Football Manager 2020

[Carl the Llama]

Started a Leiccester save (you have to when you get a new copy of the game). 

 

We drew the opener 0-0 against Spurs in a game where we made most of the chances.  Good start I'm thinking.  Then we lost 4 of the next 5 games in the league (in my defence they were against good sides in Man City, Chelsea, Wolves and then Crystal Palace with a totally absurd winner from Zaha who literally ran the whole pitch unopposed in slow motion like that Maradona goal on crack).  We weren't being completely outclassed but we weren't creating enough chances or scoring the ones we did make, only Evans (2) and Albrighton (1) had scored in those opening 6 games to give you an idea of our problem.  Our approach wasn't working so I did what any sensible Leicester manager would do and moved Maddison to the left of a 4-1-4-1 wide as the game likes to call it (the one that's a 4-1-2-2-1 with wingers/IFs), meaning I can have Praet - who people have correctly identified as a low-key beast in this game - and Tielemans in the cm slots.  Vardy had to be hooked for Nacho.

Instant results as we go from being frustrating to watch in the final third to one of the slickest attacks in the league, the next 11 games seeing us score 26 goals (including a 5-0 thrashing of Southampton) for 8 wins, a jammy draw against Villa, and a continuation of our 'big 6' struggles with narrow defeats away to Arsenal and Man Utd, elevating us from dangling just above the relegation zone to within touching distance of European qualification.  Vardy still hasn't found his scoring boots though, only 4 goals to his name despite our success.

 

Now we're in late December, the next match is away to bottom of the league Brighton with Liverpool coming 3 days later.  Liverpool are running away with the title just like irl, no defeats all season with the only 2 games they haven't won being draws against the Manchesters.  I'm an idiot so instead of using the Liverpool game as an obvious write-off and a chance to rest key players who are getting leggy during the winter backlog I decided to send out a weakened squad against Brighton instead, saving my full strength team for the runaway leaders.  Don't ask me why I did that but it incurred the obvious penalty of a 1-1 draw against relegation fodder in a game we were lucky to get anything out of tbh.

 

Then came Liverpool.  Nacho's form has been dipping so I give Vardy a run out in the only change from my 'best' XI, I tell the lads to go out on the attack and we're 0-2 down in the first 6 minutes to an outrageous free-kick (as seems to be customary in any game against the 'big 6' on this save, meanwhile we're yet to score from one) and a Pereira OG which really should have been awarded to Soyuncu for slamming the ball across our 6 yard box and into his back instead of clearing it.  I've made a big mistake.  All I can do now is change tactics to defensive and hope to contain the damage, we've already lost valuable ground on our league rivals after drawing against the bottom team so we could do with not ****ing up our GD too.

 

Cue the beautiful, beautiful shithousery:

This takes us from 8th to 6th (top 5 are the usual suspects, Spurs are 9th).  If we hadn't bollocksed the Brighton game we'd be 5th right now but I take a little solace from the fact they've just held 3rd place Chelsea to a 2-2 draw and they put out more of their regular starters than we did.

Edited 2 May 2020 by Carl the Llama
Weirdly the in-game media are more impressed with Everton beating Man City than the undefeated runaway leaders losing their first match of the season in a 7 goal thriller...

[Beliall]

2 hours ago, The Bear said:

That's shit. But I doubt it's physically been overwritten on the drive. 

 

You could try some free software to see if you can still recover it. 

 

https://www.sodapdf.com/blog/data-recovery-software/

Thanks man I'll check it out. Potential life saver. The Huddersfield fans will be chuffed.

Didnt find anything useful. thanks anyway mate.

Edited 2 May 2020 by Beliall

[The Bear]

Unlucky. I hate Huddersfield any way. If I'd have realised I wouldn't have bothered!

