Home
FM Discord
YouTube Channel
FM24 Data Update
FM26 Data Update
FM26 OOP Player Roles
Downloads
Graphics
Challenges
Blog
Forums
Videos
Tactics
FM26
FM26 Real Name Fix
FM26 Shortlists
FM26 DB
FM26 Men's Wonderkids
FM26 Women's Wonderkids
FM26 Men's Club Finances
FM26 Women's Club Finances
FM24 Update
FM24
FM23
FM Saves
FM Database
FM Guides
Installation Guides
Records
Search
#289358 So, challenge mode
Phoenix Arrow
So here we are in sunny Scotland. Or England. Or something. If anyone follows my FM save files (haha could you imagine?) you may remember that my first save last year was with Berwick. I worked my way up to the SPL and managed to survive for half a season before I got too busy and life happened. Now I have the opportunity to put right that wrong and guide the Borderers to SPL survival. Only my team is complete arse so it'll be hard.
Here are my signings. I only know one of them. I remember signing Bryn Halliwell on CM3 for Brighton when he used to play for Wimbledon. They went down and suddenly didn't need so many goalkeepers. We didn't get much money from being in the SPL to spend, I pretty much blew everything I had and what I'm left with is a slightly above average Div 2 team.
Unsuprisingly we've been completely written off. The way I see it, our only real goal is to do better than Dundee. How hard that will be I can't really say, but they definately have a stronger team. We'll need to use tactics and hopefully I've used the money I've been given smartly. It's certainly going to be tough, but I don't think this is impossible.
Coming for you Celtic.
#56763 FM, It's Almost Over
Phoenix Arrow
Yet I think I do pretty well at Football Manager because ultimately it's not really about football, it's a number game. All you need to know are which stats are good for each position and which formations work well with the match engine. That's pretty much it, it's just a numbers game. Once you've put everything down, it basically turns into a table top RPG. The only difference is the dice rolls are hidden, there are a billion different equations and they're all super complicated. You'll get lucky and unlucky rolls but if you know how the game works, you'll average out on top.
That's how you have to play it really. Unless you want to play as Man City, you can't play it like real football. The benefit you get from splashing all your money on the most famous of players is minimal. You usually won't have the resources to buy a full team that way and it's always better to have a team of average players than a team of below average players with one super-star.
I guess that's my advice really. You should try playing the game differently. I think the best way to do that is taking yourself completely out of your comfort zone. If you try managing in a country where you can barely even pronounce the players names, you'll start looking at less like football and more like a game. Scandinavia and Asia are generally pretty good for that. Apart from that, you could try playing a table top game. I came to this realisation the first time I played a table top RPG. Everything was basically about working around the rules of the game to get to the best possible outcome, the same way FM is.
#289357 So, challenge mode
Phoenix Arrow
So it wasn't that close in the end. I feel a little underwhelmed by this challenge. I'm sure part of this is because I played as Ajax, who I honestly didn't realise were that much stronger than every other Dutch team, but also because the challenge part of this challenge was just sell a few squad players and away you go. I was expecting to have to sell a number of starting players but I think I only sold one. Kolbeinn got the golden boot with 29 goals. Eriksen won young player of the year. I didn't win manager of the year because I wasn't there long enough.
31st in the rankings for this one. Top for Holland. Not bad. It's silly though. I got 800k or so points and failed to win in 2 games, won most of the rest of them fairly handily and my players won a bunch of awards. How is it someone can play as Man Utd and get 2.3 million points? These are the kind of people that you avoid sitting near on public transport.
Disappointingly easy. Onto the next one once I figure out which one to do.
#289356 So, challenge mode
Phoenix Arrow
One game to go! Am I still top? Is there anything to play for? You'll have to wait until the next update or something. It seems that VVV are the second best team in Holland. They actually very almost beat us, We still outplayed them, but they had a very effective counter attack. It's been quite strange actually. We seem to be winning games comfortably and getting a high number of shots but without really dominating. Our defence seems strong but there's certainly room for improvement. Our attack has been stellar on the other hand. Speaking of which.
