Best short term signing you've had?

We've all been there through-out our careers where we bring in a player who does a great job for 6 months or a season, may it be a signing to fire you to promotion or to stop a leaky defence in January and then they're on there away again.

Who's been your best?

Not selling Charles N'Zogbia in my Aston Villa save; check the Villa thread. Basically single-handedly kept me up, then moved at the end of the season.

Lots of players from my Pro Vercelli save in 2012. I don't remember any of them, to be honest; it's been too long since I've played it.

Scott McDonald as my AMC - Advance Playermaker Attack

Signed him as a Free Transfer in my Third Season while trying to win the Vanarama Conference. He absolutely dominated the league with assists and goals and helped my Hereford team get promoted to League 2.

Oh, and he was 34 during the season and stayed with me for the next season before retiring.

In this version, Salah from Chelsea. Propelled me to qualification for the Champions League.

Tim Cahill in one of my many Boro saves in FM13. Can't remember the details but he basically was brought in as a bit of experience and back up but once he got his chance he ripped the Championship apart. Extended his contract and he was mostly injured and awful the next season. But our love burnt bright for those first 12 months.

I got Sami Khedira on loan rom Jan in my save, first choice DM had got injured. He was so good, ended up keeping my irst choice out when he was t again

Way back when he was just breaking through as a petulent teenager at Arsenal IRL, I signed Nicolas Anelka for League One Gillingham on a Bosman, wrecking our wage structure in the process. I'm glad I did- I've never had a single player make such a difference to a team as he did- we couldn't hang onto him after a season, but he took us up single-handedly. Far too good for that level, even back then.

Tim Cahill in one of my many Boro saves in FM13. Can't remember the details but he basically was brought in as a bit of experience and back up but once he got his chance he ripped the Championship apart. Extended his contract and he was mostly injured and awful the next season. But our love burnt bright for those first 12 months.

perfect example of what I mean, an experienced pro coming in for short stint doing a job. Love it

As Millwall, I was up **** street with all my strikers out injured around the January transfer market and got Craig Davies in from Bolton on a free in my first season. Keep him for 3 years after that, ended up selling him on for 475k!

Ter-Stegen in 2014. Picked him up on a Bosman at Fulham. He played great for a year, then I noticed Courtois was also leaving on a Bosman. So I grabbed him, then sold Ter-Stegen for an ungoly sum to PSG.

Valdes on FM14, on my United save... he promptly established himself as main goalie (I rotated them after a while) still going strong on that save in 2017.

Marcel Desailly amazingly agreed to join my Sprint/Jeløy team (then in the Norwegian equivalent of League 1) on a three month contract on FM06. He retired in July (the season started in early April), but was an absolute rock at the back in the matches he did play - inspiring my team to go on and win promotion after the fantastic start to the season.

Brought Benjani to Jomo Cosmos for six months. He spent half the time injured and only got 4 or 5 goals, but he seemed to do morale a world of good and shirt sales skyrocketed.

Bump

Thought I'd update my thread with my favourite signing ever in FM.

Managing Bristol City we were third at the end of January in my first season, injury hits my 3 strikers so I bring in Brett Pitman for a mere £250k.

22 goals in 24 appearances later we win the league at Preston, coming from 2-0 down .. Brett netted a hat trick.

It's January 2018, and I have just become Southampton manager, who are languishing in 9th in the Championship. Realising I need some depth up front, I sign Vinicius Araujo on loan from parent club Valencia as a back up for Destro. Destro then gets a 4 month injury, Araujo scores 20 in 17 and I go up via the playoffs

Ruben Garcia, Spanish winger.

Scored hat tricks in his first few matches for me and was an amazing, but it was in my lets see whats new in fm15 game, when I later started fresh, with my new added knowledge and bought him, he was less than stellar (Must have been doped up on a good season, when I bought him the first time), still sold him to Man City for 30M, where he didn't get much playing time for many years, until they sold him for 3.8M

In FM14 I was managing Latina in Serie B. I'd been there for a few seasons and managed to change them from relegation candidates to real promotion contenders. I managed to gain promotion as champions and that was in no small part down to a player called Evans Soligo. He was about 40 years old with poor technical and physical stats, but he had great mental attributes. He played so well I couldn't drop him for seemingly better players! And weighed in with some key goals from midfield. He was literally one player I could really depend on when things weren't going very well.

