FM10: Official Scunthorpe United Thread - Heart of Iron

A brief History

Scunthorpe United, formerly known as Scunthorpe and Lindsey United, among other names, has existed since 1899, but did not join the Football League until 1950 when the league structure was expanded. It has had its ups and downs, and its trying to secure safety in the Championship at second attempt, having achieved promotion in the 2005-06 season but coming second from bottom in the following season in the Championship with 41 points. Last season they came 6th in Division 1 and managed to gain promotion through the playoffs with a 3-2 victory over Millwall in the final.

Club Information

Full Name: Scunthorpe United FC

Founded: 1899

Nickname: The Iron

Media Prediction: 24th

Major Rivals: Grimsby, Lincoln, Hull

Legends: Alex Calvo-Garcia

Icons: Jack Brownsword, Barrie Thomas, Billy Sharp, Andy Butler, Ray Clemence, Kevin Keegan, Andrew Keogh, Peter Beagrie, Mark Lillis, Nigel Adkins, Steve Cammack, Ian Boatham, Richard Money

Club Captain: Cliff Byrne (should be changed to Rob Jones)

Stadium

Scunthorpe's Stadium is Glanford Park, the first new, purpose built stadium for an English Club in the modern era when Scunthorpe moved in in 1988. It is the smallest stadium in the Championship and has a capacity of 9,088.

Squad Analysis

1 GK Joe Murphy

2 MF Andrew Wright

3 DF Marcus Williams

4 MF Sam Togwell

5 DF Kenny Milne

6 MF Cliff Byrne (captain)

7 MF Matt Sparrow

8 MF Grant McCann

9 FW Paul Hayes

10 FW Gary Hooper

11 MF Garry Thompson

12 DF Rob Jones

14 FW Jonathan Forte

15 DF David Mirfin

16 MF Martyn Woolford

17 FW Ben May

18 MF Michael O'Connor

19 MF Josh Wright

20 MF Donal McDermott (on loan from Manchester City)

21 DF Jake Picton

22 GK Josh Lillis

23 GK Sam Slocombe

26 DF Niall Canavan

27 MF Ian Morris

29 FW Adam Boyes

30 DF Andy Crosby

31 DF Brendan Moloney (on loan from Nottingham Forest)

32 DF Michael Raynes

You will need to significantly strengthen the Scunthorpe United team if you want to stay in the Championship. There are significant weaknesses, including at full back and on the wing. However there are a few star places that you will want to try and hold on to at all costs.

Star Players

Grant McCann

Undoubtedly the star of the Scunthorpe team. Has a great work rate and is a set piece specialist and will get you a number of goals form long shots. He is a very strong championship player, and could even function as a weak premiership player.

Rob Jones

A new signing for Scunthorpe. He is a titanic centre back at over 2 metres tall, and has great influence - should be the new Scunthorpe captain. A massive threat from corners with his unbelievable height and jumping ability. A good championship player.

Gary Hooper

He is the club's one and only youth prospect. If you can bring in an older player with a decent personality in to tutor him he could be a decent premiership player. A great finisher, if you give him a through ball into the box he will often put it away. Scored 42 Championship goals for me in the second season. Can be sold at the end of the second season for around £3-6 million if you get short on money

Recommended Players

You have a very small transfer budget at the beginning of the season to buy players with. Only around 350k and 38.5k pw if you say you will attempt to avoid relegation and 475k and 43.5k pw if you say you will avoid relegation. I suggest reducing your transfer budget to 0 and improving your wage budget as much as possible because there are a number of excellent players out there available on a free transfer.

Goalkeepers:

Sebastian Viera A good goalkeeper available on a free. Definitely an excellent back-up for first team keeper Joe Murphy, might even displace him as first team keeper.

Defenders:

Sol Campbell Everyone's heard of Campbell. He and Rob Jones could make a titanic duo at the heart of the Scunthorpe defence. Only good for one season though.

Glauber Younger and perhaps a better option for central defender. Good heading and jumping ability but with slighter weaker mental ability compared to Campbell. However, he is only 25 and asks for a smaller contract so I think he is the better option.

Abubakari Yakubu He is a brilliantly versatile player and can play anywhere in the right hand side or centre of defence and mifield. If you can get him on a small contact then he is a must buy. Has a great determination attribute as well.

Michael Ball Great left back available on a free. Has the attributes to be a good championship left back and is a lot better than Scunthorpe's other left back. However he is quite slow and that could be a problem against fast wingers.

