Poll: The official Football Manager 2008 thread

[nikebee]

Well I was pretty much thinking the same as you.

If I have the chance to get automatic promotion then for sure I'll take it.
For a team that was expected a mediocre mid-table position in the Championship, to actually come second (or possibly win it) will do wonders for the club, it's fans... and of course my managerial career ()

It'll also give me a little extra time to spend money on signings and snap up some free transfers... but the playoffs mean it'll all be a bit uncertain.

I wouldn't want to splurge on some players knowing that
a) I may not be in the Premiership next year and couldn't afford to keep them in the Championship
or
b) If relegation was imminent from the Premiership, would those players still want to play in a Championship side?

I have an advantage with Swansea though, our Stadium is a 20,000 all seater and is a new build as well. So it's a pretty decent size and I wouldn't have to worry about spending millions to build a new one to fit new fans in.

I kept the same tactic I created at the start of the season, but altered it slightly after playing a few games with SCM's 4-4-2 tactic.

It's now a mixture of what I originally was using, and his.

Depending on the opposition I make the wingers more adventurous and do forward runs more often.

I play two CM fielders.
One runs forward into a CAM being a more creative player. Looking to play the ball on for the forwards, or strike from distance if need be.

The other drops off into a CDM role, picks up the scraps from the defence and helps them out when need be. He comes forward and bags the odd goal here and there too.

I kept the idea I noticed in SCM's tactics where one striker drops back slightly and plays the ball on for the other striker.

The guy that drops off is usually a bit slower and slightly stronger with better passing ability and awareness and ability to open the game up.
Whilst the player that stays up is quick, has the ability to beat defenders with his dribbling and normally the better finisher of the two.

 

[nikebee]

I forgot to mention....

The players that were non-English speaking, have now been here long enough to speak basic English. And most have now settled into the area nicely.

I've only got two players left who haven't settled yet... One of them is my star player Rafinha. He's continually putting in top draw performances, and has attracted the attention of a lot of big clubs.

One thing I've noticed with contracts... I've put a £100,000,000 minimum-release clause on him and he was willing to accept the contract.
Of course, I know that if I was even offered £5-£10mil for him the owner would probably force me to sell him because we're not that financially well off (but we're pulling in a tidy profit each month though!)

Now if I was a top club, Chelsea... Barca... Man Utd for example.
If I stuck a £100,000,000 minimum-fee-release clause on somebody... I doubt the owner would force a sell for anything less than say £60,000,000.

Surely this is a bug in the game and a way of forcing players to stay at your club

 

[Twinblade]

I forgot to mention....

The players that were non-English speaking, have now been here long enough to speak basic English. And most have now settled into the area nicely.

I've only got two players left who haven't settled yet... One of them is my star player Rafinha. He's continually putting in top draw performances, and has attracted the attention of a lot of big clubs.

One thing I've noticed with contracts... I've put a £100,000,000 minimum-release clause on him and he was willing to accept the contract.
Of course, I know that if I was even offered £5-£10mil for him the owner would probably force me to sell him because we're not that financially well off (but we're pulling in a tidy profit each month though!)

Now if I was a top club, Chelsea... Barca... Man Utd for example.
If I stuck a £100,000,000 minimum-fee-release clause on somebody... I doubt the owner would force a sell for anything less than say £60,000,000.

Surely this is a bug in the game and a way of forcing players to stay at your club

If I am honest, I don't actually think the game forces teams to sell players like we do when playing, but I could be wrong. The minimum release clause is an interesting concept and is the way of holding on to your big names, I am not actually sure if the manager would sell if a tempting offer came in, but was considerably lower than the release clause, like in your example, but would imagine it would.

As for big name signings, you could tempt them with relegation release clauses, therefore if they dont want to stay once you are relegated they can leave if the clause is activated.

 

[nikebee]

The owner forcing sales is in the game, I've had a few offers for some of my major players in the club, or youngsters that have decent potential that he Owner automatically accepts the offer because he feels the club could benefit more from having the money from the transfer rather than having the player... and the news basically says the owner of your club thought the offer was too good to refuse.

 

[Twinblade]

The owner forcing sales is in the game, I've had a few offers for some of my major players in the club, or youngsters that have decent potential that he Owner automatically accepts the offer because he feels the club could benefit more from having the money from the transfer rather than having the player... and the news basically says the owner of your club thought the offer was too good to refuse.