Edited 2 May 2020 by The Bear

[Stadt]

At Toluca, squad was pretty threadbare but it's been a right pain in the bollocks trying to do anything with it. They have two separate windows for foreign transfers and domestic ones which is annoying enough but you need a minimum of 9 players "considered Mexican born" in the squad. The ones we did have were shit so couldn't buy any one I needed because I joined after the domestic window closed. Then my board have got a raging hard on for Argies like me when we beat United 5-3 so much so that it's part of the club culture/vision/whatever. Great. Except that when trying to actually fill up my squad in the first window they wouldn't let me sell anyone because they thought they were worth more and blocked all the transfers.

 

Now I'm in the domestic window, they're blocking my transfers because I'm not signing enough Argentines the wazzocks, I literally can't. I'm not allowed you freaks.

[LCFC_FAN_1995]

Keep getting teased i'll be getting a takeover, 6 seasons into my Bradford career. JUST SELL US

[Carl the Llama]

8 league matches on from that Liverpool win and we've only won 2 more matches (5D, 1L), but honestly that's pretty good going imo. I didn't strengthen the squad pre-season, only bringing in 2 cheap future prospects so the winter really tested the depth of what I had to work with.  Not to mention we've faced a 'big 6' team 5 more times over that stretch and we drew all but the Liverpool return match where they got their revenge in pretty emphatic fashion.  The good news is the teams around us have also been struggling to put a run of wins together so miraculously after 28 games we're 5th on 47 points in a mini league with Chelsea (2 points ahead in 4th), Bournemouth, and Wolves (both level on points with us in 6th and 7th), all of whom are experiencing similarly erratic form to us.  So CL and EL qualification is still very much in the balance.

 

Arsenal and Spurs have hilariously both experienced a bit of a crumble and sit in 8th and 9th on 41 and 40 points respectively and don't look like making Europe, though there are still 10 games to go.

 

1st, 2nd and 3rd are all basically decided: Liverpool are on 72 points already, after losing their unbeaten status to us they had a bit of a stumble with a draw against Man Utd and a defeat to Crystal Palace but they've won every match since.  Man Utd continue the FM tradition of being way more dominant in game than irl but still sit 8 points behind them with 64  Man City are another 9 points back on 55 where they have clean air and a game in hand on our 4 team mini league.

 

Now the bad news:  Both cups saw us draw big teams and get dumped out (Chelsea in the Carabao, Man Utd in the FA).  In January a few teams came in for Fuchs and he wanted more game time having not been needed in the cups for a while so I had to let him leave, he's in Austria with LASK now.  Then I panicked a bit and spent over the odds on my first proper transfer bringing in Tsimikas to give Chilwell competition.  It does hopefully give us a slight edge in the league over Chelsea and Wolves though who are both still competing in Europe and the FA Cup (Man City won the league cup against Wolves).  Wish me luck for the last 10.

[Carl the Llama]

Oh and I thought I'd share this for my fellow ocd sufferers, few things in life make me as moist as min-maxing my back room team on Football Manager.

It's a struggle to attract the final coaches or indeed any medical/recruitment staff who can improve on what I already have but I'm working on it.

[Carl the Llama]

5 games to go and despite a continued failure to turn draws into wins we've managed to get ahead of Chelsea on goal difference... but Bournemouth are 2 ahead of us both and with a game in hand.  ****ing Bournemouth are going to keep us and Chelsea out of the Champions League  

[Carl the Llama]

Weird end to the season.  Bournemouth's last 5 games were Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, then us so they stopped getting points full stop and ended up 8th while Wolves and Chelsea continued to draw or lose every match.  We on the other hand decided finally start winning games again now that we're playing lower-table fodder, but in doing so managed to pick up so many injuries that to pick teams I was reduced to having the drop-down menu tell me which random squad member was least unsuitable to fill in.  That's how I ended up playing Albrighton as a wing back away to Man City in our penultimate match because all my left backs were injured and yet we somehow that's one of the matches we end up winning.  I'm chuffed but wtf.

 

Oh and spurs won their last 7 games to come out of nowhere and steal 5th from Chelsea.  Strange game.

[Carl the Llama]

Oh nevermind the game just crashed and I smartly had autosave off so now I need to play the last 5 matches again  

[snoopy87]

So it turns out it was a fluke then. Screw this game!!!

