Football Manager 2012

I've just finished my first season as Watford, finished 3rd, went up in the Play Offs. I replayed the P.O final once though. Bugger going through a whole other Championship season!

Sordell ended with 32 goals, won Championship young player and player of the year, and top goalscorer. His stats barely went up though.

I added the French, German and Italian leagues to the game over the summer, and ended up finding some outrageous regens (especially in Germany) appear out of thin air in some of those teams. Absolutely immense players

So far this summer:

Ins:

Alberto Bueno (£2.5m)
Greg Halford (£2.4m)
Nathan Dyer (£2.4m)
Muhammed Demirci (£1.9m)
Matthias Walzlein (£1.8m) (Regen)
Jordon Spence (£1m)
Benjamin Boulenger (£900k)
Fousseyni Cissé (£800k)
Robbie Brady (£400k)
Ritchie De Laet (Free)
Miquel Ignasi (Free)
Loris Karius (Free)
Pedro Kamata (Free)
Tony Trinidade de Vilhena (Free)

Outs:

Adrian Mariappa (£2.3m)
Joe Garner (£900k)
Jonothan Franks (£425k)
Stephen Jordan (£425k)
David Mirfin (£300k)
Andy Iro (£250k)
Mark Yeates (£160k)
Chris Iwelumo (£30k)
Troy Deeney (Free)
Britt Assombalonga (Free)
Josh Walker (Free)
Michael Bryan (Free)

Cissé is a fantastic target man. 17 acceleration, 17 jumping, 17 Strength. The man is an ox. Was dead cheap too.

Also, if you aren't in the Prem and looking for a good CB first season, Ignasi is a fantastic loan from Arsenal. 18 jumping, decent defending stats. I picked him up for free at the end just to have him around. Think he will develop into a useful littel player.

Walzlein is an absurd poacher. For £1.8m and £21k in wages, I get a poacher with 18 acceleration, 17 pace, 17 dribbling, 18 finishing, 17 off the ball, 16 anticipation, 15 agility, 18 balance. Insane value for money.

Still need to balance out the squad, get rid of some excess players and such, but overall I think my squad is excellent at the moment. Really hopeful for the season.

Had a mighty £18m transfer budget and a £190k wage budget to play with, so its been fun filling it out. Window is over yet, so things can still be shaken up.


EDIT: For those starting as Watford - play Sean Murray in your first team! He develops really quickly and is home grown. Looks like he could be really good. 21 appearances, 3 goals, 8 assists, 7.18 average rating, for a kid who was only one and a half stars.

 

One problem I really had with 2011 is youth players just don't develop at all. And when loaning players out like whichelow and bryan, their values and stats dropped beyond belief.

Is that all fixed? Not sure if i can be bothered this year with it.

 

True. Murray has developed a bit, as has Thompson, but Massey and Mensah look ****e. I might have to release them at this rate

 

currently in feb, and am sitting 5th, form of late has been dropping, with plenty of 0-0's. has any one got any suggestions with tactics etc? playing like a 4-4-2 formation with two out wide, and two centre mids.

 

Well I was getting relegated with Watford from the premier league, so I jumped ship to West Brom. Mensah has come good on my game and i've just picked up 'The next Gazza', a regen from Truro.

Looking up.

 

How did Mensah 'come good' exactly? Did you give him action in the 1st team?

 

Just started my 4th season with Watford and am the current Carling Cup, Europa League, Super Cup and Premier League champions, and I've also just taken on the England managers job following Capello's retirement.

Easy this management lark.

 

I'm playing FM 2011 and now in the year 2028. Dyche has just been appointed England manager......

 

worth checking out the french academy thing called clairefontaine for regens. just picked up a couple of stunners.

 

Well finished my second season one place above the relegation zone with Watford and was promptly sacked. Managed to reach the FA Cup quarter finals, beating Liverpool (away) in the cup run!? What? Started the season ok, but then after about 30 games only won 1 more all season and just avoided relegation. Typical football manager, no matter what I did I couldn't stop the rot. This has been the pattern of all my Watford games going back a few years now. I don't think I've taken them into the Premier League since the Championship Manager days. I reckon I'm just s*it at this game to be honest. Although I have had success with lower league clubs before, so I must have some sort of clue.

