The hardest/biggest managerial decision of your career

As football managers, we all face some tough decisions throughout our career's, now these decisions may not directly affect us, for example, your decision to bring in a centre half instead of a new right wing back in order to have a crack at a new formation.

However, the decision may well directly effect you, for example, you decide to step down as manager of your club in order to move on to 'bigger and better' things and make that step up to a higher standard of football.

My hardest decision was definately to opt against extending my contract with York City, i made this decision as i was constantly being linked with League 1 and 2 jobs and York city were a mere blue square premier club. Stemming from this, i was offered the job at St Johnstone in Scotland, i accepted the offer and am now in the Scottish First Division, i see this as a step up the ladder in my career and therefore my decision paid off.

What is the hardest/biggest decision of your career?

As football managers, we all face some tough decisions throughout our career's, now these decisions may not directly affect us, for example, your decision to bring in a centre half instead of a new right wing back in order to have a crack at a new formation.

However, the decision may well directly effect you, for example, you decide to step down as manager of your club in order to move on to 'bigger and better' things and make that step up to a higher standard of football.

My hardest decision was definately to opt against extending my contract with York City, i made this decision as i was constantly being linked with League 1 and 2 jobs and York city were a mere blue square premier club. Stemming from this, i was offered the job at St Johnstone in Scotland, i accepted the offer and am now in the Scottish First Division, i see this as a step up the ladder in my career and therefore my decision paid off.

What is the hardest/biggest decision of your career?

I was managing Villa, and was struggling to say the least. So when Man Utd offered me the job, I was chuffed. But then, as ever, my undying devotion to Villa got in the way. i imagined that by turning down one of the great managerial positions in World Football, the Villa board would see how keen i was, the players would rally round, and i would take Villa on to better things.

The board didn't really seem bothered by my decision, the fans' pressure groups continued unabated, i was fired before Christmas. The sweetest plum had gone, i was out of work, and Tiny Tim faced a very bleak festive period.

leaving my beloved arsenal for barcelona after 10 seasons. i am a MASSIVE arsenal fan, but there is something i love too about barca, so after 10 years in the job at the emirates i went for the nou camp, won the spanish first division, lost in copa del rey final on penalties, lost champions league final to arsenal of all teams! Then got sacked after my first season in spain cos i demanded more money cos i had some major rebuilding to do

In FM08 I am managing FC Bayern and have Miroslav Klose up front, he has been immense for me and is favoured personnel for the club, i'm in his favoured personnel as well. Then he suddenly gets personal problems and no matter what I do always has them and it affects his game.

Do I sell him on or provide support for him? It was a toughy but I stuck with him, he hasn't improved personal life but i'm still his favoured personnel and he has popped up with some vital goals despite not being a regular.

The worst ever was CM9798 - managing my beloved Man Utd and eventually having to admit Keano, Giggs etc weren't good enough for first team football

Tough decisions come up all of the time really. Just in my current save as MK Dons manager I've had my fair share:

- Not renewing Gallens contract because he was 34 and not quick enough anymore. This was a tough decision just because for the last 7 straight games of the season we was scoring freely and got me within one spot of promotion from the other end of the table. I could have signed him on again I suppose...but it would have been a waste of money and Dons were struggling.

- Selling Gary Demspey for 300k simply because he was 31 and I'd picked him up on a free a few years earlier. It's definately money that's helped the club, but at the same time with him in my side I could have had a serious promotion push. I guess the old saying rings true: money rules the world! I got kinda lucky in that I have a 16 year old just come through my quad who is fantastic, he's rated as a good signing for league 2 sides, but he could become a leading right back for a championship side. It may not sound like much, but given my position that was a nice bonus.

- Selling Paul Weirauch for 240k because I'd only bought him for 75k and he didn't seem to have improved a whole lot. This proved to be a mistake, however...because he then got sold for 800k to Sheffield Utd. Ah well...

I find that the further down the leagues you go it's hard to be sentimental towards players. As Chelsea I'd have recruited Zola to my backroom staff just because he's a legend, given him anything he wanted...regardless of whether he was as good as the other staff I could have had. Terry would have got the occasional game at 38 regardless of his speed...just things like that. At the other end of the football world, every penny counts. It sucks.

deciding whether or not to take the italy job whilst being arsenal boss.... sounds not that bad but with such large ambitions from both squads can i devote the time.... was just too good to be true though. i took it last night so let see huh

selling robbie keane, purely because he wasn't getting first team football, and living to regret it. he's my rl hero. but my head ruled, he went to villa, he then scored 13 in 15 and two against us. i just wanted robbie happy, but it made me miserable. ah well, at least i signed aguero to replace him.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Selling Gary Demspey for 300k simply because he was 31 and I'd picked him up on a free a few years earlier. It's definately money that's helped the club, but at the same time with him in my side I could have had a serious promotion push. I guess the old saying rings true: money rules the world! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can empathise with this; when in lower league management, whether that be League 2 or Blue Square, when an offer above around 100k comes in, it is a real tough decision to accept or decline because no doubt you could do with the money!