Lauren Scunthorpe lack a good right back so it is imperative you bring one in. Though he is quite old he will certainly to for one season and most probably two. Great tackling ability and generally solid all round stats. A dependable player that would get into any championship team.

Midfielders:

Pape Diop The old Sengalese player may only be good for one season, but he will add a calming influence and extra strength into midfield

Seyfo Soley Another strong African player to add some substance to the midfield. He is younger than Diop and has great strength, stamina and natural fitness. However he lacks the mental strength of the older midfielder. Really its your preference, but a defensive midfielder would add a lot to Scunthorpe's midfield.

Hamed Namouchi A solid all round winger who can play on both wings and is a lot better than the existing Scunthorpe wingers.

Andy Van der Meyde Another winger who can play on both wings. He is an excellent creative and technical player but is let down by his weak physical abilities. Technically he is the best player that Scunthorpe can buy with their resources.

Felix Dja Ettien Dja Ettien is a different type of player than the other two wingers. He is a strong and fast, with great off the ball and work rate. Technically he isn't very good, but has decent long shots so could be a danger form that aswell.

Christer George Another decent all round player, similar to Namouchi. A good signing because of his versatility - he can player anywhere in attacking midfield and as a striker too.

Strikers:

Mark Viduka Viduka is a well known ageing target man who played for liverpool at one point. He will be good for one season as a target man if you play a formation with two strikers. He is strong and intelligent with good heading, finishing and an excellent first touch.

Ebi Smolarek This Polish striker is infamous for his bad attitude, but his attributes are excellent and he is a great championship goalscorer. At the beginning it is difficult to sign him for Scunthorpe, however, if you do he will become an integral part of your team.

Ali Elkhattabi Elkhattabi is a good alternative to both these strikers with his determination, off the ball and solid technical stats. Better than Hooper, but old at 32 and Hooper can surpass him. Could be used as a tutor to Hooper because of his high determination.

Please note that because all these players are available on a free transfer, there will be a lot of competition from them, not only from other championship sides but from other teams from different nationalities. Unless you offer ridiculously high contracts then you probably won't get some of them. Also be warned that to get the players you need to stay up you will most likely go over your wage budget. Don't worry. If you manage to get into the Premiership within 2-4 seasons (I managed it in two seasons, but that was back on 10.0 when it was easier) then any debt will be completely wiped off with the £30 million TV right bundle. Also note that I have not included any loan players on here. There are a few good loan players that you can get (Nacer Barazite for one) but I normally don't buy them for the first team. Instead I get back-up players on loan to cover for injuries. Especially if you can negotiate paying 0% of their way budget - you are effectively getting a player for absolutely nothing.

Squad Formation

There are two main options for the Scunthorpe team. You can play with one striker or play with two. If you play with one striker then the two formations I recommend are 4-5-1 with attacking wingers or 4-2-3-1, with two defensive midfielders and an AMR, AML and AMC behind the striker. If you play with two strikers then there's the simple 4-4-2 or the 4-4-2 diamond. Playing with one striker will reduce the amount of goals you concede because of the defensive midfielder/s however you will not score as many goals as your lone striker will sometimes become isolated. Playing with two strikers means that your defence will be suspect, but you will be able to score many, many goals playing on the counter-attack. Again this is more your preference and seeing which formation suits you best. I started with 4-4-2, won my first 5 matches and then only won three times in the next 23. Changing to 4-5-1 meant that I was able to grind out the results, winning 1-0 or 2-1 a number of times and losing rarely.

Aims

On the first season your aim should really be to avoid relegation. If you get relegated then you have done a poor job. Be warned that Scunthorpe are the hardest team in the Championship to play with, because of their small stadium, weak team and tiny transfer budget, so don't expect avoiding relegation to be easy. However with a few good signings on the free transfer market it isn't impossible to avoid it. I came 18th on my first season, and I'm sure there are those who think they can do better.

In the second season you should probably aim for a midtable finish, and even try and sneak into the play-off spots if possible, because once you're in to those play-offs anything can happen. Don't expect your second season finances to improve though. If you exceed the wage budget in the first season your transfer budget may well be even less. It wouldn't surprise me if you don't sign any players for money in your first couple of seasons.

In the third season you should really be looking for a play-off spot. You can get good enough players on a free for a top Championship club, and it is very easy to bypass the mediocre "mid-table" Championship teams.

