Football Manager Series Catch-All

I feel like those are most common (and wonderful) in LLM games, like my old right winger for Solihull Moors, who basically had square feet and Determination so low it was a wonder he even showed up to games, but who had such blistering physical stats that he turned in a end-of-season Average Rating of 7.89 and was top 5 in goals and assists at the end of the season.

Yeah, I had a guy like that in my last career. Shouldn't really have done well in the league we started out in, but scored a ton of goals and was our best player. When we got promoted, I figured he was in over his head, but he did awesome again. Then we got promoted again, and I figured he's done. But no, once again he just continues to kick the ball in the net. It was only in the latest season where we really seemed to be asking too much of the guy, and he was riding the bench.

Some info on FM19 released yesterday.

Posted from GoldenFM's channel.

I'm a big fan of GoldenFM. He runs a great channel, does fun experiments and doesn't scream at you (although, FM doesn't really lend itself to the screaming, overcaffienated streamer genre). I love putting it on in the background while I play a game of FM.

Definitely give the Regen Rovers series a look-in, if you're curious.

That new color scheme though... yeek. FM does not look good in LSU edition. Also, I have literally never cared about training in nearly 20 years of CM/FM games, so that overhaul means nothing to me, because I will be assigning all the work to my coaches immediately.

But if they're going to do any tactical "innovation," I super freaking hope they've fixed Free Kicks and long shots this year. Shots from outside of the box are such a colossal waste in FM 18, and in a genuinely embarrassing amount of time spent in FM 18, I have seen... maybe 2 or 3 Free Kicks go in. It's a bit pathetic.

Other than that though, grand! The end of October/beginning of November are literally going to kill me as a gamer. Between this and RDR2, I might try and take a week off just to get all the gaming out of my system.

EDIT: Also, and I've mentioned this before, the series has literally never quite been able to replicate the absolute dominance of Ronaldo/Messi, and I wish they'd deal with that. Not necessarily by buffing those two players specifically, but by allowing truly generational, special talents to actually play like it. In real life, Messi hasn't scored less than 40 goals in all competitions since 2008-09. In my current FM game, in 2020, he's never scored more than twenty-three in the three seasons I've played.

Hmmm...

Look! Purple
Look! The ref runs to the VAR
Look! More manager attributes
Look! The old Wibble Wobble revamped

Bell & whistles, but the game lost it soul some years ago.

I am off to Football, Tactics and Glory

After a couple of injuries and suspensions the team has lost some of its glory. We drew 0-0 at home against Antwerp, and lost 3-0 to Man U at Old Trafford. Not a huge surprise, seeing the difference in quality, but apparently the team didn't appreciate me letting them of the hook as underdogs.

Anway... does anybody know how to assign a specific scout to a specific mission (in this case: find awesome youth players from Belgian and surrounding parishes)? I can only adjust the general scouting focus, but can't seem to find how to make that one scout with 16+ on talent detection do my biddings...

dejanzie wrote:

Anway... does anybody know how to assign a specific scout to a specific mission (in this case: find awesome youth players from Belgian and surrounding parishes)? I can only adjust the general scouting focus, but can't seem to find how to make that one scout with 16+ on talent detection do my biddings...

the new scouting system takes a bit of getting used to (I still haven't). I forget how, as I'm not looking at my PC, but I know I usually preferred to take control of the scouting rather than letting my Chief Scout do it. for what you're looking for, you'd probably assign a single scout to scout the nation of Belgium, with a limit on Player Age of like 18 or so.

Thanks, I indeed had to take full control of the scouting team. I wish, like with training, there was a more user-friendly way of landing somewhere in between letting your staff handle things and taking full control. I'll have to finetune some more, as my scouts keep suggesting 24 year old "youngsters" that would cost 16M (Anderlecht's all time transfer record IRL stands at 10M).

Mmm, yeah, after a flatly embarrassing number of hours spent, wit FM 18, I think I'm finally winding down, now that 19 is just over three weeks away. I've tried starting a few new games but haven't been able to rouse myself to genuinely care.