Anyway, will go on holiday for a bit and see if any jobs turn up. Might venture into the lower leagues again as usual. Will see who comes up in the conference north or south and maybe try with them.

 

Wasn't going to get the game as i have far too many more important things to do with my time, however, for the first time in several years i find myself pretty hooked on it after completing the demo.

It took a while after a very inconsistent first couple of months, when it literally seemed as though every victory was followed by a defeat, but i have put together a run of about 14 games without a defeat. As it stands i am 5th in the table and in the semi-final of the league cup. I am scoring a minimum of 3 goals in most games, whereas i avaveraging about one a game for the first few!

Have been mostly playing a 4-1-2-2-1 formation, with two wide fowards (set up as inside forwards) and a Target man. Playing Jenkins as a playmaker (either Advanced of Defensive), Bauben as a box to box midfielder and either Eustace or Hogg in the defensive role, seems to be the mot effective combination. My usual line up is something like this:

GK-Loach RB- Hodson LB- Jordan(Free Transfer has been very consistent) CB- Mapps and Tiny DM- Eustace CM- Bauben and Jenkins LF- Townsend (loan from Spurs) or Yeates RF- Sordell (Scores lots of goals when cutting inside) TM- Helguson (Loaned in). It is easily changed into a 4-4-2 by moving Sordell up front if things aren't working.

Garner has been effective when he has played and chipped in with a few, Murray has started to impress when i play him and Mirfin has been a solid back up defender. Iwelumo is ****e.

Also loaned in Orlandi from Swansea but he rarely plays and Ravel Morrison from Manure which was a mistake as he keeps missing training and i can't fine him or Send him back because i paid a loan fee :doh:

Haven't sold anyone, just loaned a few youngsters out, waiting to pick up a few injuries so i can give the likes of Witchelow, Thompson and Massey more game time. Have fallen into the usual trap of ending up with too much depth to my squad! The likes of ****o and Deeney never get near the squad.

Also, have never heard of him but Joe Scott looks like a good prospect as backup for Loach in a couple of years.

I am now awaiting delivery of the full game...

 

I am truely terrible! After being sacked by Watford I turned up at lower Legaue Two club Bradford in November. Despite signing some decent players, the exact same pattern emerged as when I was at Watford, basically not winning for ages. I was going into the tactics and everything to try and change things, but no joy. So I decided after a 0-3 defeat at home to Crawley Town, to retire from football and maybe even Football Manager. I just can't get why I'm so sh*t, used to be good at this, but apart from a couple of decent lower league games, I generally can't seem to string any runs together. Players always get injured and despite often having more shots than the other team, my conversion rate is awful. Will have to consider if I want to carry on as the frustration is doing my head in, and it's only a game!

As a side note, Kenny Jackett took over at Watford, and with what is basically the same team as me, he has them 3rd in the league in February. Nice.

 

StuBoy pre match training has an impact from what I can see. I too got the bullet from Watford took over Havant and Waterloo and thanks to Counago on a free took them to League 2 football. I jumped ship to league 1 relegation candidates Leyton O and kept them up and then managed promotion. Redknapp retired and got the Spurs job no,w while Watford who deemed me too crap for them are in League 1.

Yaya Sanogo is just the best player I have come across, especially after 3 or 4 years.

 

I started up a new game a few days ago as an unemployed manager.

I did it all properly. I loaded up 100,000 players from most Euro leagues, Russia, America and some South American ones, had no reputation and started unemployed, ready to accept the first job that came along.

In late September I was approached by 1860 Munich of all teams - a large second tier German side with a 50,000 seater stadium (45% gate receipts rent mind), a great youth system, no debt, 20k+fans and a decent squad, even though I had loaded lots of awful teams up. Pretty good first team I would say!

I can't be bothered to go through the details, but I took over with them second bottom and brought them to 4th by the end of the season, missing out on the play offs by a single point.

Starting unemployed is much more interesting than choosing a team. Going to go from team to team as a fancy. Its nice not managing in England too because you don't need work permits - I can get random African players who are brilliant to play for me at any time, its great.

 

Wouldn't you still have a foreign player limit though?

1860 is an amazing club to get on Sunday league reputation! Being a journeyman manager is more fun I think.