I hate releasing players who are too old for my club any more. In FM07 I had to get rid of Ballack from Chelsea, along with Lampard and Klose.

In FM08 I've been Leeds and Newcastle. Don't particularly relish losing Stancu when he's past it. He loves me, the club, most of the players.

Shame we can't have testimonials in FM for the fans to show their appreciation. It's been suggested before but I believe the concensus is that it would just be a cosmetic thing.

Weird how we get attacked to programming code.

mine was wether to get rid of tevez at united. he got 4 hattricks and the golden boot in europe in the first season, and everyone in the team had him as a favorite. Then he just starts not liking how i talk to the team, demands a new contrat every season, and has low morale. Also a major financial benefit because of his world wide rep.

So i sold him to barca for 25 mill, and wil get 40%of his next transfer.

OR, it was dropping giggs, neville and scholes to the reserves...

Whether to bring Fabregas to Roma for £80m or just spend my transfer budget on 2 defenders. I went for Fabregas

In FM07, I finally made it to Inter. Fabregas was on the roster, and I had some rebuilding to do. By midseason, though, I had them at the top of the Serie A. Nevertheless, Fabregas began agitating to be allowed to move, and started attracting lots of offers. I toyed with the idea of using the unreasonable demand ruse to keep him on the team until the end of the season, thinking that if we won the Serie A, he might decide he wanted to stay.

But then I was offered an obscene amount of money for him, and I decided to let him go. Won the Serie A, too.

There have been too many to mention.

The most recent was setting my top scorer (by miles) and best player Rocca to Bari for £30m.

None of my other strikers have been producing the goods at all, and he's indispensible to the team. But £30m's a lot of money.

Haven't started the season yet so don't know if it was a good decision or bad yet.

on 05 I was at a tiny norwegan club called namsos, norwegan 3rd level, broke, no spending power, in debt, overblown wage bill having to promote all the youth squad just to make a properly sized first team squad... thankfully the wage and debt situation was resolved by one veteran forward retiring, and the kids were alright (one became a regular at international youth level).out of 10 teams I steared my squad to constistancy in the 3rd/4th region, just for that I was a hero, my rep jumped up from 'obscure' to 'national' (the highest I think you could get in 05, certainly even when I was stearing england to every international trophy for about 12 years it didn't go higher), and predictably I was inundated with considerably better job offers, but I liked being a small club hero. I know its only a game but sometimes it tugs at your heartstrings like that (or at least mine), so I waited 2 seasons before leaving (and only because still not being able to buy people meant it could only last for so long), first for martigues (high ligue 2 flyers at the time) but reloaded because of the attachment I felt before finally taking over at brondby, who were an utter mess and things did not go well for me for a few clubs until Braga... but thats another story.

maybe I should return to namsos one day, even if it means having to use the editor to put them into a playable division, but then again in football its never really a great idea to go back to a place where you became a bit of a hero, so I might not, I quit while I was ahead, why would i risk that?

I've always found the hardest is when you've got players you've nurtured from youth to international stardom, then eventually they're too old to be any real use to the first team.

I end up always keeping them until they retire, giving them a few games here and there, before they hang up their boots and hopefully I can get them to stay at the club as a member of staff.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> won the spanish first division, lost in copa del rey final on penalties, lost champions league final to arsenal ..... i had some major rebuilding to do </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmmm !!

Actually, I guess the hardest decision was while I was playing that FM07 game and doing well with Inter, FM08 came out, and I had to decide whether to move to FM08 or stick with 07.

In January 2011. I was one of my favourite teams Dortmund and I had a very good run, won the league the season before and now I was top of the league,unbeaten and qualified for the Last sixteen in Champions League. Then I checked the Swedish league to see how it was doing. When I looked for my favourite team AIK I found they absolutely crashed and burned and was in Division 2 (4th division), so they had been relegated 3 times in 4 years.

It was a hard decision, my Dortmund had awesome players like Bojan,Behrami,Lucas and Akinfeev and the club was finally rich with 400 mil in funds. But I decided to leave the rich club and my money to help the club I love to victory again. The save got corrupted in 2023 and then I had turned them into the leading Swedish side and to a team like PSV in quality. Managed to get to the semi-final in Champions League once but that was because of good draws.

FM 2007 I had won the Premiership with Manchester City in 2010, thanks largely to Alex, the Brazilian playmaker attacking midfielder from Fenerbahce.

Now, he had had an absolutely amazing season, scoring 23 league goals and setting up a further 19 goals from the hanging striker/attacking midfielder position. He was awarded the player of the season award and the supporters player of the year award.

However, he was 32 years old and soon to be 33 and well, the thing was, I had Rafael van der Vaart coming in on a free transfer and furthermore I had a very good 17-year-old English regen trying to get some first team games. He wasn't the quickest guy to begin with and he was already down to 11 in pace at the end of the season...

So what to do? Should I keep him on, and let him rot on the bench, while slowly losing his pace and skill or should I be an ungrateful bastard and offload my most popular player, the league and club player of the year; the guy who had given me the key to the league victory?