Eh, oh well. I always skip the demo, so when that Friday rolls around I'll spend that weekend setting up a new long-term LLM game to have fun with. I'll have to remember to keep my adaptability high though, I couldn't get a job anywhere outside of England last time because I guess they all assumed I'd never learn the language.

The Guardian has released their annual list of teens to try to sign on the cheap in your next FM game.

My Football Manager itch has been increasing by the day. Things I'm wondering...

Should I resume my existing FM17 career, or get FM19 on release and start a new career? Decisions decisions.

Oy, this game... Stayed up way too late last night, because I lost 2-0 to KV Mechelen (IRL embroiled in a matchfixing investigation BTW) and 6-0 to Barcelona. I knew I would lie awake in frustration, so I played and luckily won against AA Gent.

I'm now 30 hours in, and only about a 1/3rd into my first season. So uhm... how long does a season take with you guys? This snail pace is killing me, but I seem to be unable to just click ahead. And even if I would, it would take about a thousand "continues" to get to the end it seems.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

My Football Manager itch has been increasing by the day. Things I'm wondering...

Should I resume my existing FM17 career, or get FM19 on release and start a new career? Decisions decisions.

FM 17 all the way, and I would love to hear about your exploits if you feel like doing a write-up.

dejanzie wrote:

I'm now 30 hours in, and only about a 1/3rd into my first season. So uhm... how long does a season take with you guys? This snail pace is killing me, but I seem to be unable to just click ahead. And even if I would, it would take about a thousand "continues" to get to the end it seems.

2 full seasons at Celtic have taken me a total of 34h 49m. I leave training and u20 team etc to the backroom staff, but do all the transfers and took over the scouting in season 2. I tend to use the same two formations, but rotate the side and usually make 2-3 subs a game. I do all the press conferences.

30 hours for a third of a season does seem a little...lengthy. Are you just managing the one team ?

I'm really slow, but probably take about 20+ hours per season now.

The first season is the slowest in a career though, and if it's a new version or you haven't played for a while there are a lot of things that will just get much much faster. I'm sure you'll get much faster as you play more. I wouldn't worry that much about it yet, as I think by the end of this season you'll be naturally picking up speed.

Are you watching the full matches, though? I usually tweak the game speed and the highlight settings to get things down to 10 minutes per game. (I'm guessing, but that feels about right.)

----

If I restarted with FM17, I'd be picking up from where I left off in the AFC Telford career that I was posting in this thread earlier (first few pages).

I guess that the other thing which might take up time is recruitment, whether by transfer or free agents etc. Celtic don't have a huge pile of cash, but usually enough to hoover up any talent in Scotland, particularly as my second season had me getting into the CL groups, coming third and then getting to the final (!) of the Europa League...unfortunately meeting up with BM who proceeded to beat us 5-1. So lots of money makes recruiting players a bit more straightforward.

If dejanzie is operating in a more financially restricted environment, it usually makes recruitment more of a lengthy process, as players have to be scouted and reviewed, and time and effort spent on players who eventually decide to go elsewhere.

Yeah, recruitment is where I sink all my time. I play LLM with player attribute masking on.

Current game 5 seasons in with Blyth I’ve got them from semi pro just promoted to Vanarama North at the start to top of league 1 in the first season there at the half way mark of the season.

Got there with lots of free transfer players on trials and signing young players with potential.

Don’t think I can hold it now though.

Damn Huddersfield (premiership team in 2023) sees my two young strikers a 23 yr old Aussie and a 19 yr old German (my team captain) tearing it up in league one and says on the last day of the January transfer window “we’ll have them.”

Aussie had a 300k release, so no choice and for perspective We had never had more than 100k in the bank and the board took on a 750k loan to expand the stadium. So when the deal for the German was 600k up front 400k in instalments plus other conditions that would take the deal to over 1.5mil plus a 50% sell on I didn’t have a choice.