 

Finally downloaded the demo.. still trying to figure out all of the interface.. quite different from 2011

 

I download the demo, go onto steam to play it, but it gets to 2% installation and wont work. I've tried everything to fix it. Uinstalled the demo and steam, checked my firewall etc etc but still won't work.

Any help?

 

Yeah, he's quality.

 

Just finished my 2nd season/1st in the premier league. Finished a very respectable 10th. £16m transfer budget, youth and training facilities getting upgraded, and stadium being expanded to 25k. Signed some cracking regens and got one gem through my academy who is tipped as the next Bobby Zamora (so random I know) and has great potential apparently. Was making a profit of £1.5m a month, hopefully that can continue this season. Aiming for europa league this season too. Up the 'orns!

 

Well started a new game with my very local team (I can see the ground from my flat) Maidenhead United in the Blue Square South. 24 games in and riding high in 3rd, maybe the worm is turning!! Interesting at this level, many of my players are signed on a non-contract basis so can jump ship whenever. Will keep updating on progress when I can be bothered! I have Jason Norville (remember him?) leading the line for me.

 

Anybody?

 

treat it as a stroke of luck, in that instead you can go out and live a fine student life and find WOMEN

 

I caved in and bought it.

Any tips etc for the changover from 11 to 12?

 

in my first season with watford i did not really make any signings. signed helguson on loan who scored 12 goals before getting a bad injury. sordell bagged 11 goals, massey bagged 9 in 15 games. in the january transfer window after being given some funds i signed young swedish left winger emir bajirami who has been a revelation. finished the season very mid table. taylor left in january, and loach at the end of the season.

at the start of the second season i signed marshall for 1m from cardiff to replace loach. krystan pearce was signed from notts country for a minimal fee and free transfers of nosworthy and priskin followed. a slow start to the season was followed by a demolition of ipswich away from home in a 5-0, followed by a 2-0 against newly promoted sheffield utd. i then faced man city in the league cup and in a miracle performance went through on penalties after drawing 2-2. the man city team include balotelli, tevez, nasri, both toures, company, guidetti and hart. a very valuable performance and since then my team has been far more resilient losing only once to leicester after 4 games in a 13 day spell. i face swansea in the 4th round of the league cup.

 

Right season as Watford.

Ins :

Salomon Olembe - Free
Brahim Hendani - Free
Angel - 220k

Out:

Doyley - 350k
and Mingoia and Thompson on loan.


Angel is brilliant. 6 goals in 7games so far. Martin Taylor has got 4 goals in 7. Playing a simple 4-1-3-2 formation. With usually eustace in DM.

Currently undefeated after 5 games lying in 6th, after some very unlucky late equalisers from peterborough and cardiff.

 

Very strange game this time round.

Go from a run to 11 games unbeaten to a 5 games without a win, gettnig battered 5-2 at home to millwall, and 4-1 at home to brentford, i then go on to beat Forrest 1-0 away who are top of the table.

Currently in 12th.

Can i ask, what are you guys averaging in form etc when you win teh championship in your first season?

Usually on all previous FM games been averaging the 6.8s occaisionally get a player at 7.3 who scores bucket loads, but just wondering what people's averages are?

 

Most of mine were around 7.00 when I went up through playoffs with the exceptions of Sordell, Delfouneso, Yeates and Taylor who were all slightly higher.

 

Ok. At the moment im averaging about that.

Might have to change formation to stop this rot. It seems as if i've been found out.

Beat 1st place 1-0, the very next game lose to 2nd place 5-1.

 

I went through an inconsistant spell around Xmas time, but it passed. I held a team talk.

 

Maybe i'll do those manually instead of letting the assistant do them. Thanks.

 

I didn't mean the match ones.

 

Oh ok. i always say the wrong things in those.

 

Well I'll be damned. Got Maidenhead United promoted from the Conference South after only one season! Should have won the league, but ended up second and winning the playoffs. Did it mostly with a bunch of 16/17/18 year olds on non-contracts. However, our debt grows and I can't really sign anyone, might be tough next season.

 

Team meetings never go well for me, they're a moody ****ing bunch

 

Say we've done rubbish just got battered 4-0 i'll sa something along the lines of, i know we can do better, lets prove it give the fans something to shout about, and they are pissed off with me, because they probably think they've done well!