Sorry, I maybe wasn't clear in my previous post. I am aware this happens to the users club (IE: Me and You) but I am not aware of it being a function that the AI uses for the clubs in the game. (IE: You offering £50m to Liverpool for Steve Gerrard, and the chairman accepting that offer as too good to refuse. I am not sure this works, unless they are struggling financially and in administration.)

Hope that clarifies it a little easier.

 

[nikebee]

Oh right, yeah sure I know what you mean now.

I can't say I've ever noticed it happening.

It might be worth doing a tester by offering say £1,000,000 for a 16 year old from a Blue Square side and see if the response says something along the lines of the owner forced the sale and accepted rather than just the generic "Club has given you permission to talk to player"

 

[SCM]

Just wondering if you guys could let me know how well this runs on a Q6600 with 2/4GB ram?
I've been playing it on an AMD 3200+ with 1GB ram in Vista and while it's not really slow I don't normally run too many leagues (normally 5 playable).

Was wondering how many leagues you run with a decent system and how it performs?

cheers

I'm running on average 28 or so leagues on a dual core 4400 with 4gb of ram and it runs quickly enough.

 

[memphisto]

wish i had a better pc im only running Italy, England and Spain

anyway just about to start my third season please critique my squad.

as it stands

my team as it stands is
GK: Foster
GK: Ustari (signed for £10.75mill)

RB: Rafinha
CB: Brown
CB: Vidic (out for 7 months with cruciate damage )
CB: Oshea
CB: Ferdinand
CB: Atienza (signed on a free due to scout report bumped to first team due to above injury)
LB: Silvestre
LB: Bale

LM: D'Allesandro
LM: Dos Santos (Free Signing)
CM: Mascherano
CM: Hargreaves
CM: Vand Der Vaart
CM: Anderson
CM: Gibson
RM: Ronaldo
RM: Nani

AMC: Giovinco
AMC: Aguero

CF: Rooney
CF: Klose (£15mill and 31 year old but what the hell )

also looking at signing Elano for £9mill to add depth up front and in midfield but other than that Im set for season 3. Im fairly certain my squad now is much stronger but what do you fine peeps think ?

 

[Twinblade]

Just an update.

My Northampton side are approaching December in disappointing form, with only 1 win in 12 games. I thought I had cracked it when we went away to league leaders Hartlepool and stuffed them 3-0, but then the goals dried up and we went back to drawing. When it comes to drawing we are specialists, having 12 draws from 19 games this season, yet I am the second lowest scorers in the league.

Hopefully that will change come January as a couple of promising players should be arriving. Peter Lomaski from Poland and a couple of Swedish youngsters coming over after being released from their contracts at the end of their domestic season.

That said, the loan deals for David Martin and Jordy Brouwer end in January, and the latter has been our main source of goals this season. Martin has been a good keeper and often getting us points when others would have crumbled.

 

[Andybtsn]

Update on my league with Man City.

Finished my first season in 5th place just missing out on a Champions League slot, was a bit gutted about that but I couldn't contend with the ''big'' four in my first season so I should be happy I won the 'other' league.

In the summer I had a lot of money to spend after selling Richards to Chelsea for 30m (Board took over on that one ) and Corluka to Liverpool for 20m, some other smaller sales came over 10m so I had a hefty budget.

In my first season I only bought Obi Martins and Kewell so i did quite well finance wise, in the summer it was a different story, brought in:
Pablo Aimar for 16m
Crespo for 500k
Bentley for 16m
A defender named Velson to replace Richards 12m
Diogo to replace Corluka 13m

I'm in March now in the second season and again sitting in 5th place with sights on 3rd, I have three games in hand due to cup competitions. I'm in the quarters of the UEFA, semi's of the FA cup, got knocked out of the Carling Cup in the quarters Just beat Villareal to get to the quarters in Europe, was very happy about that, I'm on a 7 game winning streak scoring a mental amount of goals! Obi Martins has hit a stupid amount as had Branchi, the two are deadly! Petrov has 29 assists for the season!! Then there's Elano, Ireland, Johnson and Aimar all playing really well.

My team looks like this:

Schmeichal
Diogo Velson Dunne Garrido
Bentley Elano Aimar Petrov
Branchi Martins

Subs
Hart
Sturridge
Johnson
Ireland
Kewell

 

[Twinblade]

Update on my league with Man City.

Finished my first season in 5th place just missing out on a Champions League slot, was a bit gutted about that but I couldn't contend with the ''big'' four in my first season so I should be happy I won the 'other' league.

In the summer I had a lot of money to spend after selling Richards to Chelsea for 30m (Board took over on that one ) and Corluka to Liverpool for 20m, some other smaller sales came over 10m so I had a hefty budget.

