FM09: The Official Olympique de Marseille Thread

Olympique de Marseille (also known as l'OM or Marseille) is a football team that plays in Ligue 1, the top level of the French Football League, based in Marseille. Founded in 1899, Marseille is the largest and most successful club in France. It is so far the only French team to have won the UEFA Champions League, in 1993, which rounded off their dominant run of four consecutive Ligue 1 titles. However, at their peak of success they were found guilty of match fixing and suffered from scandalous financial irregularities, which resulted in relegation from the top flight in 1994, and the club has not won a major trophy since.

Nonetheless, the team is considered the most-supported club in France and regularly fill their imposing home of the Stade Vélodrome, which seats 60,013. Their vast fanbase continues to show unwavering and impressive loyalty to the club, despite many mediocre seasons since their return to the top flight. The fans continue to hope that Marseille will regain its former glory. Marseille also has the largest number of supporters associations outside its region in France.

The club's motto is Droit Au But, French for "Straight to the Goal". Nicknamed l'OM, pronounced as l'Ohème, [lo'ɛmɘ].

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Finances:

Media prediction: 2nd

Title challenge: 8.5 million Euros

You can get 16 million Euros by asking from the board.

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Facilities:

Stadium: Stade Vélodrome

Capacity: 60,013 (all seated)

Training facilities: Good

Youth facilities: Good (+ academy)

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Fierce Rivals:

PSG (Fierce), Monaco, Lyon

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First Team Squad:

Goalkeepers:

Steve Mandanda

Rudy Riou

Hilaire Munoz

Defenders:

Renato Civelli

Taye Taiwo

Ronald Zubar

Hilton

Lauren Bonnart

Julien Rodriguez

Gael Givet

Midfielders:

Hatem Ben Arfa

Benoit Cheyrou

Lorik Cana

Baky Kone

Modeste M'Bami

Charles Kabore

Karim Ziani

Mathieu Valbuena

Anthony Marin

Andre Ayew( out on loan )

Strikers:

Elliot Grandin

Mamadou Samassa

Mamadou Niang

Djibril Cisse ( out on loan )

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Recommended Starting XI:

GK: Steve Mandanda

DR: Lauren Bonnart

DL: Taye Taiwo

DC: Julien Rodriguez

DC: Hilton/Gael Givet

MR: Mathieu Valbuena

ML: Hatem Ben Arfa

MC: Benoit Cheyrou

MC: Lorik Cana

FC: Mamadou Niang

FC: Mamadou Samassa

Star Players:

Steve Mandanda – GK – France

A legend in FM 09. Nuff said.

Taye Taiwo – DL – Nigeria

Although not the best LB in the game, his name is near the top of list.

Hatem Ben Arfa– AMLC – France

A surprise arrival from title rivals, Lyon, he is still a very good player in the FM series.

Star Youth:

Charles Kabore – CM/DM – 20 – Burkina Faso

With the right training, this guy coukd turn out class.

Andre Ayew – AMLC – 18 – Senegal

Out on loan in 1st season but like Kabore, may turn out class if given the right training.

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Where To Improve:

Priorities:

DR: Christopher Jallet or Michael Chretien is a target. Or even Santon from Inter & Opare from Real Madrid

ST: Gignac is a possible target with both Samassa & Grandin being inconsistent

Other:

DC: A younger better CB.

MR & ML: Back-ups for the great Hatem Ben Arfa needed

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A work in progress. But feel free to join in.

I've also been playing with Marseille, now in the middle of the second season. Marseille has always been one of my favourite teams to manage in FM/CM-series because of their big potential, but mediocre success. Because of their large fanbase it's quite easy to be a dominant force in France, but succeeding in Europe is a bit harder, because the very best players won't come to French league or want to get out of there. I believe I hadn't played with them in couple last editions of FM, so now it was a good time to start playing with them.

I think that the material Marseille possess, is best suited to play 4-2-3-1. But since I haven't had skills to make it work, so instead I opted to play with 4-2-2-2 with two very attacking wingers. To make this formation work I had to buy/loan and sell lots and lots of players. Luckily it's quite easy to sell mediocre players in good price in FM2009.