I think I kept him on for one game in Serie A, as I thought he deserved it, and when another Serie B team bid for him before the deadline shut, I was more than willing to let him go as I knew he wouldn't really be up to the job in Serie A.

Using Chester in League 2, I signed a 17 year old fullback from Spain thinking I would develop him in the reserves and play him a handful of games as a backup. I had terrible injury problems that year and he played extensively and performed great. Sold him at seasons end for a club record 300k (which could climb to 450k+ after appearances). Not bad for a free transfer.

I am managing Napoli and wanted a "5th" central defender just in case I would suffer an injury crisis. I was forced to sell a number of my backs due to varying reasons and I was relying on two 16 and 17 year old "newgen" youth players as backup to relatively young centre backs Ezequiel Muñoz and Koulibaly.

So I went looking for an experienced defender on the cheap not only to act as a last resort substitute/reserve, but as a tutor/mentor for my talented teenage newgens backs. After a month of in game time looking, I struggled to find anyone with decent stats under a few million euro and when I did, they were usually injury prone players, with bad stats or a bad attitude. That all changed when to my surprise my scout came back with a report on a 32 year old Iranian defender by the name of Mohammed Nosrati. He was playing his trade in the Persian Super League club Persepolis and the scouts stated that he had no injury issues, and was labeled as determined, consistent and professional. I put in an offer of 300k over 48 months which the club quickly agreed to and he accepted a 200k/year deal with a squad status of backup. Soon my prediction came true and I had injuries at the back and to my backup defensive midfielders and he proved to be useful in every position needed. He covered at centre back, right back (mid match) and even at defensive midfielder. After 3/4 of my season, he has become my starting centre back due to Koulibaly not performing well. Nosrati has been a revelation with a 7.32 rating and fans love him now. The fan transfer confidence rating for him is at over 90%, so kudos goes to my good scouts and this gem of a player...! I have decided to renew his initial 1 year contract to another 2 and I think he will probably be around for a long time as his natural fitness is 18 and he is only 33 years old.

Not bad for $6,250 Euros a month.

Rio Mavuba for my Arsenal side last season (3rd season in game). We had a big hole in defensive midfield, and my prefered tactic needs a DMC. I searched around for young players who I could bring in and develop but everyone was extremely over-priced. I found Mavuba with a year left on his contract, available for less than 3 million and with the exact attributes I wanted. He was an every-present in my team despite signing an unhappy Kondogbia in January to give competition, and was absolutely key in the best defense in the league and ultimately the league title. After selling Mertesacker, he became captain of the team, although I would have used him less often in the season to come due to Kondogbia being younger and my future choice.

Unfortunately, Kronke decided to retire, we had a board take-over and in their wisdom they decided to spend the best part of the opening stages of the transfer window deciding if they wanted to keep me or not (I only won the title when we expected 4th, who would want that!). I missed out on all my main transfer targets to rivals during the process. When I received an offer to manage PSG I left, the board will regret that! So I will never know how Mavuba would have played out longer term for me, and hence he counts as an excellent one season signing for me (and sorry for the mini rant.)

Scott Niven.

I signed him for Queens Park from Stirling University. An AMC with great potential and at just 16 years old was too good to ignore.

12 months later and Raith Rovers snap him up, for free of course and then decide to place him in the Under 19's. Such a waste of that potential talent.

He's now on loan to Formartine United.

What I enjoy most about him is his hair style.

On FM14, I took over at Chester in the Conference North at the end of the 1st season ... during the summer I saw an amazing opportunity to sign a proven goalscorer, an England international, a man whose injuries cost him the England goal scoring record ... yes with Chester I signed Michael Owen!! £1.5k a week, he became my assistant manager as well

Injuries kept him out of the side for a big chunk of the season but his record on the pitch was amazing and helped with us win promotion. He stayed as a player in the Conference but again injuries began to cause more and more problems and he rarely saw the field but obviously when he did he scored! Retired after that year but I kept him as my assistant manager

A regen by the name of Harry Burke was probably mine, I was underperforming in a season where I needed promotion from League 1 (board demanded it, and I had over-spent on wage/transfers to try). If I stayed down in League 1, the finances would be shot and I would have to cut some of my better players.