In my first season I only bought Obi Martins and Kewell so i did quite well finance wise, in the summer it was a different story, brought in:
Pablo Aimar for 16m
Crespo for 500k
Bentley for 16m
A defender named Velson to replace Richards 12m
Diogo to replace Corluka 13m

I'm in March now in the second season and again sitting in 5th place with sights on 3rd, I have three games in hand due to cup competitions. I'm in the quarters of the UEFA, semi's of the FA cup, got knocked out of the Carling Cup in the quarters Just beat Villareal to get to the quarters in Europe, was very happy about that, I'm on a 7 game winning streak scoring a mental amount of goals! Obi Martins has hit a stupid amount as had Branchi, the two are deadly! Petrov has 29 assists for the season!! Then there's Elano, Ireland, Johnson and Aimar all playing really well.

My team looks like this:

Schmeichal
Diogo Velson Dunne Garrido
Bentley Elano Aimar Petrov
Branchi Martins

Subs
Hart
Sturridge
Johnson
Ireland
Kewell

Seems to be going well, congrats on the success so far. Obi is a decent striker, and Bianchi was class on FM07 so assume he must be as good. What tactic do you use? As you can see from the above, my team are struggling to score, and if your banging in the goals, I could use some assistance.

 

[Andybtsn]

Seems to be going well, congrats on the success so far. Obi is a decent striker, and Bianchi was class on FM07 so assume he must be as good. What tactic do you use? As you can see from the above, my team are struggling to score, and if your banging in the goals, I could use some assistance.

Cheers

I'm using this tactic here : http://www.stonecoldmicks.co.uk/Downloads/4-4-2SCM.tac

SCM posted it, only tried it with Man City but so far so good!

I love looking forward to playing FM when your playing good

 

[nikebee]

That said, the loan deals for David Martin and Jordy Brouwer end in January, and the latter has been our main source of goals this season. Martin has been a good keeper and often getting us points when others would have crumbled.

Jordy had been pretty good for my Swansea side when we were in League 1 as well... In the Championship he spent most of his season on loan to one of my Feeder clubs, but I brought him back when he was needed and he's proved a valuable asset.


Update on my Swansea game.

I decided to go for it, pushed for promotion to the Premiership... It got very close, and came down to the wire at the end!

I needed just 6 points from my last 4 games to clinch it, with West Brom my closest rivals for automatic promotion.
The first game resulted in a 1-0 loss away, the second was a 1-1 draw.

West Brom closed the gap and at this stage the table had changed dramatically, they were only 4 points behind... I only needed to win one of my final two games to gain automatic promotion

A draw at home meant I simply need to avoid defeat in my last game of the season, away against Barnsley, to ensure that Swansea City would be in the Premiership next season.

A few of my main players rally the troops and say to the press that they're confident we'll manage to achieve promotion against all the odds.

A fantastic start saw us go 1-0 up within 50 seconds of the kickoff... 8 minutes later and it's 2-0 up and we're looking comfortable for the win!

43 Minutes into the first half and they pull one back and it's 2-1.

I tell the lads at half time that I've got faith in them, encourage them to continue and that we're looking comfortable for the win... 45 minutes away from the Premiership.

With 60 minutes gone they manage to make the game level, and the last half an hour is an incredibly anxious one. They got right back into the game and had some great chances...

A break away from a corner for Barnsley, it's one on one with the keeper... my last defender rushes back and dives into the tackle... the Barnsley player goes down injured the ball flies off the field... The Barnsley players go nuts claiming a foul, demanding a red card.... The ref gives a corner!

Another few minutes under the cosh... and it's the 89th minute... it looks like Barnsley could find the net any minute... A superb break away by Swansea... shoot.. SCORE! 89 minutes gone... 3-2 up... The away crowd go mental and we're through surely!?... 4 minutes of added time to go, they need to score twice to stop us going through... The referee blows full time... We're through!

Swansea are in the Premiership... and I need a new heart after that game

 

[Andybtsn]

Haha, I can't watch some games when there like that, its the same scenario when I went 2-0 up at the Emirates after 20 minutes, I KNEW it was far too early to be 2-0 up against top of the league, Arsenal in their back garden! Predictably enough they scored before half time and equalised in the 87th min

Still a decent point and they should have won it in stoppage time!

Do you watch all your games as in not just in text?

 

[Twinblade]

Cheers

I'm using this tactic here : http://www.stonecoldmicks.co.uk/Downloads/4-4-2SCM.tac

SCM posted it, only tried it with Man City but so far so good!