For me the biggest problems were the strikers and central defenders. The strikers clearly are not able to make enough of goals, even though both Mamadous are quite okay. Especially Mamadou Niang is able to make once in a while truly great goals because of his pace and dribbling skills. The central defenders are lacking jumping skills and pace, which is a huge problem.

The main strengths, as Maestroik already told, are: Mandanda (at least in my game the first choice keeper in French national team), Taiwo, Ben Arfa (truly great in free role) and also Lorik Cana. Cana is a true leader, so I made him the captain. With his physical presence he is a horror player to opposition playmakers and I think that along the way he injured something like 10 players off the field. No wonder that Liverpool and Man Utd were after him. I also think that there are so many good wingers in the team, that you can probably sell at least one of them. So in to my transfers...

In:

Emiliano Insúa, loan - A cover for Taiwo from Liverpool reserves. Made a good job because Taiwo got injured really much.

Belletti, loan - The Chelsea player played over 50 games and got most assists in the team mainly because gave corners.

Oscar Cardozo, loan - The Benfica backup player made 31 goals mainly from free-kicks and corners.

Emerson, loan - Was supposed to be my midfield general. Instead played so badly, that got sent back to Milan in the middle of the season.

David Luiz, 12,25M € - The youngster from Benfica played really well in central defence, made also 5 goals.

Goran Pandev, 11,5M € - I was surprised that he wanted to come to Marseille. Played quite well.

Alejandro Gómez, 1,7M € - One of my favourite players from FM2008 was supposed to be a backup player, but because of Emerson's lack of form, made his way to starting line-up. Wasn't quite ready for that.

Out:

Julien Rodriguez, 8M € - A bit old, too slow. Got good money from Blackburn, at least in my opinion.

Boudewijn Zenden, 3M € - The highest paid player in Marseille (Cisse is on loan) didn't deserve his wage, because there are better wingers in the team. Also quite old already, so I made a good deal with Bolton.

Benoît Cheyrou, 10M € - I had to sell him to Middlesbrough to make more money in to the tranfer kitty.

Gaël Givet, 4,5M € - Didn't have the physical attributes I was looking for.

Ronald Zubar, 1,5M € - Just needed that extra cash.

I also gave free tranfers to most of my reserve team players because there is no reserve league. I just didn't see any point of having so many players who wouldn't be in any part of first-team plans. At least my assistant manager didn't see potential in them. Also any other team weren't interested in them, so I guess I didn't release any hidden gems.

All in all, I think my transfers went reasonably well, even though Emerson was a disaster that almost ruined the season. The main problem was that because there were so many new players, the team didn't play as an organized group. It mainly relied to individual efforts from star players. Of course it was also because of my tactics. I just couldn't get the best possible result from my striker partnership. In total Cardozo and Pandev made 49 goals in all competitions, which sounds pretty good. Still, Pandev had an average rating of 7,07 and Cardozo 6,94. They were just not acting the way I wanted them to perform. Maybe I was also messing up with my tactics a bit too much, I just couldn't find a proper solution.

And in to my results. I won the league just ahead of Bordeaux, Lyon was a big disappointment. In the Champions League I lost to Real Madrid in the First Knockout Round. They won on away goals, the decisive goal came on 93rd minute which was nice... Both French Cup and League Cup didn't went as well as I planned. So I guess there is lots of room to improve. The fans player of the year was Ben Arfa, he truly is amazing. Almost every major club in Europe are after him.

Couple of good players to Marseille could well be André-Pierre Gignac and Bafetimbi Gomis. At least Toulouse accepted my offer of 6,5M € for Gignac, so the price isn't that high. Still I wanted to have Pandev more and I just didn't have enough of money for both of them. I guess you could also lure Gomis for a reasonable price from Saint-Etienne.

If somebody knows good home-grown players for Marseille, it would be really nice to know of them. At the moment there are 3 home-grown players in my team who regurlarly play: Taiwo, Bocaly and Ayew. That's not much. I know that Nasri and Flamini are originally Marseille players, but they aren't coming back any time soon.

Ps. Good work with the opening post, Maestroik!

Great stuff --Maestroik --

Thank you very much for starting the topic thread OM deserves it!!!