Problem being the board gobbled all that up and even if I had the cash I had spent 3 years grooming that German to the level he was at and the Aussie only signed for me (from free transfer) with the release clause and promises of promotion. I didn’t have time to land a replacement worth having.

So for the back half of the season my best striker is rated 2.5 stars for league 1 (the two I lost were both 4 stars on the coach report) and my 2nd best striker is Dan Maguire, a IRL player at Blyth who has been the workhorse that got us promoted 3 divisions in 5 seasons but is not cut out for league 1.

Im never gonna sell him or release him though. My plan is to get him to do coaching courses when he is older and hopefully make him my assistant manager.

He’s a bit poo on a stick now but one of my highest paid players. I guess he’s the Blyth fan favourite luxury player.

I find the biggest problem I have with modern FM games is that I don't take the time to work on every aspect (player recruitment as mentioned), as I was so used to, back in the day, just blasting through seasons. My guess is Sports Interactive want you to spend a lot of time on everything, which I generally find it hard to have patience with.

I'm going to give FM19 a good go through, I may start as Darlington again and just spend some time with things like player scouting, etc.

Also, one of my very good friends has recently started recording YouTube videos of his FM play. It's pretty much the only game he plays. He's been doing some Rugby League manager instead recently due to the fact his laptop has a bit of a hardware error towards his last FM save, but he's got a new laptop and is saving himself for a new series playing FM19. He's actually been really committed to the whole thing and making half decent progress with views and subscribers. I think the fact he plays the game almost every day helps in that it doesn't really feel like a chore to him. I know, from experience, that he loves talking about his FM saves (who doesn't though?)

First game play upload.

Clusks wrote:

I find the biggest problem I have with modern FM games is that I don't take the time to work on every aspect (player recruitment as mentioned), as I was so used to, back in the day, just blasting through seasons. My guess is Sports Interactive want you to spend a lot of time on everything, which I generally find it hard to have patience with.

Have you explored FM Touch? I think they've designed that version to get at what you're saying, which I can totally understand. I played the OOTP lite version on my iPad a few years ago and had a great time with it. Seasons go by in a fraction of the time, but you still get the core of the management experience.

Not having tried it, I can't vouch for the quality of FM Touch, but there are versions for all platforms. I think the Windows version might even come included as part the full version of FM.

davet010 wrote:

I guess that the other thing which might take up time is recruitment, whether by transfer or free agents etc. Celtic don't have a huge pile of cash, but usually enough to hoover up any talent in Scotland, particularly as my second season had me getting into the CL groups, coming third and then getting to the final (!) of the Europa League...unfortunately meeting up with BM who proceeded to beat us 5-1. So lots of money makes recruiting players a bit more straightforward.

If dejanzie is operating in a more financially restricted environment, it usually makes recruitment more of a lengthy process, as players have to be scouted and reviewed, and time and effort spent on players who eventually decide to go elsewhere.

Part of it is replacing the staff (scouts, trainers, ...) while learning the ropes. Meaning a lot of googling and then going back, finding out I can't afford the best, going back, ...

Another part was indeed the scouting itself. Anderlecht has some quality players (by Belgian standards of course), with wages that far exceed what I can offer new signings. And a lot of imbalance, with too many high quality wingers but only one good striker, no decent replacement for my central midfielders, and all subpar wingbacks. I'm unable to sign players that actually improve the squad, due to the transfer and wage budget. And one month into the game, a 6M per month debt payment kicked in. To put this in perspective: monthly wages are at 2.7M. The general financial situation of the club is precarious. Even the youngsters my scouts keep recommending cost way too much.

Apart from that, I still have this nagging feeling I'm not doing enough. I feel like I should scan higher tier clubs for unhappy players, check up on the other leagues, finetune training, find decent U19 and U21 coaches (impossible with current wage limits).

Godzilla Blitz wrote:
Clusks wrote:

I find the biggest problem I have with modern FM games is that I don't take the time to work on every aspect (player recruitment as mentioned), as I was so used to, back in the day, just blasting through seasons. My guess is Sports Interactive want you to spend a lot of time on everything, which I generally find it hard to have patience with.