I wanted to draw peoples attention to Kolbeinn, he's a player who impresses me in real life and he seems pretty solid in game too. He has solid staring stats with room for improvement. I've been playing him with two wingers and an AMC behind him and he's been doing well. His best traits are finishing and strength so he's probably best player as a deep lying forward, but he also has decent creativity and pace. Looking at his scout report, his specific strength is consistency, I'd say he could do a job at most clubs.
#289355 So, challenge mode
Phoenix Arrow
We've been performing very well. We've managed to control every game and I'm very happy with the way we've been playing and the tactic. One of the reasons I picked Ajax was because I wanted to test my total football-ey tactic and it's going well. The other reason was because Kolbeinn. He's currently the top goalscorer in the league. If he wins the golden boot and we win the league than I'll be happy with this leg of the challenge. Oh, the game we lost we had the worst referee ever. We went down to 9 men and gave away a penalty. Struggled with our shallow squad in the next game as we lost some key players, but managed to beat PSV.
Ajax too good. I feel like I was slightly mislead when the game labelled this a hard challenge. Though maybe it is actually hard if you play as a team other than Ajax. I don't know, maybe I've played this wrong. I kept most of my first team and I'm still in negative money. Maybe you're meant to sell everyone so you're not in the red? We're £10 million in debt still, but we're making about a million a month so I feel like I've done a good job balancing the finances and have put them in a great position for next season. Don't worry, I'll punish myself for this in the next challenge.
#56481 What are the most relaxing songs you listen to?
Phoenix Arrow
Here's Rhubarb though.
#289354 So, challenge mode
Phoenix Arrow
This didn't really go down the way I expected. I decided the first thing to do would be to sell the two guys on the biggest money, there was one player who was on three time what I was paying the rest of the team. That's no problem, but then I realised that they would both have under 6 months on their contract and would just sign a pre-contract. I wouldn't actually be saving any money. So, first things first I had to offer them new contracts and I actually managed to cut about £30k off our monthly wage budget just from those two new contracts. This meant I could save two of my best players.
Apart from that, I've sent a lot of players out on loan which has saved me another £9k/month. Sold 4 players for a total of about £14 million which has cut about £30k or so a month. The thing I've learnt more than anything else is that Ajax are a very well run club. They have a number of strong, young players on very reasonable wages. They also have enough depth so that if something went wrong, they could easily get rid of a few names and still be able to challenge for the league.
I've managed to settle in ok. I've basically tried to create a team around Kolbeinn. The goal is to try and put the ball in his region as much as possible in a very methodical way and we've been doing it well. We haven't looked like we've been in trouble in the few games we've played, but we're yet to play a top half club. We'll see.
#56466 The Night Thread Mk. IX
Phoenix Arrow
If you want to know why people don't post here as much, it's because this stuff doesn't happen anymore. Keep it coming please.
#289353 So, challenge mode
Phoenix Arrow
Ajax are a team that don't really need an introduction. 31 time Eredivisie winners and 4 times Champions League winners, they had perhaps their most impressive spell in the early 70s, winning 3 Champions League trophies on the bounce, spear-headed by the legendary Johan Cruijff. Largely due to the prowess of Cruijff, Ajax have long been synonymous with a Total Football, a style of football which encourages a pressing and attacking method of play. I hope to be able to lead Ajax to their third consecutive title using their own famous passing game.
There is one large hurdle to overcome though. Historically, the dutch league has been considered one of the strongest in the world. While it hasn't had the same amount of quality all the way down, teams like Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV have been able to challenge the very best teams England, Spain and Italy have had to offer. However, recent years have seen the money needed to compete at the highest level rise exponentially. The dutch teams have found it hard to compete and many of them are leaking money, As such, Ajax now find themselves £22 million in debt and with a wage bill they can't sustain.
I start my challenge on the dawn of the Janurary transfer window. Ajax top the league by two points but their financial problem have become too large to ignore. In this window, I need to bring our wage bill down to budget and hopefully retain a team strong enough to keep the top spot when play resumes in 3 weeks time. Above are the players I'm going to try to keep, everyone else is game. I may be tempted to sell Babel too though. Not sure he's worth what we're paying him. Kolbeinn stays, that's all I know.