I will be starting a game in the next few days ..and I am getting ready (made sure all facepacks are inplace ..so I can enjoy my stay at the velodrome)

I'm looking to incorporate a tactic that will fit in properly with the team ...I want to fully utilize BenArfa to his maximum .... I dont like bringing in too many star players ..I like to initially work with what I have and bring in FRENCH gems ..I liked your Gignac mention ..he definitelly on my shortlist immediatelly.

Also agree with the DR position ..in FM08 ..I brought in Torosidis from Olympiakos ..he was awesome ( in 2 seasons he was worth 15 million Euros ..with Lazio offering 22 which I accepted) ...Will try to see how good he is in FM09 and see if he can fit.

Just finishing playing with Koln ..in Germany just to get the feel of the game ...at GK I have POUPLIN who is awesome in the Bundesliga ...rating 7.57 in 25 matches 7 MOM with 9 clean sheets ...Will definitelly try and bring him into OM ...he is French also.

Merci ...Cheers and thank you once again for staring the thread ..looking forward to the advice and insight from all OM fans

for HITTI LITTI

for striker --look at the following: Keirrison & Diogo --Lyon have picked up Keirrison & Bordeaux Diogo --currently in my Koln game they are 1 & 2 scores in Ligue1 .... Also look at Kerzhakov & pedro Oldoni from Atletico paranese ...in transfer rumours Marseille were looking at both and have signed them.

I have manuel Fischer at Koln (loan from stuttgart) young great striker ..like Huntellar ....For your info HSV signed Kevin Gameiro from Lorient ..he looks like a good signing ...try and take damein le tallec from rennes ...And also steal Yannis Tafer from LYOn ...not as good as gameiro ..but he is still young ...bayern are tracking him ...

Merci ...Cheers and really looking for your insight ...let me know which OM players I should rteally look at releasing and sending out for loan.

Thanks

I hope one of you guys can remake this team thread. I can help you all out.. I'm kinda lazy to edit the whole thing...lolz

Anyway, in my 1st season, I had problems with the Champions League registration with regards to the minimum 4 trained by O'M. Ideas?

My current season ( still in 1st season as no time due to school )

Transfers In

Gignac from Toulouse for 6 million plus 15% of future profit

Feghouli from Grenoble on loan for 1 million upfront plus 1.4 future fee

Kakuta from Chelsea for 600k

Elbondo ( forgot ) for 2 million

Julian Quercia for 4.7 million

Rafael Carioca for 3 million

Yann Joffre for 1.5 million

Transfers Out

Mamadou Niang for 10 million plus 10 % of future profit

Benoit Cheyrou for 7.5 million

Zenden for 1 million

Givet for 3 million

Zubar for 3 million plus 20% of future profit.

I'm having great fun playing l'OM at the moment. My defense was extremely stout all season and my GK was seldom tested. I was wondering if Mandanda was really worthy of the hype I've seen about him until he stopped 3 of 5 penalty kicks against Real Madrid! He also stonewalled Barca as we went from 2-0 down in the away tie to a shock 4-2 aggregate win.

I've enjoyed playing Marseille so much that I'm thinking of buying a sports package so I can watch some French league games. A couple of questions for those who know the team:

- Are Zubar and Kabore underrated in FM09? It looks like they're playing a lot in Ligue 1, but they're not too great at the start in the game.

- Where does Ziani play this season? He's been good for me pretty much anyplace I've moved him.

Merci

Zubar is underrated yes, he was better on FM07 though.

I'm having great fun playing l'OM at the moment. My defense was extremely stout all season and my GK was seldom tested. I was wondering if Mandanda was really worthy of the hype I've seen about him until he stopped 3 of 5 penalty kicks against Real Madrid! He also stonewalled Barca as we went from 2-0 down in the away tie to a shock 4-2 aggregate win.

I've enjoyed playing Marseille so much that I'm thinking of buying a sports package so I can watch some French league games. A couple of questions for those who know the team:

- Are Zubar and Kabore underrated in FM09? It looks like they're playing a lot in Ligue 1, but they're not too great at the start in the game.

- Where does Ziani play this season? He's been good for me pretty much anyplace I've moved him.

Merci

He plays AMC

I'll tell you the firt part of my story with Marseille.