I love looking forward to playing FM when your playing good

I was using the same tactic to start with, but then the poor form started as in my previous thread and decided to change it. Can only assume that it doesnt support lowly League 1 sides. Nevermind, I will soldier on and rebuild in the close season providing we stay up.

 

[Twinblade]

Jordy had been pretty good for my Swansea side when we were in League 1 as well... In the Championship he spent most of his season on loan to one of my Feeder clubs, but I brought him back when he was needed and he's proved a valuable asset.


Update on my Swansea game.

I decided to go for it, pushed for promotion to the Premiership... It got very close, and came down to the wire at the end!

I needed just 6 points from my last 4 games to clinch it, with West Brom my closest rivals for automatic promotion.
The first game resulted in a 1-0 loss away, the second was a 1-1 draw.

West Brom closed the gap and at this stage the table had changed dramatically, they were only 4 points behind... I only needed to win one of my final two games to gain automatic promotion

A draw at home meant I simply need to avoid defeat in my last game of the season, away against Barnsley, to ensure that Swansea City would be in the Premiership next season.

A few of my main players rally the troops and say to the press that they're confident we'll manage to achieve promotion against all the odds.

A fantastic start saw us go 1-0 up within 50 seconds of the kickoff... 8 minutes later and it's 2-0 up and we're looking comfortable for the win!

43 Minutes into the first half and they pull one back and it's 2-1.

I tell the lads at half time that I've got faith in them, encourage them to continue and that we're looking comfortable for the win... 45 minutes away from the Premiership.

With 60 minutes gone they manage to make the game level, and the last half an hour is an incredibly anxious one. They got right back into the game and had some great chances...

A break away from a corner for Barnsley, it's one on one with the keeper... my last defender rushes back and dives into the tackle... the Barnsley player goes down injured the ball flies off the field... The Barnsley players go nuts claiming a foul, demanding a red card.... The ref gives a corner!

Another few minutes under the cosh... and it's the 89th minute... it looks like Barnsley could find the net any minute... A superb break away by Swansea... shoot.. SCORE! 89 minutes gone... 3-2 up... The away crowd go mental and we're through surely!?... 4 minutes of added time to go, they need to score twice to stop us going through... The referee blows full time... We're through!

Swansea are in the Premiership... and I need a new heart after that game

Well done, I was half expecting the story to end up with you blowing it and not making the Premiership. Have you got a blueprint for safety yet?

I cannot get Jordi on a permanent basis yet though. I have almost £1m in the bank, but only £24,000 transfer budget, an increase on the £10,000 they gave me to start. The board also wont let me have a parent club, so cannot rely on any top youth players being thrown my way.

 

[G|mp]

Marcelo is a cracking player as is Adriano (the fat one)

Adriano scored 28 goals for me in his first season, only cost me 9 mil i think it was

 

[nikebee]

Do you watch all your games as in not just in text?

Every game I play I have on extended highlights... it's just nicer watching the game unfold in front of you... it's much more gripping, especially in tight games or must win games like that. It's nail biting moments when you see your striker one on one with the keeper, a goal will promote you... he shoots and it blazes of the bar. If that was text, it wouldn't be so dramatic.

I will admit to a fair few

"YES!", "YEAAH!".... "OOOOH!".... from my chair, whilst the Girlfriend looks on bemused...

I do the same on PES and FIFA as well

Well done, I was half expecting the story to end up with you blowing it and not making the Premiership. Have you got a blueprint for safety yet?

I've got quite lucky as far as transfers go, I've managed to grab some youngsters on the cheap, been offered some decent players for pennies really.

I've got no plans yet for next year though. I've coped reasonably well against the not so good Premiership sides... so with a couple of signings I might be okay.

 

[HumanShield]

I've just finished my first season as Wolves (i dont get to play very often!), and have won the championship! Which was a nice suprise. Had a nice run of results, but form dipped towards the end of the season.

GOt a link with Chelsea at the beginning of the season, so managed to get a few decent loan signings, and got rid of Bothroyd and Elliot, so i have a couple of million already to plan ahead for the premiership season. Wayne Hennessy was fantastic for me! as was Mark Little at right back. Keogh and Eastwood proved a wonderful pairing up front, and Kightly is being watched by Rangers after a great season, as is Charlie Mulgrew. All in all, not bad!

 

[nikebee]

I found it incredibly hard to get a Parent Club... or for that matter find a couple of extra Feeder Clubs really :-/