takes a lot of time

The window just closed and I've just counted the number of players I have out on loan. Ninety Four

I also sold £357m worth of players, and spent only £29.5m

[Dan+]

10 hours ago, ...Dan said:

The window just closed and I've just counted the number of players I have out on loan. Ninety Four

I also sold £357m worth of players, and spent only £29.5m

Have you not got a loan manager?

To be honest I'm a bit funny with it. The only real criteria I have for loaning out is playing time - anything below regular starter and it's no deal. I don't care about fees or wages, they're a bonus. I've got a loan manager but find myself loaning about 5/6 players to Logrones every summer now ensuring that they play games.

It's quite grim that Logrones of the third tier have better training facilities than us. Embarrassing really at this point. Suppose it kind of sums up where we've come from.

[...Dan]

13 minutes ago, Dan said:

Have you not got a loan manager?

To be honest I'm a bit funny with it. The only real criteria I have for loaning out is playing time - anything below regular starter and it's no deal. I don't care about fees or wages, they're a bonus. I've got a loan manager but find myself loaning about 5/6 players to Logrones every summer now ensuring that they play games.

It's quite grim that Logrones of the third tier have better training facilities than us. Embarrassing really at this point. Suppose it kind of sums up where we've come from.

I do, but I've never used him for agreeing loans. Can I trust a loan manager? My criteria are playing time, training facilities and sometimes I look at the manager's playing style and preferred formation. If for example I have a deep lying playmaker I want to be used in the DM position, I need to be sure they play a formation with a DM.

[Dan+]

19 minutes ago, ...Dan said:

I do, but I've never used him for agreeing loans. Can I trust a loan manager? My criteria are playing time, training facilities and sometimes I look at the manager's playing style and preferred formation. If for example I have a deep lying playmaker I want to be used in the DM position, I need to be sure they play a formation with a DM.

That's along the kind of things I want to see happen too when I loan players out but I feel like it's risky having the loan manager oversee it all. To be honest I don't mind just loaning out youngsters who aren't ever going to make it and I'd happily have him overseeing that boring part of the job, but surely your loan manager has a level of performance too that the attributes take into account. I just don't want to spend a year testing it, leaving it to him, he fucks it up and then we've effectively blown a year because I've loaned my best youngsters to a club they're not getting games at.

Logrones blew promotion last year which is a bit annoying, although I should know as well as anyone the third tier is awful to get out of, but I sort of need them to go up - I don't want to keep sending my youngsters down to the third tier, they'll outgrow Logrones, a couple arguably already have.

In-fact Jack Melham, who I signed for £36k from Middlesbrough two years ago, I initially loaned to Logrones and it was the success of that loan move that made me choose them as a feeder club, he turned them down for a second year to join second tier Real Oviedo, and he's progressed so much again I actually think he's going to be starting for me this season. The development is interesting on this game I think.

[Mpache]

There it is.

[...Dan]

On 10/05/2020 at 16:54, ...Dan said:

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

 

 

[Mpache]

Unreal he is @...Dan

I have no doubt he'll be the best in the world soon.

[Mpache]

How unfair is this new Club World Cup by the way? Barcelona's first game is against us. 4 days prior we had played against Shanghai. As a result, we were all knackered at 70% fitness. Meanwhile Barca hadn't played and have perfect fitness. Shocker, we lose 1-0 and we're out.

This isn't fucking fair.

[Mpache]

Haha, give up City

[...Dan]

12 minutes ago, Inti Brian said:

How unfair is this new Club World Cup by the way? Barcelona's first game is against us. 4 days prior we had played against Shanghai. As a result, we were all knackered at 70% fitness. Meanwhile Barca hadn't played and have perfect fitness. Shocker, we lose 1-0 and we're out.

This isn't fucking fair.

Yeah it's ridiculous. A load of players with no match fitness. I've won it pretty easily both times I've played in it though, it's weird. I never took it very seriously, played on positive in every game, and won matches comfortably against teams who would give us good matches in the CL.

[...Dan]

Is it just me whose players never get nominated for the Ballon d'Or? Polverino scored 44 league goals and had an average rating of 7.78 last season, and nothing. Meanwhile my 3rd choice striker from last season Mahmut Terzi who I sold to Milan in the summer, 10 goals and 7.11 last season and 2 goals and 6.93 so far at Milan is nominated? 

[LFCMike]

First leg v Barcelona