Why choose Scunthorpe

Put simply, Scunthorpe are the hardest team to play with in the Championship. If you start off with them then you are not in for an easy ride. However, if you want a challenge and don't want to go down the leagues then Scunthorpe is the team for you. If you manage Scunthorpe, you also get a great feeling when you succeed. It is similar to taking on one of the lower league challenges, but not as time consuming. I also love introducing a team with no history at all (e.g. perennial third divisioners/league two teams) to success.

I hope you too have success with Scunthorpe

Nice OP

I <3 Scunthorpe, I had a save, but it's deleted now, may start one on the new patch though.

Sam Togwell

Ahhh Togwell. I felt so guilty releasing him when in the premiership.....memories

Dont release Togwell , he's awesome, and I know him

Cant remember many of my signings tbh, I think one of them was Wilfred Niflore.

Nice OP mate.

Thank you.

Good OP mate

I was already 6 years through a Scunthorpe United save when I made this so I can't do a post by post account of my save as it goes. (I have just read that I should be active in this thread in the "Your Thread Needs You" post so I'm going to that this way.) But I can give a general history of what I did, who were my best signing etc.

Season    League                   Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2009/10   Championship             18th        N/A
2010/11   Championship             5th         Promoted via playoffs
2011/12   Premiership              15th        N/A
2012/13   Premiership              3rd         N/A
2013/14   Premiership              1st         Champions, League Cup
2014/15   Premiership              1st         Champions, League Cup, FA Cup, Community Shield
2015/16   Premiership              1st         Champions, FA Cup, Champions League, Community Shield

It looks an easy progression but the first five seasons were extremely difficult. I didn't spend any money on transfers in the first two seasons, getting all my players on free. Because I went so far over the wage budget in the first season I actually had an even smaller transfer budget in the second (only 300 000.) I scraped through, grinding out the results by one goal most of the time.

In the first season I bought 5 players on a free - Sergiy Fedorov, Andy van der Meyde, Henri Camara, Walild Regragui and in the january transfer window Kasey Wehrman. They were all solid additions to the team, especially Camara (who isn't a free agent on the 10.2 patch unfortunately) who's one of the best players you can get on a free. I won my first 5 games in a row and my last 5, but in between only won 4. It was a very tospy-turvy season, since I was second after 5 games but very quickly dropped down until I reached 22nd. Luckily a late revival helped me to safety, however by that time the honeymoon period was over and I knew I was in for a fight.

In the second season I made a number of great signings from players who were stupidly left to leave on a free transfer and more than good enough for the Championship. I bought Migel Angel Angulo, Sergio Zilger, Adel Taraabt (who was one of the standout performers of the season), Dwight Tiendalli and Roni Porkora as well as Fabio Daprela on loan. This season went brilliantly and throughout I hovered around the playoffs. With 10 games to go I was fighting with Ipswich for 6th place, but a great run of 7 wins in a row lifted me to 5th and I ended the season there.The playoffs were pretty epic (if I do say so myself.) I easily beat Forest (who finished 6th) 2-1 and 2-0 to go through and play Burnley in the final. I was 3-2 down in the final and down to 10 men (the talismanic Grant McCann, who incidentally had the highest rating all season, sent off) but two goals from Gary Hooper (his 41st and 42nd of a record breaking season) put me through into the Premiership.

I was absolutely amazed to be given a 20 million transfer budget and I bought my first players in the Premiership - Guillermo Ochoa, Johan Djorou, Timothee Kolodzieczak and Damien Le Tallec. The last two were youth prospects who became excellent because of so much first team experience. I also got a number of back-up players on a free, including Danny Shittu, Mamadou Diame (who infact became the foundation of my midfield with his strength and tackling), Mariusz Lewandowski, Dos Santos (the swiss player), Carlos Diogo and two former Chelsea strikers, Mikael Forssell and Mateja Kezman. Kezman and Forssell were both flops. Ochoa was probably my best ever signing. He is one of the best keepers in the game, and I picked him up for £9 million. He had the highest rating of all my players and single handedly kept me in the premiership, since I couldn't score for toffee. In fact I only scored 37, and had a less than one goal a game ratio that was really appalling. Gary Hooper simply couldn't cut it in the Premiership and only scored 8 goals. Grant McCann was my highest scorer from midfield with 9. Whenever you get into the Premiership you really need to get a good striker so you can score, because good championship strikers really struggle in the premiership.