Have you explored FM Touch? I think they've designed that version to get at what you're saying, which I can totally understand. I played the OOTP lite version on my iPad a few years ago and had a great time with it. Seasons go by in a fraction of the time, but you still get the core of the management experience.

Not having tried it, I can't vouch for the quality of FM Touch, but there are versions for all platforms. I think the Windows version might even come included as part the full version of FM.

I tried FM Touch and Mobile, but especially the tactics part seemed undercooked. Well not the tactics themselves, but it seemed impossible to distill any useful information from the match analysis. Reading "Midfield lacked steel" for the thirteenth time didn't really help.

Yeah, the first (roughly) week of a new save (in-game, I mean) always takes the longest for me. Getting my backroom staff together, taking a look at the squad, getting rid of the dead weight, setting up a tactic, getting training ready.

When I'm really getting after it, I'll usually do 2-3 games a day, 4 if I'm lucky (I always play FM while listening to a Podcast for a YouTube FM player, GoldenFM is my favorite). I also run a sh*tload of leagues (40+), so my game runs slow compared to my friend, who usually tops out at 25 or so.

dejanzie wrote:

Apart from that, I still have this nagging feeling I'm not doing enough. I feel like I should scan higher tier clubs for unhappy players, check up on the other leagues, finetune training, find decent U19 and U21 coaches (impossible with current wage limits).

I would not worry about that. During my "Journeyman" save, I too was obsessed with trying to find the best players on a limited budget. But if there's anything I've learned, that can be a fool's errand, trying to find that one life-changing player. Focus on getting the best you can out of the guys you have, because there are so many U-21 and U-19 players and coaches that could be available to you that you'll never get anything done. Especially at a club whose finances are limited.

Meanwhile, I'm doing some scouting ahead of my FM 19 game. I'm caught between trying to do another Journeyman game and doing a one-club game. If I do the latter, I've got my beady eye on York City, Racing Santander, UD Ibiza (PARRRRTAAAYYYYYYYY), Le Mans FC, and SS Monza.

40 leagues - does that count each division as a league? I think I'm running 8 (England, Scotland, Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Argentina), which might end up as about 30 divisions, as I have most of them running down to the lowest league available...I had Germany running down to the regional leagues in order to manage 1860, and there are an absolute shedload of them.

I think my relatively higher speed compared with other people, from what I'm reading, comes from me totally delegating training to my assistant, for all teams. I might be wrong, though.

Oh goodness, you phrased it better. 40+ divisions in usually 25-30 leagues. So I run all 7 English divisions in the league. I try to keep it under 50 total divisions, generally.

I think my relatively higher speed compared with other people, from what I'm reading, comes from me totally delegating training to my assistant, for all teams. I might be wrong, though.

After setting it up pre-season, I only did little tweaks now and then. Like removing individual trainings for players over 28 (saves some fatigue for players who won't get any better anymore), or retraining defensive into offensive wingbacks. All in all, the impact of training is not that great.

It does say something that after 15 iterations, SI still hasn't succeeded in making this part any fun, nor even that realistic. Kind of emblemetic.

About that debt issue: any idea if you can check how long these payments will last? I just got a notice from the board that 'sorry, but we might go bankrupt in a couple of months'.

Training is getting a massive overhaul - I've seen some references in the various FM19 'features' vids, but skipped over them myself.

As for Anderlecht's financial situation...I've just started a new game, and by 'eck they owe a lot of money. The details are in the 'finances' tab in the left hand menu, then in that section go to 'debt and loans' in the top menu...and then wonder how their finances are classed as 'OK'.

To cut a long story short (and I'll use the figures in my game, as I don't know whether there is some slight random variation) - I start with £2.5m in the bank, and loans of £62m (and transfer debt of £1.9m).

The 62m of loans are almost all short term.