I already had a great striker in on loan to spearhead my push, and he went down hurt in October. We were upper end of mid-table and things looked bleak. I had a look on the loan market and found Burke. I could only offer him a 3-month loan deal as we were outside the window, so he came in and revived my season. I was able to extend his loan in January, and by the end of the season his 30 goals took us up after scraping into the playoffs.

He didn't just save my season, he pushed us from potential League 1 strugglers on a downward spiral to the Championship and an upward trajectory. He developed a lot with me and Newcastle refused to loan him to me again as we weren't good enough for them to loan to!

I signed a 37 year old Darren Bent on a free as "back up" to my strike force making a push for promotion from The Championship. He hit 17 goals in 22 matches including the winner in the FA cup final against Fulham. He retired just after but what a way to go!

Victor Aristizabal

Freddy Adu got him on a free and he scored 7 goals and got 18 assists in the Premiership also scored the goal that got me into Europe.

Lukas Podolski. I loaned him from Arsenal in the 2017/18 season as my Newcastle side had been creating loads of chances but hardly ever scoring. Long story short, he won the golden boot and fired us to a top 4 place with Arsenal stuck in mid-table! To rub salt into the wound, they then allowed me to sign him at the end of the season for £300K!!!

John O'Shea at QPR on FM14. I had just ended my first season in which I ran away with the Championship title, and saw that Sunderland had listed him and only wanted £300000. I was short of options at the back and so signed him up. When it came to a point where I needed to select a new vice-captain, my assistant manager suggested O'Shea and so I obliged. As the forever unfit Richard Dunne was my captain John O'Shea ended up captaining my side in most games. Despite a summer of arrivals I had a horrible start to the season, losing 4 games on the bounce culminating in a 7-0 loss at Old Trafford. After that game I changed my tactics and Big John flourished. He was a constant rock at the back, and was my 3rd top goalscorer contributing 7 goals and leading my little QPR side to 6th in the league and European football. I even managed to beat Man. United 2-1 at Loftus Road! Despite that I got sacked the next season for complaining to the press about not getting transfer funds. Only job I could get after that was Swindon Town

John O'Shea at QPR on FM14. I had just ended my first season in which I ran away with the Championship title, and saw that Sunderland had listed him and only wanted £300000. I was short of options at the back and so signed him up. When it came to a point where I needed to select a new vice-captain, my assistant manager suggested O'Shea and so I obliged. As the forever unfit Richard Dunne was my captain John O'Shea ended up captaining my side in most games. Despite a summer of arrivals I had a horrible start to the season, losing 4 games on the bounce culminating in a 7-0 loss at Old Trafford. After that game I changed my tactics and Big John flourished. He was a constant rock at the back, and was my 3rd top goalscorer contributing 7 goals and leading my little QPR side to 6th in the league and European football. I even managed to beat Man. United 2-1 at Loftus Road! Despite that I got sacked the next season for complaining to the press about not getting transfer funds. Only job I could get after that was Swindon Town

Also on FM15 I signed Hatem Ben Arfa on a free after one season to join my title winning Spurs side. He only made about 10 appearance all season but managed to score an absolute screamer on the final game of the season with 10 minutes to go. That made it 1-0 and secured the title. Sold him for £7.5m to Fenerbahce a few weeks later.

I am managing Napoli and wanted a "5th" central defender just in case I would suffer an injury crisis. I was forced to sell a number of my backs due to varying reasons and I was relying on two 16 and 17 year old "newgen" youth players as backup to relatively young centre backs Ezequiel Muñoz and Koulibaly.