In my second season in the Premiership I made two great signings. I bought the goal machine that is Andre-Pierre Gignac and the assist maestro that is Diego Buonanotte. I also bought Cadu, Silviu Lung Jr and Vaclav Kadlec. I signed Mbark Boussoufa, Paulo Ferreira, Christian Poulsen and Guirane N'Daw on a free. Ferreira covered my right back position excellently and N'Daw made up an all African defensive midfield who made a strong base to build on. I also changed my formation to 4-2-3-1 with Buonanotte, Boussoufa, Le Tallec and Gignac making a potent attacking force. Buonanotte contributed with 15 assists, Boussoufa with 18 but it was the French pair Le Tallec and Gignac who stole the show. Gignac scored an amazing 31 games in 33, but Le Tallec - playing from attacking midfield as an inside forward - scored 18 and got 18 assists in 36 games. All this fired me to an unbelievable 3rd place in the Premiership, where I was first for long periods but a late charge by Liverpool and Chelsea relegated me to 3rd with 71 points. Chelsea were 2nd on 78 and Liverpool 1st on 84 points. Apart from my success in the Premiership I had disappointments in the cup again. I was knocked out in the fourth round of the FA Cup and League Cup (which equalled how far I progressed on my first season,) through generally unlucky draws against Arsenal and Liverpool.

I looked to build on this success in my third season in the Premiership and try and win the title, so I looked to stabilize my defence. I brought in the defenders Sokratis Papastathopoulos, who established an excellent defensive pairing with Johan Djorou, and Havard Nordveit, who's versatility made him an excellent addition to my small squad. I also bought the attacking midfielders Sotiris Ninis and Hatem Ben Arfa (on loan from Chelsea) as I looked to improve my attack even further. Ultimately I was succesful in winning the Premiership, but it was extremely close. Only 4 points separated the first four teams (Scunthorpe 1st on 74 and Tottenham 4th on 70.) In fact I had only 3 more points than when I came 3rd the previous season and I won one less game. I also managed to win my first cup, the League Cup, beating Arsenal 1-0 in the Final. I also progressed to the quarter final in Europe, beating Inter on away goals in the first knockout rounds (with a fantastic 3-2 win at the San Siro) but losing to Bayern Munich on away goals in the quarter final. Gignac was the most succesful player of the season, scoring an unbelievable 57 goals in 58 games and 39 goals in 37 games in the Premiership. They quite literally couldn't cope with him.

As Premier League Champions I went on a bit of a spending spree. I had a new record signing in Lars Bender (£20 million) whilst also purchasing Arturo Vidal, Giovanni Dos Santos, Camilo Zuniga, Jack Cork and Eden Hazard (on loan from Athletico Madrid.) With my attacking midfield of Buonanotte, Ninis, Le Tallec, Hazard and dos Santos I had attacking talent that most clubs could only hope for. I also bought many youth prospects. This season also went right down to the wire in the Premiership, winning by only 3 points, with Chelsea pushing me all the way (who incidentally became the unlucky team to come second with the highest number of points, getting 87 to my 90.) In fact with Chelsea's superior goal difference I had to at least draw against Sunderland in the last match. I was 2-0 down with only half an hour to go. But Buonanotte scored in the 63rd, Dos Santos in the 77th and Kadlec in the 89th to give me a win and the Championship. I won the League Cup again, beating Manchester United 2-0 in the final and brought the FA Cup to Scunthorpe for the first time, this time beating Chelsea 2-0 in the final. The only disappointment in an great season was losing to Barcelona in the first knockout round of the Champions League. After a 1-1 draw at home I had to go to the Nou Camp and win, and I was doing just that after Gignac gave me the lead. However a Havard Nordtveit own goal sent it to extra time and Luka Modric scored in the 110th minute to secure the win for Barca.

