Bogey teams... is your side a bogey team for any of the big clubs?

Obviously everyone has that one bloody team that you just cant seem to win against! GRRRRR

BUT! Is there a 'big' team who you always seem to beat?

In my first two seasons in the Prem with Havant and Waterlooville, I just cant stop beating ARSEnal!

LOVE IT!

Up yours Moyes. (current manager of ARSEnal)

I have had a few saves but always seem to loose or draw with Wolves....

I am managing Villa in 2026 and I haven't lost to Chelsea for 2 years for the Premier League.

The last time I played against them, their manager was convinced that I wasn't going to win the title.

Beat them 0-4 in Stamford Bridge, their manager retired and I was crowned champion due to that result.

In your face Ragnick!

When I was in the Prem it was definitely Arsenal. The first time I faced them after promotion I'd barely managed to beat bottom Birmingham at home so we very worried about Arsenal (also at home), expecially when they scored very early on. Then something amazing happened as we then got 7 past them for a 7-1 that has to count as one of my most memorable results ever. In the return fixture we beat them 3-2 after going 2-0 down. It took a few more games before they beat us. Especially satisfying as they were one of very few teams to consistently give me problems on 09.

Nice to see someone giving ARSEnal the hiding they deserve!!

I win more than I lose against Man United. Four seasons at city and league games are 7 wins and a draw. Can't remember how many cup games I played them in but lost in the semis against them and haven't lost against them since. I usually meet them at some point in the league/FA/CL/Community and have one defeat.

Club: Hayes & Yeading United

In EPL since: 1.7.2013

Current date: 2nd of December 2015

My favorite victim: Liverpool

Won: 4 Drawn: 1 Lost: 1

Head to head history:

EPL - Liverpool --- Hayes & Yeading United - 1:4

EPL – Hayes & Yeading United --- Liverpool - 1:2

EPL – Hayes & Yeading United --- Liverpool - 2:1

EPL - Liverpool --- Hayes & Yeading United – 2:2

6th FA– Liverpool --- Hayes & Yeading United – 1:2

EPL – Liverpool --- Hayes & Yeading United – 1:2

My nemesis: Chelsea

Won: 0 Drawn: 1 Lost: 6

Head to head history:

3rd LC - Hayes & Yeading United --- Chelsea - 0:1

EPL – Hayes & Yeading United --- Chelsea - 2:5

EPL – Chelsea --- Hayes & Yeading United - 0:0

EPL - Chelsea --- Hayes & Yeading United – 3:2

EPL– Hayes & Yeading United --- Chelsea – 0:1

Final FA – Chelsea --- Hayes & Yeading United – 2:1

EPL – Chelsea --- Hayes & Yeading United – 3:1

Club: Hayes & Yeading United

In EPL since: 1.7.2013

Current date: 2nd of December 2015

My favorite victim: Liverpool

Won: 4 Drawn: 1 Lost: 1

Head to head history:

EPL - Liverpool --- Hayes & Yeading United - 1:4

EPL – Hayes & Yeading United --- Liverpool - 1:2

EPL – Hayes & Yeading United --- Liverpool - 2:1

EPL - Liverpool --- Hayes & Yeading United – 2:2

6th FA– Liverpool --- Hayes & Yeading United – 1:2

EPL – Liverpool --- Hayes & Yeading United – 1:2

My nemesis: Chelsea

Won: 0 Drawn: 1 Lost: 6

Head to head history:

3rd LC - Hayes & Yeading United --- Chelsea - 0:1

EPL – Hayes & Yeading United --- Chelsea - 2:5

EPL – Chelsea --- Hayes & Yeading United - 0:0

EPL - Chelsea --- Hayes & Yeading United – 3:2

EPL– Hayes & Yeading United --- Chelsea – 0:1

Final FA – Chelsea --- Hayes & Yeading United – 2:1

EPL – Chelsea --- Hayes & Yeading United – 3:1

What version of the game are you playing??

10.2 Why? (10 characters)

How did you get Hayes into the Premiership in 4 seasons?? Its takes me 11 to get Havant and Waterlooville there and they're in the same league.

How did you get Hayes into the Premiership in 4 seasons?? Its takes me 11 to get Havant and Waterlooville there and they're in the same league.

Back to back promotions?

On topic, I am THE big team

sucessive promotions from BSP to EPL is possible if you are brutal with the culling of your squad at the end of each season and work hard to find great prospects. the key is signing a player who you KNOW will do a job for you in the league above

i have achieved it with Burton Albion (FM09) Gateshead (FM09 and FM10) as well as AFC Wimbledom on the latest game.

Notts County were ridiculously easy to get to the EPL.

The big clubs (Except Chelsea) hate playing me.

I have pretty much beaten them all. (Even in my relegation season where I only had 6 or so wins, 4 were against top 4 sides).

I am West Ham. ()

I would replace my whole squad every season and would only ever achive 'respectable positions'.

Possible, yes. Likely, not.

I would replace my whole squad every season and would only ever achive 'respectable positions'.

Possible, yes. Likely, not.