3 weeks of business. Time for some hardcore money making.
#56423 What Was The Last Film You Saw?
Phoenix Arrow
#55946 PlayStation 4?
Phoenix Arrow
Would you be able to play the games which are currently on PSN on the PS4? That would be a fucking excellent idea, particularly for launch when titles can be hit and miss.
#55945 The Lower League Thread
Phoenix Arrow
Think about what you've just said.
Either way, the article is pointless. The top comment on it pretty much sums everything up. Cardiff have been living outside their means for years now. They were given a simple choice, accept the changes or go bust. They accepted it and now they're probably going to be playing Premier League football next season. Who exactly is losing out here?
#55830 The Politics Thread
Phoenix Arrow
#55705 PlayStation 4?
Phoenix Arrow
Looks promising. Will go for the PS4 next time around I reckon.
#55478 SimCity
Phoenix Arrow
I'll probably impulse buy it.
#55477 The Lower League Thread
Phoenix Arrow
#55272 General Music Thread
Phoenix Arrow
Anyway, there's recently been a sex scandal involving a member of said band. It seems that she was spotted leaving a boys hotel room. They may or may not have had sex. That's it. As a result, she's shaved her head to show her regret and is begging not to be kicked off the money train. Idols are a messed up thing. They basically take young girls and ban them from dating or appearing anything other than innocent. They have to be pure, basically. But. One assumes Japanese males are still wanting to have sex with them.
There's no point to this story really. I just find it interesting how a 20 year old having sex can be considered a scandal in Japan while in this part of world, people are making sex tapes to get famous.
Here's a song of theirs. Musically they're not very interesting. Standard J-Pop. Clean cut and ridiculously catchy.
#55261 The Lower League Thread
Phoenix Arrow
#55200 General Music Thread
Phoenix Arrow
#54946 Robbie Rogers
Phoenix Arrow
Then you honestly don't have a clue.
It might sounds like I'm being angry when I say that, I'm not. It's a very strange thing. I've obviously grown up with the people closest to me being gay or trans or whatever and when you're in that world, it can be quite hard to see what everyone else thinks. As such when I came out as being bi at school, I didn't think it was a big deal at all, everyone else disagreed with that.
Homophobia is something that's hard baked into society. It tends to go completely unnoticed until it becomes and issue. But when it does become an issue, it's often too late to do anything about it. Football is the worst for that kind of thing. No ifs or buts. It just is. Stuff like that just doesn't get reported in the same was racism does because basically noone cares. Or noone in football cares.
#54741 The Night Thread Mk. IX
Phoenix Arrow
The thing with the dance is basically internet crazes post Gangnam Style. With Gangnam Style you have something which started as an internet craze and then somehowm managed to infiltrate the mainstream and in a ridiculous way. Now people have kind of sat up a bit and are ready to jump onto crazes before they start. This is the way the world will go now that browsing the internet isn't something that people with no life do like it was 10 or so years ago and it's not something just teenagers do like it was a few years ago. It's now something most people do and TV, radio etc are running to catch up.
The problem is, a lot of internet jokes die when you're not alone or with a group of likeminded people. Not even totally due to the in-joke nature of them, but because most of them aren't really that funny.
Either way, progress is progress. If the world is going to become more tolerant of different groups of people and even consider it worth pandering to groups which have traditionally been outcast, then that's not a bad thing. #diecisscum
That post probably doesn't make sense but there's no way in hell I'm proofreading it. Pon Pon Pon is better than Gangnam Style anyway.
#54438 FA Cup Thread 2012/13
Phoenix Arrow
#54357 Crap players who you loved anyway
Phoenix Arrow
#54038 What Are You Listening To?
Phoenix Arrow
The finest of Space Jam remixes.
#53849 The NHL Thread
Phoenix Arrow
#53828 Xbox 360 Thread
Phoenix Arrow
#53768 Xbox 360 Thread
Phoenix Arrow
#53357 The Night Thread Mk. IX
Phoenix Arrow
#53164 The Night Thread Mk. IX
Phoenix Arrow
#53138 PlayStation 4?
Phoenix Arrow
TAKING VALVE TO COURT GUYS BRB.