My 7th season in charge of Scunthorpe was my most succesful and probably one of the most succesful in history. I only made one signing - Miralem Pjanic for a record £50 million - but my team really performed. In fact I only lost once all season - to Chelsea in the League Cup semi-final. I won the Premiership in unbelievable fashion as you can see from the screenshot below:

Put simply, it was an absolutely incredible season. My team gelled together perfectly and with two awesome regen defenders coming through my defence became an iron wall. Twice I went without letting in a goal for 8 games in the Premiership, and set the record of 13 in all competitions. Pjanic was absolutely stunning, getting 16 goals and 34 assists in all competitions. He was worth every penny of that £50 million transfer budget and pushed Le Tallec to the bench for most of the season. Kadlec also started to improve, scoring 21 goals and 7 assists in 20 starts (though he came on as a substitute 13 times) and 10 goals, 5 assists in 10 starts (and 6 as substitute.) I beat Aston Villa 3-0 in the final to retain the FA Cup and finally brought the Champions Cup to Scunthorpe on the 3rd attempt, drawing 0-0 with AC Milan and beating them on penalties in a nervy, closely fought match. My only disappointment is that I didn't complete a legendary quadruple.

Best Players

Guillermo Ochoa

As you can see his rating didn't drop below 7.1, and in the season where Scunthopre miraculously came 3rd, he had an incredible rating of 7.41, and if he hadn't been injured for half the season then maybe Scunthorpe might have come even higher. He is truly one of the best keepers in the game, and my personal favourite (mainly due to his exploits for Scunthorpe.) I wouldn't trade him for Adler, Lloris or any other keeper.

Andre-Pierre Gignac

What more can be said about this goal scoring machine? 115 league goals in 123 appearance. 158 goals in 178 overall appearance. He played as a lone striker, leading the line with his strength, power and finish ability. He can score wonder goals from outside the area, head along with the best of them and muscle almost any defender off the ball. My success as Scunthorpe manager was quite literally dependant on his goals.

Miralem Pjanic

Sure I've only had him for one season, but what a season. He can quite literally do everything. He can dribble, finish, shoot from distance, pass and has unbelievable creativity and vision. You could always count on him to put in a great performance and he showed it time and time again. I would have no other player in the world in that position (advanced playmaker) apart from Pjanic at his best. He rips teams apart, whether they're Chelsea or Hull.

Best Youth Players

My two best youth players are the two Argentinians Damian Carrizo and Facundo Carrizo. They're a strange paring, sharing the same surname and nationality but born too close together to be siblings and were born in different towns and played for different clubs. However, they were both highly recommended to me by my scouts so I bought them and developed them. With a season and a half of first team experience they have become my first choice centre back and right back and Argentina's too.

The both have unbelievable physical stats that stop them from being outpaced by all but the fastest of players (Facundo Carrizo wouldn't fare badly in a foot race against Walcott) and great mental stats. Damian Carrizo is a prolific scorer from corners and also a surprisingly good freekick taker - scoring 4 in a season. They are stars at the moment, but what excites me most is that I don't think they've finished developing. I'm not sure what their PA's are, but they most but high 180's, low 190's. Whichever it is, they are certainly the future of Scunthorpe.

anyone stilll playing with scunny???how do you get best out of hooper playing as lone striker

anyone stilll playing with scunny???how do you get best out of hooper playing as lone striker

In the second season I played him as a target man with focus balls to feet using the 4-5-1 tactics. He scored 42 goals. That was on patch 10.0 though.

nicw oone buddy,how you doing with them i sterted steady played 12 won 4 drew 6 lost 2 scored 14 conceded 8

im dominating games but cant seen to score

nicw oone buddy,how you doing with them i sterted steady played 12 won 4 drew 6 lost 2 scored 14 conceded 8

im dominating games but cant seen to score

That's a very good start. What signings have you made, what formation do you play etc. For my first season I had a great start (played 5 won 5) then dropped considerably. I ended the season in 18th place, which was a bit disappointing but at least I didn't get relegated. As for how I'm doing, well I'm in my 8th season and lead the premiership having won 10 out of 10.

im playing a 4-5-1 very similar to the way bolton played under big sam

brought in

brazire season loan arsenal

dervire season loan spurs

dickov free(mainly to tutor)

mauro silva left back free

bryan hughes mid free

kabous free mid retrained to play in def mid been a rock him and mccann single handedly create and stop goals

also a few more youth back ups for future

got

zavon hines and tom cairney on 3 month loans due to a few injurys didnt need them but paniked

also finally started scoreing goals mainly from corners and free kicks

is mccann good enough for prem

also do you get much investment into training facilities and stadium

any good regens come through acadamy

Unfortunately I got very little investment through training facilities and stadium enhancment. Training facilities were upgraded to 15, 15 I think and I had a change of stadium (The Calvo-Garcia Arena) to 23000 and then an expansion to 31000. That is obviously very small for a team who's won the Champions League, but my board won't give me a change of stadium again. As for youth prospects, I have one young DC who came through after I changed stadium and got improved training facilities, but apart from that they are all stolen from other teams.