Alright I’ll try to make it as short as possible:

Game DB: extended

Number of countries & leagues: all

Hayes & Yeading United club background (start of the game):

Training facilities: 3

Youth facilities: 3

Stadium: 450 seats (can’t remember the overall capacity, 6000 I think)

1. Build the staff; hire new AssMan John Morling (great AssMan and the only one that wanted to sign), hire 1 coach to replace those you start with, hire 1 scout. Once I’ve scouted the best staff my starting staff was aware of, I asked for mutual termination and hired the better staff. Then sent the scout in England.

2. Sign only “no contract” players, usually the 37 -38 years old players that nobody wanted anymore. 2 years contracts maximum at this stage.

3. Kept a mix of old players, and signed the “promising youngsters” I could find free of contract

4. Set a turnover of 22 players (2x starting eleven)

5. Emptied the squad either by mutual termination or released on a free

6. Had 2 players on loan from the feeding club

7. I don’t get rid of the players each season, I kept players I’ve started with in the BSP up to the Championship, awful players with PA 90 or 100, but that I brought to their maximum

I spend about 2 real days (8 hours) at the beginning of each season, looking for free players, free staff. I’m only looking for realistic targets that I can sign, no FMRTE to add cash or stuff like that. Import my classical training schedules that I find more efficient than the Tug’s Training.

I’m playing really slowly, I don’t just let go the team to finish the season. I try to manage as close to the reality as possible. I’m not the kind of guy that clicks “Continue” like other click the “Next” button in the Windows wizards; without reading what’s written in the Message box.

I ask all my players to learn a new move, from the BSP until now. I kept tutoring my players each time there was an opportunity, and yes, this means you have to go on each player’s profile each day to see if today he can be tutored. The most important was “Places shots” that my today EPL players have learned from a player that learned it from one of the players I’ve started with in BSP.

So basically I’m looking at any little detail that can make the difference, even the €100 per month extra wage that some players wanted in the BSP. This takes an awful amount of time, 98% of the people would find it impossible to play like that, but I do because that's management, hours watching columns of numbers, computing.

Taking the management part so seriously gave me the little points to get promoted the others seem to miss, just because they’re playing games without taking care of what’s going on, they just click continue and wake up after 10 defeats in a row and start moaning about the game.

Even if I spent a bit of time to post a few things today in the forums, I still haven’t played a game today despite having loaded the game 4 hours ago, but as I’m closing to the January transfer window I look at my finances, if I need to sell a player, if so who? Who’s going to replace him, is it financially possible.

I’m just taking it really seriously, like if my real job was football manager, that’s what I’m looking for in FM, the match day, well yes, it’s nice to see the results of my work, but it’s only 1% of the game for me, 10 minutes of pleasure and the rest is just hours of headaches trying to find what the best next step would be.

Here you can have a look at my manager profile

Manager profile:

Club Player Loyalty: 12

Domestic Player Bias: 1

Financial Control: 16

Hands On Approach: 20

Squad Discipline: 19

Tactical Consistency: 17

Preferred Formation: 4-1-2-1-2

Pressing style: Mixed

Coaching style: Attacking

Playing Mentality: Attacking

Marking Style: Mixed

As you can see, I’m no gentle manager, I’m rather a harsh ruler, the player feels he’s been treated unfairly? I don’t give a dam.. fu.., I’m the boss and this gives me the points to go up. Promoted with only one extra point, goal difference, so what, A kick in the butt is a step forward. Discipline, financial control, no time wasting trying to cheat and bring wonderkids into the team but rather do with what I can find.

EDIT: My first goal was to achieve the 5 stars coaching (or as close as possible), hire each year new scouts. Basically I've built the backbone of a big club with the financial means I had. I have some wonderkids in the team now, all of them found by my scouts and without contract! I'm proud of the team I've build. Once the FMRTE for 10.2 was available I've checked the players I've signed on free, and one of them was 180PA, the other around 150, and yet they're wonderkids playing for me for 4 or 5 seasons now.

DAMN!! What game time have you achieved in those 4 seasons?

An example of a player I got free of contract: Busquets from Barcelona, the player was about to be out of contract in the next 6 months, I've offered him a contract before the AI does, and how? Just because I go through the big teams squad writting in Notepad the name of the players that might be interested to sign at some point, sending probes (scouts) all around the galaxy like Darth Vader does.

I started the Hayes & Yeading United save when 10.1 was out!

I'm playing as Hearts and always cause the old firm many a problem. They very rarely beat me and I always seem to get great results against them, still can't break their dominance of the league though.

I'm trying to play a patient game, I saw so many wonderkid players being interested in signing for my team, but with 10 times the wage I could afford to pay, but yet didnt' felt into the temptation to add money with FMRTE. I plan to keep the team into the EPL, thanks to the "Complete Dominance 10.2" tactic that I use for 2 seasons now, grab as many points as possible and invest as much as possible in the facilites. I keep the good results by bringing some old players into the team like:

- Gattuso

- Puyol

- Beckham

- Kuriyani

- Djibril Cissé

all of them released by their clubs (because they were 34 -35 years old), but still able to bring the experience my club was lacking. Putting them on the tutor job right after they arrived at the club.

is that your own tactic?

