dmayne7

Yay, hamstring gone for one of the few bright sparks

Na, we started well but we've had no momentum for 20 mins at least. Felt like they would score, and so they did

Honking from Thomas for the goal but Vestergaard also helping out by ball watching and then jogging back

This is why people who think football pundits are actually any decent, especially compared to other sports, must be living in some kind of parallel universe.

Midfield 5 is at least the absolute best available to us. Nelson in and ideally Aluko/Evans involved, maybe Page and we'd be there. Definitely a step in the right direction at least.

Early access

Yeah, there's loads of things that are poorly optimised or missing, but it's not half as bad as some people are making out. Will just takes lots of getting used to. Interestingly windowed mode stops me getting awful coil whine in my pc, which I don't have on any other game. Personally hate windowed mode on FM but maybe I'll have to stick to that.

Yeah you should have at least a couple of on each save. I see FM scout put up a list which in assuming is scanned from the database and the potential ranges don't look as good as I hoped. Even Monga at the low end of what I expected (Jay Robinson has the same potential), with Evans particularly disappointing. I try not to do such big changes each season as that but then I still end up exploiting the system by loaning out players so you can sell them the following year to maximise the budget, signing players just because you'll make money etc. Hard to not game it and it's always pretty easy. If there's one name I expect to see in this thread on the very rare occasion I have visited it, it's yours telling the story of your save in Lithuania or the 3rd division in Zambia

Luckily he's actually ok on the game and probs easy to sell for big money the following season

A slight overreaction. I get the sentiment as FM is the ultimate habitual game where you expect to pick up a new version and be right at home. It's a pretty big shift but there is also a lot that is kind of the same. Some elements are definitely going to be better, some bits, probably not. But as he said (and I think he comes across as a bit of narcissist so not defending him because I like him), it's probably going to take 30-40 hours for people to properly get used to it. Do whatever you want as it's your money but I feel like you should probably try and stick it out for a bit.

Worth remembering that the star rating is relative to the league/quality of the squad so it's pretty possible that some of those won't have potential of much more than a passable PL squad filler. Particularly with somebody like Alves who's got really low current ability (surprised it's that low). And the other thing is that I imagine all of them will have random potentials which means that some of them could swing from being a decent championship player to a top player for a non 'big 6' club/back up for one of those. I suspect that's where some of these guys sit, though Monga I'd imagine will at worst, have a range of good PL to world class, but probably 1 up from that (I know some people don't know about the numbers behind the scenes so wouldn't have a clue what a -9 or -9.5 is).

You can get at least £1m more. Winks and Choudhury go for good money too, imagine Soumare does. One thing that does seem to be missing is a proper financial breakdown. We start off with ,£100m(?!) in the bank but projected to be minus at the end of the season and massively down on future years without a massive explanation. Mind you, there's another £20m in clauses to sell at the start so you could easily have £50m to spend only selling a couple of players

So I think it's just a couple of attributes that are random, mainly the determination as the test save I booted up, Page and Aluko both had 4 . Evans and Page wanted by Man City, Aluko by United so must be fairly decent.

Can't share the screenshot as too big a file but on the save I booted up, he's got 5 star potential. Good pace but that's it so guess he's got mostly random stats

Totally understand why you'd have that view for the exact reason I stated. But he still shows a willingness to defend and get stuck in far beyond the other 2. Other worth saying that this was a lad who was one of the most highly coveted young centre backs in Europe when he first game through so there's something there. As I say, no idea what his potential really is but we know Faes and Vestergaard aren't good enough for the next level and both have generally been pretty poor this season, so not got anything to lose and only something to gain by playing Okoli as well.

Be definitely didn't look as bad. He wasn't great and he's also very unpredictable like Faes. But to fair to him, that unpredictability isn't because he's trying to be a hero like Faes and so is often far less destructive. He's also got the capability to dominate attackers, something Faes does have and most importantly, he loves to defend. Impossible player to predict how much potential he has but he's absolutely worth giving a run of games.

There's definitely something more at play as you have alluded to. You can see how pally Faes and Vestergaard are so amongst others, they are probably kicking up an almighty stink if they don't play. People can call it out as weak management (not unfairly so) but when you've got 4/5 players who are like that, and are your 'experienced' pro's it probably creates a total mess so I forsee it being a real challenge how to manage. As has also been alluded to, wouldn't surprise me if the directive is that these guys need to be playing regularly so we have a chance of selling them for some money (though we also know that we'll likely turn down reasonable offers because we're morons)

But is that actually the objective? It is for us as a fanbase but I've been thinking about this over the last few days; we simply don't know what his directive is. He's not helped himself by going big with the narrative around his the young players but it wouldn't surprise me if he's been told that it's promotion at all costs. Or then that they've also told him he must use the young players. It's seems quite possible that he's been given mixed messages from the clowns in charge. Then you've got the massive amount of egos and bad eggs who'd stink the place out if they don't play, and the club has probably limited chances of us selling them. This should have been a perfect opportunity for Top/Rudkin to come out and ask for a bit of patience as the team is in need of a rebuild and we want to focus on using the academy, but they're allergic to open communication.

Interesting if his record with strikers is not great (not exactly going to improve here) but having watched Kelman in the flesh during one of those loan spells (Gillingham), and generally seen him loads in highlights etc, letting him go on loan is no kind of black mark against MC. He barley scored any goals until last year and hasn't scored in 11 league games this year. He's a very tidy player but I'm not surprised that he's not scoring.

£30 on loaded (cd keys) but no beta access

There are only 2 chuckle brothers and they are a world class centre back pairing. I believe you are referring to the three stooges.

Not exaggerating when I say that every single time I have opened this thread in the past month or so, there's been multiple comments from you, arguing against Nelson being any good, deserving selection etc. Was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were playing devil's advocate but I think it's pretty clear you don't rate him

Exactly what I thought. Love the guy but that picture is pretty pathetic, especially when this is a guy who has had a serious injury

See I'd be more than happy to get rid of most but will obviously tank the team cohesion. Hopefully Nelson and Okoli are decent with a least potential to be solid in the PL then I can get rid of the chuckle brothers. Probably have to keep one of VK (who's normally pretty good) or Luke. Imagine I'd be renewing Soumare and Winks just so I can make some decent money in Jan or the following season . Skipp will probably be ok on the game. Wingers are fine (assuming Monga's current ability is decent enough) so it's probs up top/number 10 where is be desperate to get someone good in.

Ha, I know what you mean. But think I've only really thought about that when NP was in charge. Yeah, I think the AI will be dumb as ever in the transfer market; by far the biggest thing that needs a change