looks like i best invest in some new scouts at end of season who actally know what there doing

any of the player capable of prem

Well obviously Grant McCann can work in the Premiership. Gary Hooper has a PA of

so if tutoured and developed properly he had become a good Premiership player, and really is the best player in the Scunthorpe team. Joe Murphy is a decent Premiership back-up player and Rob Jones could probably play for a weaker team; though his lack of concentration and composure is a problem.

did you make big wholesale changes after season 1,just coming into jan,think squad is good enough to finnish top 10 maybe a few good additions could get playoffs or better not sure if that would be a good think at the moment

Well it all depends. I had a poor first season really, mainly because I got my tactics wrong so I had to make wholesale changes going into season two. If you finish between 7 and 10 then you only need to make one or two changes in players (e.g. bring in another central defender to partner rob jones and pick up a winger or two, since Scunthorpe's are great.)

And believe me getting to the playoffs and achieveing promotion is fantastic. I thought it was coming to soon, but you get soooo much money through the TV rights and nearly all of it goes into your transfer budget. With £30 million, as long as you sign the right players you won't get relegated.

gonna give this game a bit of a spanking tonight while staying up to watch manny paqiuo fight

will let you know how i get on,just out of interest what were you majour signings in 2nd season

It says in the ridiculously long 7 season summary above:

In the second season I made a number of great signings from players who were stupidly left to leave on a free transfer and more than good enough for the Championship. I bought Migel Angel Angulo, Sergio Zilger, Adel Taraabt (who was one of the standout performers of the season), Dwight Tiendalli and Roni Porkora as well as Fabio Daprela on loan. This season went brilliantly and throughout I hovered around the playoffs. With 10 games to go I was fighting with Ipswich for 6th place, but a great run of 7 wins in a row lifted me to 5th and I ended the season there.The playoffs were pretty epic (if I do say so myself.) I easily beat Forest (who finished 6th) 2-1 and 2-0 to go through and play Burnley in the final. I was 3-2 down in the final and down to 10 men (the talismanic Grant McCann, who incidentally had the highest rating all season, sent off) but two goals from Gary Hooper (his 41st and 42nd of a record breaking season) put me through into the Premiership.

Taraabt was an insane signing, and Angulo, Tiendalli and Zilger all were excellent Championship players. The only reason I didn't finish higher was because of a leaky defence; I scored the highest number of goals.

right, ive just started a season with Scunthorpe on Patch 10.3, cant wait to give this a shot. Hopefully reach playoffs within 2 seasons .

Firstly, I sold:

Forte - 75k - Shrewsbury

May - 20k - Barnet

Brought:

Muniesa - £0 - Barcelona

However, I have plenty of deals in the pipeline, one being swapping Sam Togwell for Aaron Mclean of Peterborough?

Another being, swapping Gary Thompson and 500k for Aaron Gunnarson of Coventry City?

Whats the best formation to play with, ive started with 4-4-2, and drew my first pre-season game, 2-2 with Wolves, although I might try 4-5-1

right, ive just started a season with Scunthorpe on Patch 10.3, cant wait to give this a shot. Hopefully reach playoffs within 2 seasons .

Firstly, I sold:

Forte - 75k - Shrewsbury

May - 20k - Barnet

Brought:

Muniesa - £0 - Barcelona

However, I have plenty of deals in the pipeline, one being swapping Sam Togwell for Aaron Mclean of Peterborough?

Another being, swapping Gary Thompson and 500k for Aaron Gunnarson of Coventry City?

Whats the best formation to play with, ive started with 4-4-2, and drew my first pre-season game, 2-2 with Wolves, although I might try 4-5-1

Good start, especially with the muniesa signing. The Aaron Gunnarson signing is a great piece of business, he will become premier league standard. Not sure about Aaron McLean though. Also I would try 4-5-1 with hooper as your lone striker.

Cheers mate Yea, I thought Gunnarson was good, sitting in central mid with McCann. do you play 4-5-1 with a defensive mid? and 2 wide attacking players?

Yep that works well. I had Togwell as the defensive midfielder but if you can get another DMC on a free, preferrably with high strength and marking and/or tackling to rotate with then you will have a good central midfield at least.

