Blackpool challenge

Hello guys, I have tried this twice now over the weekend and both times I have finished bottom and third bottom with Blackpool. I do reasonably well on this game, far from an expert but can hold my own but after two attempts I can not keep these up. The squad is pretty dire and absolutely know one with an ounce of decency will go to you, has anyone else managed to keep these up in the first season and if so with what tactic and how as I am stumped?

You did two seaasons in a day? That's pretty impressive.

nope over the weekend started Friday, the second attempt i only went to about feb as I was miles behind

Who did you sign

Ah I see, I was gonna say lol.

I tried a save with Blackpool on the demo, got to about October and was in 14th place if I recall. I'm pretty sure I was playing 4-5-1.

I finished 16th in my first season, I signed the following players.

Summer:

Jordi Gomez (Loan fee £130k)

Gionatha Spinesi (Free)

Olivier Kapo (Free)

Francis N'Ganga (£100k)

Franco Razzotti (£975k)

Nam Tae-Hee (Loan fee £850k)

Boakye (Loan fee £100k)

January:

Petter Vaagen Moen (Free)

Baba (£850k)

Loic Nestor (£2.5m)

I'm currently in July 2015, here's a list of my league finishes

2011 - 16th

2012 - 12th

2013 - 8th

2014 - 10th

2015 - 12th

I'm very happy with our progress at the moment, we had a terrible run just before January of 6 consecutive losses, which is why we didn't match our 10th placed finish the season before.

The thing that's halted us a little is our stadium size (20,000 seats), plus our average attendance for a season has never been above 16,500. This means our revenue isn't as high as it could be, so i've given myself a very strict wage budget. Our highest paid player right now is on £28,000 p/w, but up until this (game) month we never had anyone above £20,000 p/w. We're only spending £400,000 p/w on wages which is far less than any other Premier League club that doesn't get relegated. Again, before this summer transfer window we were never above £350,000 p/w but i've decided to try and kick on this season and go for a top 7 finish, which means i've had to set a higher wage limit on myself to attract a couple of good creative players.

The first season was certainly a challenge. I would highly reccomend Baba (striker, starts at Maritimo) and Francis N'Ganga (Left-back, starts at Tours). Both are decent players who you don't have to pay much at all. Baba put away a few crucial goals at the back end of the first season (he was hardly prolific, but I was struggling in front of goal before then) and N'Ganga is a decent replacement for the aging, slow Stephen Crainey. I sold both at a profit around 2013/2014 when I could afford better replacements.

Honestly, luck played it's part in keeping us up that first season. We looked destined for the dorp until the 9th of April. We came from 2-0 down away to rivals Bolton to snatch a 2-2 draw thanks to a red card and a penalty. We all know how much morale plays its part in FM11, and that gave us a lift. We went on to draw 1-1 at Newcastle, beat Everton and Wigan at home and on the final day beat Birmingham away. I will take some credit as I changed our formation and tweaked the tactic in the final weeks whiich seemed to have a good impact. We ended up 2 places and 3 points above the drop.

I bought:

Connor Wickham

Christian Benetez

Bamba (hibs def)

Broadfoot from Rangers

Fleck on loan

I am very impressed with anyone who can keep these up so well done mate as I think if I can keep them up in the first season then the players I can get second season will be mch better. For example when I was relegated and then sacked I had jordan henderson and the welsh young midfielder from west ham coming in on a free.

I am off work today so am going to have one final bash at this now wish me luck I will need it!

ok, looking better, started my usual self and lost the first 9 games. However changed to a 4-3-3 and now up to 17th after 23 games. Also the board gave me £10m in Jan and just brough walfswinkel (dutch forward) for £4.5m.

Purchased so far as well as the above:

Broadfort

Uruguain keeper that used to be at Inter Calibiri or summat

Danny Collins Stoke

Edmands wolves

Huberto Suazo

Kevin Loan

Macheda Loan

Murphey Brum

Plus a few more who for the life of me I can not remember.

First time that come Jan I have a good chance of staying up and on a good run of form winning my last 5 home games against Villa, Arsenal (3-0), Spurs, Everton, Bolton

Was just about to post that you were not getting in loan players.

You will attract quite a few decent players from the loan market,Kevin and Macheda loans alone will probably be enough to keep you up.

Also Wickham and Fleck are maybe more for the future...maybe 2nd 3rd season,though the previous 2 will do you a nice turn.

I signed Wickham in the second season, right now in 2015 he's starting to score goals, but before he was struggling quite a lot

I finished 11th in my first season.

Top scorer:

My transfers:

And as you can see below, this was after a run of just two wins and four draws in 17 games (one was the League Cup defeat to Wolves) which stared when I got a pretty good draw against Man City on the 20th of November. I was REALLY worried with that run!

End of season fixtures:

This was on a 4-4-2 (I never use any other formation) I put together just for this team. Seems to work quite well. I must admit though I use the IanC training schedule. Maybe that made a difference?

I didn't take over as Blackpool in the PL but when they had been relegated to the Championship after I'd had a successful spell at Santos. The squad had barely changed since they'd been relegated and they were 17th in the league. I brought in a few loan players and a handfu of signings (Michael Owen being the best) but missed out on the playoffs, finishing 8th. That 8th place cost me 400k a week in wages and 9million in transfer fees though! 2nd season is going a lot better, got rid of the deadwood (Marlon Harewood and co) and signed a mix of young players, PL rejects, old legends and foreign wonders. We're scoring for fun and are 6 points clear of Derby in 2nd (managed by Holloway no less!) I think with Blackpool it's a matter of using all the lower league management tricks in order to get survival. Saying that, I'll probably end up relegated next season.

Just finished my second season and managed to finish 7th and gain a UEFA place very happy with that. I did a lot of dealing in the summer sold roughly £22m and spent about the same on a new side. Also managed to hone a good 4-3-3 formation with Kenwin Jones, Sobis & wolfswinkel as my front three.