Seasonal Expectations. Are you cocky or cautious?

Aah, yes! The start of a new season. A time for optimism, pessimisim, delusions of grandeur and all the rest of it. Fans of Aardvark United gleefully print off any copy of the new league table they can find and paste them to their bedroom walls so they can rejoice at their team being top of the league. Some hope they might stay there, others know full well that in 2 months time, after losing 9-0 at home to Zysdriosika Wanderers who had previously not scored all season, had 3 men sent off and were fielding a team of 16 year old kids, that they will then be the only team in the league who still has 0 points to their name. Fans of Entish City hope their 7 foot striker will score 30 goals and guide them to promotion, despite him having the acceleration of an oil tanker, the finishing ability of a dustbin and no goals in his last 37 starts. Meanwhile you look over your team sheet, realise that you desperately need to sign a new right-back, but know deep down that whatever your transfer kitty you'll blow it all on a 7th world class striker just in case the other 6 all get injured at the same time...

Anyway, I digress. What I really want to know is: What kind of manager are you? When the board comes to you with their minimum expectaions for the season and a long list of permutations of aims, transfer budgets and wage budgets what do you do? Are you the kind of manager who just sees £ signs and confidently tells the board you'll win the title even though the rest of the world thinks you're red hot favourites for relegation? Are you the kind of manager who instantly plumps for the lowest expectations, hopes to wheel and deal in the transfer market and then wow the board with your awesome overachievement? Or are you somewhere inbetween?

Personally I tend to go for caution. I look at the different budgets available, consider who I am hoping to sign and generally opt for one of the lower expectations, but maybe a notch up from what I would ideally like if the transfer kitty allows me to sign that player I've been chasing for so long. Currently in charge of Werder Bremen though and they expect a title challenge so I'm not over-burdened with options - it's either that or cliam I'll win it which would be a bit dodgy given how strong Bayern Munich were last season, winning the title despite us having a superb season also!

Aah, yes! The start of a new season. A time for optimism, pessimisim, delusions of grandeur and all the rest of it. Fans of Aardvark United gleefully print off any copy of the new league table they can find and paste them to their bedroom walls so they can rejoice at their team being top of the league. Some hope they might stay there, others know full well that in 2 months time, after losing 9-0 at home to Zysdriosika Wanderers who had previously not scored all season, had 3 men sent off and were fielding a team of 16 year old kids, that they will then be the only team in the league who still has 0 points to their name. Fans of Entish City hope their 7 foot striker will score 30 goals and guide them to promotion, despite him having the acceleration of an oil tanker, the finishing ability of a dustbin and no goals in his last 37 starts. Meanwhile you look over your team sheet, realise that you desperately need to sign a new right-back, but know deep down that whatever your transfer kitty you'll blow it all on a 7th world class striker just in case the other 6 all get injured at the same time...

Anyway, I digress. What I really want to know is: What kind of manager are you? When the board comes to you with their minimum expectaions for the season and a long list of permutations of aims, transfer budgets and wage budgets what do you do? Are you the kind of manager who just sees £ signs and confidently tells the board you'll win the title even though the rest of the world thinks you're red hot favourites for relegation? Are you the kind of manager who instantly plumps for the lowest expectations, hopes to wheel and deal in the transfer market and then wow the board with your awesome overachievement? Or are you somewhere inbetween?

Personally I tend to go for caution. I look at the different budgets available, consider who I am hoping to sign and generally opt for one of the lower expectations, but maybe a notch up from what I would ideally like if the transfer kitty allows me to sign that player I've been chasing for so long. Currently in charge of Werder Bremen though and they expect a title challenge so I'm not over-burdened with options - it's either that or cliam I'll win it which would be a bit dodgy given how strong Bayern Munich were last season, winning the title despite us having a superb season also!

heheh good thread glam, for me, I tend to be as realistic with my own expectations as I can be based upon the quality of the team etc. Rarley wll one player win you the league so depending on transfer kitty I wont usually take into acount players I want to buy. again, at times, depending on who you manage, your ot given much options due to the boards own expectations, but after a least a season, I think you can realisticaly tell what your team is capable of.