I've started the game in BSP with:

4-1-2-2-1 (DR-DL-DC-DC-DMC-MC-MC-AML-AMR-ST) made by me, that I used to play since FM07 (my default personal tactic), this worked well until CCL1, but after a couple of loses, I switched to a 4-4-2 and no team talks but at the end of the match.

This propelled me (the no team talk trick) to the EPL. In the EPL this didn’t worked anymore, and after 6 games without a win and being 17th I was desperate, I created a 4-1-3-2 (DR-DL-DC-DC-DMC-MC-MC-MC-ST-ST) that saved me from relegation (12th with a lot of luck, goal difference).

Last season, I thought my midfield is the strongest part of my team, and the tactic I made looks really close to the one Arsenal is using. Ok I take the risk to adopt the Arsenal tactic, it’s a bet that could ruin my game, but I have so many chances to go down that losing with my tactic or losing with Arsenal’s tactic, it’s the same after all. I had a look at Arsenal and clicked the tactical wizard to create the same, then remembered that there’s a thread in the “Tactics” forum about how to play like Arsenal, and found the “Complete Dominance 10.2”, nice just looks like the Arsenal tactic. I scored 41 goals during the friendlies in 6 games!!! I was amazed, so I just kept the tactic and finished 3rd in the EPL, I’m mid-season now and once more I’m 3rd in the EPL.

EDIT: Try to adapt your team talks, especially if you start to have good results, as at some point even if the odds are even, I tell my players "I expect a win", now that my team seems to have built some self confidence and it works most of the time.

Just destroyed Portsmouth at home 4-0, and Benfica away in the CL 0-5 (not too bad to finish first in the group for the first CL in the clubs' history)

I'm currently managing Atletico Madrid, but I have actually met with Arsenal in every CL for three years now. I think my all time record against them is 5-1-0. I only lost that one at the Emirates, which was a quarterfinal, and advanced on penalties anyways.

As Scunthorpe United I seem to be Chelsea's bogey team. Since I got into the Premiership I've had a great record against them.

First season:

Scunthorpe 2 - 3 Chelsea (should've won)

Scunthorpe 0 - 3 Chelsea (here i got tonked)

Second season:

Scunthorpe 1 - 3 Chelsea (League Cup)

Scunthorpe 4 - 0 Chelsea

Scunthorpe 3 - 2 Chelsea

Third season:

Scunthorpe 2 - 1 Chelsea (League Cup - i keep getting them in the 4th round!!)

Scunthorpe 0 - 2 Chelsea

Scunthorpe 3 - 1 Chelsea

Fourth season:

Scunthorpe 5 - 1 Chelsea (absolute tonking, completely overran them)

Scunthorpe 0 - 2 Chelsea

Scunthorpe 2 - 0 Chelsea

Overall: 6 wins 0 draws 5 losses

I've started the game in BSP with:

4-1-2-2-1 (DR-DL-DC-DC-DMC-MC-MC-AML-AMR-ST) made by me......

Doesn't it take the satisfaction out of the game knwing that you're using someone elses 'proven to work' tactic?

I try to steer clear of the tactics forum, I like to know that my team have achieve using tactics i've formulated

Nice to see someone giving ARSEnal the hiding they deserve!!

In that case you'll like the fact I've just done it again. Had them in my CL group with my Ukrainian side, Metalist. They did me 3-1 in the opener but in the return (with them top of the premiership) I beat them 3-0 to take me above them for top on head-to-head. They still won the group after the last round of games but that doesn't take much away from that moment.

Nope, but there's usually at least one lesser club that I always struggle against.

Sadly FM isn’t real life, IRL a tactic can be effective because you’re playing with it for a long amount of time, you carefully selected the players that will play, etc. In FM, from my experience, each version has a tactic that works better than the others and that is usually used by the big teams to crush you.

I don’t see the interest to keep a tactic just because it should work IRL, but obviously doesn’t in FM. In FM 2005 I think it was DR-DL-DC-DC-MC-MC-AMC-AMC-AMC-ST that was used by the AI to crush us.

I tried so many times to build a tactic adapted to the strength of my players, clever thought and build just to see a lower side destroy my team beyond realism that now I gave up the realistic approach of tactics in FM. FM has the appearance of complexity but most of the time it’s ruled by basic mechanisms you can’t fight by just taking a realistic approach. Behind the nice make up, you usually find that the AI is having hardcoded tactics that will always win whatever you try to do, the best you can get is a draw or a win every 10 games.

I don’t see the pleasure in losing games with a 4-4-2 that IRL should work, and have the AI use a tactic that always seems to works whatever the opposition.

In that case you'll like the fact I've just done it again. Had them in my CL group with my Ukrainian side, Metalist. They did me 3-1 in the opener but in the return (with them top of the premiership) I beat them 3-0 to take me above them for top on head-to-head. They still won the group after the last round of games but that doesn't take much away from that moment.

Got the gooners coming up in the league soon, at home. Just hope the reverse is the same when I played them at the Emerates on the opening day of the season. Played them off the park, 3 - 0 and broke Fabregas' leg in the process