FM Official Thread All Fantasy Football Manager talk here please

Followed by this in the very next game.

God bless FM!

 

I started Watford with own players plus Sugar Daddy and upped the stadium to 45k capacity.

Bought the players that at 25 are world class and put them straight in. Finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th before a 94 points romp to the title in season 4.

The Pozzos gave me 3 stadium upgrades plus the training and youth set up are top top grade.

Nice 4 2 2 2 formation working well with a target man (Deeney hit 22 in season 1).

Downsides have been signing Jaydon Sancho who immediately wanted a bigger club and downed tools. Missing out on a couple of the other wonder kids who are now £150 million players.

Have to say i love the training part and fm19 seems better at retraining player positions.

 

I enjoy the own goal in the 94th minute, still attempting to defend down 11 in extra time.

 

I read it all. Have you been diagnosed with OCD or are you on the Autistic spectrum? Dont get me wrong it is a great idea and it works but sooo much effort and time.....

Will you be doing another update article?

 

Neither as far as I'm aware, it was an absolute s***load time and effort but at the same time was hugely rewarding (as much as a game of FM can be rewarding!) and made for a good blog so I deem it worth it! I won't be doing another update as I opened the game and stared blankly at all the players that I'd since forgotten about and simply couldn't be bothered going through the teams and refamiliarising myself with each players progress etc, so looks as if I'll have to wait until FM20 to start again. Unless I start a FM17 game as Watford or something.

 

I enjoyed reading ll about it and I dont blame you for not going back to it. Did you have spreadsheets and other data away from the game to help you keep track?

 

Only 2 - the first for keeping a list of my scouting assignments and which scout was doing which country (as they'd retire and then I'd have to work out what country I wasn't now scouting to find a replacement!). The second was for working out who would be going to each club at the start of the season as that gets quite confusing!

 

im still playin' ea's manager game

 

Anybody got a decent tactic for a team battling relegation in the Prem? I mean for FM 14 not real life.

 

Its ok, I found one and all worked out well avoiding relegation with a game to spare plus I kept my job. Investing heavily in youth and the futures looking bright if I can survive a couple of more seasons.

 

Don't worry, it's only a game. As my mother would have said.

 

Started a Journeyman career that I'm quite enjoying. Career began at Tenhults IF struggling at the bottom of the Swedish 4th tier. Scraped them to safety and then to promotion the following year. No transfer budget so must have had a few thousand trialists during my time there! Wage budget of £40 per player until we were promoted. Just about managed to stay up in the 3rd tier and was approached by Kalmar FF in the Swedish Prem. Absolutely huge jump in quality and thankfully the players took to my style as I had to win 2/3 games to keep them up. With a few Swedish and Serbian signings everything took off and I won the Swedish cup and league, sadly crashing out of the Europa league in qualifying. Starting my second full season there with European qualification to look forward to but keeping an eye on the recently vacant Brondby FC job in Denmark...

Finding it really refreshing to play in this way, I'm almost completely oblivious to what is going on in all the top leagues and just focusing on what I need rather than snapping up every possible talent. I recommend giving this play style a go for sure!

 

I haven't played FM since fm2016, I haven't really had the time

However when I got ill recently I decided to fire up the new one.

Started unemployed, no experience.

Ended up at Cobh Ramblers in the Irish first division after several interviews. It didnt go well and I was sacked within 6 months.

So, bad start to my career there.

Eventually i was picked up in December by part timers Aberystwyth Town who were for some reason bottom of the Welsh Premier League. I was asked to keep them up and handed a 6 month contract.

It started ok, and by March they were happy enough to give me a 1 year extension. Unfortunately our form then tanked and we were relegated, but I kept my job as I had the contract extension already

Then it began. Despite only being able to sign players on amateur contracts we came back up at the first time of asking as champions, with an unbeaten season to boot, also winning the rubbish local cup.

Then in our first season back we won the Premier league from nowhere, also winning the FA Cup, with half the squad still on amateur contracts. We were going to Europe.

We won the first Champions Cup game 10-1 aggregate, but lost the second match against AIK.

Immediately after we played in the Euro Cup II, and despite still having 3 starting players on amateur deals we made it through qualifying to the group. We then somehow won the whole group, against teams like Malm* and APOEL.

We are still 2nd in the league and yet to be knocked out of any of the 3 cups we are involved in, with my highest paid player on an astonishing 550£ / week.

This all meant that the club finances are looking rather better than usual.

 

That graph was one of the best things I've seen on WhatsApp from you.

 

Just won the Europa League in my fourth season at Watford in FM20, and have finished 6th in the Premier League 3 seasons in a row now. Quite an achievement for me! Champions League next season then, and we have a load of wonderkids on our books. Really need to be breaking into the top 5 now though.

Surprised I still have the time to play this to be honest!

 

Unbelievable scenes in my Watford save. One Europa League, Super Cup, League Cup and 3rd place Premier League finish later I finally managed to get them to build a new stadium. The magnificent Watford Stadium.

 

Not fantasy, just very Watfordy.

 

Is it a greenfield site or have they just knocked down the hospital?