I've always been a big fan of the club since I'm watching football. I've litterally fell in love with them in the 2003-2004 season, in which they played in UEFA Cup Final, in a loss to Valencia. It was the big eclosion of Didier Drogba, who came an instant favorite. But since then, they have yet to win trophies, even with stars players like Frank Ribéry, Samir Nasri and Djibril Cissé.

Every new FM version that I get a hand of, I always start with Marseille. This year makes no exception to the rule, and I came in to provide to this team with great potential a boatload of new trophies.

Season 2008-2009

IN

Asmir Begovic GK £750K

Pavel Pogrebnyak ST £6M

Mickaël Chrétien DR £6M

Sofiane Feghouli AM RLC £7M

Per Ciljan Skjelbred AMC £1.1M

OUT

Bostjan Cesar DC £50K

Milos Krstic MC £50K

Mamadou Niang ST £9M

Benoit Cheyrou MC £6.5M

Laurent Bonnart D RL £5M

Renato Civelli DC £50K

Boudejwin Zenden M LC £20K

Rudy Riou GK £1.1M

My main focus was to get a Target Man and a DR. That's what I did getting Pogrebnyak and Chrétien. The first one will play a crucial role in my attacking schemes and the latter one will always be a great reliability on the pitch. Playing in France means having a lot of African Players, which is particulary annoying to me because they are playing the African every two years. It's in the months of January and February, so I miss them during 2 crucial months. That's why I'll progressively be selling a couple of my African players, keeping the best one like Taiwo or Chrétien.

I like to keep a certain sense of reality in my transfers, in order to keep the enjoyable. I litterally never buy England, Italians, Spanish, Germans players as there is only a few of them who plays in Ligue 1. I tend to prefer players from Eastern Europe (Croatia, Serbia, Russia, Montenegro), Scandinavia and small countries not far from France (Belgium, Switzerland) and of course French players.

My composition looks like this :

----------Mandanda-----------

Chrétien-Hilton-Givet-Taiwo

-------------Cana--------------

Valbuena-----------------Ziani

------------Ben Arfa-----------

------Pogrebnyak--Koné------

It's akinf of defensive line-up, where my two wingers Ziani and Valbuena close down a lot, Cana is the anchor man and where Taiwo and Chrétien doesn't have much offensive permissions. Hatem Ben Arfa plays as the Playmaker and has a free role in midfield, Progrebnyak plays as Target Man and Koné takes the spaces that Pavel creates.

This season starts a little weird, since my players doesn't blend with each other, but still get to win matchs but luck. I draw Real Madrid and FC Bayern München in Champion's League but manage to go through upsetting those two team at home and Madrid also away. In the midst of November, I'm still unbeatean in Ligue 1.

I get to win my first Coupe de la Ligue and Coupe de France matchs and in February, I'm still all the competitions possible. My midfielder are getting a little tired and I tried to bring in Zoran Tosic from Serbia's Partizan. I cruelly miss wingers since all my attacking midfielders (Feghouli, Skjelbred, Ziani, Valbuena and Ben Arfa) are all AMC. It doesn't prevent me to win against Zenit, Manchester United and Fc Porto in Champion's League. I also advance in Coupe de la Ligue and French Cup finals, where I'll be facing Bordeaux and St-Etienne. My great form in Ligue 1 make it possible to rest my better players to win everything.

I get to win both Coupe de la Ligue and French Cup finals, Championship being secured since my 33rd match, my last challenge is to win the Champion's League, in final againt FC Bayern again. In Olimpico, Pogrebnyak scores from a corner with a header in first half-time, and we just start to defend or own goal. It'll be too late for Bayern and I run away of the building with the Champion's League trophy !

As of right now, I just finished the tranfer window of summer '09, winning both the Champion's trophy (French equivalent of the Community Shield) against Lyon and the Super Cup against Real Madrid.