[Dan LCFC]

We're looking a lot better this year as I thought we would. After such an awful start last season (2 points from our first 14 games to be precise) we simply had to produce comfortable La Liga form to stay up, and we did by the skin of our teeth. I actually worked out our form since I changed to 4-4-2 would've gotten me 7th in the last two years which is pretty remarkable really.

 

This summer was a very quiet one, given another pretty shit budget but I expect it to become a lot better from next year, I'm happy to just float in the league about this year. Something extremely Leicester 2015/16 about our stats though.

 

[HowardsBulletHeader]

The Southport Soap Opera continued today, fasten those seatbelts.

 

I left you with the board popping the champers following promotion to the Football League and the return of pro football. Rumour has it they claimed it all back on expenses as rumours of a takeover emerged, saw the chance to snaffle a few quid back Ashley style and ran. Hopefully rumours of a Saudi Prince taking us over prove true or else it could be a long hard season.

 

No rest for the wicked though as it's the big time now! There's been some much needed turnover in the team, 11 out, a few activating some terribly timed clauses in their contracts to stay on. Big fat Ryan Astles I'm looking at you son. Freebies galore coming in and new heroes named Archer, Taylor, Diamond and McCann emerge, all freebies. Who'd have thought a cricketer, a darts player, a singer and a bad parent would make such a good football team. Only in Southport. 

 

The league starts with a win but we post 1 in each column for the first 3 games, then 3 straight draws, throw in a few defeats and we soon get to 7 without a win. Things are grim. We start to stick things together and fly up the league that's tighter than a nuns arse peppered with Gorilla Glue (I'm copyrighting that as we speak). We're now part of a top 7 separated by 4 points heading into December. All of a sudden, we break from the pack to go 5 clear, only to absolutely rhubarb (crumble) and go another 6 without a win. Rhubarb central, inexplicable bottle jobs.

 

My £425 wonder Ryan Egan, decides he's off as Bristol City, Cardiff and Leeds all come knocking very early in January, eventually Bristol City win the bidding war £400k up front and potentially in excess of £650k when all is said and done. Not bad for £425, anyone would think I was a financial genius if this was the first post of mine you were reading. The takeover materialises, not quite the financial backing of a Saudi Prince but John Wilkes, apparently he's an oil baron or runs hedge funds or was a manager at Enron. Something like that. Anyway nothing to be concerned about as he's cleared the club's debt, right? 

 

On the pitch things couldn't be going better now January has gone, 6 straight wins, 10 unbeaten. There's 37 games played, Exeter up next, a 5 point advantage over the Chaser, can we get back to League 1 and take home thousands of pounds? Don't go anywhere, you'll find out after the international break.

Edited 5 May 2020 by HowardsBulletHeader

[Milo]

On 02/05/2020 at 15:47, LCFC_FAN_1995 said:

Keep getting teased i'll be getting a takeover, 6 seasons into my Bradford career. JUST SELL US

I had my first takeover in years on my current Newcastle save, first season.

 

Transfer embargo and then a quick takeover - the new owner said he was impressed with me and bought with him two new players, both from Ajax - Donny van de Beek for £47m and David Neres for £15m 

 

First time I can recall that happening! 

[Milo]

On 02/05/2020 at 21:16, Carl the Llama said:

Oh and I thought I'd share this for my fellow ocd sufferers, few things in life make me as moist as min-maxing my back room team on Football Manager.

It's a struggle to attract the final coaches or indeed any medical/recruitment staff who can improve on what I already have but I'm working on it.

Do you not load the badges/kits/facepacks?

 

And how the hell do you get 69 staff members??!!

[Carl the Llama]

32 minutes ago, Milo said:

Do you not load the badges/kits/facepacks?

 

And how the hell do you get 69 staff members??!!

I have done on past editions but after looking into it briefly I couldn't be arsed this time.  That staff figure is across the entire club including all the u23 & u18 coaching/recruitment/medical staff, I assume the total isn't peculiar for a club our size but this is my first new copy of this game since FM16 and I haven't played any other clubs yet so don't take my word for it.

