Flying High with the Canaries - A Norwich City Career

Ok Guys so i didn't intend to start this as a story, i started a game for fun and enjoyment and so far it has been nothing short of amazing and i think i need to share my progress and thoughts on it.

So you join me in our 4th season in the game and boy we have had a wild journey. So I'm going to get stuck in and bring you up to speed.

1st Season:
We were leading the championship all the way to the last 2 months of the season when we had an absolute disastrous end to our season and ended up finishing 2nd in the table and i think it can be down to complacency and we had the cup final on our minds, Yes thats right we got to a cup final.


As you can see below we had some great runs and some great unbeaten runs in the season however we really needed a stronger finish to the season to win the title




Ok so as i mentioned we got to a cup final!! On the way to the Carling Cup Final we had some very very easy games and we had some great luck on the way which resulted in us getting to the cup final which in itself was a great achievement in itself however we didn't show up just wanting to take part in the occasion and we wanted to win, And if I'm honest i would have counted ourselves as the favourites, we were a younger, hungrier team who had just won promotion to the premier league and were in form and we were playing a low level premier league team who just had yet another disappointing season. And we did not disappoint.


Transfers, so this is more important this year than any other year of football manager in my opinion especially if you aren't one of the big teams in the game. So I've noticed that there isn't much room for any flop signings especially in the situation i was in and whats more important this year is getting value for money and if you want to get a young player in you need to get them early before there price sky rockets. So many so called WonderKids are extremely affordable at the start of the game but give it a year or 2 and your favourite striker or your rock of defence will be worth £20 Million plus and you will not be able to compete with the free spending big teams, I don't know if anyone else has notice but PSG,Man City, Monaco, Chelsea and occasionally Real Madrid, will over spend at will and will buy a range of players just to stop there competition from buying those players. Specifically chelsea had bloated squads with players they bought because other teams were interested in them and didn't need them which brings me to my next point.

I feel this point needs its own paragraph its that important. So firstly don't play as the team you support, being loyal to players in this game will get you nowhere, more than any other game this is cut throat, regardless if your player is a cult hero or your favourite player for your team if he hasn't got stats that would make him a great player in football manager you will ultimately end up hating him forever. You need to be ruthless, if a player isn't good enough get rid of them whilst you can for good value. Which is exactly what i did in my first season getting rid of Johnson and Tettey for a combined £18 million. YES £18 Million for 2 Extremely average players. Which feeds into my next point. With this version of FM you need to buy players your team NEEDS not the players you WANT. I know this is a very simple and straightforward point and your probably thinking to yourself what is this dick talking about of course i do that. DO YOU REALLY????? Before you spend money look and analyse your team and think whats really at stake and what is really causing you to drop points? Are you convincing yourself that the 3-2 loss you had was down to your own striker not taking all of his chances rather than the centre back who was out of position and the fullback who was just too slow? You need to buy what you really really need. And if you are ever going to be successful you need to build from the back, this year your wingers and strikers can't counter act your leaky defence anymore. You just won't be successful.And if you are buying youth you need to show faith in them and you need to be sure that they can come in and contribute straight away. Unless your a big club theres no time for them to settle, no time for them to learn. They either make it or there thrown aside. You can not afford to watch them grow.

Then we have the Tactics:
I was very very very Naive when it came to tactics. You can not have 1 tactic for your whole time in this game. Teams will scout you, teams will know you. Teams will set up to stop you. This game is tactically better and more in depth than any before. There are no more wonder tactics that you can sit back and watch. Yes you can set up to play a certain style and shape but you should never have exactly the same instructions and tactics game to game, slight tweaks to match your opposition, instructions and tweaks in game are Vital to success. You need to be able to change your game plan at any time and you need to have a flexible team. The most important part of tactics this year are your in game changes, instructions and tweaks. You need to pay real attention to every game to ensure your catching the little things, like your creative midfielder giving the ball away too many times, or your defensive midfielder out of position or even your full back wasting crossing opportunities to make your key substitutions. Then theres the opposition, are they favouring the left wing, are they pressurising you too much or are they sitting back and giving you time on the ball, can you see a shift in momentum? do you need to disrupt play and bring players on and get your team to tighten up? You need to be on alert at all times.


Thats all for the first season the next few will be short and sweet

Season 3!! What a great season!!

Again we were guaranteed to be playing in the Champions League group stages and that gave us a lot of money and player power, we competed with teams on and off the pitch and managed to lure great players too our club Kingsley Coman more than any other player epitomised this. We had too battle, Real madrid, Monaco and Liverpool for him and he chose us!! And boy did he come up in the big games!!


So remember how i said we were showing promise? all these young players coming through, playing regularly coming of age whilst winning and growing together. So first there was the European Super Cup final against Real Madrid!!! What a dream fixture for our players and the club. We were being seen as Opposition for this great team. We would do well not to be star struck. I was Delighted with the result, yes we lost but we were combative and competitive with the best team in Europe!!! Who by the way would go on to be the first team to win back to back Champions Leagues that year.


Then there was the League finish, Top 6 and we were consistently good and consistently picking up points!!


Then there was the AMAZING run in the champions League so first of all we topped our Group!!! Then we knocked out Fernerbache and then Came Bayern!!
We lost the first Leg but only by 1 goal so we left ourselves with a chance. We then went to Bayern yes the away leg and won 2-0!!! I had negative tactics, we sat back we defended we rode our luck and then we pounced a counter attack led to the first goal and we were level but i knew we wouldn't outlast them in extra time, my players were exhausted we had been run ragged all over the pitch. Then the man we had fought for in the summer Kingsley Coman stepped up. We Won a free kick and like so many free kicks before i wasn't hopeful as they either all seemed to go well wide or just land perfectly into the keepers hands but not this time. With Beckham Esque Curl and Pirlos sense of composure and confidence, Coman stepped up and Curled the ball right into the back of the net to send us too the Semi Finals!! Yes Norwich in the semi finals.



Then came Juventus and for whatever reason they were just too strong and a little Stoke City Esque. Yes Stoke City i dunno if anyone else has played against Juventus but every time they posed a threat it was from a long throw from Chiellini generally being headed away to a Tevez lurking at the edge of the area and i just did not know how to handle it whatsoever and they put us out. I was disgusted at how they did it but at the same time we had got to the Semi Finals and were 1 goal away from possibly going through to set up a final with our mate Ronaldo.