For the 09-10 season :

IN

Jérémy Mathieu D/WB L £3.2M

Zoran Tosic AM RL £9M

Mauro Zarate FC £3.2M

Olexandr Chyzov DC £2.3M

Sébastien Puygrenier DC £6M

OUT

Modeste M'Bami DM C Free

Djibril Cissé (and his mind-boggling salary for a french team) ST £6.5 M

Leyti N'Diaye £1M

Julien Rodriguez £3.5M

Salim Arrache £1M

Elamin Erbate £1.5M

Elliot Grandin £3.3M

Hilare Munoz £20K

Vitorino Hilton £1M

I made some several request to the board of directors to upgrade the youth facilities since all my stars players sadly won't be in France forever. Pogrebnyak, Ben Arfa, Ziani, Cana and Valbuena had interests from European giants and all wanted to go to a bigger clubs in the media, but they were still happy to be in Marseille too. I tried to get a good price for them but the teams that made offer never were enough good to accept. Also, the european giants interests never materialized into offers. I also bought a couple of youngsters that my scouts recommended me :

Eden Hazard (Belgium) AM/F C Free

Daniel Rose (Switzerland) D/WB RL £1.7 M

Milan Zach (Czech Republic) ST Free

Bernd Markovic (Austria) DC £16K

Adem Ljajic (Serbia) AM RLC £1M

My starting 11 looks like this for now :

----------------Mandanda----------------

--Chrétien-Chyzov-Puygrenier-Mathieu--

------------------Cana---------------------

-Ziani--------------------------------Tosic-

-----------------Ben Arfa------------------

-----------Pogrebnyak-Zarate------------

My other roster players are

GK

Begovic

Defenders

Bocaly

Zubar

Givet

Taiwo

Midfield

Kaboré

Valbuena

Feghouli

Ayew

Forwards

Samassa

Koné

My only real weakness is that I don't have a good right winger who gives good crosses to the forwards. This is to be fixed shortly.

After creating me own OM thread after I could not find this one. I started my game last night, only a few friendlies out the way.

Players In

Keirrison - 4m

Pogrebnyak - 5m

Chrétien - 6.25m

Players Out

Cheyrou - 6.5m

I tend to always play a 4-3-3 formation, so my setup will be as follows:

----------Mandanda----------

Chrétien--Hilton--Givet--Taiwo

-----------------------------

-Valbuena---Cana---Ben Arfa-

-----------------------------

-Koné--Pogrebnyak--Keirrison-

I'll update when I reach Jan.

Seems the Lyon thread is more popular..

Come on people, get interested make Marseille the best club in France, it will annoy Purefun and HoPeY

Seems the Lyon thread is more popular..

Come on people, get interested make Marseille the best club in France, it will annoy Purefun and HoPeY

It will never annoy me, I'm a Lyon fan but French football is also my passion. But we all know Lyon > * so.

I have no problems scoring goals with the likes of Samassa, Lewandowski, Grandin, Gignac, Ben Arfa, Angel Di Maria but my defence is really pathetic. Using Knaps Current formation but with CBs like Hilton, Civelli, Rodriguez, I need new ones or tweak my formation. I'm looking at the Jan Simunek for the Jan window but thought maybe there are other options, preferably French ones within my 8 million euros budget..

Have decided to start a new save with l'OM on the 9.0.3 patch. Would probably require help asap tho...

Have decided to start a new save with l'OM on the 9.0.3 patch. Would probably require help asap tho...

What help do you need?

I think the lack of pace in defence is a problem. Plus I do not rate Cheyrou much. I was thinking of getting Freitas from Nantes or Defour to be the more attacking CM in a 4-2-3-1 formation. I have 15 million euros after asking for more dosh from the board.

Defour without a doubt.

I'm currently playing 4-1-2-2-1 formation with Marseille and Cheyrou is doing fine for me. I bought Padretti and playing him en Cheyrou in midfield, with Cana in the DM-role, Valbuena en Arfa on the wings and Niang as a lone striker

Who do you have as your CBs?

Hilton (already scored 3 on corner) and Zubar or Civelli. only conceded 2 after 8 matches, also Steve Mandanda got injured for 2 weeks so had to play Riou in goal. CL won 3-1 at home to Sporting, second match beat Fiorentina 0-1 in Italy, next up is Barcelona

Barca are hard to play. Good result in Firenze though.

beat Barcelona 2-1 at home scaring in the 85 & 89 minute, away a drew 1-1. I have been troubled by injuries lately, Kone out for 6 weeks, Cheyrou 5weeks and Brandao 2 weeks

Great result tbh. Well done.