[Carl the Llama]

That's an old total btw, we've been making steady progress on the back room team and I've convinced Top to allocate a couple more slots to improve specialisation.

The recruitment staff are a real struggle to max out because I'm at a point where it seems anybody who would be an upgrade, even if only on my worst scout/analyst, wants to be made chief of their respective team.

[Stadt]

I have cracking junior coaching as well so what is this f uckery

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

36 minutes ago, Stadt said:

I have cracking junior coaching as well so what is this f uckery

 

I might be wrong but isn't the youth recruitment more important regarding intake?

[Stadt]

9 minutes ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

 

I might be wrong but isn't the youth recruitment more important regarding intake?

Youth recruitment determines the potential and junior coaching is how good their current ability is IIRC. Bit of a clunky mechanic really. Bilbao, as an example will have pretty rubbish recruitment but excellent coaching 

[Carl the Llama]

2nd season is over and we didn't make the top 4 this time which tbh wasn't too surprising given the extra workload.  We had an absurdly good CL campaign though, topping a tough group and making it all the way to the final where Real humiliated us. Back home we developed a bit of a rivalry with Arsenal who we beat in extra time of the League Cup final, the next week they knocked us out of the FA cup 5th round on penalties, then we beat them to 6th on goal difference, condemning them to the Europa League Conference thingy (interestingly our EL2 qualification from the League Cup doesn't appear to have gone to anyone else now that we're in the EL).

 

All in all a successful season although we were hoping to maintain a CL berth so that sucks.  On the bright side we got to play 20th placed Forest in our final league game and gave them a 4 goal guard of honour on their way back down to the Championship.

 

In an incredible twist of fortune Donnarumma's become available on a free just when we were looking to strengthen our keeper options and remarkably he's even agreed to join us on a lower wage than his current contract, albeit with a ton of sweeteners to push the deal through. The absence of a transfer fee's allowed us to bring his team mate Esposito along for the journey.  Our squad is looking banging if we don't get any heads turned.  Real have been making flirty gestures at Tielemans and I do not like it.

[Beliall]

finally bit the bullet and loaded up a new game, only loaded a handful of countries to speed it up, and crossed my fingers to see if it was possible to get a job in south africa at the start of a new game. got turned down flat for all 4 of the jobs in africa. so either you lot are full of shit or im unlucky  

did however get a job at shanghai shexin, halfway through the season, and 5 points off safety in the relegation zone. easy 6 month job, quick national C licence and ill be on my way....

saving my game to the cloud now too....twice

Edited 6 May 2020 by Beliall

[Carl the Llama]

Cheeky bastards

[jammie82uk]

After having a few days off Just a quick update on current issues, finished 11th with QRM chairman is over the moon the players and staff less so, 13 players and 3 staff refused to extend their contracts so have now left the club, got another rebuild project with no transfer budget yet again, preseason buildup told my current bunch of players we should aim for mid table again as that’s what the chairman wants, the players laughed and said we will be lucky to avoid relegation so cheers guys 

 

in other news 

 

with Chris houghton still at the helm Leicester finished in 10th place, the team is largely unrecognisable, Benkovic is captain with Silva and Maddison the only other survivors 

 

Bradford city also finished in 10th after dropping like a rock after looking like they would make automatic promotion or at the very worse the playoffs but with no wins in the last 7 games of the season ultimately sees them miss out on the playoffs by 2 points 

 

 

[Dan LCFC]

I'm simply bored of the pathetic finishing now. There is no way that I can be as unlucky as this. Once again, 5 clear cut chances, 0 for them, and the game is drawn. How can it possibly be? We haven't got bad strikers for **** sake. There is simply no way on earth we draw the game with reversed stats.

 

I can kind of deal with being beaten from distance, we play quite defensively and we're bound to concede more from distance than average, but we routinely miss one on ones, I thought they'd fixed this bullshit?