So I went looking for an experienced defender on the cheap not only to act as a last resort substitute/reserve, but as a tutor/mentor for my talented teenage newgens backs. After a month of in game time looking, I struggled to find anyone with decent stats under a few million euro and when I did, they were usually injury prone players, with bad stats or a bad attitude. That all changed when to my surprise my scout came back with a report on a 32 year old Iranian defender by the name of Mohammed Nosrati. He was playing his trade in the Persian Super League club Persepolis and the scouts stated that he had no injury issues, and was labeled as determined, consistent and professional. I put in an offer of 300k over 48 months which the club quickly agreed to and he accepted a 200k/year deal with a squad status of backup. Soon my prediction came true and I had injuries at the back and to my backup defensive midfielders and he proved to be useful in every position needed. He covered at centre back, right back (mid match) and even at defensive midfielder. After 3/4 of my season, he has become my starting centre back due to Koulibaly not performing well. Nosrati has been a revelation with a 7.32 rating and fans love him now. The fan transfer confidence rating for him is at over 90%, so kudos goes to my good scouts and this gem of a player...! I have decided to renew his initial 1 year contract to another 2 and I think he will probably be around for a long time as his natural fitness is 18 and he is only 33 years old.

Not bad for $6,250 Euros a month.

These are the stories i like best.

Falcao, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, right off the bat it doesn't sound like these are short term signings but here's a bit of context.

Its the 2023/24 season so Falcao will be turning 38, Ronaldo 39 and Messi 37, I've just taken over at PSG who finished 6th the season before and so have no European football and despite a lot of money the pool of interested players with no european football is beneath what I would want long term. As its a network game, an awful lot of the talented youngsters are being hoovered up by the other player so scouting for the right players was going to take too much time.

Falcao was signed from my previous club Tottenham, in 4 years he'd played 108 league games and scored 87 goals so I knew he could still cut it. Ronaldo was a rotation player at Man Utd and Messi a rotation player at Juventus. Ronaldo has 16 goals in 13 games, Messi has 13 goals in 10 games and Falcao has 7 goals in 11 games.

From FM13...

Bought him in on loan from Monaco. Prolific. He caught my eye when on loan at Rennes the season before.

Also back on FM08, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake guided my MK Dons up from League Two to League One on loan from Wolves and Jimmy Smith on loan from Chelsea lifted them up from League Two to the Championship. Managed to get him on loan twice. His contract at Chelsea then ran out but he turned us down to go to Hearts

Ben Arfa in January 2015 for Liverpool. In the new update, Suso was obviously not there so I wanted an IF-A on the right and he fired me to CL glory with a brace in the final and 12 goals in the league

Jess on loan as well. I got him Jan first season then again for the next season. Great backup ST and LM

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar signed from Schalke for a mere £240K.

The previous season at Schalke he did not score any goals and therefore was transfer listed. Having said that, I knew I could get goals out of him. Signing a player of his quality as a backup player is really a no brainer. In the short amount of time he was given on the football pitch, he proved to be well worth the outlay.

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar i picked up for Free on my first United save, doing alright coming off the bench

Had Seedorf and Tymoshuk in my Midfield on FM12 after I got Blackpool back up, both retired after a season, but still big names and very good players.

Scocco

Conca

Montillo

And for poor teams: VIEUX SANE

Javi Espinosa to Leicester for 120k. 3 years later, was sold to Benfica for 9m.

Montillo

Conca

Scocco

Thiago Neves

In FM15 I was managing in Serie B and all 3 of my main strikers got injured just before christmas. I had to quickly search for a replacement and after a couple of weeks searching I decided to sign a player on loan.

I only had to pay a small percentage of his wages to get him.

His name: Nicky Maynard

I got him from Cardiff in January until the end of the season. Whilst my main strikers were missing (4 games) I lost all my games and dropped to 5 th in the league.

Nicky came in played 16 games in total scoring 28 goals and propelling me to league champions. He was also top league goalscorer, not bad for only playing about half the season.

He wouldn't sign permanently the next season as I couldn't afford his transfer fee, but did get him the following year on a free and he is still performing.

In FM08 I signed Tim Borowski for my Arsenal side, I think he was 33, and used him as cover/tutoring. Started him in one match, he scored all four as I beat Liverpool 4-0