£53m (4 different loans) repayable monthly until June 2018.
£4.3m repayable monthly to June 2020
£4.4m repayable monthly to June 2021

Total loan repayments PER MONTH are £5m.

Blimey, sounds like Leeds under Ridsdale.

Sorry dejanzie, but you'd have to sell your first team squad to cover that off - and in my game, 3 of the top 4 most valuable players are loaned in.

Good luck !!

davet010 wrote:

The 62m of loans are almost all short term.
Total loan repayments PER MONTH are £5m.
Blimey, sounds like Leeds under Ridsdale.
Sorry dejanzie, but you'd have to sell your first team squad to cover that off - and in my game, 3 of the top 4 most valuable players are loaned in.

oh_my_takei.gif

So if I can hold on until the end of this season, monthly payments will become much more manageable. Let's see... Champions League participance + win against RB Leipzig covered 3 months. With ManU and Barcelona in my group + away at RB Leipzig I can't count on any more money from that venue. If I draw at Leipzig I could make a few mill in the Euro League before that journey ends. That's another 2 weeks.

Transfers so far got me another... 2 weeks (2M in the plus, although I should double check the payment schedule). If I can sell that obnoxious Kara, that nets me another month of debt. Leander Dendoncker is the only player other clubs are actually interested in without being on the transfer list. I could get 12M from him, that's another 2 months. But he's also one of those irreplaceable central midfielders.

Markovic, on loan from Liverpool and actually a star player, costs 350K a month in salaries. That's 3 times the next most expensive player. And I cannot even terminate his contract, which was an option should there be a few games left in the season with nothing to play for.

So I'm good until... February. Heeeeeeeeeelp!

Almost all of those loans seemed to start in July 2017, so I'm not sure whether that was because that was the game start date, or because Anderlecht really were hard up enough to take out loans with short periods like that.

As you said, dejanzie, if you can last until June 2018 you should be ok (from memory, I think the loan repayments fall from £5m per month to about £250-300k).

Looking at it from another way - what happens if you go bust ? Is there any points deduction for going into the equivalent of administration, or maybe a rich benefactor will swoop in ?

To try and cheer you up (or at least give you something to watch while attempting to keep head above water), here's a look at the new training system.

The only time I took a team in dire financial straits in the lower leagues it didn't go well. I got frustrated. I couldn't add anyone, and the players I had were worthless. I felt pretty trapped. It might be fun to try again.

Lower League Management (LLM) is a subgenre all of its own in FM. Do a search for that phrase, and you'll find no end of guidance.

Alternatively, if you want a video series on it, I can recommend either DoctorBenjyFM's Thames FC series, where he creates a club and starts it in Tier 9...the early episodes in particular may be helpful. It has just ended after 202 episodes in season 2040. Ignore the stupid video bits - he ditches those after a few episodes.

On a similar vein, GoldenFM is about to start a series in FM19 with a team he's calling 'Regen Rovers'.

Seeing where we end up might be fun in itself, I guess

I think I'll roleplay it. Any real manager would realize they'd get canned after a few losses, especially at Anderlecht. While not being able to talk about the reasons in public, thus damaging my career. So I'm not going to sell Dendoncker unless they make me, and will be very clear in the press when they do force my hand.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

The only time I took a team in dire financial straits in the lower leagues it didn't go well. I got frustrated. I couldn't add anyone, and the players I had were worthless. I felt pretty trapped. It might be fun to try again.

At least the misery won't last further than this season. I can totally see how managing a club that's in constant peril would be an excercise in frustration.

davet010 wrote:

Almost all of those loans seemed to start in July 2017, so I'm not sure whether that was because that was the game start date, or because Anderlecht really were hard up enough to take out loans with short periods like that.

The season starts with the real-life winter transfers. Markovic, Saief were on loan from January to June IRL. Stanciu and Hanni were sold IRL during the mid-season window, and Morioka acquired.

As as sidenote: I'm not sure where they got their financial info from. Real-life Anderlecht had just sold Youri Thielemans for a record fee of 25M...