Cheers mate, although Gunnarson might be rejecting me, as Liverpool and Newcastle have now bidded for him :/

Should I sell Togwell or Sparrow?

Sparrow I think. Togwell's slightly better and i sparrow never performed for me.

Well, Gunnarson cost me a bit more than I expected, but hes here, and forming a formiddable central midfield partnership with McCann, my team looks like this atm:

GK: Murphy

LB: Williams

CB: Jones

CB: Mirfin

RB: Moloney

DM: Togwell

CM: Gunnarson

CM: McCann

LAM: McDermott

RAM: Woolford

ST: Hooper

Sold:

Forte - 75k

May - 20k

Sparrow - 190k

Thompson - Part Exchange

Ins:

Gunnarson - 1.4mil :/!

Muniesa - Free

hows that mate?

Well there are some weaknesses there, but with hooper, mccann and gunnarson it looks like you have a team who will be safe in the championship; especially if you can get hooper scoring (and score he should.) You might want to see if you can bring in a right back on a free, because maloney isn't really that great. Scunthorpe also is quite week on the wings. Again if you can bring in another winger on a free (look in the suggested transfers section) it'll be great. Also, one of the wingers is a young irish guy (can't remember his name) with a high long throws attribute. Retrain him to throw bullet throws and you have your own delap, and you should get a few goals from there.

Yer, I hoped to bring in a quality winger tbh, but the funds just arent that to do so. Hopefully Hooper will start scoring, not sure if 4-5-1 is me though, I usually always play a flat 4-4-2 which always seems to work for me, so I might try that, and go from there

Well, I let Togwell leave for 220k to Brighton, considering I have Josh Wright, Michael O'Connor, McCann and Gunnarson, I felt he wasnt needed. Im now trying to bring in Jonathan Cristaldo on loan

YESSSSS, we just beat West Brom 2-0 at home, thanks to two stunning strikes from Hayes and McCann :D

just realised it was only the League Cup, but still, over the moooon

quick update got 6 games left and sitting 4th

hooper got 14 in last 6 games thats helpin me only 5 points off 2nd with a game in hand big push now

itfc ty getting zavon hines from west ham very good in champ

You sold Togwell!?! I now have no respect for you.

premier league here i come

finnnished 2nd with a 1-0 win over sheff united(3rd) on last day

Sorry Suggy33, I have no need for him ?

Hooper has played 10, but hasnt scored any ? Whereas Hayes has played 11, and scored 8?

I honestly dont know what line up to play !

What role are you playing him with?

up top with Hayes? 4-4-2?

Im in the relegation zone at the moment :/

Well I would recomment 4-5-1 with attacking wingers and hooper as a lone striker and that's where hooper really shines. Playing 4-4-2 he was decent, but nothing special (0.5 goal per game ratio rather than 1)

Well, after 15 games, he finally got his first goal

im now moving up the table a little as well, a few impressive wins, have taken me to 19th

i played hooper as lone striker as target man set run onto ball,ended up scoring 32 goals and top scorer in england

how do you set target man?

Yes he scored 42 goals for me in that position. If you're using the wizard simply set his striker option to be target man, and in the team instructions set target man supply to feet, since his heading isn't that great.

EDIT: And congrats rickholliday on getting into the premiership. Not quite sure how you did that in the first season, since imo the scunthorpe team is nowhere near good enough to be aiming that high. What tactics did you play and which players did you use?

Hans Vuckie from Newcastle! What a player, have him on loan for 5 months, and what a revelation in central midfield, played 4 times, scored 4 goals, thats more goals then Hooper !

i played a 4-1-2-2-1 formation with the wingers set to defensive winger style

was just good in the loan market and free signings

i think that team talks and press conferences help a lot with morale

i never told them i expact to win always wish luck and tel them i have faith

it seemend to wotk well for me

not played for a few days though son been ill,gonna crack on with premiership tonight

finding life in prem hard can only register 25 player over 21,that snuck up on me,so had to loan 5 players from south america under 21 just for cover,played 4 games in prem won 1 lost 3

more to follow

majour signings

craig bellamy 2m man city dtill pay 3.5m of wages till 2013

abou diaby 1.5m arsenal pay 1.8m of wages untill 2014

david beckham 675k

jermaine pennant 1.8m

mantorass 875k

beletti 500k

davenport free

then 2 big singings

giganic 12.75m over 48 months

defederico 9.75m over 48 months

also loaned from south america 5 players