After I had been pondering this problem for quite some time it solved itself. Suddenly Fenerbahce showed up as interested in securing his services, and since Fenerbahce was a favoured team of his, I "allowed" him to leave for 2M as the benevolent manager I was. Not too shabby a fee for a player his age either, really.

Van der Vaart went on to secure me the quadruple the year after and the regen guy went on to play 93 English caps

tempting offers for your stars are always tough. At Bologna I sold my top scorer after saving them from relegation from Serie B, and the next season again sold my top scorer after gaining promotion to Serie A. With that money getting me some good quality players all over the field, and some wise free transfers filling my attacking gaps, I put together a team solid enough to compete for the title. How different things could have been!

Letting go of loyal veterans who just can't cut the mustard any more is the worst,though.

Well at 32 years of age I had to make a choice on whether to keep Ledley King or let him go. Now I know that 32 for a defender is pretty prime but he wanted like a 3 year deal and I only wanted to give him a 2 year. So what I did was let him go cause Kaboul was making himself heard on the pitch. Ledley was picked up by Middlesbrough who at the time were doing very well and the price was 7 millon and they paired he and Woodgate together and they went on to be one of the best combos in the Prem. Now this is on 8.0.0. When i played against Ledley I told the press that we had a great on and off the field friendship and what happened was that they held us scoreless at the Lane(Which now held 50,000 some odd.)

All in all Im happy for Ledley but upset he did me like that with some great tackles and organizing of the D.

Turning down the Manchester United job (I am a massive United fan, like obsessive), because I promised to stay with Rangers until I won the Champions League. Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2010, Glazer offered me £53,000 and a 5 year contract. I said no. Next season won the CL with the Gers but the United job was filled.

I am dreading the end of my current Rangers team, it will be a nightmare when Kris Boyd (Club Favourite, has me as favoured personnel), Barry Ferguson (same), and Jean-Claude Darcheville move on/retire. Jean-Claude is already 34, all his stats are crap, except finishing, which has actually increased to 18. I still play him as a Super Sub, he gets me goals in big games. I'm hoping he goes into coaching (he is "Definately wanting to go into a coaching role") so I can make him one of the backroom staff!

I had two.

Playing with Manchester United, Vidic got all upset when I rejected offers for him. So I had to decide whether to keep him or sell him for good money as he was unhappy. I sold him in the end to Milan for a whopping fee but it was very tough.

Playing with Hungarian Division I side ZTE I was top before the last game of the season, needing only a point to win the league. I was at home to mid-table Vasas whom we beat easily away. I was considering a defensive tactical approach to secure the coveted draw but eventually I opted for my usual tactics.

We duly lost 1-0 with my star striker missing an open goal from 3 yards out in the 94th minute. Tough decision it was and I got it wrong it seems.

I had achieved glory at Spurs over a period of 10 seasons when Barce came knocking. I couldn't resist the new challenge but it broke my heart leaving everything I had so painfully and carefully constructed behind. I had a crop of youngsters ready to break loose, great coaching and scouting set-up, I was loved by the fans, great stadium, etc but I had to see if I could cut it at another job in another country. Still, you can't live life with regrets...

Played Newcastle on the final day of the Premiership and had secured the Premiership before that. Wondered whether to bring on Rooney and Ronaldo because if Newcastle lost, they would be relegated (who says you're never too good to go down?). Stupid question; brought them both on and knocked them to oblivion. And I loved every moment of it.

The other one would be in a summer with Xerez, and I got offers from Inter Milan, AC Milan and Manchester United. I turned them all down, and I sort of regret that now, although now my overpowered Xerez team can whip all of them, but at least I have the knowledge that if Lippi ever has a bad run of results, I can probably oust him from Manchester United.

Selling my young gun who came through reserves and was a goal scorer for a lousy 200K.

It was either sell or relegate.

I am loyal, I mean I've been with the team for 8 years now, but when your board doesn't inject any sort of money to help you out, you have no options but to sell your star(s) in order to make some money to pay the expenses.

In my current game I have had 2 decisions that I considered pretty big. Not as big as some others in the past, or indeed in this thread, but I like to think they were big decisions!

The first, was picking a now 34 year old Juninho Pernambucano ahead of Ederson in my midfield, and also recalling Fred upfront and shifting Karim Benzema to the right wing. Juninho had not been playing much due to his ailing physical stats, and Fred had had a few injuries this season and had not scored many goals. Both these decisions came in a crucial league game against Paris Saint Germain. My teams recent form hadn't been very good, I think patchey would describe it better, and a win was needed to get our stuttering league season back on track. Despite playing at home, PSG were favourites for the game, and these 2 selections could make or break our campaign.

May Decision was well and truely proved correct!

As you can see Fred bagged a hattrick, and, although not visible to you chaps, Juninho set up 3 of the first half goals before being removed early in the second half.

The next big decision came just days later as I rejected an offer of £45million for star man Hatem Ben Arfa. To me, that was a huge decision because with that money I could have gone out and bought 3 or 4 quality plyers for the French League. But little Ben Arfa is worth much more than that to me!

Maybe one day I'll get an actual big decision to make.