Currently first in the league, 1 point clear of Lyon, still undefeated, with merly 3 goals against

Even better .

Just qualified for for the next round in CL, drawing 0-0 in Sporting. After a 3-0 trashing of Lyon at home I currently have a 4 points gap. i do need to strenghten the squa

Seems to me you are doing well.

Anyway could you post your squad!

Will do at the end of the evening, which team are you currently playing?

Barca mate and after that I'll restart my Lyon save in the second season iirc.

<a href="http://s548.photobucket.com/albums/ii349/RCSA_forever/?action=view&current=Marseille.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i548.photobucket.com/albums/ii349/RCSA_forever/Marseille.jpg" border="0" alt="Marseille"></a>

end december, and 6 points clear of Lyon, won the last CL-match against Fiorentina 2-0 at home, so I won the group wit 4 wins and 2 draws, hoping for a good drawn for the next phase

Well, on patch 9.0.3 and approaching Jan 2009. Here's my update so far.

Transfer Ins

Matias Jorgensen

Ivan Ivanov

Canalas

Oscar Sielva

Ander

Steven Defour

Axel Witsel

Kevin Monnet Pacquet

Diego Calderon

Nikola Kalinic

Sebastian Bassong

Franco Zuculini

Christophe Jallet

Sebastian Bassong

Oscar Cardozo ( Loan )

Transfer Outs

Zenden

Renato Civelli

Benoit Cheyrou

Modeste M'Bami

Ligue 1

I'm doing well against the weaker teams but when facing against tougher opposition, I usually end up with draws. Still undefeated with the closest being Lyon almost beating us at Velodrome until a super super injury time equaliser by Defour. Corner bug is exploited unfortunately with Hilton already scoring 10 goals but I really need to get the best out of Hatem Ben Arfa & Oscar Cardozo. Trying to fit them to fit my 4-2-3-1 formation with little success so far.

Champions League

Got drawn with Chelsea, Sporting & CFR Cluj. After drawing with Chelsea, I defeated Sporting & Cluj home & away so I managed to qualify despite losing 4-1 to Chelsea at the Bridge. Got the toughest draw for my 2nd Round, Man Utd !!.

I'll update my other domestic cup competitons later.

Here's a SS of my squad. It's hella big so I placed some players in the reserve squads so I can get them in for the SS.

end december, and 6 points clear of Lyon, won the last CL-match against Fiorentina 2-0 at home, so I won the group wit 4 wins and 2 draws, hoping for a good drawn for the next phase

Great results so far, keep it up.

--------

Maeistrok

Could you post an ss of the transfers, i'm curious at how much you had to pay for some!

So it will be Schalke in the 2nd round, meanwile we are j

that was to quick, what I meant to say was that we are beginning of January, i had to reject several offers from Lyon on Cheyrou, last worth over 7,5 M, but only 1.5 straight away.

currently 8 points ahead ov Lyon after 20 games, scored 29 and 4 against, winning 15 and drawing 5, high light of the season so far was 2-1 win against Barca in CL, and teh trashing of Lyon 3-0 at le Velodrome

Ligue 1

After leading for much of the season, a poor run coupled with injuries to Defour, Witsel & Ben Arfa along with long suspensions for Hilton & Cana led to a poor poor run of 1 win out of the last 5 games. Lyon won it thanks to 24 goals from Benzema. Damn !!!

Champions League

Got drawn with Man Utd in the 2nd Round. Lost 1-0 at Old Trafford but thanks to a brace from Defour, we beat them 3-0 at the Velodrome. Quarterfinal was an ALL-French affair with us drawn againt Lyon. Pjanic scored the only goal at home but yet again, Defour came on top with 2 goals plus another from Niang to make the semis where we faced Mighty Barcelona. Yet again, we lost 1-0 away. But at home, i let my screenshot tell the story.

In the final we faced Chelsea. Without Cana & Defour in the middle, Lampard, Essien, Ballack tore through our middle and we were fortunate to be only 2 nil down at HT. Hilton pulled one back from a corner but it was not enough as Chelsea held on for their maiden UCL triumph.

Transfers As requested by Purefun. Here you go.. My Ins & Outs for the 1st season

Transfers My Ins & Outs for the 2nd season ( Before the Jan window )

Comments from Ligue 1 experts???