I always go with the cautious option at the begining of the season. I'll always pick the option one down from what I want to achieve. Say I want to win the title, I will pick "title challenger" rather than "title winner" just incase I get pipped to the post by one of my rivals.

If I am a newly promoted team I will "battle bravely against relegation" just incase I don't do very well at all and do happen to go down. I don't like to promise my board too much sucess.

I've been all of them - it all depends on how I genuinely rate my squad and how much money is available.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by phnompenhandy:

I've been all of them - it all depends on how I genuinely rate my squad and how much money is available. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I always go for the minimum every time. Often if you say you can do better and win the league, if you aren't 1st or 2nd after 10 games the players morale suffers and then it's a long road to the end of the season.

Always go for the lowest. The board confidence scares me too much to be cocky.

Cocky.

Always the lowest. Too many board confidence bugs and unrealistic effects of team talks and media.

Cautious

Always go for the lowest. Simply as I never follow a formula (buy this player, use this formation, this training etc etc). So sometimes, I utterly crash and burn.

I tend to stick roughly in the middle, i quite often find the board underestimate the squad though so will go a step higher than expected quite often.

Unfortunately, I cannot choose in my current save, because my board just states we are winners!

I cannot choose (only the first season).

But when I can choose, I choose winners nationally, but because, hey, I'm the best manager around!

Cocky? No, not me, right?

Definately cocky I love the added pressure.

I'm arrogant by nature so I naturally believe I can do better than what is expected.

Call it cocky, call it arrogant, for me it's what's just right.

I'm cautious.

But that's because I normally do rubbish.

I say normally because of my recent 1st title.

Ah... League Champions.....

Very cautious

Depends on the circumstances, to be honest. For one thing, if I KNOW that I can achieve something then I'll definately go for it, regardless of the lower possible choices. If I THINK that I can do something I'll take a look at the different budgets - if there's a significant difference between what I think I can achieve and the lower expectation, I'll go with what I think I can achieve. However, if it's only one or two mil I'll be cautious and go for the lower expectation.

And also, unless it's the only option I'll never tell the board that I can win the league because, unlike the other positions where there's a number of positions for you to get, when you say you can win the league there's so little to aim for, and especially when there's a number of other teams that will be contending for the title you can easily let the board down.

Confidently cautious.

If I confidently know/think I'll win the title, I'll cautiously choose the next option down of "Title challenger".

If I'm a lower league club, I'll always go for the lowest option that roughly reflects the board interpretation of where the club should be.

It's easy to be over-confident and be tempted by the extra funds they will allow by choosing the highest option, but at lower league level, it's barely any difference to make taking an over-confident stance worthwhile.

I go for the option immediately below what I think I can achieve, ie, if I think I can win the league, I go for "Challenge for title", and so on down. It' just a buffer to the confidence issue.

I never get the option as I always play as Celtic, therefore always expected to win league. Also always expected to win both Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup. I mean how realistic is a domestic treble every season. yeah sure we'd all love it and we are always expected to win these things but to also be dissapointrd if we lose in the semis or the final!!! anyway i'm gonna end there in case anyone thinks I'm ranting, which i'm not

Always on the cautious side but I do tend to go for one option above what the board have set. At the moment I'm a perpetual relegation candidate but, due to having a decent squad, I am quite happy to tell the board that I can avoid relegation (even though I can really achieve more). I like overachieving and wowing the board!

C.

Well, predictably I went for the Challenge for the Title option at Bremen since it was the only option other than saying I'd win it. Thanks to our Champions League exploits of my 1st season though we have a nice bank balance and the board gave me a generous transfer budget which I supplemented by moving a fair bit of the large wage budget across.

Now I'm as excited about the new season as I can ever remember being in any previous CM/FM because I've signed the player I really wanted and still have £10 million left. I need a striker and a right-back though so just as I predicted in my opening post I fear the latter may fall by the way-side...although alas I don't have 6 world class strikers to fall back on. I have 2 fairly good strikers and one very young one!

I try to guess where I might reasonably end up, and pick the alternative just above that. Then I also go for the maximum team bonuses.