 

In my mind we've moved back to Cassiobury Park. Vic Road was upgraded to 30,000 all seater, in my opinion hardly worth moving for an extra 11,000 seats, but Pozzo knows best I suppose...

 

Picked up this save again recently after a good 6 months off. Ended up staying the full season with Kalmar and won successive Swedish cup and leagues. Was approached for the AA Gent job but delayed it until after the last Champions League group game which we unfortunately lost (group of death).

Gent players were a different class and far too good to be at the bottom of the table, only took a tweak in formation and we were able to finish second in the league with Bruges being just too far ahead. I was offered and took the Belgian national job but left after 3 games - I just didn't want to play the game that way, was taking too long and I was losing interest in the save. Finally had some money to spend on some Argentinian wonderkids and picked up some quality kids released by the big clubs as their contracts had expired, including Brahim Diaz from City and Miguel Baeza from Real. This team are far too good for the league and walked it only dropping 7 points (with 2 games still to play), won the Belgium cup and have a 5-2 1st leg semi win against Napoli in the Europa league. I'm almost convinced I've broken the game after smashing Valencia 8-0 in the 2nd leg of the quarters!

Hopefully I'll wrap up the Europa league and then will keep an eye out for any fallen giants in the big leagues. Never like moving during the season so happy to stay for at least one more year to give the Champion's League another shot if nothing comes up. Great save and no reason to buy any of the new games while I'm still enjoying stories like this. Might get FM21 to help get Watford promoted!

 

Into my 12th season with Blackburn now, and think we may finally win league for first time as 3 points clear with 10 to play. We’re regular top 4 finishers and have had two champions league finals. If I win the league may stay one more season to try and win champ league and then resign and build someone new up from champ/L1. Have an endless line of youth talent coming through now so this may be where the current job gets dull.

 

Yeah got to do it properly. My FM18 Burnley had a 90,000 Ashley Barnes Arena.

 

This is always my problem. I love nothing more than developing young players and building an absolutely dominant dynasty, with several young superstars waiting in the wings at all times. That said, after a while, it just gets a bit boring smashing everybody.

I’ve not gotten into FM20 yet, because I’ve been busy turning Aylesbury United into the greatest team in history on CM01/02, which is still my favorite ever game.

I’m about to have a week off work, so I might fire up FM20 tonight.

 

Indeed. My general FM cycle is build up random club to superpower with stacks of youth players. Win everything. Resign. Take over new random club. Build it up same way but fail to beat my previous club because the previous 16 year old battalion are now monsters and they’ve sold my old first teamers for billions!

 

Well over 6 seasons I’ve managed to build up the Watford youth setup to maximum but all the regens I’ve had so far have been awful! Last youth intake was woeful! What’s the trick to great youth products?

At the moment most of my good young prospects I have poached from other clubs youth setup as my scouting network is pretty good.

 

On my old Watford saves with the best facilities I would get good players through but never positions and roles that suited my formation, very frustrating. Didn't want to rely on just poaching from Argentina but didn't have much choice in the end. Probably has a lot to do with the Head of Youth Development or something.

 

Yeah I had Blackburn maxed out for 6 seasons with nothing produced and then suddenly one worldie popped up followed by two consecutive golden generations. Seemed to go hand in hand with higher and higher league finishes.

 

Always enjoyed FM saves where you got Watford promoted, got more life out of them. One positive to this mess!

 

Can't say it's not realistic!
Art truly imitates life on mine as I've decided to poach half of Colombia since doubling up the national team job with Watford. I've had two Colombian regens become top drawer players for me in the Prem, let's hope we can say that about Suarez and Cucho in real life!

 

For the record, on that save I started off with Wimbledon for 2 and a half years before taking charge of Watford who had been relegated then promoted again under Steven Gerrard. Cucho had already left by the time I took over, Suarez had a mixed time before I sold him to Werder Bremen, and Joao Pedro has stayed at the club for the whole 9 years without ever establishing himself as a regular lol. A loyal servant to the club!

 

Into season 40 now. Have made Blackburn and Hull European champions and members of the new Big 4. Now after a massive step back have Stockport into championship. My biggest challenge though as the infrastructure is still pretty rotten so it’s going to be hard to press on quickly like I could at the other clubs. Watford have been premier league most of the 40 years. The Premier League big boys are currently Blackburn, Hull, Wolves and Spurs.

 

**** the pre season grind. Takes me ages to do it as I really cba. 1st July, got to do the usual player by player reports to see which squad they are going in, if they are going out on loan and who to sell etc. Meaningless friendlies against low level teams, tell the lads to take it easy as its just a warm up match but some of them still get miffed. Waiting for players to come back from international tournaments and this year 2028 is an Olympic year so my decent full young backs miss the start of the season.

 

FM21 beta just dropped! Will be jumping straight into it with a Watford save. Can't wait to get cracking as I love starting saves outside of the top tier

 

Ditto, just done the same this evening! I wasn't going to go for FM21 this year, but like you say picking up Watford outside of the Premier League now is going to be an interesting challenge.

 

Given it a quick look. 100k Wage deficit and £0 transfer funds. Good times.