Great first season Maestroik

I hate it when I loose the league by 1 or 2 points.

Could you post a screenshot of your squad?

Great first season and I have to say that you are great at selling players. Well done.

Great buys also.

Great first season???? Didnt win anything... Ben Arfa, Defour, Witsel, Cana are all asking to be transfer listed to move to a major club in order to achieve success. Lyon did extremely well tho. They sold Toulalan but got Higuain & Gago. Gago is proving to be a more than capable replacement for Juninho. Plus Makoun & Bodmer are beasts covering him. Benzema is still on fire. Does Kevin Monnet Pacquet turn out class? He scored 30 goals on loan to Birmingham so I brought him back since Cardozo wasnt bought & Niang wanted to leave.

PS: I'll post my squad later. Cheers !

Being second on one point and semis in the CL I call great yes.

Does Kevin Monnet Pacquet deserve a spot in the first 11? I only have Aquino whom i prefer as an AML, Laurito who is still adapting to the French Ligue as alternatives for the sole ST spot in my 4-2-3-1 formation. My midfielders provide the bulk of my goals at the moment but I would like my ST to chip in a few also.

Maestroik

Depends what Pacquet looks like?

Laurito should do the job, I would use Monnet as a supersub tbh.

Just give Laurito games and he will come along. Great player for me at Lyon.

Just started a Marsille game with 9.03

Players in;

Lorenzo De Silvestri

André-Pierre Gignac

Tore Reginiussen

Axel Witsel

Ezequlle Lavezzi

Ivan Ivanov

Steven Defour

Only Nepogodov have left yet

Pretty satisfied with the transfer dealings so far

-------------Mandanda--------------

De Silvestri-Reginiussen-Ivanov-Taiwo

------------Cana-Cheyrou-----------

Kone----------Lavezzi-----------Arfa

---------------Gignac---------------

Run-down of team strenght

Keeper: One of the best in France

Fullbacks: Two of the best in the world, with room to improve

Centerbacks: Gonna be interesting to see if the two young players can make themself a force

Midfield: Good defensive with good backup in Witsel and Kaboré. Really promising attack wise with Defour, Wiltord and Ziani as backup

Attack: Gignac, Niang, Brandao to compete about one spot. Looking good

Very nice transfers in mate.

Would start Defour over Lavezzi and Witsel over Kone tbh. But thats my choice of course.

I'm well into my second season with them and after a pretty poor campaign I was more than happy to come away with the Coupe de la Ligue and a UEFA cup spot for next season. I bolstered my ranks with alot of youth as my aim is success in the Champions League. I sold and released alot of dead wood with the likes of Zenden and happily brought in alot of money at the end of the campaign by selling Niang, Brandao and inevitably Ben Arfa to name a few. I managed to get near 30 million plus future clauses for him of which Lyon took 20% of but it was more than enough to sign Alan Dzagoev who has more than filled the void. The stream of youngsters continued with Kjaer and Bassong in defence, Feghouli and Dzagoev of course in midfield before signing Arnautovic (an effective target men) after being priced out of Athletic's Llorente. And most of all HULK has been an absolute revelation, signing him for £8.25 million and encouraging him to shoot at every opportunity has proved effective as his scored over 20 goals before christmas and has hit it off with Arnautovic. Bitterly dissapointed though, Mauro Zarate chose Werder Bremen instead of us in what would have been a steal for £6 million. I'm now still on for an unpresidented quadruple as we're fighting impressively on all fronts although I think I'd be tempted to walk away if we could pull that off but we are only in February... A MUST piece of advice Cana for as long as possible as he has been an everpresent for me and a great captain.

I've enjoyed my best FM time ever with l'OM since I took over then in January of 09/10, they were 6th in Ligue 1 and I managed to finish 1st. I didn't really heavily strengthen apart from bringing in a lot of young players, mostly regens. To cut a long story short, by some near miracle and a lot of luck I have wom Ligue 1 3 times in a row, UEFA Cup (1st season) both French Cups twice back-to-back, Champions League twice in 2 seasons, French Champions Trophy twice, UEFA Super Cup twice and World Club Cup twice.